Chapter 91: I

A pale, pristine fingerprint, neat and orderly, like a young lady stepping out from a secluded boudoir.

But Jiang Yuan knew that just hours ago, this seemingly legitimate fingerprint had looked like a caricature of an African-American comedian—he had painstakingly restored it to its current state using a computer borrowed from the Provincial Forensic Imaging Team, spending long hours with his Level-4 image enhancement skill, a veritable epic makeover, equivalent to turning an orange tabby into a Ragdoll cat.

And if one were to count the people behind this fingerprint, the pale image would turn black and crimson.

Jiang Yuan made a routine feature-point marking, scanned 300 fingerprints without a match, then stopped.

This fingerprint is quite unusual.

It was lifted from the back collar of the victim’s neck; with technology from several years ago, achieving this required the crime scene technician to possess considerable skill.

Yet the technician who handled the original case still failed to match this fingerprint.

Jiang Yuan stared at this seemingly reconstructed fingerprint, lost in thought.

He could imagine how, when the killer—the owner of this fingerprint—tried to strangle the victim beneath him, his fingers exerted maximum force. Correspondingly, in the final moments, the victim must have strained every muscle, tensed every skin fiber, to resist the attack.

Thus, this is a bidirectionally deformed fingerprint on soft material; the current feature points cannot be extracted, so the next logical step is to adjust for deformation—manually tweak the ridge patterns and structure, essentially relying on trial and error to find a match.

Some fingerprints take a trace examiner months to resolve; others hold onto a few major case fingerprints and keep trying for years.

Jiang Yuan had previously matched fingerprints using trial methods, but only when he had sufficient related information and conditions to conduct tests.

But with this fingerprint, Jiang Yuan examined it repeatedly and saw no room for adjustment.

Not because it couldn’t be adjusted, but because both the applied and resisted forces caused deformation, making trial matching vastly more difficult. Moreover, the original case technician was clearly an expert—Jiang Yuan’s own ideas had likely already been tried by him.

But if not through conventional methods, where else could one strike unexpectedly?

This fingerprint was barely a square centimeter, already pored over for months, even years—now to find some novel, unprecedented technique was exceedingly difficult.

Homicide fingerprints are tough.

During Jiang Yuan’s contemplation, the system’s translucent interface silently appeared before him.

…

Task: Persistent Pursuit

Task Description: During the Fingerprint Campaign, solve as many cases as possible within your capacity. Current progress: (8*2)

…

Judging from the content, 8*2 likely refers to the total number of cases and the number of homicide cases.

Jiang Yuan’s thoughts were briefly interrupted, then passed—he turned back to his thinking, glanced at the fingerprint, and thought: Actually, there’s no need to consider the entire fingerprint.

This fingerprint was taken from the neck, and the neck’s curvature, usually insignificant, likely became pronounced when the victim was strangled.

Xiao Shu Ting

Jiang Yuan simply cropped a small section from the fingerprint and marked it.

In effect, he discarded most of the painstakingly collected fingerprint from the original crime scene.

He only needed the most stable small portion.

This tiny fragment, after detailed feature-point extraction and scanning in the software, yielded results that gave Jiang Yuan a glimmer of hope.

He was now using the Qingdao Single-Fingerprint Analysis Method to process this small section.

The Qingdao Single-Fingerprint Analysis Method and the Chongqing Single-Fingerprint Analysis Method each had their strengths and differences; one clear distinction was that Qingdao divided fingerprints into 68 subcategories, while Chongqing used 24.

This difference made Chongqing easier to start with, while Qingdao was better suited for manual batch scanning.

A fingerprint every few seconds—dozens of them were quickly scanned through.

As he scanned, Jiang Yuan sat upright, staring intently at one fingerprint, comparing it carefully.

Li Zemin beside him noticed, paused his own work, and watched Jiang Yuan’s actions.

He was clearly trying to learn something.

But Jiang Yuan had no intention of hiding anything.

Fingerprint comparison is a highly personal task, especially with difficult fingerprints—once you reach this stage, judgment matters more than technique.

Technique can be learned; judgment involves far more.

While Li Zemin was still pondering Jiang Yuan’s thought process, he saw Jiang Yuan move the mouse and select “Confirm Match.”

“Already matched?” Li Zemin exclaimed.

He knew Jiang Yuan was matching a homicide case.

Jiang Yuan took a sip of tea, moistened his throat, then said: “Then check if it’s matched.”

“Oh, right.” Li Zemin turned back to his screen, as “ding-dong” notifications rang out around him.

The morning was pleasant; many had notifications enabled.

Now that they saw them, several people clicked to check.

Jiang Yuan’s name was like a cool cup of coffee poured over everyone’s heads.

Refreshing.

Eye-catching.

Energizing.

Li Zemin studied the fingerprint image several times, then slowly clicked “Agree” beneath “Confirm Match.”

Turning to Jiang Yuan, Li Zemin looked astonished: “So fast? Is image processing really that useful?”

Jiang Yuan smiled. How could he answer? That he was fast because his skills were truly strong—he was already a provincial-level expert? Or that image processing must be combined with fingerprint analysis, and his image enhancement skill was at a near-provincial expert level?

