Chapter 19: The Button's Past

  It's Monday again, with warm and bright spring sunshine.

  As usual, it was the task force meeting time. When Guo Qing and Jian Jun entered Yu Xin Yuan's office, Yu Xin Yuan was staring at the button in the evidence bag, lost in thought, and didn't even notice the two of them coming in.

  "Captain, is a single button worth your attention?" Jianjun's words startled Yu Xin Yuan out of his contemplation.

  "National Day and Founding of the Army, you've arrived!" Yu Xin Yuan greeted them.

  "Captain, have you found any clues from the button?" Guoqing, after all, was a police academy graduate, and when he spoke, he didn't want to be as straightforward as Guoqing.

  He carefully picked up a button with tweezers and held it against the sunlight, squinting his eyes as he said to his two assistants:

  "Look, after inspection by the provincial administrative center, the material of this button is gold-plated plastic button, and the plastic is high-quality imported polyester resin. Preliminary investigation has shown that this high-end button is produced in Shanghai and is only used for decoration on high-end woolen garments such as cheongsam and suits; The deep blue silk thread remaining on the surface of the button is a fine-spun pure wool yarn, which is produced by the famous Shanghai store "Hengyuanxiang", further confirming that this is a high-end dark blue woolen garment."

  The high-end nature of a garment is not only reflected in the fabric and workmanship, but also in the buttons. This button shape is simple and elegant, proving that the garment is also stylish and not common. If it was really left by the murderer, it proves that the murderer has a very high taste in life and is a mature man.

  "National Day couldn't help but be greatly surprised: 'Captain, in just these few days, you've obtained so many clues, even we didn't know about them ~'"

  Yu Xin Yuan replied, "It's not that I don't trust you. It's just that two days ago, Provincial Bureau Captain Li came down to supervise the case, and I had him take the evidence back to the provincial bureau for forensic testing at the same time. This morning, Captain Li sent the test report and the evidence back by special delivery."

  "Captain, you can deduce so much from just one button, you're truly a godly detective!"

  He carefully picked up the button with tweezers and put it back in the evidence bag, smiling at them: "There's no great detective, I've just handled more cases than you. I once cracked a case because of a single button."

  At the Public Security Bureau, no one didn't know about Yu Xin Yuan's legendary case-cracking, but he himself was extremely low-key, rarely mentioning his past experiences with others. Today, being able to hear the captain recount it in person, the two assistants naturally wouldn't let go of this opportunity.

  "That was a case that happened in a certain county's flower mill," Yu Xin fell into reminiscence:

  A beautiful female worker didn't return home after her night shift. Her family searched for her everywhere at the factory, friends' homes but couldn't find her anywhere. After reporting to the police in a state of anxiety, the local police station, the factory and her family searched extensively but it was as if she had vanished into thin air with no news whatsoever. Moreover, before starting her night shift, she had said goodbye to her parents and there were leftovers from her midnight snack in her toolbox at the factory, with no signs of suicide or running away from home.

  For a time, the factory was abuzz with discussion and rumors were rife. The female workers dared not work night shifts again, seriously affecting the normal production of the factory. It wasn't until a month later that a Shanghai textile mill using cotton supplied by this factory discovered a package of cotton containing shattered human bones and tattered clothing when they opened it!

  The factory immediately reported to the Shanghai police. After a preliminary understanding of the situation, the Shanghai police sent a letter requesting the assistance of the Public Security Bureau in investigating the case, which I was responsible for cracking at the time. When we brought this cotton package back to the Public Security Bureau, we asked the family members and colleagues of the missing person to identify the remains, hair, and after technical inspection, checked the blood type of the residual blood on the cotton, confirming that the remains were indeed those of the missing female worker.

  "But this can only prove that the missing female worker is dead, it can't prove anything else!" Jianjun was always so impatient.

  "At first, we thought the deceased had died accidentally due to fatigue from working night shifts and fell into the packaging machine. The case could have been closed then, but two things reported by the deceased's fellow workers caught my attention:"

  One, the deceased was a financial professional graduate of a secondary specialized school and belonged to the national staff. Her work position was not on the production line. Colleagues in the factory reflected that it was the leadership who asked her to go down to the grassroots level for training, so she had only recently started working on the front line in shifts; Two, the deceased's internship job was a flower picker and should not have appeared in the packaging workshop. So I suddenly became suspicious, and then re-examined all the belongings of the female worker again, and finally found a small shell button near the remains of the deceased's palm!

  It was this button that led to a major change in the case: through previous visits to the factory area, the task force learned that in order to prevent debris from falling into the cotton and damaging the cotton machine's gears, all front-line production workers had to wear zip-up work clothes. Only factory leaders and logistics personnel might wear casual clothes with buttons. The inspection also proved that the remaining clothing of the female worker was indeed a zipper.

  This also means that the buttons were not those of the deceased, but rather those she had grabbed from someone else before her death. From this crucial piece of evidence, after the task force conducted in-depth and meticulous visits, fully mobilizing the masses to provide clues, the case was finally solved!

  "What's the outcome!" Guo Qing and Jian Jun asked in unison.

  The result was that the party secretary of the textile mill coveted the deceased's youth and beauty, and repeatedly harassed and tempted her, but was strictly rejected by the deceased each time. Therefore, the lecherous secretary used his power to transfer her from the finance position to a shift position, and took advantage of the duty hours to send away others, using the pretext of having a private conversation to lure her into the packaging room, where he raped the weak woman amidst the roar of the packaging machine on a pile of white cotton.

  The woman was a fierce woman, unbearable. She vowed to expose this beastly secretary. To avoid exposing his own ugliness, this lustful man was so cruel that he ruthlessly pushed the female worker into a packing machine, letting her be squeezed to death! At the last moment of her life, this weak woman grasped at the clothes of the lustful man and pulled off a button, which became the only clue to prove the identity of the deceased! In the end, the lustful man was executed according to law, and the deceased was finally vindicated!" Yu Xin Yuan said.

  National Day and Jianjun were silent, as if still immersed in the case.

  Yu Xin continued: "Details like buttons are hard to attract the attention of investigators and are unlikely to be valued by the perpetrator, which is called 'hidden evidence' in forensic science."

  That lecherous guy relied on his complicated network of relationships, and after being brought back, he also resisted in every way at first, with a swaggering attitude. Our investigation process was also interfered with by many parties. When we carefully searched that lecher's room, we finally found the clothes in a corner, with the buttons torn off by the deceased still not mended, becoming ironclad evidence to prove him as the murderer!

  When we put the button and the clothes in front of him at the same time, he immediately collapsed and confessed to all his crimes. Therefore, the discovery of this button must also be kept strictly confidential, only the three of us can know about it, do you understand?

  "Understood!" Guo Qing and Jian Jun finally came to their senses, understanding the true meaning of Yu Xin Yuan's explanation of the case.