Diary of a Criminal Investigator-Chapter 364: The Truth Behind the Scenes

When Sun Jun and his team were handling the Wang Huifang murder case, Lu Chuan was still working on the fingerprint identification analysis on his side.

Even though the fingerprints were relatively clear due to the bloodstains, they were too fragmented for a complete analysis, so Lu Chuan had to resort to similarity analysis for manual identification.

It was Lu Chuan’s third time refreshing the system page and adjusting the fingerprints for system analysis.

The broken fingerprints not only failed to provide consecutive feature points, but were also few in number, adding to the difficulty of Lu Chuan’s analysis.

Ultimately, the method Lu Chuan adopted was to segment the bloody fingerprint into four relatively complete parts and then conduct identification and analysis on each part.

Simply put, this segmentation method transformed a fingerprint that couldn’t be analyzed as a whole into four relatively independent ones for identification.

With this approach, two issues arose: firstly, the workload increased. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Originally, it was just one fingerprint to analyze, but now it was four, making the workload four times the original.

The other issue was that the accuracy of the analysis decreased; if the four parts could be matched in the system to the same individual, it would indicate a successful match.

This certainly increased the difficulty.

Lu Chuan was currently working on matching the third part of the fingerprint.

In fact, it was more of a verification because the results of the previous two fingerprint parts matched the same person.

Lu Chuan was now using the preceding matching results to directly verify the quarter of the fingerprint previously separated.

With the foundation of the previous two comparisons, the third matching was quickly completed.

"Wang Jian... Huangzhou... it should be him."

Lu Chuan only had a fingerprint and hadn’t looked at the dossier materials.

He had no idea what connection Wang Jian had to Wu Qizhou’s death.

Nor did he know that once Wang Jian was linked to Wu Qizhou’s death, the investigation might enter an entirely new stage.

The Liangzhou case would very likely be solved too.

"Done!"

With the successful matching of the last quarter fingerprint, Wang Jian’s identity was confirmed without a doubt.

With the result in hand, the identification report was relatively simple, consisting of some textual details and screenshots of Lu Chuan’s recent system analysis.

In Qin Yong’s conference room, after listening to Zhang Chao’s interrogation report, this four-year-old unsolved case was finally understood completely.

Good news also came from the excavation site in West Valley Village, where the murder weapon was found, completing the evidence chain without issues.

Leaning back in his chair, Qin Yong let out a long breath.

It had been four years since the case, and at that time Qin Yong was already the team leader. When the case wasn’t solved back then, the entire Criminal Investigation Team missed out on their year-end bonuses.

In reality, as a police officer, no one wants a case to remain unsolved.

For some cases, no matter how much you dock the salary, they remain unsolvable.

After all, even the ministries have unsolved cases hanging over them and wanted criminals they can’t capture.

But Qin Yong had no choice; regulations dictated that failure to solve a case, especially a murder turning cold, meant all evaluations and year-end bonuses would be canceled.

There are humane measures, however, in that past cold murder cases, if solved later, would receive substantial rewards.

Maintaining this momentum should result in a good harvest at year-end.

A team leader doesn’t earn much more than others.

Without resorting to corrupt practices, they only earn a few thousand more each month than average officers, yet bear much more responsibility—more pay deductions if a case remains unsolved.

Thinking about this, Qin Yong unconsciously thought of Lu Chuan.

Four years and all the previously accumulated unsolved cases in the Criminal Investigation Team have recently been resolved.

"Today, we drink to celebrate, ambitions yet unfulfilled will continue, for there’s always tomorrow..."

Knock, knock, knock.

Humming his little tune happily, Qin Yong immediately straightened up, picked up paper and pen, pretending to review documents.

"Come in."

The voice was still commanding, befitting a team leader.

"Captain Qin, it’s me."

"Oh, it’s Lu, come in, have a seat."

Seeing that the person who knocked was Lu Chuan, Qin Yong immediately got up from behind his desk to pour tea for Lu Chuan.

This level of treatment was unprecedented.

Indeed, it might rightfully be unique.

In Qin Yong’s view, Lu Chuan is the Criminal Investigation Team’s lucky star; on one hand, there’s still several tens of millions from an initial billion donation under careful management.

This portion of funds improved more than just the team’s facilities, and the team members became much more confident during business trips.

While not staying at five-star hotels, they certainly graduated from staying in hostels.

On the other hand, the cold cases Lu Chuan had solved were all performance points.

Resolving one cold murder case provided performance points that put the Criminal Investigation Team in the lead within Haizhou City Public Security Bureau’s year-end performance review.

Crucially, it wasn’t just one cold murder case solved this year; adding the achievements in the city’s and the province’s fingerprint battles, plus a few minor cases and current homicide cases.

All these were performance bonuses, and performance bonuses meant money.

In recent years, the provincial department’s requirements for solving murder cases became increasingly stringent.

So they set aside a portion of performance as murder case reward performance.

If a location has no murder cases, the money remains untouched, but once a murder occurs, if the case is solved the funds are rewarded, but if not solved, not only is the money fully docked but there’s no year-end bonus.

Though just two or three thousand, to police officers, that’s a significant amount, roughly equivalent to a month’s salary.

Sometimes, the ministry has special rewards for murder case investigations, with individual shares reaching a few hundred.

So when a murder occurs, even though everyone works overtime tirelessly and perhaps inhumanely, if the case is solved, the rewards are indeed substantial.

Lu Chuan used these funds every month to refuel, which was quite enough.

"Thank you, Captain Qin."

Lu Chuan took the tea brewed by Qin Yong with both hands and stood up to express gratitude.

Qin Yong waved it off: "The Wang Huifang case, we’re very fortunate you did the Footprint Identification and Analysis."

Delayed murder is extremely rare, with most people never having the chance to encounter these.

Zhang Chao has proved to be quite talented, managing to put these things together just from watching movies.

"It’s what I should do."

Lu Chuan took out the fingerprint identification analysis report beside him: "Captain Qin, this is the fingerprint you asked me to identify this morning, and the results are in."

Hmm?

It actually matched?!

Qin Yong hadn’t detailed the actual situation of this case to Lu Chuan.

However, Cheng Zihao had explained it in detail, and if the fingerprint really matched, the implications might extend beyond one life.