To prevent Zhao Sen from returning, Xiao Lou and Liu Qiao immediately teleported back to Peach Blossom Spring after checking Morgue's other drawers.
The entrance to Peach Blossom Spring is inside the VIP Ward of the General Surgery Department. At this time, Yu Hanjiang was the only patient in the ward.
The lights in the entire inpatient ward were turned off. Yu Hanjiang drew the curtains and turned on his phone's flashlight for illumination.
Liu Qiao's face turned pale. After entering the room, she leaned against the wall and took deep breaths. Even though she was brave and not afraid of corpses, the scene she had just witnessed had greatly shocked her. Even now, the image of a human head in a black garbage bag was still replaying in her mind.
Xiao Lou wasn't having an easy time either. Zhao Sen's face was only 10 centimeters away from his just now, and his heart almost stopped beating at that moment.
Seeing that both of them looked extremely pale, Yu Hanjiang asked with concern, "Are you alright?"
"It's nothing." Xiao Lou let out a soft breath, calmed herself, and looked at Yu Hanjiang: "Do you know what just happened?"
"Yes, I can feel it because of the Telepathic Connection." Yu Hanjiang reached out and handed each of them a bottle of Mineral Water from the bedside table, so they could drink some water to calm their nerves. Liu Qiao's fingers trembled as she forcefully unscrewed the cap, tilted her head back, and gulped down several mouthfuls of water before saying in a hoarse voice, "I never imagined that Zhao Sen would hide my cousin's body in the hospital's Morgue."
"I didn't expect this either…" Xiao Lou rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on. "When the flashback of Red Heart 2 Secret Room showed Zhao Sen carrying his cousin's body in a suitcase, I thought he would dump the body in the middle of nowhere."
"Sit down and let's talk." Yu Hanjiang gestured for the two to sit on the sofa. He leaned against the headboard and calmly analyzed, "For Zhao Sen, the hospital environment is the most familiar to him. Ordinary people wouldn't be bored enough to go to Morgue and hide his cousin's head in a Morgue space so he could check on him anytime."
"That makes sense. Dumping the body in the wild might get it discovered, but bringing it back to the hospital would put it under his control." Xiao Lou unscrewed the mineral water and took a couple of sips. With Yu Hanjiang by his side, his emotions gradually calmed down. Thinking back carefully, Zhao Sen's psychopathism was already evident when he first entered the heart room.
"I remember, after Zhao Sen killed his wife, he placed her body on the rose bed, like a work of art." Xiao Lou turned to Yu Hanjiang and said, "I was shocked by the scene when I first entered the Red Heart 2 Secret Room. It was my first time at a crime scene."
"Me too. The whole room was filled with the scent of roses mixed with the stench of corpses. I almost threw up on the spot. I only forced myself to start collecting clues after seeing the countdown…" Liu Qiao frowned as she recalled that scene. "So, does Zhao Sen like to make 'specimens' from the very beginning after killing people?"
"Hmm, the rose bed looks a lot like a human specimen. The head of He Yongqiang that we just found in Morgue had very clean cuts; to Zhao Sen, that must have been a work of art too," Xiao Lou said with a wry smile.
"He left his cousin's head in Morgue, perhaps as a memorial. He can go to Morgue and see his masterpiece when he has free time," Yu Hanjiang added calmly.
"..." Xiao Lou and Liu Qiao were speechless.
Zhao Sen's thinking is incomprehensible to normal people. Most murderers would feel fear after killing someone and would want to get rid of the body as far away as possible, but he actually kept the head of the victim as a specimen and would "visit" it from time to time. It's truly deranged!
Liu Qiao shuddered, took a deep breath, and quickly changed the subject: "By the way, Professor Xiao, do you think that suspicious body we found in Morgue might be related to Zhao Sen?"
"Probably not." Xiao Lou frowned and analyzed carefully. " Zhao Sen is a doctor in the Cardiovascular Surgery Department, specializing in heart surgery. The suspicious body we found may have had a kidney removed. The higher the level of the doctor, the more detailed the specialization. I personally think that kidney surgery has little to do with Zhao Sen. "
"You mean, doctors in the Cardiovascular Surgery Department don't necessarily perform kidney surgery?" Yu Hanjiang asked in a low voice.
"Of course. The training of surgeons is a very long process. Many surgeons graduate in their twenties and can only perform surgeries in their thirties. Complex surgeries like heart transplants and kidney transplants are generally only performed by professors who are over forty years old. Asking a doctor from the Cardiovascular Surgery Department to perform kidney surgery is almost like switching careers." Xiao Lou told Yu Hanjiang about the hospital situation he knew. " Zhao Sen looks to be only in his thirties. He probably isn't skilled enough to be proficient in two specialties."
