Day Six.

Jiang Yuan followed Wang Lan and brought Wang Zhong along as the driver, passing by the First People's Hospital and the Second People's Hospital of Qinghe City in order.

At this stage of the case, it had really become a slow process.

Jiang Yuan yawned out of boredom.

Wang Lan was also slightly influenced by Jiang Yuan, but she didn't want to yawn openly and show her teeth. Instead, she covered her mouth with her pale hand and soon started yawning continuously.

Wang Zhong, who was driving, felt like he was also being influenced. He yawned twice and quickly said, "Forensic Jiang, it seems like this is your first time participating in an investigation."

"Um... I think so. I haven't done many cases." Jiang Yuan couldn't recall clearly.

In fact, he had done quite a few cases, at least more than Wang Zhong had done in recent years combined.

Wang Zhong laughed and said, "Actually, when we used to work on cases, we often had to travel around. The old detectives used to say that cases are solved by running around, and they made us run until our legs broke."

"Going from one hospital to another like this, I've never encountered it before." Jiang Yuan shook his head. Every time they arrived at a hospital, they had to find the imaging department and request to see their X-rays.

Some hospitals were better and could directly show them the complete X-rays, while others required them to fill out various forms in the medical administration department before they could see the X-rays, which were often incomplete.

Fortunately, Numbers 2 and 4 had confirmed ages and genders. They could enlarge the former a bit, then narrow down the search to the past 10 years, and finally cross-reference the list of missing persons. The number of X-rays they would have to look at wouldn't be too many.

Of course, in order to see the dental images of Number 4, they might have to make a separate trip to the dental department or something similar. After half a day, they had only visited two hospitals.

Fortunately, there weren't many hospitals in Qinghe City, so it felt like they would be able to finish quickly.

The downside was that if they couldn't find a matching X-ray after finishing, the three of them might have to make a trip to Changyang City. There were many hospitals there, and the workload would be overwhelming.

In this slightly worried and apprehensive state...

At the next hospital in Qinghe City's Qianjin District, Jiang Yuan unexpectedly saw an X-ray that matched Number 2.

"This is it." Jiang Yuan's emotions were surprisingly calm after finding the person. There was no ecstatic joy or more intense emotions as he had imagined.

Perhaps it was precisely because they had found it. When this certainty appeared, the panic that had arisen from uncertainty earlier lost all its flavor.

"Zhu Jin. Male. Disappeared from Zhujiazhuang six years ago." Wang Zhong looked at the hospital report and then searched the internal network.

Due to being temporarily seconded to the special task force, Wang Zhong's phone had also been given permission by the Provincial Department. In a moment, he found all the information about the case.

"This person is a farmer from Zhujiazhuang. If he is still alive, he would be in his forties. I didn't expect there would still be middle-aged people willing to work in the village." Wang Zhong was definitely a young person, and his way of speaking was quite youthful.

Wang Lan happened to be in her forties as well. She took Wang Zhong's phone and looked at it, shaking her head. "Working in the village doesn't necessarily mean farming. Maybe it's animal husbandry or something else. Once it's confirmed, I'll call Director Shen."

Jiang Yuan agreed and, during the gap when Wang Lan was making a phone call, gestured for Wang Zhong to take a statement from the doctor.

The doctor couldn't remember the X-ray from six years ago. A small operation like a fractured humerus was also forgettable.

Even so, Wang Zhong's mood was still good.

With this, a total of three sources of corpses, Numbers 1, 2, and 5, had been clarified. It took an average of two days to confirm one source, which wasn't considered slow.

The remaining Number 3 would probably have some progress soon, and Number 46 would depend on the progress in the future.

Just as they were thinking about it, Wang Lan came back excitedly.

"We don't need to investigate Number 4." Wang Lan happily said, "It was also news at noon. The source of the corpse has been confirmed."

"How did you find out?" Jiang Yuan was surprised.

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"Mitochondrial DNA." Wang Lan said, thanking the doctor and then pulling the two of them out. She whispered, "Our bureau chief went directly to the provincial capital and urged the DNA laboratory at the Provincial Department. Otherwise, we would probably have to wait in line for another one or two weeks."

"Is it that exaggerated?" Wang Zhong was surprised.

"Only the Provincial Department can do mitochondrial DNA testing, and they have a lot of work. Moreover, our bureau chief expanded the scope of comparison to the whole province. It's fortunate that it was expanded to the whole province, otherwise, we wouldn't have been able to make a match..."

Extracting DNA from a highly decomposed body is very difficult. For a body that has been abandoned for several years, it usually needs to be extracted from the bone marrow, but the success rate is not high. It often requires multiple attempts to succeed.

Running DNA tests takes about a day, and unless the people in the DNA laboratory work overtime without sleeping, they can only run two tests in a day.

Therefore, doing this kind of DNA testing is very time-consuming.

Currently, DNA identification can be divided into three types.

One is the most common autosomal DNA identification, the second is Y-chromosome DNA identification, and the third is mitochondrial DNA identification.In this case, the Y chromosome is inherited by the male family members, such as fathers, sons, and grandfathers, who share the same set of Y chromosomes.

Mitochondrial DNA is inherited by the maternal family members, such as grandmothers, mothers, and sisters, who share the same set of mitochondrial DNA.

Y chromosome DNA identification is now often used for criminal investigation within a population. For example, in the Silver Case, the culprit was identified using Y chromosome identification, which led to the identification of his uncle and eventually himself.

