National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 1089 - 1020: Elements

Conducting an investigation across six cities and multiple counties, including hotels, inns, and homestays, can be considered an extremely extensive operation, but for Xu Taining, it’s more like a trivial task.

Xu Taining himself had other work to handle and couldn’t possibly come over just for this minor investigation. If he were to show up, it would be to oversee the entire operation. Simply narrowing down the suspect’s lodging locations wouldn’t necessitate his involvement.

So Jiang Yuan broke down the tasks and assigned them to the criminal investigation teams of the six cities and counties. Since it involved multiple cities across two provinces, coordinating a united operation was no small feat. Even if the provincial department stepped in, it could only assist with communication, as centralizing leadership would require intervention from a higher-ranking authority.

At this stage, the capabilities of the respective criminal teams came into play.

Honestly speaking, relying on all six criminal investigation teams to perform flawlessly is quite unrealistic. An organization, by its nature, is even more complex than an individual. From a simple perspective, just as individuals might deal with headaches or other minor ailments, organizations also go through their phases of inconsistency. On a more complex level, such transient states can directly affect work efficiency.

This is precisely why Xu Taining’s proposed plans often manage to secure substantial funding from even the stingiest leaders. Upon hearing any of his proposals, it’s hard for them not to get tempted.

For instance, in this "Six County Plan," it didn’t matter if all six criminal investigation teams weren’t entirely reliable.

Under Xu Taining’s method, the investigations could fail for several reasons: the direction might be wrong—maybe the perpetrator didn’t even park their vehicle in the nearby cities or counties. Perhaps they routinely returned to a hidden lair or drove directly to the crime site without stopping, struck quickly, and vanished, or maybe they just slept in the vehicle itself. Any of these situations could lead to dead ends in the investigation.

Alternatively, in a more likely scenario, the traffickers weren’t operating in such a frugal capacity. Instead, they might have stayed ahead of time in various spots, scouted the surroundings, executed their plans to snatch children, and then left immediately afterward.

The latter scenario, clearly, is more probable. Moreover, if this was indeed the model they used, even if one or two criminal teams were unreliable, the rest would still yield answers.

From an error tolerance standpoint, Xu Taining’s plan was almost maxed out. The individual costs per operation also weren’t exceptionally high.

For investigations of this scale, the primary expense was transportation. Since police officers aren’t paid overtime, stations with limited budgets meant criminal officers had to pay out of pocket for meals during overtime shifts. At wealthier units, providing one free meal and a bottle of salty soda water was considered extravagant.

Overall, Xu Taining’s quickly devised investigation plan turned out to be the most reliable approach among all current directions in this case—though it was undeniably the costliest among them.

Still, Jiang Yuan believed that if Director Xu personally took charge, he’d surely come up with an even costlier and more refined solution.

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Jiang Yuan himself didn’t participate in the hotel inspections. This kind of work, whether handled by criminal investigators, the public security unit, or local police stations offering assistance, was painstakingly tedious. It didn’t require advanced forensic expertise and could be safely left to officers equipped with strong stamina and persistence—an old-school policing method.

The other investigative directions were similar. Whether involving undercover informants, cyber security analysis, or tracking known offenders, none required Jiang Yuan’s unique set of skills.

Instead, Jiang Yuan opted to visit the nearest crime scene in Qingshi City.

Although it was already an old crime scene, without bloodstains, DNA, or other traces, primary crime scenes are always critical. Moreover, to put it plainly, Jiang Yuan’s expertise in crime scene investigation was undoubtedly among the best in the country.

Another point of interest for Jiang Yuan was his skepticism about how the surveillance had failed to capture anything useful.

Today’s monitoring system, colloquially referred to as "Skynet," could be considered highly developed. While it wasn’t without its flaws—the system had countless loopholes, typical of any government-funded infrastructure—it still posed significant challenges for any perpetrator.

Generally speaking, for all their cunning, criminals’ best efforts rarely outmatch the deliberate negligence of incompetent officials. This asymmetric dynamic, drawing from the governance experience dating back to the Tang Dynasty in China, still defined modern societal operations.

Completely evading surveillance—even after scouting locations and routes in advance—is undeniably difficult. The key issue here was that for a human trafficking ring reliant on child abduction for profit to successfully bypass surveillance six consecutive times, their operational capabilities seemed almost overly formidable.

