Chapter 160 - 160 155 Sneakers

Words : 1873 Updated : Sep 19th, 2025

160: Chapter 155 Sneakers 160: Chapter 155 Sneakers Wu Junhao stood at the stairs above the 28th floor, watching Jiang Yuan below searching almost inch by inch, quickly becoming bored. He was often on the scene, but such meticulous examination, he had never seen before. Yet, today’s situation was exceptional, and Wu Junhao felt it was difficult to slip away. If he were to go out for some errand and return to find Jiang Yuan lying in a pool of blood, how could he explain? It would be quite a pity indeed. With long arms and legs like a giraffe, and a smart brain, but if poked with a knife, the flailing, he guessed, would be similar to a short winter melon like a spotted deer. So, although bored, he had no choice but to stick around—images from various films unavoidably surfacing in Wu Junhao’s mind. Those bodyguards going to the washroom, security guards betting on horses, mercenaries off to frolic with a few women, all came back to chilling scenes after taking a leak. Captain Huang Qiangmin, however, was patiently waiting by his side. He could have gone back already, but he chose to stay on site, and consequently, everyone else could but accompany him. Wu Junhao shuffled over, shuffled over, and came up to Huang Qiangmin, saying, “Being in tech is truly dull.” Huang Qiangmin glanced at him and asked, “You’re the one who’s bored, aren’t you?” If it wasn’t for sheer boredom, he would never have sought out the squad leader for a chat. Wu Junhao did not reply, only asking, “Are we just going to wait like this?” “Do you have any ideas?” “I’ll lead a team to search the building, floor by floor. Maybe we’ll catch the murderer,” proposed Wu Junhao, eager to get out and about, not minding overtime work. Huang Qiangmin said, “People are already on the search.” “They won’t search as thoroughly as I do. I can find anything, even in the most hidden nooks and crannies.” “This building is huge. There are all kinds of public areas, bathrooms, lounges, store rooms...” Huang Qiangmin rambled on, unwilling to let Wu Junhao go out. There were already three squads of people at Wanghe Building and around the area; Wu Junhao’s help was not needed at all. Moreover, having one more person from Squad One around was just a disruption. Wu Junhao frowned with a bitter face watching below, feeling even more miserable than Jiang Yuan who was actually doing the work. “Alright, let’s go back,” said Jiang Yuan, having collected hundreds of evidence bags, concluding the inspection of the fire escape. Wu Junhao heaved a sigh of relief, as if released from bondage, and as he walked asked, “Find anything?” “Not sure. They’re mostly trace evidence, invisible to the eye. We’ll have to send them to Changyang,” replied Jiang Yuan, who could conduct a detailed crime scene investigation, but the examination of trace evidence still required a specialized lab. Not to say he couldn’t do it; even if he could, Ningtai County couldn’t afford the equipment. There was no hope of getting a full set of new, better equipment. Should Captain Huang even agree, the auditors would break his legs. Of course, Huang Qiangmin never considered such matters. He directly pointed out someone, saying, “Go with Lu Jianfeng to send the items to Changyang, and then wait there for their examination results. I’ll call them later.” Lu Jianfeng, as the head of the Criminal Science Squadron, technically Jiang Yuan’s direct superior, was now tasked by Huang Qiangmin to transport the evidence. However, it was just the way the Detachment operated internally; the squad leaders were akin to group leaders in a classroom, handling homework, leading teams on tasks, but during major cases requiring collective action, they were the vanguard. Changyang City was the provincial capital, and the Criminal Police Detachment was more than just a rank above Ningtai County; accommodating a request for testing would certainly require some sweet talk. But some kind words were sufficient. After all, the Tan Yong case happened just a few months ago, when the Ningtai County Criminal Police Detachment provided a dog and multiple criminal police officers including Jiang Yuan to support Changyang City’s Criminal Police Detachment. The sense of gratitude was still fresh. “Don’t bother going home tonight,” Huang Qiangmin called Jiang Yuan again, saying, “Just sleep at the office. I’ll have the local station pay more attention to your home. Generally, it’s no big deal. This is the safest and least troublesome way.” “Okay,” Jiang Yuan agreed readily. If he insisted on going home now, he might even need to take a bodyguard with him. Even so, home wouldn’t be as safe as the office. It was better to stay at the office and work overtime through the night. Most importantly, there was still no concrete evidence to prove the existence of a murderer. Although Jiang Yuan, under the guidance of Master Wu Jun, could now accept the idea of facing embarrassment, he still hoped to minimize the repercussions before then. ... At the county bureau. From the main entrance, one could see the brightly lit building bustling with busy personnel. For law enforcement officers, standing three stations away, one could sense the aura of a murder case just looking at the police station today. In the forensic office, Wu Jun had not only made his bed on the floor, but had also enjoyed a good sleep. Seeing this, Jiang Yuan directly pulled Wang