"Yes, I also think Zhao Sen is the distraction used to create panic. The hospital case must be handled by someone else." Yu Hanjiang agreed with Xiao Lou's deduction. Xiao Lou took out his phone and handed it to Yu Hanjiang. Just before Zhao Sen walked into Morgue, he had taken a few quick photos of the scars on the corpse in the last few seconds.
Yu Hanjiang took a look and saw that the old surgical scars on the upper right and lower right abdomen of the deceased were very obvious and unsightly. However, the scar on the lower back was very shallow and easy to miss if you didn't look carefully; that scar had been almost absorbed.
"Is it because the surgery took too long?" Yu Hanjiang asked.
"The sutures are different," Xiao Lou explained. "Regular surgical sutures heal quickly, but need to be removed, leaving a more noticeable scar. There's also a finer suture, usually used in plastic surgery, which leaves a shallower scar after healing. The sutures used on the front and back surgical wounds of this deceased person are different, and the suturing techniques are clearly not those of the same doctor."
"It seems he did both sides..."
Three surgeries?
"Hmm. It's not uncommon for patients to have undergone three or four surgeries in the hospital, but this person's surgical wounds are unusual. Due to the time constraints tonight, based on the location of the wounds and the missing ribs, we can infer that he had kidney-related surgery. As for the specific type of surgery, I didn't have time to perform an autopsy, so I can't determine it yet." Xiao Lou paused and said, "I'd like to check his medical records; perhaps they will provide some clues."
" Professor Xiao, let me investigate with you," Liu Qiao volunteered.
"It's already 2 a.m., Xiao Liu, you should go back to sleep." Xiao Lou looked at Liu Qiao with gentle eyes.
An 18-year-old girl followed Xiao Lou to Morgue in the middle of the night and was startled by the sudden appearance of Zhao Sen and his severed head. Besides, she was sick and severely anemic, so Xiao Lou couldn't bear to let her continue to work with him.
"Go ahead, we'll take care of things here." Yu Hanjiang nodded to Liu Qiao. "Besides, you've been away from the ward for so long. If the doctor on duty finds out, it could easily arouse suspicion."
"Alright then." Captain Yu and Professor Xiao both told her to go back, so Liu Qiao didn't insist anymore. She took off her nurse's coat, changed back into her blue and white checkered hospital gown, and used the " Light as a Swallow " Lightness Skill card to climb out the window.
Xiao Lou returned to the duty room and took his laptop to Yu Hanjiang's ward to look up information together.
The deceased man's name was Liu Renyuan. Xiao Lou opened the hospital's office software, entered the name " Liu Renyuan," and quickly found his medical records.
As Xiao Lou checked the medical record, he read it aloud to Yu Hanjiang: "Patient Liu Renyuan, male, 35 years old, underwent an appendectomy three years ago for acute appendicitis in the outpatient department; last March, he was admitted to our hospital's hepatobiliary surgery department for gallstones and underwent a cholecystectomy. The chief complaint upon admission this time is lower back pain, loss of appetite, fatigue, and headache, and he has been admitted to the nephrology ward..."
Xiao Lou was puzzled upon reading this: "His last hospitalization was half a month ago, in the nephrology department. The cause of death was acute renal failure, and there were no records of any kidney-related surgeries in his medical records."
Yu Hanjiang frowned slightly: "Wasn't his kidney surgery done at this hospital?"
Xiao Lou looked at the medical record again with suspicion and said, "Doctors shouldn't miss surgical scars when they examine a patient, and they should write down any previous surgical history in the medical record, but it's not mentioned in his medical record. Judging from the healing of the surgical scar, the surgery must have been more than a year ago."
If the kidney surgery was performed before admission, the "Patient's Medical History" section would definitely state "The patient underwent surgery at XX Hospital in X year X month," and the physical examination would also indicate "The patient has a surgical scar approximately 10cm long on the right posterior 12th rib area." These are standard medical record writing procedures. However, his medical record only mentions two surgical scars on the front, with no description of the scar on his lower back.
Yu Hanjiang asked with a serious face, "Could it be that his surgical records were missed?"
Xiao Lou shook his head: " Anesthesiologist, chief surgeon, first assistant, second assistant, head nurse, instrument nurse, hand scrub nurse... Every surgery requires a lot of medical staff to work together. Moreover, patients need a period of perioperative care after the surgery. A single surgery involves at least a dozen medical staff. Trying to erase all these traces would be too much work."
Yu Hanjiang asked thoughtfully, "Do you think there's a high probability that this is a collaborative project within the hospital?"
