Qingquan County, under the jurisdiction of Binzhou City, is located at the border of Binzhou and Tianzhou City, with many mountains, many hills, and few plains.

The area of Qingquan County is not large, with only seventy to eighty thousand permanent residents in the urban area, and less than three hundred thousand in the whole county including rural population.

However, the economy of Qingquan County is not backward.

Due to the mountainous terrain, Qingquan County has developed a unique microclimate different from other places.

It is humid and rainy all year round, with lush vegetation and abundant animal species, making it a well-known tourist destination for summer resort.

Not only this, since ancient times, Qingquan County has been a rich source of medicinal herbs, and each town in the county is well-known as a central area for growing and distributing these herbs.

There are many merchants, and many locals gather herbs in the mountains.

Yumin Village, Group One, Changchun Town, Qingquan County.

Outside a farmhouse at the west end of the village, police cars with flashing lights were parked everywhere.

Fifty or more local farmers were watching around the police cars.

Inside the courtyard was a three-room brick and tile house, with two rooms each of the east and west wing, an east-sided storage room, and a west-sided cattle pen.

Inside the room, Lu Chuan was conducting a crime scene investigation.

On the heated brick bed lay two corpses, a middle-aged female corpse horizontally, and a middle-aged male corpse vertically.

The corpses were fully clothed, the male victim's neck was severed by a sharp instrument, with only a thin strip of skin connecting.

Sputtered bloodstains were over two meters high, with a spray of brownish stains on the ceiling.

The female victim's head was covered in blackened blood, lying horizontally at the edge of the heated brick bed.

The floor was covered with already dried blood stains, as were the walls.

Li Donglin stood outside with a livid face, looking through the window above the stove at Lu Chuan busy inside.

This was already the third murder case discovered by the special task force recently.

After the Song Kun murder case was solved in December, Wang Liang, Chen Gang, Wang Manli, and a surgeon from the Binzhou City First People's Hospital were successively arrested.

It was thought that the case was concluded, but unexpectedly, this was just the beginning.

First, Wang Liang's wife, on the fifth day after Wang Liang was arrested, was found dead at home.

Stab wound, deadly in one strike.

On January 3rd, Chen Gang's uncle in Binzhou City was found murdered in the underground parking garage.

Axe wound, used a fire axe, deadly in one strike, a hole was made in the chest.

Today, January 7th, Zhao Dong, who had a medicinal herb business with Wang Liang's wife, and his wife were found murdered on their heated brick bed at home.

"We go into the mountain to gather herbs every Wednesday, I didn't see Old Zhao this morning, so I came to his house to find him...didn't expect..."

The one who reported the case was Zhao Dong's neighbor Sun Zhiyou, who grew up and became old friends with him.

The two often went up the mountain to gather medicinal herbs together and would sell them on return.

"You usually didn't have any contact?"

Zhao Dong had been dead for more than a day or two, the bloodstains on the ground were already dry. If it weren't for winter, the corpses would have already started to decompose.

"In recent years, many villagers have gone out to work, and the students who went to college, now there are only about twenty households left in the village."

Sun Zhiyou was nearly sixty years old, having farmed for years, he looked at least seventy.

"Old Zhao and I are now the youngest in the village."

"Normally, other than gathering herbs, there wasn't much to do, not meeting for three to five days was quite usual."

Responsible for questioning Sun Zhiyou was Officer Chen Kang from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Provincial Department, under Li Donglin: "When was the last time you saw him?"

"Two days ago, the morning before last, I saw him feeding the cattle."

The questioning outside didn't affect Lu Chuan conducting the crime scene investigation.

"Ding!"

"Advanced Task: Complete a routine crime scene investigation, combine the three murder cases, discover valuable clues, and assist the special task force in solving the cases."

After conducting these few crime scene investigations, Lu Chuan was almost certain that the murderer of Zhao Dong and his wife, and the murderer of Wang Liang's wife and Chen Gang's uncle should be the same person.

