Chapter 999: Through the Night

When Xu Juan was brought to the Qingshi City Bureau, it drew a strong crowd of bureau leaders gathering around.

Fang Gang, captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade, was greatly surprised upon seeing this and exclaimed, “Among cases requiring such high costs to solve, this one has the fewest suspects and the lightest total weight. In other words, by weight, this case has the highest cost per pound of suspect! Rare, extremely rare!”

The officers present chuckled quietly, silently updating their assessment of Fang Gang’s math skills.

Huang Qiangmin chuckled along and said, “This case is straightforward and unadorned. As long as you don’t feel cheated, that’s fine.”

“The sooner a case is solved, the better. We’re not the kind who make things harder on ourselves just because doctors make healing look easy,” Fang Gang said, speaking in polished words.

The fees had already been paid—could they really make Huang Qiangmin give them back?

Moreover, as Fang Gang himself said, the most important thing is solving the case quickly and smoothly. Within Qingshi City, the length of the Taihe River is considerable, and corpses will inevitably drift downstream—most of them will be straightforward cases like this one. Jiang Yuan’s ability to swiftly and accurately solve such cases is precisely what Fang Gang needs most.

Even the simplest movie incurs high costs after filming begins; prolonged shooting strains any production company. The same applies to police task forces: once fully staffed and activated, although everyone’s allowances remain pitifully low, the sheer volume of funds flowing away is terrifying.

Seeing that Fang Gang understood, Huang Qiangmin relaxed considerably and smiled, “Captain Fang, you know your stuff. This case may seem easy to solve, but in reality, determining the victim’s entry point into the water, their exact age, and their sketch—all individually—are things even an ordinary task force would struggle to confirm.”

“You’re right,” Fang Gang immediately conceded—it was, in fact, the conclusion they’d privately reached.

The victim’s entry point was determined through diatom analysis, time of death via forensic pathology, and the sketch was entirely completed independently by Jiang Yuan’s forensic drawing skills.

If Qingshi City’s own task force had handled these three tasks, they’d have reached conclusions eventually—but how accurate would they be? How broad would the range be?

For instance, the victim’s entry point: Jiang Yuan drew a circle of just 200 meters. Fang Gang’s usual range, by contrast, is measured in kilometers.

Around the victim’s residential compound, a one-kilometer radius would mean including countless people—investigation might have to proceed by compound rather than by household, and time spent at each home would need stricter limits. You’d likely need to add personnel, lowering the proportion of experienced detectives…

Age is the same. Jiang Yuan said exactly 38—no more, no less. So the detective team generated a list of several hundred names. But if the age range fluctuated by even one year, or two, the workload would increase dramatically.

As for the sketch, Fang Gang had never even considered it. His criminal investigation brigade never used such elaborate tools.

“Who could have imagined all three lines would yield results?” Now that the matter was open, Fang Gang switched into high-emotional-intelligence mode, lavishing praise on Jiang Yuan and the cold case unit.

Huang Qiangmin nodded with a smile; Jiang Yuan didn’t pretend to be modest.

Finding suspects through all three lines only proves the suspect’s method was plain and unadorned—it doesn’t diminish the brilliance of the investigation.

Homicides are always judged by results, let alone that all three investigative lines were highly typical. Qingshi City’s Criminal Investigation Brigade was scrambling to copy their work.

After completing basic social obligations, Jiang Yuan took advantage of the suspect’s ongoing interrogation to return to the autopsy room, sign all the completed forms, inspect and organize the victim’s remains, and finally…

From the victim’s head, he retrieved a glowing blue dumpling.

Sun Youqiang’s Legacy: Tongxiao Dadan (LV2)—Sun Youqiang ended his plain and unadorned life. Born into an ordinary rural family, he endured repeated setbacks, eventually gaining admission to a junior college through retaking exams. In school, he made friends but failed to win any girl’s affection. After graduation, he returned home, accomplished nothing, merely took a job and endured it, had no luck with women, dared not visit prostitutes, saved painstakingly, and only married in his thirties through an arranged match. His married life was unremarkable—he remained a dull, lifeless, and incompetent middle-aged man, his status merely updated to “married.” As he aged, his work ability declined, so he extended his hours and intensified his work ethic to cling to his job, until he was finally forced to master an ability beyond ordinary levels: LV2 Tongxiao Dadan, allowing him to stay awake two extra hours under identical physical and health conditions.

Jiang Yuan silently accepted Sun Youqiang’s legacy.

In the instant the glowing blue dumpling vanished, Jiang Yuan even sensed a trace of Sun Youqiang’s emotion—a calm, resigned feeling, like a middle-tier student after finishing a midterm exam.

Sun Youqiang wasn’t angry, nor was he at peace, but he had no expectations for the future. He had no clear goals, no idea what he could do—he was simply pushed along by circumstance.

Everything that brought him joy was frowned upon by others. He liked drinking, gathering with shady friends, boasting online, singing karaoke on his phone, sneaking mini-games on his office computer, enjoying paid toilet breaks, and sneaking glances at beautiful women. Every one of his pleasures generated zero value.

Preferences that bring personal joy but create no value for others are probably what’s called bad habits.

Jiang Yuan gently patted Sun Youqiang’s body bag and asked the forensic assistant beside him, “Have the victim’s family arrived? Who came?”

“Probably his sister. Their mother is back home caring for his father,” the assistant recalled.

“How was her emotional state?”

“The sister? She cried a bit, then left. She’s over forty, with a high-school-aged son she needs to care for. The person staying behind is effectively the victim’s brother-in-law.”

“Hmm.” Jiang Yuan nodded. His original impulse to do something faded away.

Stepping outside, he hadn’t walked far when he saw a girl with long black hair standing before the funeral home’s entrance, hesitating to enter. When she spotted Jiang Yuan, she jumped up excitedly.

“If you didn’t come out soon, I was going to run away,” said the girl with long black hair—Qiao Shengli, a Ph.D. candidate under Professor Su Lei, the botanist.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Yuan asked.

“Of course something’s wrong—it’s my first time ever at a funeral home…” Qiao Shengli shrank her neck and whispered, “I heard the Qingshi case has been solved?”

“Yes.”

“But we’ve collected diatoms from 20 kilometers of river and haven’t finished testing them yet.” Diatom data comes in slowly—this case clearly didn’t need 20 kilometers.

Jiang Yuan understood Qiao Shengli’s concern and nodded, “You can keep testing. The project is separate from the case—no interference.”

“Completely independent? Then can we continue this project?” Qiao Shengli grabbed Jiang Yuan’s arm, leaning softly against him, “You want to build a database for the entire Taihe River, right? Twenty kilometers isn’t enough, is it?”

“Correct.”

Only then did Qiao Shengli realize she’d asked too hastily, too many questions at once. She repeated, “Do you plan to build a full Taihe River database? Can we handle it? Our project took a long time to launch—establishing reference systems, adjusting software, etc. Now that we’re ready, the cost would be much lower.”

“You can do it—but I have a special condition.”

“Say it,” Qiao Shengli tightened her grip on Jiang Yuan.

“We can’t process the Taihe River in order, because we don’t know who the next funder will be, and there’s no unified budget. We can only work in segments.”

“No problem,” Qiao Shengli sighed in relief and immediately agreed, then asked, “Who’s the next funder?”