CHAPTER 1280: CHAPTER 1207 SUSPECT

The question posed by Liu Jinghui rendered Jiang Yuan silent.

Honestly, the presence of art pieces in the cow farm didn’t seem like an issue to Jiang Yuan. To be blunt, if Jiang Fuzhen suddenly had a whim and impulsively bought some art pieces to place in the cow farm, it wouldn’t be surprising at all.

But from another perspective, even if Jiang Fuzhen would put art pieces in the cow farm, it would be because he enjoys spending time there, not because he has a cow farm where art pieces are placed.

How could a cow farm owner who genuinely appreciates art possibly place Zhang Daqian’s paintings in such an unsuitable environment like a cow farm? Not to mention the difficulty of controlling both temperature and humidity, the environment of a cow farm is simply not suitable for appreciating paintings and calligraphy.

However, Jiang Yuan hadn’t considered these issues before. His approach to solving cases is technical and, in a certain sense, rather reckless.

Fingerprints are handled as fingerprints, footprints as footprints, and other tool marks, bloodstains, bones, whether whole or partial corpses, can all serve as breakthroughs for Jiang Yuan’s investigations. Additionally, Jiang Yuan’s image investigation skills have rapidly developed in the past year, or to put it another way, he has acquired them.

With such a combination of techniques, ordinary criminals truly cannot withstand it.

The fight between police and criminals in the country is quite unfair, especially in recent years. Let alone gangs and the Daoist Sect, even the Black Society has been nearly eradicated. Without an organization backing them, ordinary criminals hardly have any opportunity to refine techniques and develop personal abilities.

Jiang Yuan turned to Liu Jinghui and said, "Director Liu, could you talk about the case?"

Liu Jinghui waved his hand, "Information is too scarce. I’m just providing a reminder. My question earlier suggests that we might want to ask the people at the cow farm when they bought the painting and when they placed it in the cow farm."

Jiang Yuan nodded and said, "Let’s use Director Liu’s method. Wang Dadi?"

"I’ll make a call to the team," Wang Zhihao immediately took out his phone and made a call on the spot.

The police officers in the hall began discussing out loud.

Whether it’s insurance fraud or internal conspiracy, they both imply an intriguing point, which is premeditated crime.

Nowadays, ordinary police encounter fewer premeditated crimes, with impulsive crimes becoming more frequent. And as this case seems to be growing more complex, everyone speculates fervently.

Wang Zhihao, holding his phone, initially sought privacy, but seeing the atmosphere in the scene, he simply dialed back to his team and ordered, "Zhou, take three people to Mu Jian Cow Farm, and make a detailed report. If necessary, bring the people back..."

Wang Zhihao gave a few detailed instructions without hiding anything, and the group of detectives listening found it quite engaging — realizing that leaders in other teams are just like this, there’s a sense of relief — possibly that kind of feeling.

When he finished speaking, Jiang Yuan took over the conversation and said, "Looking at this case now, there’s something to it. Since that’s the case, let’s deal with it step by step. Firstly, let’s investigate the possibility of a familiar face committing the crime. Wang Dadi, do you have the list of interpersonal relationships of the 25 employees at the cow farm?"

"I have it; I’ll send you an email," Wang Zhihao had psychologically prepared before meeting Jiang Yuan and now followed the standards used for higher officials.

"Chuanxing." Jiang Yuan didn’t need to look at the email himself, turning to say, "Assign these 25 people to everyone. We have around 200 people here, right? Each group has 10 people, each group analyzes the interpersonal relationship list, and each group submits a report. Well...those who are too busy or have work at night can opt out; otherwise, form teams yourselves."

Given the current police distribution, forming a task force of over 200 people is easy, but forming a team of 200 people to study the interpersonal relationships of 25 individuals — even families with one or two children — can’t compare to the tragedy of annihilation.

Wang Zhihao listened to Jiang Yuan’s instructions without uttering a word.

