[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner":3,"chapter-the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-94":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","The Nation's Forensic Medical Examiner",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2326789,4551,"Chapter 94: Goosebumps","the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-94",94,"\u003Cp>Changyang City.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the provincial bureau’s garden, the flowers were bright red and vivid, vulgar as Zhonghua cigarettes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Zemin glanced at the flowers outside the window, uninterested, turned back, picked up a Zhonghua cigarette, and lightly sniffed it at his nose.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Go smoke yourself—I’ve still got a bit to do,” Jiang Yuan noticed Li Zemin’s motion but made no move to leave his seat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had just re-marked the fingerprint feature points and felt he had a real chance to find a match—he was in the thick of a surge.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Zemin shook his head: “No need to rush. I’m just smelling it. I’ve got work to do too.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since the fingerprint campaign began, half the time had passed, yet Li Zemin had matched not a single fingerprint.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The number of fingerprint experts accompanying him had plummeted from dozens to just a dozen.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If Li Zemin failed to match another fingerprint, he’d slip into the bottom nine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Although the fingerprint campaign didn’t judge heroes by success or demand that everyone must match fingerprints, as a fingerprint expert, failing to match even one in fourteen days felt like wasting time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Zemin took a deep breath, resolved inwardly: This round, I’ll focus hard—I’ll match at least one fingerprint, then go out and smoke however I want, even a whole pack if I feel like it…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ding dong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the large office, scattered “good news” calls rang out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone always loved hearing the sound of success, and whenever the “ding dong” chimed, it meant…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Zemin instinctively looked at Jiang Yuan—his computer screen had indeed lost the fingerprint image.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then Jiang Yuan smiled faintly and slowly opened a new pack of Zhonghua cigarettes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Go for a stroll outside?” Jiang Yuan issued his familiar invitation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Zemin froze, instinctively opening the new message—the system prompt confirmed the fingerprint requiring review was Jiang Yuan’s submission.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Alright, let’s go out,” Li Zemin rose cheerfully. After all, smoking with Jiang Yuan meant smoking however he wanted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment, on the “Case-Breaking Fingerprint Ranking,” Jiang Yuan led with 12 matches. On the “Homicide Case Fingerprint Ranking,” his 4 matches were equally eye-catching.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Ling stood in the corridor, spotted Jiang Yuan emerging, and immediately followed.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As head of the provincial bureau’s fingerprint post, her own fingerprint identification skill was merely average—perhaps better than a typical county-level trace examiner, but nowhere near the level of the province’s selected experts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Precisely because of this, even during the fingerprint campaign, Yang Ling never wandered into the large office. Fingerprint comparison was inherently private work—one expert, one computer sufficed; adding a supervisor was unnecessary.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But over these past few days, Yang Ling had received far too many calls from all over.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was normal for someone in her position to receive requests or appeals from local bureaus, but these recent demands were somewhat unusual.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially during the fingerprint campaign, people were explicitly asking Jiang Yuan to examine specific fingerprints from their regions. Had she not received so many such calls, Yang Ling would have ignored them outright.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Teacher Jiang,” Yang Ling emerged from the corner as soon as Jiang Yuan appeared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Director Yang,” both Jiang Yuan and Li Zemin greeted her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Taking a break? Let’s walk a bit?” Yang Ling walked over with a smile, adding warmly: “Tired? You’ve been in Changyang for a week—should be adjusted by now.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Fine.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Teacher Jiang, this is your first time joining the fingerprint campaign, right? If anything feels off, just tell me. Matching eleven fingerprints is truly astonishing…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Twelve now,” Li Zemin cut in, boasting. He had zero matches himself, but he still took pride in his younger brother’s achievements.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Ling blinked in surprise: “Another one just now?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yes.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Great—I didn’t even check my phone, but your colleagues in the office must’ve handled it already…” Yang Ling gathered her thoughts; her prepared speech had been disrupted by their exchange.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the elevator, several uniformed colleagues were present, so Yang Ling stayed silent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Once outside, she said: “Teacher Jiang, I’ve received a few calls—local police bureaus have volunteered fingerprints. When you have time, you might take a look.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Volunteered by police bureaus?” Li Zemin interjected. “Not in this campaign’s fingerprint database?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Ling sighed: “They’re in the database. But several places heard Jiang Teacher made several ‘Lake fingerprints,’ so they asked you to check similar ones they submitted. I think—if you’re skilled with these, more options won’t hurt.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“These guys are pretty clever,” Li Zemin defended Jiang Yuan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yang Ling nodded in agreement, then added: “Teacher Jiang, please help—they’re all calls from local leaders. Even if you don’t look at the monk, at least look at the Buddha’s face…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Both she and Li Zemin seemed deeply concerned, but Jiang Yuan appeared indifferent—his mind was still locked in fingerprint comparison mode.