"I don't know." Xiao Lou's expression was complicated. "If it was a joint operation within the hospital that erased his surgical records, it would definitely involve the hospital's leadership and senior management. Otherwise, with so many people involved, it would be too difficult to keep quiet…"
Yu Hanjiang gently pressed his temples. If it was a group crime, the investigation would be much more complicated. Suspects would cover for each other and create alibis, making the investigation and evidence collection extremely difficult. But his speculation might not be correct. After all, there were very few clues that could be obtained from the body. This wasn't the first time Heart Room had made a wrong deduction at the beginning, so it was too early to draw conclusions.
The surgical scar on Liu Renyuan's body is indeed suspicious, with no related records whatsoever; it seems to have appeared out of thin air. Whether his kidney has truly disappeared is currently unconfirmed by Xiao Lou, as no autopsy was performed.
"Let him rest first. We'll check with the doctor who treated him again tomorrow," Yu Hanjiang said in a low voice.
" How is CEO Shao doing?" Xiao Lou asked worriedly as she walked to the bedside. " Is there anything wrong with the eavesdropping device?"
"I just heard Zhao Sen go into the ICU and talk to Nurse about changing the dressing at CEO Shao's bedside. After he finished, he left and didn't come back in." Yu Hanjiang gently pressed Xiao Lou's hand and said softly, "Don't worry, I will keep an eye on CEO Shao. You should get some sleep and we'll talk about it tomorrow morning."
"You just had surgery, and your wound hasn't healed yet." Xiao Lou pointed to Yu Hanjiang's lower right abdomen and said seriously, "You are the patient yourself, so don't keep telling me, the doctor, to rest. You should go to sleep too."
"..." Yu Hanjiang almost forgot that he was the patient. The patient was telling the doctor to rest, and the roles seemed to have reversed. Looking at Xiao Lou's serious expression, Yu Hanjiang couldn't help but smile slightly and said softly, "Okay, Dr. Xiao, we should all rest."
"Hmm, I'll take a short nap to recharge." Xiao Lou turned over and lay down on the sofa, feeling uneasy.
What if Yu Hanjiang's speculation is true?
This hospital was involved in a conspiracy, with many doctors and nurses participating in organ trafficking. Patients staying at this hospital would come off the operating table without knowing they were missing a kidney, and their surgical records would be deliberately erased...
Alternatively, the patient may be aware of the situation and secretly sign an agreement to sell their organs to those in need, with the hospital acting as an intermediary and privately involved in the organ trade.
In either case, this is practically a death hospital.
Xiao Lou couldn't sleep well all night. In his dreams, he kept seeing Zhao Sen's cold gaze staring at him, and He Yongqiang's severed head rolling around in Morgue's drawer. He also dreamed that someone was holding a bloody scalpel and secretly cutting off his kidney.
When Xiao Lou woke up in the morning, he was covered in a cold sweat.
At 8:00 AM sharp, it was time for ward rounds. Xiao Lou followed the professors through the General Surgery Department ward, paying particular attention to Officer Yu Hanjiang, who was hospitalized due to a work injury. The rounds ended at 9:30 AM, and Xiao Lou was preparing to visit his teammates in other wards when the phone suddenly rang.
The caller ID showed an unfamiliar number. Xiao Lou was the chief resident of surgery; his on-call phone was listed throughout the hospital. It was probably another department requesting a consultation. Xiao Lou walked to a quiet corner and answered the phone: "Hello."
To his surprise, Long Sen's urgent voice came from the other side of his ear: " Professor Xiao, someone died early this morning in our orthopedic ward, in the room next to mine! The deceased was a 35-year-old young man who had just undergone lumbar spine replacement surgery yesterday. He was rushed to the hospital early this morning for emergency treatment, but the doctors worked for half a day and said that the resuscitation was unsuccessful and declared him clinically dead."
Xiao Lou quickly wrote down the patient's name that Long Sen mentioned, intending to check the deceased's medical records in the hospital system.
I had just hung up the phone when another call came in from an unknown number—
Ye Qi's clear, childlike voice came through the phone: " Professor Xiao, a patient in the Pediatrics Department has died. It's that little girl, Chen Yuqing, whom you consulted yesterday. I heard she suddenly had a heart attack and died."
Xiao Lou paused for a moment, put down her phone, and found two more messages popping up on the screen.
" Professor Xiao, the phone is busy and I can't get through. I'd like to report something to you. This is Qu Wanyue from the Rheumatology and Immunology Department. This morning, a 28-year-old woman suddenly died. The cause of death is unknown, and I'm trying to find out."
"I am Lao Mo. An elderly patient in the endocrinology department died suddenly, and the family members are making a scene in the corridor."
Xiao Lou: "........."
Xiao Lou is still very busy today.