1995, Starting as a Criminal Investigation Expert

Li Shu, holding a measuring tape, approached the body number 1.

The distance to the cartridge case is 3.8 meters.

Excluding the ejection range, the most likely scenario is that the suspect fired at close range, approximately two meters away.

Qin Wenbao is the team's chief forensic pathologist.

I'm almost fifty years old this year and have worked at the Nanjiang Municipal Bureau for over ten years.

He was slightly overweight and balding. He gently turned the head of victim number 1 and glanced at the back of the head.

"It's through."

Li Shu was right next to him and saw everything clearly.

This is a young man with short hair, stubble on his lips, and slightly dark skin. He looks to be around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, the prime of his life.

Now it lies here, cold and lifeless.

The shot hit him in the face, on his right cheek, below the cheekbone, near the nostril.

Just like the picture in the textbook, it's a small, roughly circular hole.

It's like having a large black mole on your face.

But the damage caused was staggering.

Li Shu also saw Qin Wenbao turning around.

He had short hair, so you could clearly see the edges of the cut were turned outwards, creating a tear-like wound.

It was dark red, with some unidentified yellowish-white substances mixed in.

You can still see the snow-white skull, which is also turned outwards.

This is the standard flank fracture described in textbooks.

Instinctively, Li Shu recalled some data, saying that the Type 54 pistol was powerful enough to penetrate a 3mm steel plate at a range of 25 meters.

There are also related papers that have conducted some statistical research and concluded that close-range shooting within 3 meters is enough to penetrate a hard skull.

An overwhelming urge to vomit surged up inside me.

Li Shu quickly turned his head away and covered his mouth to suppress his anger.

Zhao Yong noticed it but wasn't surprised. He simply told him, "If you really can't hold it in, go outside and throw up."

It's perfectly normal for a newcomer to feel nauseous after seeing a corpse at such close range.

"Did you know that the first time Peng Rong went to a murder scene, he vomited on the evidence?" Zhao Yong added.

It feels like encouragement?

A few steps away, Peng Rong retorted with a bitter smile, "Brother Yong, that summer, the body was left in the house for a week, it was rotting and infested with maggots, who wouldn't vomit? Even Li Sheng, a forensic doctor, vomited."

A young forensic doctor standing next to Qin Wenbao blushed slightly and exclaimed, "Peng Rong, don't talk nonsense."

He then turned to Li Shu and explained that he really hadn't vomited.

Zhao Yong walked over, glanced at it, then leaned closer to the jeep and cursed.

"Damn it, ricocheting."

As he spoke, he instructed Li Shu to place a physical evidence label.

Only then did Li Shu notice a distinct, charred scratch on the edge of the jeep's roof.

It's very new.

After glancing at it twice, Li Shu understood.

In other words, the suspect rushed over and fired a shot in the face. The bullet went through the head of the first victim, and the bullet just happened to hit the edge of the roof of the jeep before ricocheting off.

As for Zhao Yong cursing, that's normal.

This is the warhead, crucial physical evidence; it must be found.

If they are scattered near the victim, that's easy to handle.

What I fear most is these ricochets; who knows where they might end up?

While having the photography team take pictures, Zhao Yong muttered to himself that what he hated most was the May Fourth Movement.

Bullets are inherently powerful, and many civilian-made bullets are designed solely for maximum power. Furthermore, due to limitations in gunpowder technology, they rely on sheer quantity to achieve their effect, resulting in a generally large amount of propellant.

This results in penetrating wounds being common, requiring a great deal of effort to find the bullet.

Li Shu is a newcomer, and right now all he can do is assist others, such as pulling the measuring tape.

Moreover, the scene in front of us is actually not complicated.

First of all, this is an open venue.

The location relationships are clear; measuring tape and taking various photos are enough to clearly define the situation on site.

Secondly, the suspect committed the crime extremely quickly, in less than two minutes.

The whole process was clean and efficient; apart from the bullet casings, he left no physical evidence.

This doesn't look like a closed murder scene.

The suspect might linger for a long time, perhaps drinking water, touching something, or cleaning up the scene after the murder.

That would require searching for fingerprints, even hair, and taking samples of all the bloodstains.

