Chapter 209 - 209 201

209: 201 209: 201 Park the car. Turn off the engine. Open the door and get out, the car door can be opened to its maximum without hitting the car parked next to mine. Jiang Yuan felt quite pleased. Being a tall guy, getting in and out of the car was never that convenient for him, and the narrow parking spaces only added to his discomfort. However, even in the county town, parking spaces spacious enough to open the car door freely were rare. Unless you went to some ancient town outside the city, parking in the city had been tight since a decade ago. The newly acquired parking spot was different, with a flower bed on his left side and an acute angle cut over, giving parking space C16 a few extra centimeters. Jiang Yuan carefully observed that one-third of the parking spaces in Area C were like this, quite convenient corner spots. Even if some government officials have questionable social intelligence, they wouldn’t unwittingly waste so much space—such waste could only be intentional. Looking around, Jiang Yuan felt that the flower beds wasted even more space. Moreover, the parking lot’s surveillance cameras didn’t cover the entire area, a setup that was surely the brainchild of bureaucratic minds, given the nature of the institution. The walk from the parking lot to the brigade’s office building was indeed much shorter. Along the way, everyone greeted Jiang Yuan with a warm smile. Jiang Yuan, being tall and wearing a gray-rank police badge, was easily recognized from a distance. He enjoyed this kind of police station atmosphere—everyone was amiable, like wild relatives encountered during a holiday homecoming. Even if he couldn’t recall everyone’s names, the warmth of their smiles was genuine. “Behave yourself!” Wu Junhao’s voice, penetrating and commanding, reached Jiang Yuan’s ears. Turning his head, he saw Wu Junhao pushing a crime suspect towards the interrogation center, his movements on the way a bit rough. The handcuffed suspect, however, wore a thick-skinned grin and casually said, “Don’t be mad, I just bumped into someone a little. It’s nothing serious, nothing serious...” “Stop grinning like it’s nothing. How could you say it’s just a bump with all that blood?” Wu Junhao’s voice grew louder, and his jowls puffed up. Wu Junhao was thoroughly engrossed in his scolding when he turned his head and saw Jiang Yuan walk in. “Eh, Doctor Jiang is back?” Wu Junhao couldn’t help but break into a smile. If he could be working on homicide cases, he’d have little interest in dealing with such minor public security cases. The double-faced suspect, witnessing Wu Junhao’s swift change of expression, muttered under his breath, “Who’s grinning...” “Want to die?” Suddenly, Wu Junhao’s face appeared right between the suspect’s eyes. The large, intimidating face frightened the suspect into trembling. Jiang Yuan replied to Wu Junhao, exchanged greetings, and went upstairs. Master Wu Jun had already prepared the Xuande stove and red eggs. Jiang Yuan smoothly carried out the traditional Ningtai forensic doctor’s ritual. Once the stove cooled down a bit, he kicked it under his desk and, while peeling an egg, asked, “Is there a lot of work in our county?” “A bit, but not too much. Did a few injury assessments, and there was a traffic death,” said Wu Jun as he also took a red egg to eat. “You’ve worked hard,” Jiang Yuan quickly responded. Normally, two people handled the county’s workload, but when he was in Qinghe City, all the daily tasks fell on Wu Jun’s shoulders. Although it wasn’t the first time... precisely because it wasn’t, he felt the need to express extra gratitude. “Only reports are left; you can write them,” said Wu Jun, seeing Jiang Yuan’s earnest attitude, and decided to give him a sense of participation. Jiang Yuan then opened his computer and started diligently writing reports. Writing reports was somewhat tedious, but considering that Mu Zhiyang had to write ten times as many, Jiang Yuan felt a lot better. After roughly dealing with the work left in the county, by the afternoon Jiang Yuan found himself with some free time. Having nothing else to do, he decided to go next door to the Image Investigation Office and copied some surveillance footage to watch. The three modern treasures of criminal investigation: surveillance footage, mobile phones, DNA. Especially for common cases in the city, solving them through footage is relatively simple. Jiang Yuan also used this time to review the various camera locations he had seen during the day. After watching the plain footage for a while, Jiang Yuan felt as if he were watching silent films and quickly lost interest. He simply logged onto the intranet and pulled up the newly reported cases from the past few weeks to review. For a county bureau, there are always many cases throughout the year that remain unsolved. Considering how many cases are weeded out before even being filed for various reasons, the actual proportion of cases solved is not high. But on the other hand, cases that are filed still have a certain investigative value. Jiang Yuan quickly shifted his focus to cases around the Jiangcun Residential Area. After all, he now had no superiors to report to. And why should the criminal investigation unit have to explain their actions to others? Just do it. In recent weeks, there were quite a few incidents around the Jiangcun Residential Area, but the nature of these cases was light, mainly thefts and mixed fights. Jiangcun Residential Area was still somewhat on the outskirts of the city. Many out-of-towners passing through Ningtai County would often travel via Jiangcun. The occasional crime was hardly unusual. Jiang Yuan selected a theft case that involved a bag-slasher stealing a mobile phone and began to look into it. Actually, solving theft cases is not without its challenges. First of all, most theft cases are committed at random. Just this one point actually deters many criminal investigation techniques. Veteran detectives have an advantage in this area because the suspects in theft cases often come from a circle of miscreants with strong regional ties and dense networks of relationships. A bit of questioning can