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Human attention is limited, and even Lv4 fingerprint identification skill was no exception.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only after Li Zemin’s reminder did Jiang Yuan respond: “I can look at the fingerprints, but I can’t guarantee I’ll match them.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Of course,” Yang Ling exhaled in relief. “I just think your ability to handle fuzzy fingerprints is exceptional, so I specifically recommended them to you…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On this point, she was right. Purely in terms of fingerprint identification skill, Jiang Yuan was among the top of the expert group, but not necessarily producing results far beyond others.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His current results were largely due to his skillful use of the Lv4 image enhancement technique.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As everyone knew, image enhancement involved Fourier transforms, Walsh-Hadamard transforms, grayscale histograms, grayscale point operations, smoothing spatial filters, sharpening spatial filters, and more.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But explaining these to fingerprint experts still left them utterly baffled.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two faces baffled versus one face baffled—advantage was undeniable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Yuan thought Yang Ling’s suggestion was good—the campaign’s fingerprint database was enormous, totaling well over ten thousand, from dozens of counties and dozens of municipal districts, each submitting hundreds of case fingerprints.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And the software system clearly had no “fuzzy” filter option.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But on the way back, Li Zemin warned: “The fingerprints Yang Director recommended are probably homicide cases—otherwise, they wouldn’t bother calling. Some might even be in the ministry’s database.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“We’ll see,” Jiang Yuan made no promises, but after days of work, his confidence had grown.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The large office still buzzed with intensity.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The air reeked of strong caffeine, faint tea mingled with lingering foot odor—the signature scent of a bustling office after a week of nonstop work. The messy desks bore no resemblance to their initial neatness.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The experts’ appearances had changed most: once-pressed police uniforms had returned to their most practical state. Changes to collars, cuffs, and even chests revealed their self-discipline levels.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those who excelled at tidiness could keep their clothes presentable; those who slacked off, feigned illness, and whined “ayou ayou” couldn’t become experts or enter the fingerprint campaign.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even if they got in, most produced no good results.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those who did achieve strong results, like Zhu Huanguang, were intensely driven and brimming with confidence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Even with only half Jiang Yuan’s output, Zhu Huanguang showed no sign of easing up. His logic was simple: if he used every second others spent resting, sleeping, smoking, or even using the restroom to compare fingerprints—even with lower efficiency—he could slowly catch up.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang thought this way—and acted on it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He resolved inwardly: from today on, as long as Jiang Yuan didn’t return to his dorm to rest, neither would he. Even if Jiang Yuan returned, he’d work at least one extra hour; if his state was good, two extra hours.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This way, he gained one or two extra hours daily—over the coming week, that meant over ten extra hours, roughly equivalent to two full extra days compared to ordinary experts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang made up his mind, turned off all software notifications, put on headphones, and focused entirely on fingerprint comparison.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Time ticked away second by second.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Night fell, and experts gradually left the office.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang matched his eighth fingerprint of the campaign—more than one per day on average.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In past years, this would have been top-tier performance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After waiting a moment for his result to be confirmed, Zhu Huanguang lifted his head, gazing at the front-office rankings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the “Case-Breaking Fingerprint Ranking,” his name now read “8.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang smiled faintly, then adjusted his mood to view Jiang Yuan’s result with a healthy mindset.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Yuan: 14.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang took a deep breath.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It was within his expectations. Jiang Yuan was exceptionally skilled and worked hard—he hadn’t returned to rest at all, so matching two more today, three in one day, seemed normal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang didn’t want to dwell on it, and glanced at the “Homicide Case Fingerprint Ranking.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He wasn’t on this list—his recent fingerprint selections were the reason. As for Jiang Yuan…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jiang Yuan: 6.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Zhu Huanguang rubbed his eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the first line of the “Homicide Case Fingerprint Ranking,” Jiang Yuan’s result remained “6.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this point, even by fingerprint logic, it was clear: Jiang Yuan’s two new matches were both homicide cases.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two homicide cases broken in a row? Six homicide cases matched in a week?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thinking of that number, Zhu Huanguang was suddenly overcome with goosebumps.\u003C\u002Fp>",1524,"2026-06-20T18:55:00.150Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","396c358ccc7253062980f00cefdfc1e80faf4cf667c9d3c86f60f11bef99fde6","the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-95","the-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-chapter-93",1000,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-nation-s-forensic-medical-examiner-cover.jpg"]