Chapter 95

The central air conditioner hummed as it blew out air, delivering little cooling but pretending to work hard, just like Zhu Huan’s son studying.

The pothos on the windowsill thrived well, its pale white roots inserted into a transparent bottle, swollen and plump. Thin, soft root hairs grew wildly, tangled messily in the clear water. The broad leaves swayed gently from the air conditioning, resembling a fitness coach slapping a buttock.

Zhu Huan unconsciously glanced at Jiang Yuan.

Jiang Yuan, still young yet already a fingerprint expert, sat in his cubicle chair, eyes blazing as he stared at the computer screen, radiating lethal energy and fierce intensity.

In just the past week, Jiang Yuan had matched the suspects in six murder cases; four had been arrested and were highly likely to receive the death penalty.

The remaining two were also unlikely to escape.

Moreover, all these murder cases were matched within the past three or four days—meaning Jiang Yuan had sent one person to the afterlife every day during those few days.

How fierce, how terrifying.

Zhu Huan trembled with envy.

He couldn’t help imagining: if only he could trade his son Zhu Xiaoguang’s college entrance exam score for murderers, how wonderful. He wouldn’t even need to say one point per murderer, or ten points per murderer—he could trade for twenty or thirty murderers, what a contribution that would be.

Creak.

Jiang Yuan stood up and pushed back his chair.

Few people remained in the large office; the sound of the chair echoed sharply in the empty room.

One expert couldn’t help looking up, frowning in annoyance—but when he saw it was Jiang Yuan, he merely shrugged and lowered his head, resuming his work as if nothing happened.

Jiang Yuan returned to his dormitory to rest.

Zhu Huan noticed Jiang Yuan had taken his water cup and other items—he probably wouldn’t be coming back to work.

For a moment, Zhu Huan also considered returning to his dorm to rest: scroll through his phone, flirt with some girls, call home to scold his son Zhu Xiaoguang, flatter his wife—it sounded quite pleasant.

But just as he was about to stand, Zhu Huan sat back down. A set goal must not be changed lightly; otherwise, what difference would he have from Zhu Xiaoguang?

Evening.

Jiang Yuan returned to his dormitory and immediately went to bed.

The pressure of the fingerprint campaign was overwhelming; one or two days were bearable, but after a full week, not only was his spirit exhausted, his body could no longer hold up.

Now he understood why fingerprint campaigns lasted at most two or three weeks—usually, two weeks drained an expert’s vital energy completely; adding another week might as well be for vacation.

Something had to be returned.

Jiang Yuan’s mind didn’t even have time to think—he fell into deep sleep.

The following week was nearly a repetition of the previous one.

The only difference was that Jiang Yuan’s case-solving rate slowed noticeably, but every case he solved was a murder.

On the final day of the fingerprint campaign, Jiang Yuan’s total matched fingerprints on the office leaderboard reached eighteen, ten of which were murder cases.

Behind him, the expert with the most total matches, Zhu Huan, had only ten matched fingerprints—and not a single one from a murder case.

The second-ranked expert in the murder case leaderboard had matched two murder fingerprints; the third had only one.

The total number of matched murder fingerprints was ultimately locked at fifteen, ranked as 10, 2, 1, 1, 1.

That meant, among all forty-plus experts participating in the half-month fingerprint campaign, only five had matched any murder fingerprints.

Jiang Yuan alone had matched exactly twice as many murder fingerprints as the other forty-plus combined.

This was an astonishing figure—not just in Shannan Province, but across the entire country, bordering on legendary. Within a short time, it spread widely.

Yet those in law enforcement who heard the news weren’t surprised; in fact, everyone who heard it displayed both astonishment and a sense of inevitability.

The astonishment was over how many fingerprints Jiang Yuan had matched; the inevitability came from the legend that true fingerprint experts always operated this way.

From one perspective, fingerprints were like puzzles: a puzzle was released, and its difficulty spread gradually—from no one could solve it, to a few could, to many could, to countless could.

An expert was simply the process of continuously elevating one’s own level of mastery.

When a fingerprint expert crossed a threshold and reached the top tier of a province, he naturally dominated the provincial fingerprint campaign.

This applied equally to national fingerprint campaigns: whenever a powerful fingerprint expert developed a new method, he often achieved overwhelming results, solving many previously unsolvable fingerprint cases, matching vast numbers of prints, and cracking numerous cases once deemed impossible.

Simultaneously, his new method spread with his reputation; once many others mastered it, the matching fingerprints in the database rapidly decreased, eventually restoring balance.

Jiang Yuan’s “Lake Resolution Method” had already spread before the fingerprint campaign ended; experts including Zhu Huan were already studying and developing it.

When the director announced the end of this fingerprint campaign, applause erupted throughout the large office.

Many clapped while glancing toward Jiang Yuan.

Only those deeply immersed in this field understood how difficult it was to reach such a level.

The director also clapped as he walked up to Jiang Yuan, smiling and nodding: “Each generation produces its own talents—I never expected to meet such a young fingerprint expert…”

He went on praising for several minutes; Jiang Yuan’s emotions gradually shifted from excitement to calmness.

Unlike Director Huang Qiang, the director’s promises were grander, rounder—not just oily, but sprinkled with sesame seeds, even the flavor seemed detectable.

Jiang Yuan felt momentarily exhilarated, his heart pounding, eager to solve a hundred more fingerprints right then and there.

“Ding!

Task completed: Obsessive Pursuit

Task content: During the fingerprint campaign, solve as many cases as possible within your ability. Current progress: (18*10)

Reward: Bloodstain Analysis (Lv5)”

…

The system’s voice brought Jiang Yuan back to clarity.

This was real—far more useful than the director’s empty promises. His expression grew composed as he carefully examined the Bloodstain Analysis details.

It was a fundamental skill for forensic pathologists, and a crucial one: theoretically, bloodstain analysis could reconstruct every motion during a murder, but the more complex the scene, the more detailed the reconstruction—and the higher the difficulty.

Opposite him, Director Xu watched the young man before him: so young, too young—his own grandson was the same age, yet still stayed up all night playing Honor of Kings. This boy, after being praised, remained calm and composed, slightly excited but quickly steadied himself—truly a technical genius.

He stopped making promises and patted the young man’s shoulder.

The scene was perfectly captured by the waiting reporters.