National Forensic Doctor-Chapter 959 - 895 True Love

Zhang Dinghui was stunned for two seconds, then sat up, put on a piece of clothing, and leaned against the head of the bed: "So, the conclusion now is that it is definitely a remote-controlled bomb, and the perpetrator is still at large, right?"

"Yes." The person on the other end of the phone was Chief Deng Jiabin, who had also been awakened from sleep and had just asked a similar question. At this moment, he could only provide the simplest and most direct answer.

"Do you have any plans?" After Zhang Dinghui finished, he remembered the day’s experience and changed his question: "What are Jiang Yuan’s plans?"

"Jiang Yuan suggests we take it step by step. Now that the circuit board has been found, we should look into the manufacturer of the circuit boards, then trace back through the supply and sales chain, and see if we can find the final purchaser. Also, they have discovered other fragments of remote-controlled bombs and are verifying them."

"Now they are being called remote-controlled bombs, huh." Zhang Dinghui said, and wanted to ask more questions, then thought differently: "Let’s have a teleconference, and gather the colleagues at the scene to have a meeting. Does Jiang Yuan have time?"

Chief Deng Jiabin understood Zhang Dinghui’s meaning and said: "I’ll communicate with them and try to get Jiang Yuan to join the meeting."

"Alright." Zhang Dinghui hung up the phone, got up wearing his jacket, and said to the person beside him: "I’m going to the living room to hold a video conference, you go back to sleep."

"Okay, don’t stay up too late though." His wife turned over.

"Hopefully." Zhang Dinghui smiled, then sat next to the telephone in the living room, understanding that tonight would be a sleepless one.

Soon, the phone rang.

Zhang Dinghui pressed the speakerphone button and said with poise: "This is Zhang Dinghui."

On the phone, the chief, Jiang Yuan, Song Tiancheng, and others greeted Zhang Dinghui.

Zhang Dinghui responded politely, then said: "I know time is pressing, let’s have a quick meeting. Jiang Yuan, are there any remote-controlled bombs outside now?"

"There are." Jiang Yuan’s answer was firm and powerful.

"How... how did you confirm?" Zhang Dinghui’s sleepiness was completely dispelled, his voice hoarse. Although Jiang Yuan’s response was within Zhang Dinghui’s expectations, it still alarmed him as it was almost the worst answer.

Jiang Yuan said: "This is a conjecture. We have now found debris of key parts of the remote-controlled bomb, and by identifying these pieces of evidence, I believe the materials used by the criminal are relatively simple and accessible."

Jiang Yuan’s voice carried slight fatigue: "The hardest materials for the criminal to obtain for remote-controlled bombs are the explosives. However, from our investigations, it appears that mine owners, partners, and some managers in the surrounding mines and factories often gamble here. These gamblers, when they lose, can wager anything as collateral, including their wives and children, as well as explosives and detonators.

"No way?" Zhang Dinghui sounded extremely shocked.

Regardless of whether Jiang Yuan ever knew about this, he continued: "In the surrounding mines and factories, there are often private transactions of explosives. For some, it’s hard to get official approval for these explosives, but they are essential for production, so some mine owners opt to buy them at high prices."

"No way!" This time, Zhang Dinghui sounded even more shocked.

"In short, because the raw materials are easily accessible. I believe that when the criminal makes the remote-controlled bombs, it’s highly likely they won’t just make one. When buying materials, especially explosives, they probably buy extra, perhaps even making an extra low-yield remote-controlled bomb for testing..."

Zhang Dinghui felt scared: "So, does he have more than one remote-controlled bomb, like two or three of them?"

"Yes. Very likely."

Growing terrified, Zhang Dinghui wasn’t panicked, but he couldn’t come up with any solutions on short notice.

In the living room, Zhang Dinghui poured himself a cup of tea, somewhat hesitant, wondering whether to delegate authority or re-emphasize discipline and stringent requirements...

"We now have several main focuses." Jiang Yuan didn’t wait for Zhang Dinghui’s response; he is from the Ningtai County Bureau and didn’t need to be too considerate of Zhang Dinghui’s feelings. Before making the call, Jiang Yuan had already thought long and hard, and now he continued along his train of thoughts: "We are following two leads, one is interpersonal relationships, and the other is investigating the source based on the evidence. Both are being investigated, but no clues yet."

"Brigade Chief Wang Sheng took the initiative: "This is the work of our Criminal Police Brigade, one is to investigate the motive, and the other is to investigate the preparation for the crime, unfortunately, we haven’t made any breakthrough."

Zhang Dinghui uttered a sound of acknowledgment: "Understood."

