National Forensic Doctor

Chapter 1305: Chapter 1231: A 1000-Mile Fate

Jin Mountain.

Garbage dump.

Inside the blue barricades.

The police scattered like enlarged gray mice, burrowing in and out of the trash.

Jiang Yuan needed relatively intact and seemingly valuable items that didn’t appear to be discarded residential waste. Moreover, both the forensic center and elsewhere had limited space for storing garbage, so moving the entire trash pile over wasn’t feasible.

So, while on the surface it seemed like a garbage-picking process, it was actually a process of evidence hunting, ultimately still resembling garbage picking.

A gust of wind blew by, lifting a hood mask off someone’s head and carrying it away...

The owner of the hood mask was a young detective wearing glasses, with a gentle, bookish face that looked easy to bully. It was clear he was a recent graduate from an ordinary university. He hopelessly reached out with his hand, ultimately watching the mask drift a few meters away and sweep the trash, giving up on retrieving it back to his head.

Witnessing the entire scene, Shen Yaowei couldn’t help but smile, walking over to say, "Go and wash your hands for a break, and put the mask back afterwards."

The young detective, holding his breath, decided to be candid, "Forget it, it doesn’t matter whether I wear the mask or not, it all stinks."

"Wearing the mask, you’ll smell for three days; without it, you’ll smell for a week. When you’re planning a weekend date with your girlfriend, you’ll thank the mask," Shen Yaowei imparted with his rich experience to the young detective.

The young detective smiled shyly, "I don’t have a girlfriend yet."

"Well... don’t go home smelling either. Once we solve the case, the task force will have a break, and you don’t want to go home smelling like garbage. Your old man might think the life of a police officer is sifting through trash every day."

The young detective paused, then said softly, "My parents are gone."

Shen Yaowei was taken aback, "I’m sorry..."

"It’s okay, I got used to it. They went out to work years ago and never came back, and we’ve lost contact." The young detective smiled brightly, as if he’d practiced in front of a mirror, "I got used to it. My grandfather was really good to me... but he also passed away."

"Take a break," Shen Yaowei quickly reassured, reluctant to ask further.

The young detective hung his head, went down the garbage hill, and sat in the shaded gate, casually washed his hands, and drank a saline soda silently.

Not many people were willing to talk in the whole garbage transfer station.

Although it was just over ten meters long, six to seven meters wide, and more than a meter high, flipping through it wasn’t necessarily easier than a large garbage dump.

Most of the trash in the garbage dump was actually already clumped together, and the garbage transfer station here was about the same. There were 11 garbage trucks fixedly coming to deliver trash every day; initially, they might finish unloading, but that didn’t mean the workers would shovel it cleanly. As the "temporary" transfer station’s "temporary" period grew longer, more and more trash accumulated, and about half of it gradually became old garbage.

There was no need to pull out all this garbage for inspection, but the surfaced lumps that weren’t too consolidated still needed some checking.

All this work and these details brought about a sense of despair.

Except for Wei Shikan.

Wei Shikan had also been a newcomer, but his newcomer period wasn’t like others’ newcomer period.

He had participated in task forces, but his participation in the task force wasn’t the same as others’ participation. noveldrama

Wei Shikan was the only one who didn’t do any hard labor.

Not even after entering work, and not even during school, had he done it.

So, when flipping through the garbage dump, with the prefix "case-solving" and the tag "homicide," Wei Shikan didn’t feel it was hard or tiring at all.

Because he had a choice, still wearing the same personal protective equipment as Jiang Yuan.

"Drinking water is just not convenient," Wei Shikan, feeling tired after a while, automatically returned to the gate to rest.

Shen Yaowei saw it but said nothing, silently making more effort to flip through the garbage.

He wanted to be worthy of Jiang Yuan’s understanding!

"Want some water?" Wei Shikan, holding a bottle of saline soda, walked to the garbage heap, reaching out with a dirty hand to hand it to Shen Yaowei.

Shen Yaowei glanced at it and sighed, "No, I don’t want any."

"I have a mask on, so it’s inconvenient. You only have a mask, drinking water would be easy," Wei Shikan was a bit puzzled.

Shen Yaowei looked around and reluctantly said, "Drinking water on a garbage heap? Not that thirsty."

"Actually, after staying a while, it doesn’t smell as bad," Wei Shikan chuckled twice.

Shen Yaowei: "How about you take off your mask before you say that?"

