Chapter 162 - 162 157 The Murder Weapon

Words : 1815 Updated : Sep 19th, 2025

162: Chapter 157: The Murder Weapon 162: Chapter 157: The Murder Weapon The commercial street in Ningtai County was constructed in imitation of Nanjing Road. Of course, the level of prosperity and scale of the two do not compare, but the leaders’ earnest intentions are praiseworthy. Overall, the central commercial street of Ningtai County is simply a sealed off road, with shops on either side opening up and some buildings demolished for commercial use to expand the business areas. At the same time, there are constantly little alleys and junctions in the midst of the commercial street, dispersing crowds. Before online shopping became popular in the county, in terms of population density alone, the commercial street was not inferior to Changyang City in Shannan Province. The discount store that Jiang Yuan and his team had sought out was located at the corner of a small alley and the commercial street. And it was in a surveillance blind spot. “This person has done thorough research on surveillance cameras,” Wen Ming frowned as he stepped out of the police station. He had been a detective for several years and had never seen such a cunning criminal. Before this, the problems he encountered were mostly legal issues, procedural issues, and sometimes issues with the victims’ families or superiors. The criminal this time gave Wen Ming a completely different feeling, like going fishing with a lure. You think there’s a snakehead in the pond, so you bait the hook, using a fake frog, mimicking various movements of crawling animals. But whether there’s actually a snakehead in the pond or not, before anything bites, is actually not known. Jiang Yuan comforted the more experienced Wen Ming in return, saying, “At least we got a sample of the shoe, we can go back and check other surveillance cameras to see if there’s anyone wearing shoes of this appearance.” The two employees of the discount store also described the appearance of the assailant, but with the language used to describe an ordinary middle-aged man with a common face, it was really too ordinary and common to be used as a basis for catching the criminal. Although Huang Qiangmin had applied to upper management for a portrait artist, everyone was not hopeful about it. At present, there are only two on-duty portrait artists in Shannan Province, and their workload is gradually diminishing. The problem with portraits is not whether they resemble the subject or not, it’s rather difficult to use them to find a criminal; they are more often used in reverse confirmation. That is, after the suspect is caught, then they are compared with the portrait. But in cases with eyewitnesses, this approach is really unnecessary and superfluous. Some units even believe that portraits interfere with the investigation... Taking the Baiyin case as an example— The reason this case became nationally known was that it exhausted various criminal investigation techniques, which all turned out to be ineffective. The case had fingerprints, but they didn’t match; it had DNA, with DNA collected from every male in the city, but still no match occurred; it even had a portrait, and after the person was caught, the portrait was quite similar, but still no match during the investigation stage. After the case was finally solved, just in Su Province alone, 5 people were awarded first-class merits, 12 received second-class merits, 19 third-class merits, and 24 received commendations. Some police officers can say that they devoted their entire career to this case. Perhaps some may say that in movies and TV shows from the country of the Statue of Liberty, portrait artists always seem impressive. That’s because it’s a country of immigrants. Nations of immigrants have a higher degree of diversity in appearance, making it easier for portrait artists to capture distinctive features. In many small places, a certain genetic expression may truly be unique to a single individual. For example, a flat face, small eyes, a flat nose, black hair—search throughout the entire town, and you may indeed find only one such person, or not many more. In some countries with ordered inheritance and extensive genetic blending, a portrait artist’s job becomes much more challenging. Moreover, without being cultivated early on, by the time a portrait artist’s skills gradually improved, surveillance cameras had been installed faster all over the country. In contrast, in the country of the Statue of Liberty, people are unwilling to cede their privacy rights to the government, limiting the extent to which surveillance cameras are set up. Due to differences in national conditions, police operating methods vary greatly as well. Out of respect for the homicide case, Huang Qiangmin invited the provincial portrait artist over. But the focus of the work was still on scanning surveillance footage. A good dozen people were circled out and started scouring the monitors in the Image Investigation office. The surveillance around the commercial street, around the Wanghe Building, it’s all one area when spoken of, but when you combine many days’ worth of surveillance along with different departmental surveillance, it becomes a huge number. If it weren’t for a homicide, the integration of these surveillance videos would be a huge challenge and burden without an Image Investigation Brigade. That’s also the key reason for the widespread establishment of Image Investigation Brigades. With an Image Investigation Brigade, the primary benefit is the consolidation of usage rights