Ch13 - Cardiovascular Ward 08

The principle of proximity, which was often referred to in <Criminal Psychology> as the murderer’s line of thinking, was that the people could not help but be nervous and prone to make mistakes in unfamiliar surroundings, while they were more confident in their familiar environment and the people around them.

Therefore, the murderers of a serial killing case often chose the person close to themselves and the people around them first. After killing one or two people, the murderer would feel a sense of accomplishment for having successfully killed someone, and would gradually become bolder and expand the scope of their crimes. 

This was the basis for Yue Xingwen to judge the location of the murderer.

He drew a map of the distribution of all rooms in the ward on a piece of paper, so that the other students would understand his train of thoughts more visually.

—————Doctor’s Office—————

05/04/03——口口——48/49/50 

08/07/06——口口——45/46/47

11/10/09——口口——42/43/44

14/13/12——口口——39/40/41

17/16/15——口口——36/37/38

20/19/18——口口——33/34/35

23/22/21——口口——30/31/32

26/25/24——口口——27/28/29

VIP Ward——口口——VIP Ward 

—————Nurses’ Station—————

The dashed part represented the corridor, and the middle area blocks were not accessible.

The ward numbers started from no.3 at the upper left corner to the end of no. 50 at the upper right corner.

Yue Xingwen pointed to the map and explained to his classmates, “The entire cardiovascular ward has a ‘回’ shape corridor. The lower left and right corners are the VIP wards, with 8 wards and 24 beds in each of the two corridors. On the left side, bed no. 3/4/5 are at the topmost, and bed no. 24/25/26 are at the bottommost; On the right side, at the bottom starts from bed no. 27/28/29 and the top corner is ended with bed no. 48/49/50.” 

When everyone saw the distribution map of the wards he drew, they quickly took a blank paper and took a note as if they were listening to a lecture in class, and marked their corresponding bed numbers, and the location of the deceased.

Yue Xingwen also marked the location of the five deceased with an asterisk and said, “The two patients who died at 1:00am, bed no. 15 and bed no. 24, the beds are close to the corridor, which means that the murderer can directly add vasoconstrictor drugs or toxins to the patients’ syringes by gently pushing open the door and taking two steps forward in the middle of the night, making it very convenient to commit the crime.”

Liu Zhaoqing finally understood and said, “The murderer would choose someone close to him for the first time he committed the crime, and after killing someone, he would be able to return to his ward the fastest time to avoid being bumped into by other patients or the doctors and nurses. So, from the nearest deceased… that is, the two patients in the two wards, bed no. 18/19/20 and 21/22/23?”

Ke Shaobin held up his glasses and took a closer look, then he suddenly realized, and said, “The deceased in the bed no. 15 is on the left side of the door; the deceased in the bed no. 24 is on the right side. It wouldn’t take more than 10 minutes to make the round trip, which would explain the fact that the two deaths were only 10 minutes apart? Because it is close enough so it’s convenient for the murderer to commit the crime?” 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

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Since the murderer was next door, it would take a very short time to go out and murder someone and the sneak back into the ward. The deceased were to the left and right side of the door, it was close to the murderer, and the murderer could always observe the doctors and nurses resuscitating them even after he murdered them.

Yue Xingwen continued to analyze, “After murdering these two people, the murderer became bolder. After two hours, when the murderer committed the crime again at 3:30am, the murderer chose a farther target. Bed no. 5 and no. 50 are closer to the doctor’s on-duty room, where there happens to be a washroom. The murderer could pretend to go to the washroom, killed the person in bed no. 5, and then killed the person in bed no. 50. Finally, the murderer quickly returned to their own ward.”

“At 5:00am, on the third crime, the murderer chose the furthest target, and even swaggered around the front of the nurses’ station, from the left corridor to the lower right corner of the ward, killing the patient in bed no. 33.” 

Seeing Yue Xingwen have completed the drawing of the murderer’s movement route, the students gave a thumbs up and said, “Xingwen’s reasoning is very logical to me!”

“I also think that the murderer divided the crimes into three time periods, so the murderer must have looked for the close ones first and then killed the far one last.”

Shivers ran down the spine and the crowd felt goosebumps on their backs at the thought about this murderer had been in and out of their ward last night, and quietly killed the patient in the bed next to them.

Liu Xiaoxiao shivered, gritted her teeth and asked, “Xingwen, are you sure the suspect is the patient? Isn’t it possible for the doctors and nurses to commit the crime as well?” 

Yue Xingwen replied, “Of course. The principle of proximity doesn’t apply to doctors and nurses. If the murderer in this case was the medical staff, they could come and go from any ward at will without arousing suspicion even if they were seen by patients or colleagues, and wouldn’t need to follow the ‘kill near, then kill far’ rule. The medical staff could have committed the crime at random, and the time and path we analyzed before would be meaningless.”

Yue Xingwen opened up the information of the ward’s medical staff and focused on last night’s duty schedule, and said, “This is the list of the doctors and nurses on duty last night, so let’s recall what we remember about them and see if there’s any doubts about their information. The possibility of medical staff committing crimes mentioned by classmate Liu Xiaoxiao can’t be hastily ruled out.”

