Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

Zhang Hui nodded in agreement: "I agree with Captain Wang's opinion. In addition, although the surveillance footage of the construction site has been deleted, we can visit the shops and residents around the construction site. Maybe someone has seen the deceased or a suspicious person. Also, the dry well is in a hidden location. The murderer was able to accurately choose the location to dump the body. He is likely familiar with the surrounding environment. This is also a direction for investigation."

"Zhang Kai, do you have anything to add?" Lu Chuan looked at the forensic doctor.

Zhang Kai pushed up his glasses and said, "I suggest that we compare the DNA of the deceased and enter it into the missing persons database. At the same time, we should test the skin tissue extracted from the nail crevices. We may be able to find clues related to the murderer. In addition, we also need to trace the source of ketamine in the deceased's body. This drug is strictly controlled and has limited illegal distribution channels. We may be able to find the source of the murderer."

Lu Chuan wrote the words "Confirm the identity of the deceased" on the whiteboard and circled them with a red pen. "Just do as everyone said. Focus on finding out the identity of the deceased first. This is the key to solving the case. Time is running out. All teams should act immediately and report any clues in a timely manner."

With the sound of chairs being moved, the team members quickly stood up and filed out of the conference room. Thus began an investigation that raced against time.

Zhang Hui's job is rather boring, as he is responsible for matching missing persons.

The air conditioner in the Criminal Investigation Brigade's data center made a low hum, and twenty-four computer screens cast a faint blue light in the confined space. Zhang Hui rubbed his sore neck and adjusted the LED fill light on his workstation for the third time. The cold white light slanted onto the desk, illuminating the half-meter-high pile of missing persons files.

"Xiao Wang, divide all the missing male records in the second half of 2023 by age, and create a separate folder for the 35-40 age group." Zhang Hui typed on the keyboard without looking up, with the densely packed ID numbers on the screen jumping in front of his eyes. His assistant Xiao Wang pushed his glasses that had fallen off, and the printer spit out a long piece of thermal paper. The smell of ink mixed with the burnt aroma of instant coffee filled the air.

The comparison work started with the most basic appearance features. Zhang Hui called up the 0.3D reconstruction of the deceased's face, and the computer analyzed it pixel by pixel with the database photos. "The width of the cheekbones differed by 87 mm, and the curvature of the nose bridge matched %," he muttered to himself, and suddenly pressed the pause button - a similar photo popped up on the screen, and the missing person was a truck driver in a county town. But when zooming in to check the details behind the ear, he found that the other person did not have the birthmark mentioned in the autopsy report, so he could only continue to slide the mouse in disappointment.

"Brother Zhang, the dental record matching system has crashed!" Technician Xiao Li's exclamation broke the silence. Everyone's eyes were cast on the big screen. The originally scrolling detection progress bar was stuck at 32%, and the error pop-up window kept flashing. Zhang Hui loosened his tie and walked to the server. The keyboard tapping sound was as rapid as drumbeats: "Retrieve the log and check if the data is overloaded." Half an hour later, the system restarted, and he found that he had to reset the matching parameters - in order to improve accuracy, all records of women and ages that did not match must be manually excluded, which meant that the previous three hours of work were all in vain.

During lunch break, the reminder sound of the microwave heating lunch box rang out in the empty office. Zhang Hui stared at the cooled fried rice in the lunch box and suddenly remembered that he forgot to answer his daughter's call yesterday. The latest photo in the mobile phone album was a little girl's smiling face holding a perfect test paper, but at this moment it made his eyes sore. "Captain Zhang, the provincial department has sent a new batch of data on unsolved missing cases." The voice of intern Xiao Zhao came from behind, and more than two dozen encrypted files instantly filled the desktop, like a to-do list that would never be cleared. The afternoon's work turned to DNA matching. Zhang Hui imported the genetic map of the deceased into the system and watched the progress bar move forward at a snail's pace. Technician Lao Zhou came over: "There are 127 million records in the city's DNA database. At this rate, it will take three days to run through them all." They tried to narrow the scope and give priority to matching missing persons who have been active in the west of the city in the past three years, but every time the "match failed" prompt popped up, it was like a heavy hammer hitting their hearts.

At six in the evening, the clock on the lower right corner of the monitor ticked on time. Zhang Hui organized a temporary discussion, and the eight team members sat around the messy conference table. "I checked thirty dental clinics, and there were 17 people who met the requirements for root canal treatment, but their ages didn't match." Xiao Wang flipped through the worn-out notebook, his voice full of fatigue. Lao Li, who was in charge of visiting the construction site, shook his head: "The foreman said he had never seen the dead. Cement debris is too common."

Zhang Hui pulled up the table he had compiled during the day. The thirty-six suspected targets marked in red were now marked with glaring crosses. "Hold on a little longer and expand the scope to the three surrounding cities." He pressed his finger heavily on the map, "Focus on checking those who are engaged in physical labor and have suddenly lost contact recently." However, reality once again poured cold water on them - news came from the neighboring city that a construction worker who had been missing for three months, although wearing similar work clothes, had fingerprints that did not match the deceased at all.

At 1327 o'clock in the evening, only sporadic keyboard tapping could be heard in the data center. Zhang Hui stared at the th missing person photo on the screen. The scar at the corner of the other person's eye cheered him up, but after carefully checking the time of disappearance, he found that it was an old case from five years ago. When he got up to get hot water, he saw the bright lights of the city outside the French window, and he seemed to be trapped in a cage made of data, out of tune with the prosperity of the outside world.

When the morning light illuminated the windowsill again, Zhang Hui's eyes were bloodshot. After 24 hours of high-intensity work, all he got was a constant "no matching record" in the comparison result column. He rubbed his swollen temples and heard a suppressed yawn behind him - Xiao Zhao was the only one who took a 20-minute nap on the table throughout the night. The printer spit out the last test report, which fell lightly on the trash can covered with waste paper, like a fallen leaf that no one cared about.

"Go on." Zhang Hui put on his glasses again and clicked the mouse to start a new round of comparison. The blue light of the screen reflected his tired but determined face. In this battlefield without gunpowder smoke, every failure means one step closer to the truth, and the meaning of criminal investigation work may be hidden in this seemingly endless boredom and persistence.

On the other side, Wang Shuai was investigating the dental clinic.

After the meeting, before the sun completely dispelled the city's mist, Wang Shuai was already standing in the center of the Criminal Investigation Brigade's meeting room, with the eyes of 20 team members focused on him. On the whiteboard, the city's 132 dental clinics with root canal treatment qualifications were circled in red in a grid pattern, with the western part of the city being the most densely populated.

"Listen carefully," Wang Shuai used a laser pen to draw a line across the map of the west city, "The murderer dumped the body in a dry well near the construction site in the west city, and the cement debris on the victim's clothes also pointed to the west city." (End of this chapter)