Chapter 1075 - 550: Perseverance Pays Off_2

"Jiang An agrees with my judgment, he also believes that Li Xu certainly hasn’t told the whole truth.

Mr. Jiang speculates that while Li Xu might have mostly described the situation accurately regarding his medical treatment after the injury, he likely tampered with the details about how, where, and even why the injury occurred.

So, he went back to the construction site again to reassess possible injury points and see if any clues were overlooked."

"The construction site is so large, trying to find a specific location based solely on the vague description of ’finger injury’ is like searching for a needle in a haystack."

"Exactly," Qin Feng sighed in agreement. "But Mr. Jiang is sparing no effort in this case, leaving no detail unchecked.

You wouldn’t believe it, he’s barely slept these past few days, he’s personally gone over all potentially relevant scenes."

At this moment, a young officer sitting in the back chimed in with a smile: "I’ve heard before that Captain Jiang An from the Jiangcheng Branch is a ’Titan’, and this collaboration has really proven his reputation. He’s tireless in his investigations, even we younger guys feel inadequate in comparison."

As they chatted, the police car arrived at the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Once they got out, they walked straight to the outpatient building, showed their IDs at the entrance to the staff on duty, explained their purpose, and handed over an introduction letter from their department.

The process went smoothly, as the nurse at the guidance desk verified their information and then led them to the medical records room on the third floor.

The medical records room is where the hospital stores all inpatient medical records, with tall file cabinets lined up inside.

Qin Feng approached the counter and provided Li Xu’s ID number to the staff.

Shortly afterward, the search results appeared on the computer screen—records indicated that Li Xu had an inpatient medical record from three months ago.

"Three months ago, was this admission due to an injury on the right hand’s ring finger?"

"It was!"

At that moment, Qin Feng felt a mix of emotions: a faint excitement because the existence of the medical record seemed to preliminarily verify part of Li Xu’s statements;

but also a deeper confusion—if Li Xu wasn’t lying about the key aspects, where exactly was the breakthrough point hidden?

Soon, the staff finished printing and compiling a thick stack of medical records and handed them over.

Qin Feng took the medical records, opened the cover page, and quickly focused on the patient information section of the admission record: "Li Xu, right hand ring finger injury with secondary infection."

Li leaned in to take a look and suddenly spoke up: "Mr. Qin, it says here ’injury with secondary infection.’ According to general medical knowledge, if someone is hospitalized immediately after being injured, the diagnosis should directly say ’finger injury’ or ’open injury.’

Once ’infection’ appears, it indicates that a significant time must have passed between the injury and treatment, likely not occurring on the same day."

Qin Feng sharply turned his head, "Are you sure?"

Li smiled and explained, "My girlfriend studies medicine, and I’ve heard her mention this quite often.

Infections typically need several days or even longer to develop into clinically visible symptoms.

This means Li Xu probably delayed receiving medical treatment after getting injured, which might not match his earlier claim of ’going to the hospital immediately after the injury.’"

Upon hearing this, Captain Qin quickly looked up and asked the staff inside the window, "Excuse me, you mentioned earlier ’admitted after infection from injury’, does this mean there was a substantial gap between the injury and the hospital admission?"

The staff behind the window nodded gently and replied with certainty, "That’s right, just as this young officer said. Typically, for our hospital’s emergency trauma patients, the time recorded from injury to admission is usually just a few hours or a day or two.

But for this patient’s case, the wound had already ulcerated, which doesn’t develop in a short time—I’d estimate it took at least a month or more."

"Over a month..."

Captain Qin repeated quietly, his brows slowly knitting together, "The time span indeed seems quite long."

At this moment, he suddenly recalled Jiang An’s earlier viewpoint—that the injured person might not have received proper medical treatment immediately after being injured; otherwise, the finger wouldn’t have ulcerated, let alone resulted in later deformity healing.

This assumption seemed even more plausible now, weighing more heavily on Captain Qin’s mind.