Yue Xingwen distributed the information of the doctors and nurses, then he told everyone to look carefully for clues.

Liu Xiaoxiao took the information and read it over, saying, “This is the nurse sister in our ward, she has a gentle personality. Yesterday, I heard her chatting with someone that she is getting married next week and had sent invitations to her colleagues. Her happy occasion is approaching, so she should not be a butcher who killed five people in a row, right?” 

Qu Weiwei, who was in the same ward as Liu Xiaoxiao, added, “I noticed that the nurse wore a diamond necklace around her neck, saying that it was sent by her fiancé. Both of them should have a good relationship, such a girl has no motive to suddenly kill someone.”

Yue Xingwen nodded and looked at the crowd, then he asked, “What about the other nurses?”

Zou Yuhang frowned and said, “This is the nurse in charge of our ward, a young girl who just graduated. She is only in her 20s, her personality is rather shy, and she was still blushing when I asked her yesterday. She doesn’t look like a murderer ah?”

Ke Shaobin’s expression turned serious and said, “The third one is the nurse in charge of our ward, she had a fight with her husband. I heard her chat with someone yesterday, and she was obviously not in a good mood. When I asked her a question, she almost scolded me in a few sentences. She seemed to have just returned to work shortly after her maternity leave, and looked rather anxious emotionally. However, it shouldn’t be to the point of killing the patients to vent her anger, right?” 

Liu Zhaoqing said, “She quarreled with her husband. If she wanted to vent her anger and kill people, she would have killed her husband first.”

Everyone: “……”

What senior brother said was reasonable. Her husband made her angry, she had no reason to go back to the hospital and kill the patients, and also killed five patients in a row.

Yue Xingwen did not suspect the nurse to commit the crime. The three nurses had no motive to commit the crime, moreover, the nurses would habitually throw the medicine bottles in the trash can next to the nurses’ station that specialized in collecting medical waste, that trash can would be cleaned every day, and they did not have to worry about evidence being found out. However, when he and Liu Zhaoqing went through the trash can, they did not find any clues. 

The only reason he analyzed and eliminated one by one was in order to let the students agree with his reasoning. Otherwise, when the final answer ended up being miscalculated, the students would still blame him for not analyzing it properly, and the class monitor was not that good.

Yue Xingwen looked at Liu Zhaoqing and said, “Senior brother, do you think that there is anyone suspicious among the three doctors on duty?”

Liu Zhaoqing looked down at the names on the duty list and flipped their information out of the laptop and said, “The attending doctor, Xiao Wen, is smart and capable. He graduated with a doctorate in cardiovascular specialties, and he was promoted to be an attending doctor at a young age. He has a bright future. He spent more than ten years studying, writing thesis, training, and it isn’t easy to become an attending doctor. He won’t be so crazy to run to the ward to kill someone, right? Unless he’s psychopathic.”

Yue Xingwen nodded his head and agreed, “En, only a person with an antisocial personality disorder or a psychopath is likely to do such a thing.” 

Liu Zhaoqing touched his chin and continued to analyze the other two doctors on duty and said, “Dr. Ma Ping is 30 years old, he is a resident doctor. His resume shows that he was transferred from another hospital and has only been working here for a year, so it doesn’t make sense to lay hands on the patients in the ward; There is also an intern doctor whose name is Sun Liang, 25 years old, he is just graduated from graduate school, and neither of them seem to have much motive to kill?”

Yue Xingwen thought for a moment and finally concluded, “The three nurses can be ruled out, and as for the three doctors on duty who stayed in the ward last night, we need to determine it first. The bigger suspect is still the two patients in the ward that I just analyzed based on the route.”

There must always be a motive to kill someone. A person could not just randomly and indiscriminately kill someone in a bad mood. Besides, last night’s murderer was quite well prepared, and obviously not an impulsive crime, but it was planned for a long time. The murderer also knew the relevant theoretical knowledge of cardiovascular specialty.

Yue Xingwen picked out the patient information of the two wards and handed it to the students, then said, “Let’s see the 6 suspects, the old lady in bed no. 18 had just finished her surgery, she is currently wearing an oxygen mask, unconscious and having difficulty moving around on her own. She is the first to be ruled out.” 

Zou Yuhang added, “The 2 old men in bed no. 22 and no. 23 live next door to us, both of them are over 70 years old. One is a cement worker for a renovation company, and the other is a carpenter. Both of them obviously know each other, calling each other old Zhang and old Li, and they are always talking about their own grandson’s exam results in the corridor. They look honest and loyal, they should not know about this medical knowledge, right? I think their suspicions are not high.”

They ruled out 3 people out of 6 six people, and the scope of the suspects was narrowed again.

Yue Xingwen opened the information of the remaining three people and said, “Bed no. 19 is a retired professor from the department of medicine; Bed no. 20 is working in pharmacy-related jobs in the hospital; Bed no. 21 used to work as a medical representative. These three people have medical-related education and should have known how to cause sudden death for the heart disease patients, their ages are between 50 and 60 years old, and their conditions aren’t too serious, they have the conditions to commit the crime. The next step is to find the motive for the crime.”

