Chapter 729

The delicate little shrub, in the gloomy forest, was able to enjoy a sliver of sunlight and grow into its current appearance.

It was precisely this little bit of sunlight that exposed it under the drone, facing huge risks.

Click, click.

Two criminal police officers held hoes and, without any hesitation, cut down this young, youthful little shrub.

It wasn't about protecting plants; none of the botanists present asked for it to be transplanted. The trees in the forest are full; if you clear a spot, where is there a spot to give to you?

Woof woof.

The police dog barked twice more, as if encouraging them.

The police officer swinging the hoe looked back, smiled, shook his head, and began to swing the hoe wildly.

He didn't seem very good at farm work either. After a dozen swings, he had only hoed away the part of the shrub left above ground. After working for three or four minutes, he had only hoed a shallow pit on the surface. Without water seepage, it could only hold two pees; even by the standard of pouring wine, four male pees would be the limit.

"A bit tiring, this isn't a job one person can do." The police officer swinging the hoe concluded and handed the hoe to another police officer behind him.

The latter was wearing gloves and had been prepared for a long time; he swung it without a word.

When tired, they switched; when tired, they switched. After the scope expanded, someone else took a shovel and began to shovel the soil.

The whole process seemed a bit long because it was boring, but the scholars watching the scene through the camera didn't feel it was tedious.

This plot, this location, was found using forensic botany technology with the participation of Jiang Yuan... and everyone else.

For the botanists, this was equivalent to an expansion of their field. Of course, this field had actually been expanded in the 80s, but what was truly shown to everyone was Jiang Yuan's current level.

Qiao Shengli sat beside her mentor Su Lei, looking at the serious expressions of the big shots around her, and couldn't help but whisper: "It feels so risky, what if we can't find the corpse?"

"When you do experiments, what do you do if you can't get results?" Su Lei asked back.

Qiao Shengli thought for a while: "Give up?"

"Something like that." Su Lei glared at her apprentice. She hadn't noticed Qiao Shengli's stupidity during the interview, and now she had to listen to her foolish words that hadn't been tempered by society at every turn.

Qiao Shengli felt a bit bored, and continued: "Then if we find the corpse, wouldn't that be super cool?"

"En, with so many botanists, surely someone will be interested in forensic botany." Su Lei herself was one of the scholars interested in this area, and as far as the current state is concerned, having more interested people is not a bad thing.

At the very least, the articles you publish will be cited!

Qiao Shengli didn't think as academically, imagining: "If forensic botany were really as common as DNA, how many jobs would that provide? In the future, police stations would be fighting to invite botanical experts. It would be easier for everyone to find work; graduating with a bachelor's degree in botany and becoming a technician at a police station or something, how wonderful."

Su Lei laughed: "Always thinking of good things. For DNA to be popularized, first, instruments like PCR need to be popularized. What can we botanists popularize? Microscopes? Relying entirely on people to pick pollen... You still don't know why Jiang Yuan is performing the corpse digging for everyone?"

Qiao Shengli was stunned: "Is he recruiting people to pick pollen for him?"

"Of course. Digging up a corpse doesn't count as solving a case; solving a case still requires the use of botany. Looking at the situation on the surface, the forsythia that was just hoed away has grown so thick; if there is a corpse underneath, it's been at least five years. With a corpse this old, the case is probably very difficult to solve, right?" Su Lei had followed several cases and was no longer a novice who knew nothing.

Qiao Shengli crossed her arms vigilantly, looked at Jiang Yuan on the stage, then at the experts and scholars around her, and couldn't help but ask: "Then you say, does everyone know Jiang Yuan's idea?"

"They should all be able to guess it."

"Then why does everyone still come, and are willing to come?"

"Everyone came to participate, first of all, because they were invited by relevant people. People are just asking you to help; if you don't want to, you don't have to accept the invitation, and they can't do anything to you. Jiang Yuan is even willing to perform for everyone, so what's there to be unwilling about? He is using technology to attract you, clearly and generously; those who are willing take the bait."

"Instead, it has become open and aboveboard?"

Su Lei smiled: "Because it still requires everyone to invest time to learn. This is also the problem with forensic botany; the specific research content and scope are not clear enough. However, this is also an opportunity. If it all becomes a template, finding you guys will be enough; finding experts is a pure waste."