Jiang Yuan’s arrangement clearly was not confined to just the provided list. Ten or so people studying one person at the cow farm...as a leader, Wang Zhihao had a mere dozen people under him.

Thus, from a broader perspective, it’s only logical for them to expand the investigation list, revealing circumstances that he hadn’t uncovered.

As for the constraining aspect—there’s not much Wang Zhihao can do about it. As previously mentioned, policemen are the most socially integrated members of the public officials, thus they are the most open-minded group.

In this world, teachers often fail to see the larger picture; they are the members most disconnected from society. Unburdened by complex environments, surrounded by healthy and sunny students, they are entitled to their discontent and disillusionment.

Police officers have witnessed death and can distinctly see how a person dies, even seeing the fate of those who can’t see the bigger picture.

The more tragedies seen, the more mundane issues and minor conflicts are viewed openly; the more fortunate incidents experienced, the harder it is to overlook minor grievances...

The detectives in the hall were quite proactive.

On one hand, just listening to lectures can be tedious, even though everyone came willingly for training. Just like people who buy courses online, it’s easy to purchase but hard to self-study. Now having something to do, it actually feels relaxing.

On the other hand, the officers attending the training are often sharp-witted. Being organized into groups by Jiang Yuan incited an urge to excel, and when any group has someone with such a competitive drive, the desire to win emerges.

Discipline forces encourage competitiveness; any contest, no matter how meaningless, as long as it’s a competition, members of discipline forces will naturally strive to win. If defecating faster meant getting noticed, there wouldn’t be a single cigarette butt on the bathroom floor.

Soon, the hall was buzzing with chatter.

The 25 teams varied in numbers, each adopting their own investigation tactics. Jiang Yuan didn’t mind and continued to sit and review the documents’ pictures and videos.

Nowadays, people’s interpersonal relationships are usually hard to conceal, unless it’s a false identity or long-term secluded life. Otherwise, call records are never deleted, and the same goes for WeChat logs. If willing to put some effort in, even deleted WeChat chat logs can be retrieved — they remain on the server side.

As for hotel records, they are easy to check. Any officer can query them on the police system, and for more complex data, it’s akin to tracking "spatial overlap" or "spatial association" during a pandemic, allowing an individual’s behavior trajectory during a specific period to be exhaustively traced—it just depends on how meticulously you wish to investigate.

Due to the large number of investigators involved this time, the checks would undoubtedly be exceedingly thorough.

Soon, suspect lists started getting handed over.

Without Jiang Yuan having to specify, Wang Chuanxing had already sent notifications previously used by the special task force into the group chat with all the trainees, including regulations for querying involved personnel.

With so many teams, naturally no one could call involved personnel directly as they pleased — should they alert the suspect, everything would be in vain. Plus, phone inquiries can only clarify minor details; concerning interests, even if you state your identity, the other party won’t divulge if reluctant, wasting the first interrogation opportunity.

Thus, the officers assembled in groups handed their organized suspect lists to Wang Chuanxing, who then passed them to Wang Zhihao, the latter naturally would coordinate with available personnel to conduct investigations.

By dinner time, the dozen suspects on the list had all been investigated.

"Currently, among those listed, none show clear signs of criminal activity, including two individuals released from jail recently; they have fairly solid alibis." Wang Chuanxing compiled the report for Jiang Yuan, specifically mentioning, "Li Yuan City Bureau, hearing you took over the case, had Technical Investigation involved but found nothing."

"This is getting interesting." Liu Jinghui approached at this point and said, "A crime committed by a familiar face should correspond naturally to being an insider. If it’s not a familiar face, then either internal personnel collaborated with external ones to commit the crime, or it had to be the work of highly skilled thieves. Art valued at hundreds of thousands or millions certainly warrants that."

"But it doesn’t explain the placement of Zhang Daqian’s painting in the cow farm," Wang Zhihao countered at this point, "Considering this, isn’t the cow farm owner the prime suspect?"