The advantage of mitochondrial DNA identification lies in the strong survivability of mitochondria, which can often remain active in highly degraded environments and be identified. In the Hangzhou Wife Murder Case, the husband reported his wife missing, and eventually, skin tissue and residual organs were washed out from the septic tank in the residential area. Mitochondrial DNA identification proved that they belonged to his wife, thus confirming the crime.

The identification methods of DNA instruments and mass spectrometers are similar, both drawing a curve on a strip of paper.

If the peaks and valleys of the curve match, it is considered a match, otherwise it is considered a mismatch. During this process, contamination from noise peaks also needs to be dealt with.

Based on the strength of the DNA laboratory and the abilities of the technicians, the subsequent DNA identification process for these corpses will probably take several days.

The next day.

The special task force held a meeting.

Liu Jinghui appeared energetic.

After several days of competition, Comrade Liu Jinghui had gained the upper hand in terms of influence.

Today was no exception. The Deputy Director of the Qinghe City Bureau, Shen Feihong, only said a few words before giving the floor to Liu Jinghui.

As a cadre from the Provincial Department, Liu Jinghui didn't need to go through so much preamble. He opened the booklet like he was participating in a one-night stand and bluntly said, "After analysis, we have compiled the information on the victims into a booklet and distributed it to everyone..."

Liu Jinghui himself also opened the white booklet and said, "Here, I want to emphasize numbers 2 and 3."

"Number 2, Zhu Jin, male, from Zhujiazhuang, disappeared 6 years ago at the age of 35, with a height of 1.72 meters. What's special about number 2 is that he worked as a farmer. Zhu Jin rented his relative's land to grow corn, totaling about 40 to 50 mu. In addition, Zhu Jin and his wife raised 4 sows and made money by breeding piglets."

"From the information I have gathered, Zhu Jin gave up going out to work due to pig farming, so his daily activities were limited to Zhujiazhuang and nearby village markets. He rarely went to the county town."

"However, on the day Zhu Jin disappeared, he went out on a motorcycle, so we need to consider the distance covered by the motorcycle. Additionally, the whereabouts of the motorcycle can also be considered as a clue."

Liu Jinghui carefully analyzed the case, quickly convincing everyone present like an experienced night club veteran.

After introducing a few more specific details, Liu Jinghui mentioned number 3.

"According to the analysis by Forensic Doctor Jiang Yuan, we believe that the occupation of number 3 requires long periods of squatting and heavy lifting. Through our screening of the missing persons and DNA comparison, we have confirmed that the deceased of number 3 is named Yu Jun, male, 38 years old, from Qinghe City. He disappeared 10 years ago and was a worker at the Zifengshan Coal Mine in Qinghe City..."

A buzzing discussion broke out in the meeting room.

Disappearing 10 years ago meant that the killer had started killing 2 years earlier.

The expressions of several leaders from the Qinghe City Bureau became even more unpleasant.

Having a killer lurking for 10 years without any information meant that it couldn't be considered a mistake, but it also couldn't be said that the social security was good.

However, if the killer had been moving around neighboring cities, the embarrassment would be shared by several city bureaus, making it less severe.

"Next, based on the current intelligence, we have the following plans..." Liu Jinghui proceeded to make arrangements.

Jiang Yuan also listened attentively.

Although Jiang Yuan didn't think that deduction was reliable, with enough information, simple logical reasoning could still lead to useful conclusions.

Liu Jinghui continued to assign manpower and conduct detailed checks, to the extent of forming two-person teams.

Jiang Yuan quickly understood Liu Jinghui's approach.

In the absence of directly identifying the suspect through the corpses, Liu Jinghui seemed to want to analyze the area where the killer might be located.

This was a somewhat clumsy but very effective plan.

According to the current judgment, the killer needed equipment such as electric saws or chainsaws to dismember the bodies, and they had possessed such equipment since 10 years ago. The proportion of households or units with such equipment would definitely be low.

If they could determine the area where the killer was located, even if the range was large, with several thousand or tens of thousands of households, deploying hundreds of police officers would have a high probability of finding the person.

In fact, this was also a traditional investigative technique of the police. Why didn't the police like to handle small cases? Because some small cases required this kind of approach to solve.

As Jiang Yuan listened to Liu Jinghui's arrangements, looked at the information of the victims in the booklet, and then looked up to see Liu Jinghui waving his arm in front of the map, he suddenly felt a strong sense of painting.The sketching skill he had once acquired was "only" at LV2, but it gave Jiang Yuan a strong, intuitive sense of drawing.

In the middle of the conference table, there were maps and other items of the local area piled up.

Jiang Yuan bent down to pick up one, and with the pen he always carried with him, he began to draw on the spot.

He was sketching the living areas of several victims.

His lines were very accurate, just like sketching. In his mind, it was as if there were multiple little figures running around on a large map.

He marked the places they had run through with double shadows, and the places they might have run through with single-line shadows, just like sketching still life.

Soon, most of the map had turned black and shadowy, but amidst the black and shadows, a long, blank, clean area appeared on the map.

Such a result was somewhat surprising to Jiang Yuan.

Upon closer inspection, the blank area was more than ten kilometers long and four to five kilometers wide, like a plump white silkworm lying on the map.

The head and tail of the white silkworm were two towns.

The head was Zhangshan Town, more than twenty kilometers away from the reservoir, and the tail was Lichang Town, more than thirty kilometers away from the reservoir.

Zhangshan Town belonged to Qinghe City, and Lichang Town belonged to Jianjiang City.

"Did they move?" The idea popped into Jiang Yuan's mind.