Chapter 58: Stargazing Is No Match for Keeping Your Feet on the Ground, Though You Stepped a Bit Too Deep

Stargazing is a thoroughly entertaining activity. For Cen Lian, who had just acquired a professional-grade astronomical telescope costing close to six figures, holding onto it was like a college student clutching their eagerly awaited New Year goods, refusing to let go.

However, while gazing at a certain nebula, he found himself wishing that if his cheat ability were truly powerful, it should right now allow him to directly observe a suddenly veering meteoroid plunging into the atmosphere, landing precisely within the Yunling Mountains, completely unnoticed by anyone else, and ideally sharing a striking resemblance in shape to the meteorite currently being studied at Lingxi University.

Yet, after more than half the night had passed, Cen Lian's eyes were too heavy to stay open, and his wish remained unfulfilled.

Before collapsing onto his bed and losing consciousness, he reached up to touch his head.

It seemed his external modifier wasn't powerful enough to influence the laws of the universe; it was probably just a terrestrial product.

……

Cen Lian had stayed at home for the entire duration of the two-day holiday, without stepping out the door even once.

When he returned to the bureau for work, Tang Hua was startled the moment he saw him.

"I have to say, Captain Cen, don't tell me your psychological stress has reached the point where you can't sleep at all without sleeping pills!" He almost dragged Cen Lian straight to the hospital.

Cen Lian gave an awkward cough.

"Did you check my WeChat Moments?" he asked subtly.

Tang Hua was momentarily stunned, and only then did he realize why Cen Lian looked like a ghost suffering from complete overindulgence.

While other people watched adult films late at night until their kidneys gave out, Cen Lian stared at various celestial bodies until his kidneys gave out.

Wang Yuanying walked in, and upon seeing his condition, went straight to Qi Yan's desk and grabbed a whole handful of wolfberries for him.

"Young man, gazing at the stars requires moderation too." He patted Cen Lian's shoulder with the expression of a seasoned veteran.

Cen Lian deeply doubted what on earth Wang Yuanying used to do during the night.

Just as he was about to say something, he saw Wu Qiushan walking in from outside, accompanied by Yuan Chenxi, who had just finished handing over the case files.

"Stop gazing at the stars; a new case is here, and it's very down-to-earth." He pulled out a USB flash drive. "Where's your office projector?"

"We don't have one. Since it's just the few of us, we can just find any computer to look at it," Cen Lian said with complete indifference.

Wu Qiushan glared at him with exasperation. "How many auxiliary police officers did you request?"

Cen Lian chuckled and flashed a four with his fingers.

"Don't you worry about that; not having auxiliary police officers would only increase my workload."

Wu Qiushan rubbed his head and simply plugged the USB drive into an empty computer, opening the PowerPoint presentation he had prepared for this case.

"Why on earth did you make this thing when you're not even reporting to the leadership?" Cen Lian asked, puzzled.

"This case was reopened once the year before last. Back then, I had just been seconded to the municipal bureau and had the least seniority, so all the PowerPoints for reporting had to be made by me," Wu Qiushan explained casually before opening the presentation he had crafted over two years ago. "I still remember the basic details of the case, so I'll walk you through it as I play it."

Cen Lian knew virtually nothing about this case, so he began examining the case files while listening to Wu Qiushan outline the situation.

"The case took place a little over six years ago, on July 20th. The victims were three patrol personnel from the Xunhua County Cultural Relics Inspection Team. During a routine patrol, they happened to encounter a gang of tomb raiders in the act of plundering a Han Dynasty tomb. En route to stop them, a conflict broke out with the raiders, and ultimately all three patrolmen were murdered by the gang and their bodies were dumped in the wilderness.

"The Xunhua County Public Security Bureau immediately established a special investigation team to track down the identities of these tomb raiders, only to discover five days later that the entire gang had died in a Qing Dynasty tomb located in the nearby mountains. All five members were burned to death inside the empty tomb, making identification impossible."

"So to this day, nobody knows who they were?" Tang Hua asked, thoroughly shocked.