Wei Shikan immediately reached to remove his mask, but then stopped, "Forget it, putting it back on is troublesome, you don’t want any, I’ll go rest."

Saying that, Wei Shikan didn’t wait for any response before comfortably sitting down.

Shen Yaowei’s face turned bitter with jealousy, and couldn’t help but say, "Some people really do have it differently."

The detectives who knew Shen Yaowei’s identity gave sidelong glances.

...

Entire items, or seemingly intact objects, were dug out from the garbage heap and transported to the forensic center where Jiang Yuan was.

Shen Yaowei and others at the garbage dump were just selecting, not filtering. Items that seemed about right were sent over.

Jiang Yuan then changed into his third set of personal protective gear for the day and reviewed these items one by one.

Behind him, Cui Qishan, Liu Jinghui, and others were also equipped, examining the items Jiang Yuan had looked over.

Items were neither ranked nor prioritized; no one knew if they were related to the victim or the suspect, so the selection process relied purely on intuition.

This process, albeit mystical and marvelous, went unquestioned by the detectives present or those not in the task force.

Because the detectives often solved cases based on this.

Many things, verbally indescribable as evidence, provided clues that couldn’t be ignored. Conversely, some cases couldn’t precisely describe the evidential items.

But, a single look might affirm that it was one of the evidential items.

Just like two plastic ropes.

Blue plastic ropes, both quite long, one over a meter and the other about two meters. One end of both ropes was tied, viewed separately they seemed ordinary, but together, one could tell they were actually one rope, cut in the middle.

Despite being so long, even when cut, it could still be used; for ordinary purposes, discarding it would be a waste. Of course, such plastic rope might be used by merchants for packaging large parcels or deliveries, which homeowners might discard after unpacking, but found here, tied in such a peculiar way...

When Jiang Yuan picked it up, a single glance from Liu Jinghui brought him over immediately.

Jiang Yuan looked at Liu Jinghui, allowing the reasoning professional to speak first.

"Could it have been used to bind the victim?" Liu Jinghui gestured, "Tie the hands, wrap around twice, then knot, wrap a few more times, and knot again? For regular tying, such a long rope wouldn’t be necessary."

Jiang Yuan pieced together the knotted parts of the rope, forming an irregular, fist-sized circle.

Everyone present brightened.

"Let’s test it." Jiang Yuan called Miao Ruixiang over, the one with the slenderest wrists.

Miao Ruixiang clasped his hands together, and Jiang Yuan looped the rope around them. It was slightly thin, but considering the victim was female and that the plastic rope could be tightened, the size of the loop seemed more fitting.

"I’ll see if I can extract DNA." Jiang Yuan said, sitting aside with the rope, and then said to Liu Jinghui, "Director Liu, could you handle the arrangement?"

"Alright." Liu Jinghui naturally understood the implication, mulling over his response, "Now, if we assume these plastic ropes were used by the suspect to bind the victim, analyzing the residual substances on the rope is Jiang Yuan’s work. Later, if we manage to find unique contaminants on the rope, we can investigate further, but given they were transferred from a garbage truck, the primary concern is the plastic rope itself."

Liu Jinghui paused, "I think what we can do immediately is to track the supplier. This will be done by Jiang Yuan later, but first, if we can identify unique contaminants from the rope, further investigation is viable. Remember, the rope was transferred from a garbage truck, so our primary thought should be the plastic rope itself."

Liu Jinghui continued after a pause, "What I suggest we do right away is trace the supplier. If we can find the exact products shipped to the vicinity of Jin Mountain, consider the ones shipped to Beijing—which should be fewer in number."

With that, Liu Jinghui began assigning tasks, and Wang Chuanxing took notes.

At that moment, Jiang Yuan said, "The way the perpetrator tied the victim’s hands wasn’t very professional, just simply wrapped and then tightened with a dead knot. The victim’s wrists were already beyond recognition. Often in prison, where inmates have nothing to do, they exchange techniques with each other. Those interested in robbery and kidnapping might learn things like the ’pig hoof knot,’ ’eight-character tie,’ or ’reverse hand tie’ with no effort at all."

Even those who hadn’t been to prison could naturally learn some tying techniques from videos if they planned to commit abduction.

But now, Jiang Yuan had suggested calling the task force. He said, "You handle the briefing; I’m going to the lab to analyze these two ropes."