The perpetrator's methods were quite smooth.

Judging from the murder traces, the killer and Zhao Dong couple should have known each other.

Zhao Dong, when killed, was sitting cross-legged on the heated brick bed.

His wife was sitting at the edge of the heated brick bed.

The murderer used Zhao Dong's kitchen knife as the weapon.

One blow cleaving Zhao Dong's neck, instantly deadly.

Then, when Zhao Dong's wife tried to escape, the murderer cleaved her head with the kitchen knife.

The murder was quick and clean, without the slightest hesitation.

If the scene could be reconstructed, the murderer should have directly picked up the kitchen knife from the stove after entering the door, went into the inner room, and committed the murder.

Meanwhile, this person illegally paid attention to self-protection, wearing gloves during the crime, leaving no fingerprints, but there were footprints, consistent with those at the previous two scenes.

Recording videos of the crime scene, collecting footprint information, Lu Chuan felt that the work he could do was limited.

Because he had already done such work twice.

The first was re-examining the scene of Wang Liang's wife's murder.

The second was investigating the scene of Chen Gang's uncle's murder.

This was the third time.

"How is the situation?"

Lu Chuan's performance in the investigation of the Chen Gang family basement in Binzhou, and the subsequent fingerprint identification analysis and physical evidence analysis were all observed by Li Donglin.

After returning to the provincial department, Li Donglin intentionally checked Lu Chuan's records again.

This investigation truly shocked Li Donglin.

What shocked Li Donglin wasn't that Lu Chuan just joined the police and turned regular, nor was it that third-class merit medal.

It was Zhang Yuanchao's evaluation of him.

Lu Chuan not only excelled in crime scene investigation, fingerprint identification analysis, but also mastered skeleton identification analysis.

No one knew better than Li Donglin, who was also a technical expert, what kind of person and expert Zhang Yuanchao was.

Receiving Zhang Yuanchao's recommendation to aid the Tianzhou City Criminal Investigation Team with skeleton analysis, Lu Chuan's technical skills were definitely top-notch.

So, Li Donglin specifically requested Lu Chuan from the Haizhou City Criminal Investigation Team.

As he expected, Lu Chuan did not disappoint him.

In the investigation of the murder case of Wang Liang's wife, Lu Chuan identified the basic characteristics of the suspect according to the footprints.

However, just these were not enough.

Taking a deep breath, Lu Chuan nodded heavily: "It's still him."

Still him?!

Upon confirmation, Li Donglin felt his heart clench tightly as if seized, missing a beat.

The one Lu Chuan referred to seemed to reappear before Li Donglin's eyes.

"Male, height 1.75 meters, weight around 80 kilograms, age between 40 and 45 years old."

"Walks with a slight outward posture, right shoulder slightly tilted, left-handed."

This was the suspect's profile Lu Chuan deduced from the crime scene investigation, combined with footprint analysis and the state of the victims' wounds.

The analysis of height, weight, and age was relatively straightforward; the suspect's right shoe print was heavier than the left but showed no signs of leg or foot ailments.

Probably due to prolonged stress on the right shoulder, leading to a slight right shoulder tilt.

The initial cuts on the victims were from the left, pulling diagonally to the right, which is characteristic of a left-handed person's knife marks.

None of the suspects Li Donglin had matched these attributes.

"Are there any fingerprints?"

Lu Chuan shook his head: "Like the previous times, the killer used the deceased's kitchen knife or any weapons readily available nearby."

"He wore gloves, discarded the weapon at the scene, came and went quickly, leaving no other traces behind except for contact with the weapon."

No matter how skilled the crime scene investigation, evidence of the perpetrator's interaction with the environment is necessary to facilitate the investigation and offer potential leads.

Yet, except for the weapon discarded at the scene, the suspect touched nothing else.

Except for the footprints left on the ground, nothing else was left behind.

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