easily yield answers. However, if you try to solve a theft case without using informants or networks, it may be even more difficult than solving a robbery case. Small-time thieves are more familiar with the blind spots of cameras, and even if a few of them are rather stupid, they are still learning little by little, diligently, and seriously. For Jiang Yuan, this level of difficulty was just right. He wanted to test his understanding of surveillance systems. Besides, Jiang Yuan had another powerful tool at his disposal. He had already recognized the faces of several small-time thieves who frequently committed thefts in Ningtai County. Although it was difficult to see their faces clearly with the quality of surveillance in Ningtai County, after familiarizing himself with several videos, Jiang Yuan could identify some of their gait patterns. Gait recognition technology is already very mature in our country. The first phase of surveillance AI used at airports and high-speed train stations employs this technology. Theoretically, it can identify thousands of individuals at once. On the other hand, face recognition is more humanized and requires setting up dedicated checkpoints for identification and can only compare faces one by one. Of course, Ningtai County would not have such surveillance AI, and in fact, even if similar gait recognition systems are installed at airports and high-speed train stations, they are not used to catch petty thieves. Intelligent young people like Jiang Yuan are not so precious. Within the area and timeframe reported by the victims, Jiang Yuan quickly found a familiar gait. By following the trail, he discovered that this person had spent a long time at a bus station three kilometers away from Jiangcun Residential Area. The place where he lingered was outside the surveillance area, indicating that he knew the location of the cameras at the bus station. For a standard image investigation officer, this would be a problem. If you want to catch someone, you need solid evidence, preferably by staking out at the bus station in advance or placing a camera to gather proof. But now, in Ningtai County, where there are many people but few thieves, the thieves cannot get through one bus station in a day. Even if two or three police officers were deployed, they might wear themselves out for half a month or even a month to possibly catch evidence, and the cost of manpower is too high. No image investigation team would go to such lengths for a phone that doesn’t belong to a foreign friend or important person. Moreover, a lost phone is not necessarily stolen, which is another reason many people report their phones missing but cases are not filed. The reason why the case Jiang Yuan found was filed was because the victim’s bag had been cut open. This confirmed that the phone was stolen, not simply lost. Jiang Yuan continued to look for other surveillance cameras. Having now confirmed that the individual was stealing, the question became: how to view footage of the theft in progress. Soon, Jiang Yuan found a surveillance camera that was farther away. Without saying, Image Enhancement Technology was brought into play. Filtering out a few images at the confirmed time point and slapping on some LV5 Image Enhancement, the action of cutting the bag and stealing the phone was all captured. “Hmm... this is at 13:32 on June 17th,” Jiang Yuan noted the time, recorded the surveillance number, took a photo with his phone, and continued watching. It turned out that the workload of a petty thief was quite substantial. This one was not progressive, still sticking to the old pattern of bag-cutting theft and had simply switched from stealing wallets to phones. It was still the same two-person operation. Jiang Yuan estimated about 10 years’ worth of prison time for him and forwarded it to Wei Zhenguo. A moment later, Wei Zhenguo’s call came through, “Goodness, haven’t you just come back?” “Just found it while playing with the surveillance...” Jiang Yuan had a brief chat with Wei Zhenguo and put down the phone. Downstairs, Wei Zhenguo had already packed up, ready to set off to catch the thief. Jiang Yuan hung up the phone, and as he was about to look for another case, the ringtone sounded again. Upon a glance, it was Liu Jinghui. Jiang Yuan sighed, Ningtai County still had petty thieves because everyone was committing too many murders. If everyone could kill fewer people and have fewer murder cases, allowing the police to spare the effort, wouldn’t these petty thieves be caught quickly? Jiang Yuan sighed and answered the call, “Director Liu, is there a case?” “We haven’t finished with Wangguoshan’s case yet.” Liu Jinghui sighed and said, “This guy is a tough one, after being sent to the detention center, he’s started bargaining with us.” “He’s definitely getting the death penalty, what’s there to bargain about?” “Asking for better food and such, that can always be arranged,” Liu Jinghui’s voice sounded tired. “The key issue is that the interrogation isn’t going smoothly, Yu Jun, the coal miner, do you remember him?” “Of course.” “Yu Jun was the oldest corpse we found, but he might not be the first person Wangguoshan killed, and the details of Yu Jun’s murder are something Wangguoshan isn’t willing to talk about. I’m planning to visit the scene,” Liu Jinghui said. “The scene of Yu Jun’s death?” “Yes, Zifeng Mountain Coal Mine. I’m planning to bring a couple of dogs to see if we can find anything.” Using dogs already indicated what Liu Jinghui was thinking – he was going to look for a body. Jiang Yuan couldn’t help but think of the last case involving Tan Yong, where a group of dogs found bodies in the ventilation shaft of the mine. “Did Brigade Commander Shen Feihong agree to this?” Previously, Liu Jinghui’s proposition to bring dogs to the coal mine was rejected by Brigade Commander Shen Feihong. Indifferently, Liu Jinghui said, “He didn’t object. I’ll just transfer dogs from somewhere else.” “Should I go there tomorrow?” “Forget it, just stay put. You can’t do much before we find the body, and it saves you from offending Shen Feihong,” Liu Jinghui added a few more words before hanging up the call.