National Forensic Doctor

The morning in Ningtai County was still veiled in a hint of mist.

Jiang Yuan rode his electric bike into the yard of the Criminal Police Brigade, his arms already a bit damp.

"Morning," a passing officer said to Jiang Yuan with a natural smile.

Jiang Yuan was startled momentarily but quickly responded, "Morning."

This was the first time he had been greeted on the road since he had been at the unit. The police officer looked somewhat familiar, but Jiang Yuan couldn't recall his name or department.

Shaking his head, Jiang Yuan turned to enter the building, receiving two more nods and greetings along the way.

Although everyone was in a hurry, his mood unconsciously lifted.

Upon entering the office, Wang Zhong and Yan Ge were already seated inside.

"Doctor Jiang sure is impressive, so much up his sleeve," Yan Ge praised with a click of his tongue, and also used the respectful title of 'Doctor Jiang.' Honestly, that showed a lot more respect than 'Xiao Jiang.'

In a local police force where there was no money, no power, and no promotions, respect was the most precious commodity.

Hearing Yan Ge's words, Jiang Yuan immediately realized that the suspect from yesterday's Liu Yu assault case must have yielded results.

"Did we catch the person? Did you review it?" Jiang Yuan looked on expectantly.

"We caught the person. As for the review, see for yourself," said Yan as he handed Jiang Yuan several fingerprint cards.

Yesterday, when Jiang Yuan was matching fingerprints for the "Liu Yu assault case," he first made several fine adjustments; secondly, he only marked eight characteristic points, which meant a review was needed.

According to regulations, the match of eight characteristic points is just the standard for investigation. In other words, if there are eight corresponding characteristic points in the fingerprint, the Criminal Police Brigade can consider it a match and proceed with the arrest, interrogation, and issue a warrant for arrest, and so on.

However, to advance to the litigation stage and use the fingerprint as evidence, a fingerprint appraisal report must be issued with a minimum of thirteen matching characteristic points and no exclusions.

But now, with the actual person available, comparing fingerprints again becomes much simpler.

After all, the quality of fingerprint impressions themselves is questionable. On the other hand, even the best fingerprint impressions cannot demonstrate all the details of the fingerprint.

Yet, with the actual person present, multiple impressions will naturally reveal more details. Reversely, using fresh impressions from the actual person to match the fingerprints left at the crime scene evidently makes a match more likely.

Jiang Yuan took the fingerprint cards and glanced over them, feeling quite at ease.

Indeed, using logical thinking one could assume that someone from the detective team had already reviewed the fingerprints; otherwise, putting everything else aside, Yan Ge and Wang Zhong, both trace examiners, would surely be too overwhelmed to play guessing games with him.

Speculation aside, Jiang Yuan pulled out a magnifying glass from his drawer, pressed down on the fingerprint card, and looked at it closely.

Just one look was all it took for Jiang Yuan to confirm the match.

He had been looking at the original fingerprint too long, and just having worked on it recently, it was already etched in his mind.

Still, Jiang Yuan opened his computer, pulled up the fingerprints from the "Liu Yu assault case," and scanned them again.

This time, he was primarily checking for any exclusions.

Is it possible for two identical fingerprints to exist in the world? Theoretically, strictly speaking from theory alone, it should be possible. It's a matter of probability—in a large enough number set, a monkey randomly hitting keys on a keyboard could theoretically type out a Shakespearean play.

But if there is at least one characteristic point in the fingerprints that does not match, then both theoretically and practically, those two fingerprints can be excluded from being identically matched.

Jiang Yuan carefully compared the fingerprints from start to finish and didn't find any reason to dismiss them, then easily marked out 13 characteristic points, took a breath of relief, and smiled, "The review has no issues, it should be determined to be the same."

Yan Ge, who had initially wanted to enjoy the spectacle, gasped an intake of cool air at Jiang Yuan's final action.