“Smoke?” Jiang Yuan pulled out a pack of Soft Zhonghua.

“Let’s go,” Li Zemin said, immediately distracted, rising and following Jiang Yuan.

Outside the building.

A miniature classical pavilion held several provincial bureau smokers puffing nicotine; seeing Jiang Yuan and Li Zemin approach, they smiled warmly.

Jiang Yuan nodded, handed Li Zemin and himself each a Zhonghua, and took up the other side of the pavilion.

One of the provincial bureau smokers noticed Jiang Yuan’s Soft Zhonghua, frowned immediately, ignoring his colleague’s glances, and said bluntly: “Conditions this good? What are people from lower units thinking these days? All of them…”

“I’m from Jiangcun,” Jiang Yuan cut him off, offering the cigarette in the most Jiangcun way possible.

The middle-aged man still kept his stern, furrowed brow, stunned as he took the cigarette.

Others’ expressions softened, though they were equally surprised to receive cigarettes.

Li Zemin, also unimpressed by the provincial bureau’s attitude, couldn’t help but smile at the scene.

“From Qinghe?” the man who took the cigarette confirmed.

“Yes, Jiangcun, Ningtai County,” Jiang Yuan replied calmly, lighting his cigarette and taking a puff in front of the smokers.

Watching the Soft Zhonghua being casually exhaled, they all looked pained—but remembering he was from Jiangcun, they let it go.

“Jiang Yuan!” A police officer with his collar buttoned tightly stepped out of the provincial bureau building with great seriousness.

Jiang Yuan and the others recognized him as he approached, smiling: “Director Liu.”

The man striding forward was Liu Jinghui, the provincial bureau’s Level-4 Senior Police Superintendent, renowned for his deductive skills.

He entered the pavilion, glanced at the middle-aged men puffing smoke, nodded reluctantly, and greeted: “Director Hong.”

Turning to Jiang Yuan, Liu Jinghui asked: “I just saw the alert—you matched the fingerprint from Wu Long’s wild man’s collar?”

From Liu Jinghui’s phrasing, it was clear he was highly invested in this case—he’d set up alerts and clearly understood the victim’s condition.

Jiang Yuan didn’t hesitate: “Matched a homicide. The body was found on Wu Long Mountain.”

“That’s it, that’s it…” Liu Jinghui tapped his finger twice, his excitement visibly rising.

His provincial colleagues turned to Jiang Yuan in surprise: “You matched a homicide? You’re here for the fingerprint campaign?”

“Yes. From Qinghe,” Jiang Yuan replied, using the term just asked.

Everyone understood. The first middle-aged man laughed heartily: “You’ve got some spirit. Then again, how could a Jiangcun man lack spirit? My apologies—I thought you were some junior officer here to slack off. Didn’t expect you’re here for the fingerprint campaign. A fingerprint expert this young? Rare.”

“And he matched a homicide,” someone added, giving a thumbs-up.

Li Zemin chimed in: “Three.”

“Three what?”

“Three homicides matched,” Li Zemin held up three fingers.

Everyone murmured in amazement.

The middle-aged man took a deep drag from his newly lit Zhonghua, beaming: “I had no idea who I was dealing with. Let me introduce myself—I’m Hong Wan Army. Everyone calls me Hong Qi—Hong from Hong Qigong, Qi from Hong Qigong. They say my temper’s either righteous indignation or just plain obnoxious…”

Jiang Yuan shook his hand and exchanged WeChat IDs.

Nearby, Liu Jinghui had gathered enough emotion and seized a pause to say: “Jiang Yuan, you’re coming with me.”

“Where?” Jiang Yuan frowned.

“To investigate the Wu Long Wild Man case. This isn’t just a simple body-dumping case,” Liu Jinghui declared firmly. “I believe there’s more to it—likely a serial killing.”

“More bodies?” Jiang Yuan was startled—he hadn’t seen that in the case summary.

Liu Jinghui said seriously: “No other bodies yet, but perhaps they were dumped elsewhere more effectively. Yet the way this body was handled shows the killer has extensive experience. Also, the discovery was coincidental—it was found by a lost hiker, not along any regular patrol route, and the surrounding area lacks accessible paths…”

“Then now that you’ve matched it, shouldn’t you go arrest the suspect?”

“Too much time has passed,” Liu Jinghui shook his head. “You can see yourself—the suspect was released six years ago. Six years without a trace, and he was involved in another murder. Finding him directly is nearly impossible. But the Wu Long Wild Man case has opened a new investigative direction. I’m inviting you to join me in forming a new special task force…”

“Director Liu, I’m currently participating in the fingerprint campaign,” Jiang Yuan interrupted. He didn’t like Liu Jinghui. Deduction, in his view, was neither mysterious nor reliable. Liu Jinghui’s “reason first, evidence later” approach was fundamentally opposed to his beliefs. Under these circumstances, Jiang Yuan had no intention of joining any task force with him.

Liu Jinghui looked at Jiang Yuan with deep resolve, speaking slowly and clearly: “I’ll wait for you.”

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