Chapter 18.2: Portrait
“Sketches?”
Wang Leihu let out a scornful laugh.
“She’s this young, and she hasn’t even seen the kids. What’s she supposed to draw? You’d be better off telling the families to go home and bring back photographs.”
The explanation sounded far too far-fetched for him to believe.
Looking Jiang Xia up and down again, he became convinced the young woman was simply making excuses to avoid work.
Anyone who dared pull something like this at a time like now had to have connections.
Curling his lip in contempt, Wang Leihu looked at both Chen Dong and Jiang Xia with barely concealed disdain and muttered in a voice that wasn’t loud—but was certainly loud enough for everyone nearby to hear,
“Looks like some official’s precious little princess is here to experience life among the common people. Next time you want to slack off, at least come up with a better excuse. Don’t treat everyone else like idiots.”
Seriously?
He’d taken her for someone’s well-connected daughter?
Jiang Xia couldn’t help but laugh inwardly.
His first impression was already firmly set. Explaining herself now wouldn’t accomplish much.
Since he wasn’t actually stopping her, she simply treated him as if he didn’t exist and turned to Chen Dong instead.
“Brother Chen, could you bring the families over?”
Chen Dong wasn’t particularly confident either, so instead of arguing with Wang Leihu, he simply nodded.
“All right. Wait here for a moment.”
With that, he headed over to the families.
A few minutes later, he returned carrying two small stools, leading a young woman of about twenty-five or twenty-six behind him.
She was wearing a crisp dacron blouse, clearly marking her as someone from the city. She had obviously left home looking neat and well-groomed, but now her hair was in disarray, and her eyes were swollen red from crying.
There was unmistakable doubt in the way she looked at Jiang Xia.
Yet, like anyone who had exhausted every other hope, she still reached for this last straw.
Grasping Jiang Xia’s arm, her voice trembling, she asked,
“Officer… can you really draw my son’s portrait?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Jiang Xia adopted the calm, serious demeanor of the art teacher she’d once been in her previous life.
“But I’ll need your cooperation. The calmer you can stay and the more clearly you describe your son’s appearance, the more accurate the portrait will be.”
“Yes… yes, I understand.”
Li Xianglan nodded repeatedly, forcing herself to calm down.
Hah.
She’s really putting on quite an act.
Wang Leihu curled his lip again.
There was far too much work waiting for him to stand around watching this.
Throwing Jiang Xia one last disdainful glance, he pushed his bicycle away and hurried off.
Chen Dong didn’t stay either.
He still had to continue organizing the search and questioning witnesses.
Jiang Xia paid no attention to the two men leaving.
All of her focus was on the portrait.
Sitting on the small stool, she mentally reviewed the process before opening her notebook. Pencil in hand, she first sketched the basic proportions of a five-year-old child’s face, waiting for the mother’s description.
Li Xianglan sat down as well.
Taking a deep breath, she began,
“My son is five and a half this year. He’s got a sturdy little build and is absolutely adorable…”
“Please, hold on a moment.”
Jiang Xia stopped her before her pencil touched the paper.
This was the greatest challenge in forensic sketching—or, for that matter, one of the greatest challenges for almost any portrait artist.
Communication.
Most people were accustomed to describing feelings rather than physical features.
Faced with descriptions like melancholy with a hint of cheerfulness, thirty percent aloof, thirty percent indifferent, or delicate brows that seemed forever lightly furrowed beneath a mist…
An artist could only stare blankly.
All right, the person sounds melancholic…
But what do they actually look like?
Jiang Xia took a quiet breath and patiently guided her.
“Please be as specific as possible. Don’t describe the impression he gives. Let’s start with something simple… Is your son’s face round or more square?”
This time, Li Xianglan understood.
Thinking back carefully, she answered,
“Fairly round. His cheeks are a little chubby.”
Jiang Xia sketched the outline of the face.
“And his eyes? Larger and rounder, or narrower?”
“They take after mine—round.”
“What about his eyebrows? What shape are they? Anything distinctive?”
“My… his eyebrows…” She gestured unconsciously. “They slant like this. They’re thicker toward the front and get thinner near the ends.”
“And his nose?”
“A normal nose. Not especially big or small.”
“What about his lips? Is the upper lip fuller, or the lower?”
“The upper lip.”
Jiang Xia made a few quick adjustments.
“The lips need to be a little smaller.”
“And his hair?”
“He has very thick hair. About this long.”
As Li Xianglan spoke, she gestured to indicate the length.
…
Jiang Xia sketched as she revised, making adjustments with each stroke.
Gradually, the portrait of a five-year-old boy emerged on the page.
He was slightly chubby, with round, bright eyes and an innocent, somewhat goofy expression. Altogether, he looked exactly like the sturdy, rosy-cheeked little boy his mother had described.
Jiang Xia finally set down her pencil.
Li Xianglan leaned over to look at the portrait in the notebook. Her eyes slowly widened.