Yue Xingwen did not have a clear clue, what was the reason that made the murderer have such hatred for heart disease patients? 

Just then, the ward door was suddenly pushed open.

Everyone turned their head towards the door in unison, only to see Xiao Wen, the attending doctor in a white coat, walking in with an expressionless face. Seeing so many patients gathered in the ward, he raised an eyebrow in displeasure and asked in a cold voice, “What are you doing?”

The students almost blurted out: we are having a class meeting.

Facing the doctor’s cold gaze, everyone quickly lowered their heads. Ke Shaobin hurriedly closed the information in the laptop with one click, opened a movie that came with the laptop, and smiled. “Doctor, everyone is so bored, so we get together to watch a movie.” Coincidentally, he opened a horror movie <The Grudge>, in which a female ghost crawled out of the ground. 

Dr. Xiao’s face turned uglier and said, “A group of heart patients gather here to watch horror movies, don’t you want to live a long life?”

Everyone: “……”

“Don’t you guys go back yet?!” Dr. Xiao said with a stern tone.

With a cold glare by the doctor, the students suddenly scattered and fled back to their wards. 

Yue Xingwen and Liu Zhaoqing quickly sat back on their own bed. Dr. Xiao walked over, picked up the stethoscope and listened carefully to their heart rates, and said indifferently, “The results of both of your coronary CR diagnoses have come out.”

Liu Zhaoqing hurriedly asked, “Dr. Xiao, it’s not serious, right?”

Dr. Xiao looked at him and replied, “Liu Zhaoqing, you have an 80% stenosis in the left anterior descending branch of your coronary artery.” Then, he took out another X-ray image and handed it to Yue Xingwen, saying, “You have 80% stenosis around the left artery branch, both of which are quite severe and have reached the criteria for surgery. Fortunately, you are still young, and you don’t have any other underlying diseases. You will be better if you do interventional surgery.”

Yue Xingwen and Liu Zhaoqing looked at each other and blurted out, “Surgery?” 

Dr. Xiao said, “This is the informed consent form for the surgery, read it first, and ask your family to sign it.”

Yue Xingwen took the consent form, looked at the list of ‘dangerous situations’ and ‘possible postoperative complications’. The more he read it, the more his scalp felt numb, and he could not help but say, “Do we have to do the surgery?”

Dr. Xiao responded indifferently, “An 80% stenosis can easily cause an artery blockage, so it’s best to do the surgery as soon as possible.”

After the doctor left, Yue Xingwen could not help but press his temple and said, “They won’t really send us to the operating room, right? This course experience is so rich.” He rarely got sick. This time he had a heart disease, and he was hospitalized. In this course, they encountered a serial murder, and had a battle royale at night. If he was finally sent to the operating room, was it… a complete life? 

Liu Zhaoqing calmly put the informed consent form on the bedside table and said, “We only need to survive for 5 days, and we can get out of here before the surgery. We can tell that our family is out of town and can’t come over to sign as an excuse, so the consent form can be put off for a few days. Anyway, I absolutely won’t go to the operating room.”

Yue Xingwen immediately agreed with him, “I don’t want to do the surgery, who knows if I can come alive after going into the operating room. In case an accident happens during the surgery, I will unjustly die.”

Liu Zhaoqing picked up the coronary CR X-ray image, looked carefully at the location of the arterial stenosis against the light, and said, “Alas, our heart disease is more serious than I thought. 80% of the stenosis, this is already considered a grade 4 stenosis. Anyway, the night examination was over last night, right? It won’t come back tonight, right? Can our hearts bear it if we do it again?!”

Yue Xingwen’s spine stiffened slightly when he heard that. He always felt this senior brother would jinx it. 

As Dr. Xiao started his rounds to the whole wards, the students had to lie down in the bed honestly. Everyone’s condition was similar, and they were terrified to hear the word ‘surgery’, afraid that they would really be pushed into the operating room.

The sky turned dark once again, and there was still no light visible outside the window.

The clock drifted towards the early hours of the morning, and Yue Xingwen nervously clenched his fists under the covers.

There should not be a night examination tonight, right? The library could not push the students too hard, right? Yue Xingwen prayed silently in his heart. As a result, just after he said this, a ‘ding’ sounded, and a familiar cold mechanical voice sounded in his ears—— 

[00:00 am]

[The Second Night-time Examination Starts]

[Countdown 3, 2, 1]

Yue Xingwen’s expression turned ugly, “Here we go again!” 

Liu Zhaoqing directly swore, “Shit, the library is simply inhumane!”

Listening to the strange footsteps outside, both of them looked at each other helplessly and fled out the door as quickly as they could.

This time, without needing to be reminded by Yue Xingwen, Qu Weiwei shouted from the corridor, “5G signal tower! Put the signal tower at the upper left corner! Everyone runs to the bottom right corner!”

Zou Yuhang said, “Fuck, giving this Laozi another power cut again. Everyone, cover me to fix the circuit board!” 

It seemed that the students escaped the battle royale based on the experience?