Free Web NovelChapter 64: Chapter 64: Torment_1
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By the time Zhou Ning got home it was already past ten, and he lay in bed thinking about the case.
Zhou Ning hadn’t figured out the situation with the dog hair, so he asked He Chunyang, who excitedly explained it to him.
Shen Weijie had met Zhang Jiahui in the afternoon, and the two of them had played a round, he had a black Labrador, and probably had dog hair on his body and hands, which surprised Zhou Ning. After all, finding dog hair in the victim’s mouth did make one’s imagination run wild.
Although the system had given him 92 hours, which seemed like a lot of time, the difficulty of this case was quite high. After all, the identity of the corpse wasn’t even known initially, and every day was spent in agony.
However, after the system upgraded, he still didn’t know what the new lottery was like, and with this thought, Zhou Ning sat up.
"System, begin the reward exchange now!" he called out.
As his voice fell, a chart appeared on the transparent screen.
Many items were densely packed on it, marked in red, white, and grey, with a note on the side explaining that red indicated rewards already obtained, white were rewards that could be exchanged after the completion of the current task, and grey indicated content that was not available for exchange.
However, with such a large chart, most of it was grey. At the front were major categories, followed by various specific contents. Only these specific contents were white and available for exchange.
The major categories included: Jurisprudence Theory, Human Anatomy, Pathology, Internal Medicine, Surgery, Pediatrics, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Criminal Investigation Techniques, Forensic Pathology, Forensic Toxicology, Forensic Clinical Medicine, Forensic Material Evidence, Forensic Anthropology, Forensic Psychiatry, Forensic Toxic Substance Analysis, and more.
Just looking at Forensic Toxic Substance Analysis, there were many subcategories behind it: toxic substance analysis, sources of toxins, common types of poisons, analysis of poisoning induced by the synthesis of various common drugs, and so on—several items at once.
Of course, the few rewards Zhou Ning originally received also appeared on the list, presented in red at the very top of the chart. But looking down to the bottom right corner of the chart, there was a notation that read "1/3".
Zhou Ning was full of question marks. He clicked on the grey "Next Page" that appeared beside it, but the page did not respond. After thinking for a moment, Zhou Ning seemed to understand. There were three pages in total. He needed to obtain all the rewards on the first page before he could open the second page to choose.
Damn!
How many corpses did he have to dissect to obtain all the rewards below?
Zhou Ning felt depressed. Thinking about his recent promotion to a forensic doctor at level zero, he reluctantly accepted reality. It seemed he was still too naive, and the knowledge in the system was probably not something you could learn now, otherwise, it wouldn’t all be grey. To learn advanced knowledge, he had to pay a price.
Thinking about the software’s progress, Zhou Ning directly clicked on the option to upgrade the greyed-out facial reconstruction technology. As for bloodstain analysis and forensic field study, he didn’t bother with them. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
As he clicked, the entire system interface changed, and a line of text appeared.
Congratulations to the bound user for acquiring Level Three Facial Reconstruction Technology Ability, loading to be completed in ten minutes.
Ten minutes later, with the sound of a beep, the words "Loading Complete" appeared on the screen.
Still without the painful sensation of a splitting headache, Zhou Ning felt a great improvement in his drawing ability, and his memory was filled with some new knowledge. What excited him most was the method for restoring and drawing from blurry and distorted surveillance footage.
Instantly, he lost all desire to sleep. What was this miraculous technique that could restore and draw from blurry and distorted surveillance footage? If he could control this, wouldn’t it be defying the heavens?
Zhou Ning’s heartbeat accelerated as he earnestly reviewed the newly acquired knowledge. After the system upgrade, it was becoming increasingly user-friendly. As long as he mastered the knowledge gained, even if he failed the tasks later, it would not be taken back. So, he was now full of passion, seriously starting to read.
The shape and features of a human face are not a simple assembly, nor are they an unrelated combination.
A human face is composed of protrusions of the skull as nodes, as well as muscles and skin, all closely interconnected. Different facial structures (subcutaneous protrusions) lead to differing appearances of the features, and it is because of these interrelations that the fundamental differences in human faces arise.
The characteristics of a human face can generally be divided into four parts: large characteristics, structural features,[1] positional characteristics, and features of the facial features.
When analyzing facial images in surveillance, it is necessary to use perspective and distortion to determine the suspect’s image, including the positional and feature characteristics, which also need to be fixed, analyzed, and judged through the structural characteristics (what professionals commonly refer to as associated features).
At this point, Zhou Ning began to understand.
He had been too focused on details before, thus neglecting the most important issue; after all, the observation and identification of a person’s appearance should go from the general to the specific.
It’s like encountering a familiar friend on the street; from a distance where only their general shape and structural features are visible, not their positional or facial features, you can still recognize them.
This means that correct identification of appearance often isn’t achieved through judgment and recognition of isolated details lacking a holistic relationship.
Therefore, the key to grasp is the overall characteristics of a person’s appearance, not the minute details of the facial features. Following this theory, even with a blurry surveillance image, one still controls the overall characteristics of the subject.