Listening to Zhang Dinghui’s voice, Wang Sheng quickly continued: "We are now continuing our investigation based on some newly discovered evidence. Additionally, we’re fully utilizing undercover agents, but so far, there’s no useful news or leads. Lastly, there are also a few detectives following other clues, like potential routes for disposing of stolen goods, escape routes, and we’ve also visited the population around gambling houses..."

Zhang Dinghui naturally spoke kindly to the "grassroots cadres". If he were to scold someone, he would start with the director, not by going down to the Criminal Police Brigade.

Jiang Yuan took over the conversation, saying: "Now, we have a new direction for investigation and the investigative forces have been deployed, but how long it will take to get news is still uncertain. We can only calmly wait."

This was something only he could say, just as he had stated earlier in the day inside the tent.

Zhang Dinghui seemed like someone who had lost an argument and came back at night, carefully reviewing his stance, and then said: "For ordinary cases, capturing the criminal is indeed not so urgent. But now that we know there is a bomb out there, how do we prepare? What could the criminal possibly be thinking? Not catching him really makes it hard to sleep and eat."

"The criminal’s intent, we can’t guess for now. But if we talk about being prepared, it’s not entirely impossible." Over the phone, Xu Taining’s voice came through.

Wang Sheng quickly gave an introduction, acting as a kind of narrator.

Zhang Dinghui instinctively didn’t want to engage with Xu Taining, but still couldn’t help asking: "What measures can we take for preparation?"

"Absolute territorial control of key areas," Xu Taining responded, and then explained, "That is to say, for key areas, increase... the vigilance level, for instance, municipal government, police headquarters, and other vital departments strengthen security, suspend some external work. For places like gymnasiums and shopping malls where there is a high volume of people, they can be closed directly. Critical nodes like hospitals and railway stations, which cannot be shut down, should enhance their security measures extensively to eliminate unauthorized access..."

"This is like canceling all government functions." Zhang Dinghui said despairingly, "We might as well stop the public buses altogether."

"That’s a good idea, that’s exactly what I mean." Xu Taining’s confirmatory tone was palpable over the phone.

Zhang Dinghui laughed bitterly: "We can’t do this."

Xu Taining suddenly got serious, continued: "If we seal off the city now and then manage the city in multiple segments, it might separate the criminal from the bomb. With some luck, we might be able to capture the criminal without any damage."

"How long would that take?"

"At least a few days, at most two weeks."

"Two weeks is impossible, even one week is not feasible." Zhang Dinghui immediately rejected it.

"There’s another possibility." Xu Taining hadn’t finished, continued with a clang of golden coins, "If the criminal lives in the suburban area or countryside, sealing the city might just be a wasteful spend."

"It would cost more, and it might just be a waste of money?" At this moment, Zhang Dinghui fully understood what "Xu Taining who can spend money" meant, and simultaneously, he understood Xu Taining’s point.

Thus, Zhang Dinghui asked a few more experts from his own department and then said: "Alright, let’s proceed according to your thoughts!"

After hanging up the phone, Wang Chuanxing who was standing by the telephone desk couldn’t help saying: "The conclusion is the same as yesterday’s, just another pointless meeting."

Xu Taining glanced at him irritably: "That’s because Captain Jiang has explored all the options; otherwise, you would have come to a conclusion different from yesterday’s, realizing that the meeting wasn’t pointless."

Jiang Yuan waved his hand silently, opened a computer, and continued to compare the circuit boards.

According to the plan, he was to compare the circuit boards to find the manufacturer and then the distributor, and see if he could track down the terminal buyer. The plan sounded flawless, the only issue was that the circuit board was a fragment from an explosion.

It was about the size and thickness of two fingers, badly damaged, composed of several fragmented pieces stitched together incoherently. Identifying the manufacturer from this might not be too challenging, a Level 4 explosion trace analysis might suffice, but tracing the distributor and finding the supply channel was more difficult.

Nowadays, circuit boards can also be bought online, only tracing manufacturers without distributors would take much more time.

Of course, even if only the manufacturer can be confirmed, it would still help the investigation. After all, such circuit boards are often produced and outsourced by small and medium-sized enterprises, and their market is not very wide; perhaps truly only two weeks would be needed to get to a conclusion...

If waiting for two weeks isn’t an option, then a Level 5 or higher explosion trace analysis would be required.

Today, Jiang Yuan’s temporary +1 skill wasn’t used yet, so now he is Level 6+1, with explosion trace analysis at Level 7 configuration. Thus, in the midst of the puzzled gazes from Meiyang City’s forensic team...

Jiang Yuan, he studies the circuit boards, he looks at the circuit diagrams, the damaged boards, scattered diagrams intertwine, the diagrams mess with the boards, but in the end, a circuit board corresponds to one circuit diagram.

The true love of the semiconductor world is just like that.