"Not quite that bad," Wu Qiushan skillfully advanced the slides. "We had already tracked down the identities of two members who had prior criminal records, and the identity of a third member was basically confirmed. Only two individuals remained unidentifiable."

By this point, Cen Lian had finished reading the case files and understood why this case was so immensely complex.

"At the time, three footprints were collected near the five deceased tomb raiders. After expert comparison, it was determined that they did not belong to any of the five raiders," he handed the case files over to Qi Yan to read. "Back then, the analysis of those footprints had virtually no reference value."

The case files contained the assessment provided by the footprint experts at the time: the three footprints belonged to three distinct individuals—all males ranging in height from 172 to 178 centimeters, with weights between 65 and 75 kilograms.

Men of such height and weight were far too common in the locality, and since all three individuals had been wearing those traditional multi-layered cloth shoes, tracking them via footprints was completely out of the question.

"Gazing at the stars in the early hours, and now diving straight back to earth," Cen Lian couldn't help but retort. "You guys must have sought help from plenty of experts the last time this case was reopened. Are you just throwing it at me now as a last resort?"

Wu Qiushan looked at him without speaking, but his expression answered the question for him.

When it came to solving cases, experienced veteran detectives and new investigators armed with advanced technology each had their own set of methods.

Veteran detectives relied on their experience, conducting extensive interviews and canvassing to unearth clues that could crack a case; new detectives equipped with technology followed a tech-driven path, relying on all sorts of high-end techniques to search crime scenes and corpses for clues as tiny as a cellular structure, thereby catching a glimpse of the culprit's shadow.

A case involving the murder of public officials commanded a level of attention monitored directly by personnel dispatched from the provincial department. Under such circumstances, repeatedly reopening an old case without yielding results could only prove one thing: neither the experience of the veteran detectives nor the technology of the new investigators had any effect on this case, leaving no choice but to send this cold case into the hands of a third category of police investigators.

They were capable of employing a third kind of method—beyond technology and experience—to solve a large number of cases in a short period, and their methods never seemed particularly scientific.

This meant that by this stage, even leaders with the firmest convictions were prepared to try believing in metaphysics.

Cen Lian was the embodiment of the metaphysics currently at the disposal of the Kang'an Municipal Bureau.

"How are we going to investigate this case?" Yuan Chenxi had long worked in administrative secretarial duties, so her reading speed was extremely fast. She had already roughly scanned the current phase of the case and the records left behind by the attempts made during its previous two reopenings.

Judging by past records, it could be said that predecessors had completely blocked off every conventional criminal investigation route.

Moreover, they had proven with their results that all of those directions were erroneous.

Cen Lian likewise fell into deep contemplation.

He didn't believe he had more experience than veteran detectives with decades of service in the municipal bureau, nor was his technical expertise superior to that of seasoned experts. Therefore, if he wanted to crack this case, the best approach was still to utilize his cheat ability.

Thus, he quickly located the household registration photographs of the two tomb raiders whose identities had already been confirmed, and then fell silent once more.

[Name: Yuan Shunyou]
[Gender: Male]
[Age: 38 (+6)]
[Criminal Record:
Stole a Qing Dynasty tomb in Kang'an City 2,361 days ago;
Stole a Han Dynasty tomb in Kang'an City 2,366 days ago;
Murdered Tan Gong, Jiang Xiaoxia, and Fang Bo in Kang'an City 2,366 days ago;
Stole a Tang Dynasty tomb in Kang'an City 2,451 days ago;
Stole a Shang Dynasty tomb in Gaoping City 2,598 days ago;
Stole a Qing Dynasty tomb in Yaoguan City 2,726 days ago;
Stole a Tang Dynasty tomb in Yunzhong City 2,882 days ago.]
[Imprisonment Record: Imprisoned 5,197 days ago for the crime of illegally excavating ancient cultural relics and ancient tombs, sentenced to 6 years and 8 months (accomplice).]

And this was merely the one with the relatively shorter text bubble.