Furthermore, every item on site needs to be categorized and examined.

The workload was astonishing.

It might take a day or two to finish.

No, people come and go in a hurry, kill someone and leave without any contact. Not to mention fingerprints, the hard cement road won't even leave a footprint.

Therefore, after taking pictures of the motorcycle tire tracks left by the sudden stop and start, the only important task left was to find the bullet.

Zhao Yong and several other elderly members of the forensic team crouched inside the jeep, searching for the bullets that had hit the driver.

Li Shu was waiting outside and could see what was happening inside the car.

The driver's seat was covered in blood.

Near the gear shift, there is also a spiked club.

This should be the weapon the driver was holding at the time.

Their guards were armed with spiked clubs, not guns.

Li Mingsheng had previously stated that the driver was shot in the back shoulder.

Li Shu speculated that the driver must have been frightened after witnessing the suspect commit the murder and did not dare to get out of the car, instead trying to hide under the steering wheel.

Unexpectedly, the suspect still didn't let him go.

That's why I hit his shoulder.

Just then, Zhao Yong pulled a bullet out from the back of the driver's seat.

Li Shu hurriedly handed over the evidence bag.

The May Fourth Movement had great penetrating power; this shot should have pierced through the shoulder and landed inside the backrest.

Soon, another one was found in the trunk.

As for the bullets from the other shots, they were all found one after another.

All that's left is the bullet from the first ricochet.

Zhao Yong asked Li Shu to get the benchmark.

What needs to be done now is to try to reconstruct the ballistics.

This work can only be done on-site.

In particular, to find this ricocheting bullet, it is even more necessary to figure out its trajectory.

At this stage, the weakness of the May Fourth style, which is prone to causing penetrating wounds, actually becomes an advantage.

Two points in a line: the muzzle of the gun is one point, and the location where the victim was shot is another point.

If the gun isn't very powerful, then it can only pinpoint that specific spot on the victim's body.

Now that there is a penetrating wound, we can work backward from the points before and after the penetration to find the muzzle.

While instructing Li Shu and the other man to get to work, Zhao Yong said, "Ballistics is very important. I've read in some journals that it's possible to analyze a suspect's height using ballistics."

Once the location of the shot is determined, the person's height can be estimated to some extent.

By measuring the height of victim number 1, the angle of the penetrating wounds, and then trying to connect them with the location of the ricocheting bullets, the trajectory of the first shot and the firing position can be roughly determined.

Of course, this task is not very useful.

Because it has been confirmed that the suspects are the two thieves from the High-tech Zone.

In the fourth case, one person died and one was injured. The security guard who was lucky enough to survive provided some physical information about the two suspects.

The one who fired the shot was quite tall, probably around 1.8 meters.

It's big and strong.

The other person was a little shorter, probably only a little over 1.7 meters tall.

Average build, slightly thin.

I don't know what he looks like.

The attack was too sudden; the other party heard the security guard's footsteps and saw the flashlight beam before setting up an ambush.

The surviving security guard was so panicked after being shot that he didn't even bother to look at his face.

He only noticed their height after they fell to the ground, when the two people ran past him and he saw their backs.

So the person who robbed the money was most likely that burly man who was 1.8 meters tall.

Because he was the one who fired the shot in the fourth case as well.

"Brother Yong, there's so little physical evidence at the scene, how are we supposed to find them?" Li Shu couldn't help but worry during the break.

Without fingerprints, hair, or bloodstains—all crucial pieces of physical evidence that could identify a suspect—how can we find them?

No, there are some.

In the fourth case, I've been studying the fingerprint and a half that the suspect left at the scene these past few days.

Zhao Yong clearly understood this as well. He straightened up, sighed, and then encouraged them, "Don't be discouraged. These two committed robbery in broad daylight, and there are people everywhere. Even if they escaped, someone will definitely have seen them. So maybe before we've even finished here, Xu Zhi's side has already caught them."

As he spoke, he beckoned Li Shu to the outer perimeter of the scene, which was the alley where the suspect had been lying in wait.

Li Shu glanced at the surging crowd outside the cordon and thought to himself, "That would be great."