Below are detailed methods: obtaining multi-angle surveillance images, using computer preliminary processing to filter out noise, super-resolution reconstruction, and after multi-level and multi-angle processing and overlaying, it’s possible to collect important characteristic data of the subject’s appearance...
The more he looked, the more he felt that this person was like a badass with Level 3 restoration technique. Theories and various operational methods like these were unheard of until now, but a problem presented itself at the end.
All there was about computer applications—things like noise filtering, super-resolution reconstruction, and multi-angle composite reconstruction. He could guess what they were for just by their names, but how to actually implement them was beyond his abilities!
Outside the window, there came the intermittent sounds of a beeping reverse warning. The garbage truck arrived on time every day just after four o’clock.
Zhou Ning shook his head, casting off the irritation he had just felt, and went to sleep beneath his blanket.
Just as he had fallen asleep, the scene before his eyes was no longer the small dark room from before, everything had completely changed, and in the darkness ahead, there was a light.
Zhou Ning was a bit confused. It seemed like this was the first time he had completed a task since the system update. Was this small dark room going to be upgraded too?
However, the darkness around him brought an oppressive feeling that was extremely suffocating.
He quickened his pace towards the light only to find that it was shining onto a dissection table made of stainless steel, far more advanced than the one in their dissection room, and the light was from an overhead surgical lamp.
As Zhou Ning stood by the dissection table, a large screen appeared on his left, showing the status of the autopsy record chart, and on the right, a timer displayed a prominent 60:00.
Blinking his eyes and before Zhou Ning could figure out what this meant, a body suddenly materialized out of nowhere on the empty dissection table—naked without any covering, with a tag hanging from the toe bearing the long string of numbers KJQ23654867.
When Zhou Ning’s gaze landed on the deceased’s head, he noticed that the entire head was completely deformed, the skull was squarish, and the facial features had shifted. There was a complete collapse on the left side of the chest, with a particularly conspicuous tire mark.
An electronic voice chimed in his ears:
Beep, the night training function for the bound user has been fully upgraded. Please, bound user, complete the dissection and find 80% of the corresponding answers within the allocated time.
If accomplished within the given time, you’ll earn 1 upgrade point. Failure will deduct 1 upgrade point, and if your total reaches 0, the bound user will receive a lightning strike punishment. Please take this exercise seriously.
Dissection Case One:
Determine the cause of death, decide whether it was homicide or a traffic accident, identify the cause of the injuries on the body, estimate the time of death, assess the damage to internal organs, restore the skull as much as possible...
The list of tasks was so extensive that Zhou Ning couldn’t bear to keep reading, but the ticking sound continued in his ear, and he noticed that the timer had started its countdown.
"Damn it, not even a production team’s donkey gets worked like this! One hour, are you kidding me? To find all this evidence, why don’t you just have me do the whole job of a criminal investigator!"
Although he swore quite satisfactorily, his body was brutally honest. Snatching up a set of tools that had appeared on the table, Zhou Ning threw himself towards the body...
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The next day.
Dragging his legs as if they were weighted with lead, Zhou Ning entered the forensic doctor’s office. As soon as he walked in, he saw Mr. Zhao’s fat face come close to his own, beaming relaxedly as if it were a wrinkle-free chrysanthemum.
Helping Zhou Ning to sit down, Mr. Zhao said with his back to the door.
"Comrade Zhou Xiaozhou, what’s wrong with your back? An individual of your age should take better care of oneself, this won’t do at all. I’m telling you, even with a girlfriend you need moderation. Hurry up and get the autopsy report sorted out. The boss said that we are to transfer the case out today!"
Seeing Mr. Zhao so pleased with himself, Zhou Ning ground his teeth, and just as he was about to retort, a hand reached in through the door. Zhou Ning saw it clearly; it was Xu Dayuan’s hand, seemingly drawn by someone’s gaze.
Zhou Ning nodded slightly, and smilingly said:
"Don’t worry, everything’s ready. There’s not much to do here during the New Year, and I’ve got some time. You should seriously prepare for that Assistant Forensic Examiner certification you signed up for. I’ll help you cram. Don’t mind the number of subjects; it’s all one test. We’ll go over questions, and easy pass."
"You shouldn’t just waste your days away. Xu Da is worrying himself sick over you. You have to plan for your own future. Besides, our team is short on trace evidence experts. If you pass, just think how great that would be."
Mr. Zhao gulped down a piece of roasted sausage with a single bite, eyes wide, his arms and head shaking in tandem.
"Don’t deceive me. You’re oversimplifying it by saying we just have to go over the questions. These past days while waiting for the lab results, I’ve flipped through those books. There’s only a little over fifty days left until the exam in March. You want me to memorize a stack of books a meter high. You might as well just kill me. If the boss asks, could you cover for me? How about I treat you to dinner in return?"
Mr. Zhao was talking animatedly when Zhou Ning had already stood up and taken a couple of steps back, for Xu Dayuan had now walked in and was standing right behind Mr. Zhao, raising his hand to pat Mr. Zhao’s shoulder.
"Let’s hear it, how you’re going to cover for me?"
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