Zhong, dismantling and reassembling his “high-spec computer” in the adjacent Trace Examination Office, and then, he turned it on to enhance the video. In the Trace Evidence Office, Yan Ge, who was also working overtime, was initially stunned and then said helplessly, “You don’t want to disturb your master, so you use this engine to torture us.” “My master has already fallen asleep, it would be too cruel to wake him now,” Jiang Yuan said as he offered a Zhonghua cigarette, smiling. “Take a smoke, wake your brain up, I’ll be done quickly.” “That’s what I told my wife last time as well,” Yan Ge said self-deprecatingly as he picked up a cigarette, soon finding pleasure in the stimulation of nicotine. Jiang Yuan pulled up the video that had just been uploaded to the internal network today and sat down at his desk to start working carefully. Enhancing a video was much more difficult and complex than enhancing a photo. The simplest form of video enhancement was to enhance every frame of a video. An even simpler method was to take a few frames from the video, enhance them, and then analyze the target directly. Jiang Yuan didn’t know what he would find this time, so he was enhancing the video as a whole. In practice, this involved using software and algorithms to enhance the entire video and then checking the results. So far, the detectives from several teams had spread out and brought back 6 mobile phones, each with a video. The duration of the 6 videos focused on the time of the incident was not very long; the first video Jiang Yuan saw was only 3 seconds, and the longest one was just over a dozen seconds. The angles and distances of the shots varied greatly. Two videos shot from the ground floor were almost useless. The two videos shot from other buildings with a head-on perspective were not bad, but the remaining two videos also didn’t reveal much. Jiang Yuan decided to take the two head-on videos and enhance them separately. Video enhancement algorithms can be run over and over again. And unlike what most people might imagine, video enhancement typically involves selecting one algorithm and running it many times, but it’s not easy to switch to a different algorithm and run it again. Because the different principles of video enhancement often conflict with each other, running one and then another does not make the video clearer, but often completely blurs it. Jiang Yuan, determined to get results, first chose a suitable algorithm and ran it for over an hour. Finding the effect unremarkable, he switched to another algorithm and continued running it aggressively. While the algorithm was running, Jiang Yuan went back to the office to sleep. Sleep for an hour or two, then come back and check again. Yan Ge and Wang Zhong, disturbed by the noise and having finished their work, decided to move their camp beds into the forensic doctor’s office to sleep. After running the programs until morning, Jiang Yuan took out the video with the best conditions and started playing a game of “Spot the Difference” frame by frame. Enhancing single images at this point was extremely challenging, but he eventually managed to make out something faintly. “Is there a pair of shoes here?” Jiang Yuan called Wang Zhong over to look at the image on the screen. From a distance of several dozen meters, perhaps even a hundred meters, the mobile phone camera zoomed in as close as possible. The captured human figure was tiny, and looking through the glass curtain wall to see if there was a pair of shoes inside was... But under high magnification, Wang Zhong actually saw a pair of sports shoes. “Is that for real? Is there really a pair of shoes?” Wang Zhong was somewhat skeptical. “And they are two-toned or multi-colored,” Jiang Yuan insisted as he pointed at the screen. He was confident in the results he had produced. “Should we inform Captain Huang?” “Let’s do that.” Jiang Yuan replied, feeling slightly relieved. Huang Qiangmin quickly came with his team to examine the image. The enhanced images and videos weren’t completely comprehensive. Much like a beauty camera, enhancing one part meant sacrificing another. So the images didn’t look very good. And the only pair of shoes, from Huang Qiangmin’s perspective, didn’t really reveal much. It could be the killer, an eyewitness, or perhaps just an image error... Huang Qiangmin didn’t utter a word, simply nodded in appreciation and then said, “The social relationships of the victim are rather complex, we plan to follow that thread first.” Following social relationships to find the culprit has always been an effective method in murder cases. Especially for those killers who hide their tracks, it’s often presumed to be someone the victim knew. In these traditional investigative methods, Jiang Yuan had no say. After some thought, he said, “It will take a few more days for the trace evidence results to come out. I want to go look at shoes in the market.” As soon as he heard it, Huang Qiangmin understood that Jiang Yuan wanted to find shoes that matched the footprint evidence. If such shoes could be found, it would certainly help advance the case. Huang Qiangmin had seen other footprint experts do similar things, immediately agreed, and added, “Make sure someone stays with you all the time.” Jiang Yuan didn’t refuse, after all, he had work to do, and it would be a chance to have a chat with someone.

Chapter 160 - 160 155 Sneakers

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