for surveillance cameras from various departments, reducing a lot of unnecessary internal consumption. As for Image Enhancement and such tasks, Image Investigation departments outside the capital city do not pursue these. They can’t hire people, and even when they do, they can’t retain them. Jiang Yuan also searched the footprint database through the pattern of the shoe sole and came up with nothing, indicating that the criminal suspect really bought a new outfit in the store and then committed the crime. This also indirectly implied that the suspect had a strong purpose and premeditated the crime. Therefore, following the traditional method, old detectives who crawl through personal networks along the lines of grievances and resentments became energized. If you premeditate a crime, there must be a reason, suggesting a motive. So if a motive could be found, or rather, people who had disputes, would that lead to finding the murderer? The victim was a young man, with a small social circle, even including his family disputes, there were not too many people involved. Several seasoned detectives immediately set off on their journey. Jiang Yuan was not optimistic about it. The reason was clear: although the crime was premeditated, typically, those who kill because of grudges or vendettas are ordinary people. This time, the suspect was far from ordinary. At the very least, they knew how to evade surveillance. This skill wasn’t necessarily hard to learn, but it certainly required practice, and more than just a little learning—it had to be rehearsed. Street cameras are hardly hidden; they’re starkly visible, yet even so, a regular person or first-time offender couldn’t possibly avoid them all. Even the surveillance at Wanghe Building was evaded by the killer, who probably entered through something like an employee passageway, avoiding the main entrance and lobby. Without surveillance footage, there wasn’t even a chance to perform image enhancement. There were no footprints or fingerprints. Jiang Yuan took out the photos of the autopsy his master took and went over them several times, to no avail. In the following days, some people began to question again whether it was homicide or suicide. At this point, the first batch of trace evidence sent to Changyang City had been returned. Not only Jiang Yuan, but nearly half of the Criminal Investigation Detachment’s technicians gathered to study it. Trace evidence, after all, merely proved the existence of certain materials. Their meaning still needed to be analyzed and interpreted by everyone. Each report of the trace evidence was sealed in a kraft paper envelope. Inside were just a few pages of standard A4 paper, with tables, data, and analytical conclusions. Jiang Yuan tore open one and reviewed it before passing another to someone nearby. Detachment leader Lu Jianfeng personally brought back the reports, sitting next to Jiang Yuan as he watched him tear open the envelopes and remarked, “Look at the service from the labs, a report in its own bag. These few hundred bucks weren’t spent in vain.” Everyone could only smile wryly in agreement. As the case progressed, the pressure was felt by everyone. At this point, spending a few hundred on a piece of trace evidence didn’t seem like much at all. Jiang Yuan looked through the first report without a word and handed it to the person next to him. The next person reviewed it and then passed it on. Everyone silently circulated the reports. Whether trace evidence from different locations was meaningful or not was uncertain. Interpretation was also quite important. However, the focus was always on those substances and quantities that defied common explanation. Jiang Yuan, frowning, quickly flipped through half of the kraft paper envelopes. Just as he was feeling somewhat dejected, a conclusion in a new envelope caught Jiang Yuan’s attention. “They found wood shavings in the trace evidence on the victim’s chest,” Jiang Yuan pointed out abstractedly, his eyes lighting up slightly. Lu Jianfeng immediately grabbed it to look and examined the photos specifically, gesturing to the location on Wang Zhong’s chest and said, “The position is interesting. Did the killer use a weapon?” Jiang Yuan turned directly to Wu Jun, “Master, did you notice the swelling here?” “The chest area? Indeed, there was some swelling. I took photos.” After answering, Wu Jun also took a closer look at the report of the trace evidence. As Jiang Yuan continued to look, a sudden thought sparked in his mind: “It’s a mop stick, isn’t it?” Jiang Yuan murmured to himself. Suddenly, the thought process clicked for everyone. “Very likely,” Lu Jianfeng slapped his thigh and gestured with his hand, “Take a mop stick, prod the victim’s chest, and you could push him over. Check the position of the shoes in that video photo, does the distance match?” With the photos in front of them, everyone spread them out to see and nodded in agreement. “But would the victim just stay quietly by the window and let himself be prodded? And why climb a window?” Gao Jiansheng from the Image Investigation office measured the distances while raising the question. “A person in good shape climbing a window is either after money or has been wronged, or else, they were bullied?” Wu Jun analyzed one by one. “In that case, other employees of the victim’s company are suspects,” Lu Jianfeng deduced. Jiang Yuan naturally followed this line of thought, reminding, “We’ll need to find that mop stick! It’s a weapon now.”

Chapter 162 - 162 157 The Murder Weapon

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