Chapter 13: Does This Mean We've Matched?

These days, not many people still take the bus. Most office workers pay by card or scan a code, making it even harder to find loose change on them than finding someone who doesn’t work overtime.
Elderly people and children each have discounted transit cards and rarely pay with coins either.
As a result, the total amount of paper bills and coins collected by a single bus throughout the day is meager, and one-yuan bills are especially rare.
When Cen Lian returned with the money, the expert invited by Wu Qiushan had not yet left.
“Brother Yue, quickly! The suspect might have paid with coins on the bus,” Cen Lian said, grabbing Wu Qiushan as soon as he saw him, and, despite his confusion, briefly explained the whole situation.
Wu Qiushan processed the information swiftly and understood Cen Lian’s request immediately.
“Teacher Ren, could you please wait a moment?” Wu Qiushan turned to look at Ren Xingyuan.
Only then did Cen Lian realize who the fingerprint expert Wu Qiushan had brought in was. They all knew him; he had given several lectures during their police academy days and was one of the top experts in their province.
“Sure, I’ve been working all day anyway,” said Ren Xingyuan, nearing sixty, a true veteran. He was currently giving lectures at the Yunling Provincial Police Academy, and Wu Qiushan had invited him over when he heard.
Ren Xingyuan carefully took the more than twenty one-yuan bills Cen Lian had provided and began extracting fingerprints.
After more than an hour, having collected all the fingerprints, he entered them into the computer and adjusted his glasses to look carefully at Cen Lian.
“You’re Qiushan’s classmate, right?” After a few glances, he confirmed. “I remember you—back then, you and Qiushan were always the top two in your academy.”
Tang Hua’s eyes widened. He knew where Cen Lian graduated from and had assumed he was sent to the police station during the joint police exam because of poor grades. He never expected him to be a top student!
Cen Lian offered an awkward smile.
“I didn’t expect Teacher Ren to remember me.”
He wondered how Ren Xingyuan would feel knowing that after graduation, he had just been slacking off at the police station.
“Heh, you two stubbornly refused to pursue graduate studies. Old Wei complained to me several times, so I remember you both,” Ren Xingyuan said slowly.
At that moment, both Cen Lian and Wu Qiushan felt a bit guilty.
Fortunately, the completed fingerprint entries interrupted Ren Xingyuan’s teasing.

Cen Lian and Wu Qiushan leaned over the computer to examine the fingerprints.
They had entered dozens of prints this time. Ren Xingyuan operated the system, comparing these prints one by one with those extracted from Chu Yulin’s body. When he reached the thirteenth fingerprint, he stopped.
He frowned for a moment, then enlarged and moved the residual prints from Chu Yulin’s body repeatedly, soon relaxing his brow.
“That’s right, this one,” Ren Xingyuan said, confirming the match. He then uploaded the matched complete fingerprint into the database. Almost immediately, the name Yang Xu appeared on his screen.
Tang Hua felt numb.
He had no idea how Cen Lian had accurately singled out a suspicious passenger from over a thousand who rode Bus 16 on October 22nd—and then successfully matched that person’s fingerprint to the one on the corpse.
Is this the world of a top student?
Tang Hua, from a second-tier provincial police academy, suddenly felt the disparity in the world.
“I’ll complete the fingerprint identification report and send it to you shortly. At this point, you can arrest him directly,” Ren Xingyuan said. Having worked in forensic technology for decades, he knew that once fingerprints matched, the probability that Yang Xu was the murderer was extremely high.
When Cen Lian saw Yang Xu’s information appear, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
“Teacher Ren, I’ll go upstairs to find our captain,” Cen Lian said politely before pulling the still stunned Tang Hua out of the forensic tech department on the first floor and heading to the second floor to find Tan Tonghui.
“You’re looking for Captain Tan?” Yuan Chenxi saw them entering from afar.
“We’ve matched the fingerprints found on the corpse. Where’s Captain Tan?” Cen Lian asked anxiously. Yang Xu was clearly a serial offender, and they didn’t know if he was still in Yunling Province.
“Captain Tan is out; Sister Liang is in the office,” Yuan Chenxi said as she called Tan Tonghui. Cen Lian and Tang Hua found Liang Xuan and reported in detail how the fingerprints from the bills matched those from the corpse and that the fingerprint owner had been identified in the database.
Liang Xuan paused in her work.
“Send me the fingerprint report as soon as possible and notify the entire team for a meeting,” she said without hesitation, dropping everything and heading straight to the conference room.
Tang Hua scratched the back of his head.
“Does this mean the case is basically solved?” He suddenly felt surreal.
“We can pretty much confirm the killer,” Cen Lian said confidently. “Now it’s just a matter of making the arrest. We still don’t know where Yang Xu is.”

“With his photo, it’ll be easier,” Tang Hua said, standing there. “Honestly, I still don’t understand the full story, but we’ve found the killer under these circumstances.”
He found it all quite baffling—like Cen Lian had suddenly picked the suspect out of a crowd.
“When we catch Yang Xu, you’ll hear all about the story,” Cen Lian said, patting him on the shoulder. He then saw Wu Qiushan approach the second floor holding the fingerprint identification report.
“True gold shines,” Wu Qiushan said, handing the report to Cen Lian. “Also, give up on that astronomer dream of yours—it’s impossible now.”
Cen Lian looked up helplessly. “Honestly, I don’t want to shine either, but heaven won’t hear me.”
Tang Hua suddenly felt like giving Cen Lian a playful knock on the head.
Before that, though, he asked Wu Qiushan why Cen Lian had ended up just wasting time at the police station.
“He scored well on the college entrance exam and originally planned to attend Jinling University for astronomy. But his father forced him to apply early to our police school. His dad insisted he become a cop no matter what, so he had no choice but to go. And this is what happened after graduation,” Wu Qiushan shrugged. “Some people try to resist becoming cops by slacking off, but in the end, they still fail.”
Cen Lian stopped Wu Qiushan from digging into his past any further.
“Brother Yue, that’s enough,” he said hastily, nudging Wu Qiushan toward the door. “There’s a meeting soon. Our case is almost solved; you should get back to your city bureau.”
Wu Qiushan glanced at Cen Lian.
“Back to my city bureau? Just wait and see how soon you’ll end up there yourself.”
Cen Lian: …
Why does this guy have to be so painfully honest?
Tang Hua secretly gave Wu Qiushan a thumbs-up.