Qiao Shengli pouted. What to do if she was despised by her mentor? But it was just a daily routine.

Su Lei was enjoying herself, but seeing the scholars around her, she didn't speak again.

Fields in the development stage all have dividends. If forensic botany becomes popular, the project funding issues that everyone is frantically chasing will all be solved in a short time. If it were really as Qiao Shengli said, and police nationwide needed the help of forensic botany, it wouldn't even need to reach the level of current DNA, just like a trace evidence laboratory, with one laboratory built in each province, countless horizontal projects would be born inside.

Identification of plants in different provinces and cities, the distribution of plants in different provinces and cities, and then another larger project to make a digital marking of plants in various places across the province...

"Woof woof."

The sound of a dog barking came from the speakers again.

The police officers swinging the shovels also stopped one after another.

"Found something." A police officer leaned over and used his gloved hand to dig in the soil, revealing some grayish-white material.

"Zoom in the camera." He shouted, digging while waiting for his colleague to bring the camera over.

Soon, after a few flashes, an image of a bone appeared on the projector in the conference room.

The police officers were still digging with their hands, and the exposed bone was twenty or thirty centimeters long.

"Is it human?"

In the conference room, Qi Changye was more anxious than anyone.

However, when you see a piece of bone, as a professional criminal police officer, you cannot conclude that it is human bone just by opening your mouth, because whether from experience or mathematics, the probability of encountering bone and it being human is very low.

Poor friends who love vegetarian food and have never seen a white cow leg bone sawed in half with a wire saw, salted, wrapped in tin foil, and roasted until it sizzles with oil, should at least have seen pig tube bones and the like. And these types of bones are occasionally misreported as human bones.

As for why there is a corpse buried in the deep mountains and forests that isn't human, what is that about? This is a question of discussing the proportion of psychopaths and serial killers.

The botanists present also looked at Jiang Yuan. They all played with vegetarian things and rarely saw such a meaty scene.

"Dig a bit more to see the proportions." Jiang Yuan didn't state the result immediately, choosing to play it safe. The clarity of the camera wasn't particularly high, and the bone in the soil hadn't even been fully revealed... Jiang Yuan was 90% sure, but why rush? This wasn't a very urgent matter, and even the corpse probably felt the same way.

As for the botanists present being curious, they could just hold it in.

Several police officers at the scene all put on gloves and knelt on the ground to dig with their hands; only the police dog's handler didn't, to avoid stimulating the dog to follow suit.

In case the dog's paws got hurt, that wouldn't be good.

Soon, another piece of small bone was dug out, and Jiang Yuan spoke into the microphone on the table: "En, it's basically confirmed to be a human corpse. In this case, the first suspected burial site we were looking for is confirmed!"

The tense atmosphere below was instantly released.

Everyone started discussing in voices of varying volumes.

"Is it a murder corpse?" someone asked in unprofessional language.

Jiang Yuan said: "It is highly likely to involve a criminal case. As for whether it is murder, we still have to go back and look at it before we can judge."

"Botany can be used this way. Although I have read the literature, seeing it so intuitively is really eye-opening." Some scholars also sighed aloud, drawing a chorus of agreement.

Passing through a long and narrow corridor, several people entered a larger room, about four or five meters high and about two hundred square meters in size.

"You can't look at it that way either. Forensic botany is equivalent to a practical discipline. Like today, cooperating with police dogs and the manpower input of criminal police, you don't need 100% certainty."

"That's true. Otherwise, Jiang Yuan confirmed several places, right? It's impossible for there to be so many corpses in one forest."

The scholars laughed as they spoke.

Qi Changye didn't laugh, his expression somber.

Looking back now, the addresses near this plot had appeared in reports more than once. But he just didn't notice the connection here.

At this time, another younger doctoral student asked curiously: "Forensic Expert Jiang, how did you recognize that this corpse was human remains? Because I have studied a little bit of forensic science, if it's just long bones and a few small bones, it seems not very easy to determine..."

"The small bone dug out just now is a finger bone." Jiang Yuan paused and added: "There is also a ring in the soil."