After thoroughly reviewing the medical record materials in his hand, Captain Qin wasted no time, quickly organizing the documents, and along with Li, walked briskly out of the hospital.

Meanwhile, Jiang An, Director Hou, and three other officers once again approached the excavator.

Since they had previously asked a locksmith to open the door to the cab, all they needed to do this time was to remove the sealing tape on the door and begin the scene examination phase.

Jiang An climbed up the ladder, his eyes carefully scanning every corner of the cabin, just as before.

He paid particular attention to all parts that could possibly scratch or pinch the right hand’s ring finger—the control stick, edges of the dashboard, inside the door, even the metal structures under the seat.

However, as Director Hou had mentioned before, there was no trace of any fresh or old bloodstains in the cabin, not even a hint of dried blood.

Unwilling to give up, Jiang An held his breath, once again inspecting the entire operating space from beginning to end.

But the result was still disappointing: besides dust and common signs of mechanical wear, the place was clean as if no injury event had ever occurred.

A faint sense of loss crept into his heart unbeknownst to him.

He then concentrated once more, meticulously scanning every corner of the cabin, leaving no potential trace unchecked.

However, after a thorough visual inspection, he still hadn’t discovered any valuable clues or anomalies.

He pondered for a moment, then turned to say, "Please hand me the Luminol Reagent, I need to conduct a spray test on the entire scene."

The young officer immediately nodded, swiftly handing over the reagent bottle to him.

Upon receiving it, Jiang An began spraying the surfaces that could have been contacted inside the cabin, covering the dashboard, control stick, around the seat, leaving nothing out.

Once finished, he quickly donned the special protective goggles, awaiting the chemical reaction results.

Typically, such reagents react quickly, and results would be visible in about ten minutes.

However, twenty minutes passed, and as Jiang An observed through the goggles, no expected fluorescent spots appeared.

Two young officers beside him, also wearing observation goggles, shook their heads.

At this moment, Director Hou, who had been standing by the cabin door, spoke: "Captain Jiang, maybe this is not the primary scene of his injury at all."

Hearing this, Jiang An slowly removed his goggles, a hint of resignation appearing on his face.

He glanced around the cabin that had been sprayed, and replied softly, "Perhaps you are right.

If this were truly the blood point, considering the area I’ve sprayed just now, which covered almost all visible regions, there should have been some reaction.

It might be... that there was indeed no blood."

Just as he was organizing the reagent bottles and goggles scattered in the toolbox, preparing to conclude the investigation here, a thought flashed like lightning through his mind.

The spray had focused entirely on the evident, open surfaces, but what if the injury was caused under certain specific conditions, in extremely hidden structures?

From the injury pattern on the injured person’s distal phalanx of the ring finger, a very particular mechanical action and spatial conditions might be necessary to cause it.

In an instant, he paused his actions.

If it were on a flat or open part, it would be difficult to create such a scrape or crushing wound at that angle.

The shape of the wound suggested that the finger may have been inadvertently pinched or scratched while reaching into a narrow, edged or clasped structure.

In a single moment, Jiang An’s mind raced: at least within the currently visible range, there indeed seemed to be no environment structure fulfilling these conditions for forming such an injury.

His gaze once again turned toward the cabin interior, this time not just casually scanning, but searching with specific geometric and mechanical assumptions in mind.

Suddenly, his line of sight settled on a position slightly inside under the driver’s seat.

There lay a structure resembling a small slot or mechanical socket, extremely inconspicuous.

Its opening was narrow, only wide enough for a single finger to barely fit.

Jiang An leaned forward, observing up close, feeling extremely excited.

As a forensic expert, he swiftly made a judgment from a wound reconstruction perspective: such a structure perfectly matched the mechanical conditions required to cause the specific angled injury to the distal phalanx of the ring finger.

If a finger accidentally slid in or was forced into this structure during operation, it could easily get scratched by its sharp inner edges while being pulled out, or even result in subcutaneous bleeding or skin tearing due to compression.