The conference room.

The air conditioner hummed loudly, shaking the hanging plants in the corner of the room with its strong gusts.

The plants swayed calmly, stretching their graceful forms like Zhao Feiyan finding a job in the mortal world, or like Pan Jinlian striking gold in a live streaming room... As the wind shifted, the plants' branches and leaves were less affected, and their posture became more rigid and strong, like Pan An strutting in the market, or like Wang Xizhi drunkenly shouting rap.

Liu Jinghui took the report from Yu Wenshu's hand, only to find that it was filled with dense numbers and charts.

He flipped to the last page and saw a paragraph written in bold letters: "In summary, there is reason to suspect that the Xingzi Valley copper mine, located 25 kilometers west of Changyang City, is the burial site."

In that instant, Liu Jinghui felt as though he had suddenly become a martial arts master, as his temples throbbed with pain.

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The Xingzi Valley mine was within the scope of Liu Jinghui's investigation, and he had a strong impression of it.

In fact, during today's meeting, Liu Jinghui had planned to send people to the Xingzi Valley copper mine. He was confident that with another round of investigation, he could narrow the scope from 25 to less than 10, and then to 3 or 5 at most in the third round of investigation. At that point, with the help of police dogs or other technical means, there would be a good chance of finding Tan Yong's burial site.

This was a storm of intellectual prowess, a classic demonstration of solving a case through meticulous thinking.

However...

Liu Jinghui stared at the thick report in his hand.

Those cold, hard numbers and charts were like cheat sheets, making him feel bored and frustrated.

When did the elegant detective disappear, only to be replaced by these foolish blockheads?

"Tell me about this 'In summary'," Liu Jinghui shook the report and had to look up at Jiang Yuan.

Jiang Yuan didn't pay attention to Liu Jinghui's attitude. He had been busy for days and had just received the report. He said excitedly, "I conducted a thorough inspection of Tan Yong's vehicle and came to the following conclusion..."

"Tan Yong's car is the Pajero, right? Hasn't it already been inspected? A second inspection is likely to be contaminated by the first one," Liu Jinghui interrupted Jiang Yuan.

"My main focus was on collecting trace evidence, mostly from places that are not easily contaminated," Jiang Yuan said.

Liu Jinghui laughed, "What part of the car is so pure?"

Nearly a hundred people were in the conference room, all craning their necks to listen. Someone naturally laughed along.

Jiang Yuan didn't laugh. He calmly looked at the center of Liu Jinghui's large head and said, "The first piece of evidence was taken from the third layer of paint on the left front fender of the suspect's vehicle. I speculate that the car ran over some gravel on the side of the road, and the gravel hit the fender, embedding a trace amount of stone powder in the paint. When the suspect later repainted the fender, he inadvertently preserved the evidence."

Liu Jinghui was momentarily stunned and asked, "The third layer of paint?""Yes, I found that the suspect Tan Yong's Pajero had a lot of partially repainted areas, so I decided to take down the repainted paint layer by layer. Including the topcoat, middle layer, bottom coat, putty... Some cars will have several layers of paint, so we'll take as many layers as it has. Then, we'll use a microscope to find trace evidence layer by layer."

Liu Jinghui felt a headache just listening to it, his first thought was: this is too inelegant.

At this time, a leader who knew a little about on-site investigation next to him asked, "Do we have to use a microscope? That's too much work. Can't we just use tape to collect it?"

"Ordinary tape won't work because we're looking for trace evidence, many of which are in milligrams. So the adhesive on the tape will cause contamination, and in the end, the evidence we find may not be useful."

The leader next to him felt a chill down his spine.

Jiang Yuan saw no other questions, "The third page is a detailed description of this evidence. Its content matches the composition of the ore in Xingzigou Copper Mine, and the trace evidence was done in the provincial bureau's trace evidence laboratory. The newly purchased fluorescence analyzer requires a low sample size for detection..."

Jiang Yuan was also collecting trace evidence for the first time after obtaining the system's skills, so he did everything meticulously.

Liu Jinghui listened to the terms Jiang Yuan mentioned impatiently, but had to admit that his answer was very tempting.

After thinking for a few seconds, Liu Jinghui gestured and said, "So your guess is that when Tan Yong drove past Xingzigou Copper Mine, the stones on the roadside kicked up by the wheels were actually ore, which hit the front fender of his car and embedded into the paint. And when Tan Yong repaired the car, he didn't handle it carefully and just painted over it?"

Jiang Yuan was silent for a while.

The conference room with over a hundred people became unusually quiet.

At this time, Jiang Yuan organized his words and said, "Tan Yong's car is old, and he often goes to construction sites, so he always goes to a familiar repair shop, where many things are handled roughly."

Then Jiang Yuan answered the second question, "There are stones everywhere on the roadside of Xingzigou Copper Mine, left by trucks that transported ore before. The larger pieces should have been cleaned up, but there are still a lot of small pieces of ore left, which can be seen on the scene."

Then, for the third question, Jiang Yuan said slowly, "Xingzigou Copper Mine is a dead end and does not lead to other places. So Tan Yong going to Xingzigou Copper Mine should be his destination."

Compared to the thick report, Jiang Yuan's simple reasoning made Liu Jinghui feel a little more comfortable, but only a little.

Liu Jinghui "ummed" and asked, "So why do you think Xingzigou is the burial site?""The mineral particles of exhibit 3 were taken from the rear right door, similar to exhibit 1. The plant fibers of exhibit 4 match those found in Xingzi Valley. These can also be used as indirect evidence to show that Tan Yong has visited Xingzi Valley multiple times. Additionally, all these exhibits were found over three years ago. Other particles found in the car either came from outside Changyang City or from Tan Yong's workplace, making it less likely to be the burial site." Jiang Yuan spoke slowly.

By the time he finished speaking, Liu Jinghui had already agreed with him.

The burial site must be a place that Tan Yong visited multiple times, which was a key point he had already determined. Plus, Xingzi Valley Copper Mine was already within his range of judgment. It was hard to say how much of his questioning earlier was just to test Jiang Yuan.

But ultimately, solving the case was more important. Liu Jinghui had to lower his head and read Jiang Yuan's report, which took quite some time.

It wasn't until there was a low hum of conversation in the conference room that Liu Jinghui looked up and said, "Alright, let's modify today's meeting goal to focus on Xingzi Valley Copper Mine. Gaochu, can you make arrangements?"

Gao Qiang, a third-level senior police officer who came with them, had been keeping a low profile these days. But since Liu Jinghui invited him, he didn't hesitate and cleared his throat before standing up and saying, "Then let's divide into a few groups first..."