This exact same task, he had been suddenly notified of last night and had already done once—as for why it was him who got pulled out of bed to do the review instead of Jiang Yuan, naturally, it was because he was an old hand at trace inspection, the most qualified to produce fingerprint identification reports. It definitely wasn't because Captain Huang Qiangmin of the criminal police had any ulterior motives, worried about using up the precious combat power of the police force.

But precisely because he had done it last night, Yan Ge found himself doubting life even more after seeing Jiang Yuan's final action just now.

He did indeed have a bit of a decreased IQ late at night, but to spend about ten minutes on a fingerprint identification, that could be said to be very reasonable, right?

How long had it just taken Jiang Yuan to mark the characteristic points?

Unintentionally, Yan Ge began to recall the terror of being dominated by all sorts of people during his school days.

After a long while, Yan Ge let out a breath of turbid air and said, "A 20-year-old cold case, and it was cracked by an office worker like you..."

"We're all office workers." Doctor Wu corrected, "We all crack cases."

Yan Ge said, "The case that Jiang Yuan cracked today... well, it should be counted as yesterday, could probably be bragged about for a lifetime. Aggravated assault, an accumulated case, and it's notorious... I'm guessing there are still quite a few people in the bureau who remember this case. Especially the local-bred leaders in our bureau, who back then almost all mobilized…"

"I just found a lead, most of the work was completed by others in the team," Jiang Yuan fully utilized the fake modesty skills he'd learned in school.

Old Yan just chuckled and said casually, "Without the lead you found, the others wouldn't have had any work to complete at all, okay? They had already knocked off, then got called back to work overtime, without even getting extra pay."

Jiang Yuan fell silent, unsure if he should be modest or pass the responsibility at this time.

"Bang bang!"

Wen Kai, the leader of the second squad, poked his head in the door and said with a smile, "Jiang Yuan is here, you worked hard yesterday."

"It wasn't hard for me…" Jiang Yuan had eaten skewers and drunk beer last night, indeed not feeling it was hard.

Wen Kai's face was red and flushed, all from staying up all night, and he said, "If it weren't for you matching the fingerprints, this case would likely have been dead. Putting this in a story, it would be called meriting the highest contribution!"

Jiang Yuan changed the subject, "How about the suspect? I mean, what kind of person is he?"

Jiang Yuan had only matched the fingerprints and confirmed the identity of the suspect, not knowing anything else. As a young newbie, he was naturally curious about criminal suspects.

After pondering for a bit, Wen Kai then said, "Just an ordinary person. Also quite unlucky. He had a pen pal in our Ningtai County and after finishing the college entrance exam, ran over to meet the pen pal as soon as possible. But when he arrived at the agreed time and place, he didn't find the pen pal, waited a whole day, and was in a very bad mood. Then he happened to come across the half-drunk victim, words were exchanged, and in the conflict, he hit too hard, and that's how the tragedy happened."

"The pen pal?"

"After that incident, knowing that he had seriously hurt someone, he never contacted the pen pal again," Wen Kai paused, then continued, "His pen pal also never wrote another letter. But in their heart, they probably blamed themselves for not showing up."

"So, apart from the criminal suspect himself, no one knew he had been to Ningtai County." Wu Jun summarized on the side, then let out a heavy sigh, "It's his bad luck, but also his good luck."

"Ordinary people can't withstand such luck," Wen Kai said indifferently, "As soon as the person was put in the car, they just broke down crying, saying that they were too scared to fall in love, too scared to get married, too scared to take out loans to buy a house; they needed to save money for their parents, and they had to avoid appearing on any social media… asking us why we hadn't come sooner…"

Hearing this, Yan couldn't help but lament, "At the time of the incident, this person had just taken the college entrance exam, so now he must be around 40, and seemingly has his whole life on hold."

Wen Kai curled his lips and said, "At that time, I asked him a question, and it stopped his crying."

Yan cooperated and asked, "What question?"

Wen Kai replied, "I asked him why he didn't turn himself in earlier."