“It’s him! It’s exactly him! That’s my son!”
She shot to her feet and shouted, “Zhou Xuewen! Zhou Xuewen, come over here and look!”
“I’m coming!”
A young man dressed in a dacron shirt hurried over, with Chen Dong close behind after hearing the commotion.
She’d actually finished the sketch?
Li Xianglan was breathing hard. She grabbed Chen Dong by the arm and pointed excitedly at Jiang Xia’s notebook.
“Comrade, look! This is exactly what my son looks like!”
Hearing that, Li Xianglan’s husband squeezed forward through the crowd. The moment he saw the portrait, his eyes widened in surprise.
“Isn’t this our son?”
“You really drew him?!”
Chen Dong stared at the portrait, his face filled with disbelief.
He couldn’t say for certain whether it matched the missing child, but one thing was obvious—it looked like a real person. The likeness was so lifelike it could have been copied from a photograph.
This was incredible.
“It’s thanks to the mother’s detailed description.”
Hearing both parents confirm that the portrait was a perfect match, Jiang Xia finally relaxed. Rolling her sore wrist, she said,
“Now that we have his portrait, finding him should be much easier.”
“Xiao Jiang, you’ve done something truly remarkable! This is more than just making things ‘a little easier’!”
Chen Dong’s chest rose and fell with excitement.
“Right now, all we know is that three five-year-old children have gone missing—one chubby and two skinny. Those descriptions could fit countless kids. We’ve been searching like headless flies with nothing to go on. But now that we have this portrait, we can focus on finding him. Who knows how much time this is going to save us!”
As Chen Dong’s voice grew louder with excitement, it soon caught Tan Bingyi’s attention.
Tan Bingyi walked over.
“I could hear you making a racket from halfway across the station. What did you find that’s got you so excited?”
“A portrait, Captain Tan!”
Gesturing animatedly, Chen Dong explained, “Xiao Jiang drew the missing child’s portrait!”
“What?!”
Startled, Tan Bingyi strode over and looked down at the sketch in the notebook.
Sure enough, there was the portrait of a five-year-old boy. It matched the family’s description remarkably well.
Looking up, Tan Bingyi asked to confirm, “You’re certain this is what the missing child looks like?”
“Yes, Comrade Officer!” Li Xianglan replied hurriedly. “That’s my son! Please, send people to look for him!”
“Don’t worry. We’ll organize the search immediately.”
A hint of relief appeared on Tan Bingyi’s face.
With this portrait, the difficulty of finding the child would drop dramatically.
What he hadn’t expected was that there was someone this talented among the officers.
A vague thought flashed through his mind, but before he could dwell on it, another problem suddenly occurred to him.
“There’s only one drawing…”
“…That’s not enough to go around.”
Jiang Xia, who had just been celebrating inwardly, froze. A frown creased her brow as well.
He was right.
The greatest value of a portrait was letting searchers know exactly what the missing child looked like. With only a single copy, everyone would have to take turns looking at it. Most people wouldn’t remember the face after only a brief glance, and by the time the notebook was passed from here to every checkpoint—and then farther out to the officers questioning people on the front lines—it would probably be dawn.
The best solution would be to print hundreds, even thousands of copies, so everyone involved in the search could carry one and compare it directly. That would make the portrait truly useful.
If this were the twenty-first century, they could simply run it through a photocopier.
But Jiang Xia had never even heard of such a machine in this era.
So what could they do?
She unconsciously clenched her fists.
Having a portrait but being unable to use it was even more frustrating than not having one at all.
“What if I take it to a printing factory?”
Chen Dong thought quickly and immediately offered a suggestion.
“They can print calendars, so they should be able to reproduce this too.”
A printing factory?
Jiang Xia’s eyes lit up.
That actually sounded like a workable idea.
“That’s a great idea!”
Tan Bingyi slapped his thigh in agreement. Picking up the walkie-talkie hanging from his belt—a bulky unit nearly as long as his face—he adjusted the frequency.
“Hello, Old Xu. Can you hear me?”
The radio crackled with static.
A moment later, a voice came through.
“Loud and clear. Captain Tan, what are your instructions?”
“Call Section Chief Ye at the printing factory. His number is…”
Tan Bingyi contacted the printing factory first.
After all, it was a state-owned enterprise. If he simply sent one of his officers over, they probably wouldn’t even get through the front door. It was better to give them a heads-up first.
The sound of buttons being pressed came through the radio. Soon, another voice, even more distorted by static, spoke in broken fragments.
“Hello, Captain Tan. This is Old Ye. What’s the urgent matter?”
Speaking slowly and enunciating clearly, Tan Bingyi explained,
“It’s like this. Three children have gone missing. One of our officers has drawn a portrait of one of them, but we only have a single copy. We need to make more reproductions—ideally four or five hundred. Can your factory print them?”
Li Xianglan clutched her husband’s arm, staring anxiously at the walkie-talkie.
