Chen Kang was slightly taken aback. Feeding cattle?

"Why did you suddenly think to ask that?"

Lu Chuan was a crime scene investigator, and his family wasn't in the cattle business. Why ask this?

"Did you discover something?"

Of course, Chen Kang linked it to the case investigation.

"I don't know yet. I just have a feeling something's off."

Lu Chuan didn't elaborate: "You go ask first, I'll take another look."

"Alright," Chen Kang nodded and stubbed out the cigarette down to the filter. "Wait for my news."

Actually, when Lu Chuan first entered the room, he could have directly inquired about Sun Zhiyou's situation.

But when it comes to questioning, don't assume the detectives are just chatting; there's a method to it.

Whoever is following up has to continue until a breakthrough is reached, unless it's completely futile or unproductive, then someone else might take over.

While it looks simple, it's really a psychological tactic.

Not every detective has studied psychology.

Studying it isn't that useful; these skills are honed through practice.

Lu Chuan always remembered the three pieces of advice Liu Guodong gave him when he left.

Talk less, do less, don't be too self-assured.

No one in the provincial task force is a fool.

Of course, this isn't just about technical skills; interpersonal relationships are also part of it.

As for Lu Chuan, he clearly belongs to the tech-savvy group.

So, with Chunghwa leading the way, having Chen Kang do the questioning was the safest bet.

Sure enough, less than ten minutes later, Chen Kang exited the room again.

"I've got it. Zhao Dong's cows need their hay topped up once every morning and generally get watered three times a day."

"Where do they add the hay? Where do they water them?"

"Hay is added to the feed trough. There's a special drinking bucket, and it's warm water, not cold."

Lu Chuan wasn't familiar with the details of dairy farming; he'd only ever drunk milk, never raised a cow.

However, given the situation, a problem arose.

Zhao Dong had been dead for two days. Why hadn't his cows gone berserk?

"Brother Chen, there's a question..."

Lu Chuan recounted what he'd just seen in the cattle pen and the east wing storeroom.

"Zhao Dong has been dead for two days, yet there's a pile of feed in the cattle pen, which is how the cows have had hay to eat for two consecutive days."

"And the water trough... Since Zhao Dong usually used warm water from a special bucket to water the cows, where did this water trough come from?"

Chen Kang understood Lu Chuan's point: "Are you suggesting that someone continued feeding his cows after Zhao Dong died?"

"Or perhaps someone deliberately laid a large amount of feed and water in the pen after Zhao Dong died?"

"Exactly. Otherwise, there's no way to explain the current situation!"

Chen Kang considered briefly: "Let's go update Director Li."

Three minutes later, Li Donglin stood at the west wing cattle pen's railing, watching five cows leisurely munching on hay and gnawing ice blocks.

The ice blocks seemed very hard, but the cows had no alternative.

They couldn't die of thirst, so they could only crunch on ice.

"Any thoughts?"

Li Donglin was clearly directing the question at Lu Chuan: "I can't figure out one thing: If the killer did this, what was their motive?"

"But if it wasn't the killer, then who supplied the feed in the cattle pen?"

"Director Li, I'd like to conduct a detailed crime scene investigation of the two wing rooms to see if we can find anything."

Lu Chuan's question was also Li Donglin's question.

Presumably, Zhao Dong's murder was discovered this morning by Sun Zhiyou, who then called the police.

Which means that from the time Zhao Dong was killed to when Sun Zhiyou discovered it, no villagers should have entered Zhao Dong's yard.

So it seems that the feed in the cattle pen could only have been placed there by the killer.

So, why did the killer do this?

If it wasn't the killer, then who could it be?

"Alright, whatever you need, the task force will fully cooperate."

"Yes!"

In the ice and snow, conducting a crime scene investigation outside was a first for Lu Chuan.

Moreover, the conditions were far from ideal.

The ground in the cattle pen was covered with feed, cow dung, and cow urine frozen to a yellowish-brown color.

In two days and two nights, five cows — who knows how much waste they've produced.

There was no way to collect footprints, so Lu Chuan had to approach it from other angles.

Faced with such a complex and heavily disturbed scene, the intermediate crime scene investigation skills provided Lu Chuan with substantial support.

Compared to the indoor murder scene, assuming for now that the feed and water were the work of the killer.

In the cattle pen and east wing storeroom, there were certainly more clues left behind by the killer.

For instance, to move the feed from the east wing to the west wing, the killer had to interact with it.

And the two semicircular water buckets weren't Zhao Dong's original cow watering tools.

The cutting marks were new, and from size and material, it seemed the killer had cut a plastic barrel over a meter high from the corner of the east wing in half, then filled it with water.

In doing so, the killer came into contact with the water buckets in many ways.

Handling, cutting, pouring water, all involved contact.

Then there was the blue plastic bucket at the indoor stove, the only large container found in the yard suitable for water pouring.

Of course, iron basins and porcelain bowls on the rack were options, but considering the size of the white water bucket, the killer was most likely to have used the blue plastic bucket.

Lu Chuan also repeatedly wiped the faucet to collect fingerprints and DNA samples.

Zhao Dong's house didn't have running water, nor did the village, but they had their own well.

A pump was installed, and a faucet was fitted inside the house.

By the time all was said and done, Lu Chuan was busy until half-past three in the afternoon.

Despite being exhausted and reeking of cow dung, the results were fruitful.

A large box, over seventy evidence bags, not filled with mere cotton swabs or hair samples.

Inside might well be crucial evidence to identify the killer.

The technical appraisal center of the provincial department was vastly superior to that of Haizhou City's Criminal Investigation Team, be it in terms of equipment or quality.

Much of the work didn't require Lu Chuan to complete alone.

Most of the collected material from the scene would be handled by specialists.

Lu Chuan just needed to do his own work well.

This not only significantly improved work efficiency but also ensured that specialists handled the technical testing — the provincial department had plenty of experts in that area.

Seated at the computer, Lu Chuan was working on five distorted, twisted partial fingerprints.

Indeed, on the two white semicircular drinking buckets in the cattle pen, Lu Chuan had gathered five fingerprints!

The positions of these five fingerprints varied, but they were similar in size.

Each was only about a third the size of a regular fingerprint.

Also, they were very blurred and severely twisted.

Lu Chuan initially judged that these should be traces left by the same finger.

The killer likely wore gloves while cutting the plastic buckets, but one finger likely had a tear at the tip.

This allowed part of the fingertip to come into direct contact with the white plastic bucket.

Hence the five similar partial fingerprints.

At this moment, Lu Chuan was conducting fingerprint identification and analysis!

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