Jiang Yuan spent over two hours driving before he finally arrived at Lanhua Township in Cuigang County, Qingshi City.

Leaving central Qingshi City took just 20 minutes. Entering Cuigang County was another 40 to 50 minutes. However, covering the 30 to 40 kilometers from Cuigang County to Lanhua Township took an entire hour.

The crime scene was located in Jide Village, south of Lanhua Township. By local standards, it was a relatively large village, featuring an elementary school, a small grocery store, a playground, and a mix of over 200 elderly people and children as residents. Smaller surrounding villages would even send people here for schooling and shopping.

However, Jide Village itself had no surveillance, not even in the small grocery store, where cameras were deliberately omitted.

The incident occurred on the stretch of road between the elementary school and the grocery store.

This road was partly a county road and partly a village road. The village road was a little over three meters wide and had only been constructed in the past decade. The county road, wide enough for two cars to run parallel, showed minor signs of wear and tear.

Further complicating matters, there was also no surveillance within a two-kilometer radius of Jide Village. Yet, based on the map, for the suspect’s gray van to reach Jide Village, it surely had to pass through the county road and nearby vehicle checkpoints several kilometers away.

The fact that it hadn’t been captured there directly implied that Jiang Yuan, utilizing Level 3 technical surveillance technology and Level 6 "Image Investigation—Trajectory Analysis," determined on-site that they likely took alternative routes to bypass the checkpoints entirely.

This opened up a wealth of possibilities.

One possibility was that the suspect was particularly clever, having identified the checkpoints’ locations and deliberately avoided them without leaving behind evidence.

Another possibility was sheer luck: for some coincidental reason, they missed being flagged at a checkpoint.

Yet another possibility was assistance from locals or collaboration with gang members familiar with the area—or perhaps a night entry. Due to outdated monitoring equipment in the area, nighttime video resolution was abysmal, offering little meaningful detail.

"Zhiyang, Yaowei, you two each take a car and try bypassing the two surveillance points from here. Take separate routes—one towards the west and one towards the south," Jiang Yuan instructed Mu Zhiyang and Shen Yaowei. He also assigned additional officers to both vehicles to record the difficulty of circumnavigating the checkpoints.

The "Skynet" surveillance system becomes increasingly sparse the further one moves from city centers towards rural areas.

As a fixed-point monitoring system, expecting it to form an impenetrable web is unrealistic. It primarily deters individuals unfamiliar with this system.

In essence, Skynet operates on an information gap.

An individual aiming to evade its detection has several options available. However, intentional evasion tends to distort behavior, which serves as the system’s primary psychological deterrent against professional criminals.

That said, criminals—especially those in well-organized gangs—will inevitably find methods to exploit the system. However, monitoring isn’t the sole tool in the police arsenal.

Shen Yaowei and Mu Zhiyang both returned in less than half an hour.

"There’s a small road—easy to bypass," Shen Yaowei reported after getting out of the car and began sketching the route on paper. "There are at least two or three narrow lanes suitable for vehicles. The checkpoint is at a crossroads, and the neighboring village is populated by many residents—some run trucking businesses and others operate farm-stay operations. The road conditions are good and provide effortless workaround routes."

Mu Zhiyang waited for him to finish before stepping forward to add, "I went west—also manageable for detouring. However, I found only one old path. It’s rough and not in great condition, so you’d need to drive slowly."

"So, avoiding the checkpoint doesn’t necessarily require local assistance. As long as someone knows where the surveillance is, it’s pretty straightforward to bypass," Shen Yaowei concluded efficiently, well aware of what Jiang Yuan was after.

Jiang Yuan gave a slight nod and asked, "How would they know the locations of the surveillance?"

"Purchased resources from the dark web?" Shen Yaowei speculated, keeping up with modern trends.

Jiang Yuan neither confirmed nor denied. "It’s possible."

Mu Zhiyang added, "Traversing entirely over rough roads would be safer. That old path I took seems quite long—no possibility of surveillance there, that’s for sure."

"But if the road is too rough, that wouldn’t work either," Shen Yaowei remarked.

Mu Zhiyang replied, "Even the county road we took to get here had many worn-out sections."

"No matter whether it’s full rough roads or partial, evading monitoring will require at least some detours onto poor-quality roads," Jiang Yuan said before turning to Wang Chuanxing. "Coordinate with the team leads in the group chat and suggest including this as a consideration in investigative questioning."