Jiang Xia also waited for the answer.
Various printing techniques used in counterfeit currency production suddenly flashed through her mind, and she had a bad feeling about this.
“Well…”
Section Chief Ye’s hesitant voice came through the static.
“We can print them, but the fastest we could finish would be two days from now. Would that still be in time?”
“Two days?!”
Tan Bingyi’s voice jumped an octave.
“That’s way too long! Can’t you make it any faster?”
“That’s already the fastest we can do!”
Section Chief Ye sounded anxious as well.
“In the past, jobs like this usually took a whole week!”
Tan Bingyi’s face darkened completely.
If they had the copies within half a day, they could still play a crucial role in the search.
But in two days, the child traffickers might already have escaped to another city. By the time the prints were ready, they’d be good for nothing but toilet paper.
Staring at the carefully drawn portrait, he felt both anxious and frustrated.
It was like preparing for battle, only to pick up your rifle and realize there wasn’t a single bullet left.
The moment she heard that, Li Xianglan understood that two days was far too long to make any real difference.
A glimmer of hope had finally appeared, only to be snuffed out in an instant. Tears streamed down her face.
“Section Chief, I’m begging you. Can’t you rush it? We’ll… we’ll pay! Whatever losses the factory incurs, we’ll cover them. Please, print them faster. Even one day sooner would help…”
Section Chief Ye sighed helplessly over the radio.
“It really isn’t a matter of whether we want to rush it. Just preparing the offset printing plates takes two days. The schedule I gave you is already the absolute fastest we can manage.”
Just as she’d expected.
Jiang Xia rubbed her throbbing temples.
She knew Section Chief Ye wasn’t making excuses. Two days really was the fastest the factory could do.
But the fastest wasn’t fast enough.
By then, it would already be too late.
They had managed to produce the portrait, only to have the entire effort stalled by the printing process.
The frustration was almost enough to make her cough up blood.
Wasn’t there any faster way to reproduce the image?
Under normal circumstances, Jiang Xia wouldn’t have known one.
But this time…
Well, she silently thanked the Number One System once again.
She searched through the knowledge the counterfeit-currency skill had given her, looking for everything related to printing.
The key to mass printing was the master plate.
Just like the individually carved metal type used in movable-type printing, once you had the master plate, you could ink it and produce copy after copy in rapid succession.
At present, the mainstream plate-making methods were relief printing and offset printing.
The former was what most people thought of when they imagined printing: much like carving a seal, the craftsman manually gouged away all the unnecessary material, leaving only the parts to be printed raised above the surface before applying ink and making impressions.
Because the plate had to be carved by hand, the process was naturally slow. Taking six or seven days to finish a single plate was perfectly normal, and the resulting image could only be printed in a single color with no tonal gradation.
Offset printing…
There really was no way to shorten that process any further.
But what about engraved printing?
Since the plates were carved by hand, there had to be some room to speed things up.
If the image were simplified enough for a master engraver to carve, could the production time be pushed to its absolute limit?
“Section Chief Ye.”
Jiang Xia immediately stepped forward and raised her voice.
“What if we switch to engraved plate printing?”
Tan Bingyi glanced at her in surprise but said nothing.
“Engraved printing? That would be even slower!”
Section Chief Ye’s distorted voice crackled over the radio. Despite the static, the surprise in his tone was unmistakable. Apparently, he hadn’t expected anyone there to know anything about printing.
Unfortunately, in his opinion, she only knew half the story.
“Engraved plates have to be carved by hand. A portrait is far too complicated to finish quickly.”
Raising his voice so he could be heard over the interference, he continued,
“And engraved printing isn’t like offset printing. It can’t reproduce gradients. The best it can do is something like those black-and-white silhouette portraits of Lei Feng. There’s no way we could carve the kind of pencil sketch you’ve got.”
“I know.”
Jiang Xia pressed on.
“I’ll redraw the portrait in the style of a copperplate engraving. It’ll be several times more detailed than a simple Lei Feng-style silhouette. I’ll add engraved linework to the facial features, but the dark areas will still be rendered as large solid black shapes. I’ll also keep the image down to about the size of a four-inch photograph.”
She paused before asking the crucial question.
“If it’s a copperplate-style image like that, what’s the shortest time it would take to engrave the plate?”
“Huh?”
Section Chief Ye sounded even more skeptical.
“But the proportions have to be extremely precise. Otherwise, the printed copies will still come out distorted, and our master engravers will spend another seven or eight days correcting the plate. Can you really finish a drawing like that in just a few hours?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
Jiang Xia had no time to argue with him. Instead, she spoke with the decisiveness of someone giving orders.
“Just tell me how long it would take on your end.”
“Hold on. Let me ask…”
A moment later, Section Chief Ye came back on the line.
“Our senior engraver says that if the artwork is really as simple as you’ve described, he can finish carving the plate in as little as five hours. Then give us another hour, and we can print one thousand copies for you.”
<< _ >>