Chapter 412: These People Have Some Nerve!

It was only after the patrol officer's reminder that Captain Hua and the others caught on.

Right—if there were really any danger to his life, they would have moved him somewhere else long ago.

Even though they didn't know medicine, they also knew the emergency room wasn't the place for treating critically ill patients.

"What do you mean?"

If you don't understand, just ask—Captain Hua was never the sort to put on airs, and lowering his posture carried no mental burden for him at all.

"The emergency room is for initial assessment, stabilization, and treatment of acute injuries."

The patrol officer comrade answered, deadpan:

"If the assessment finds the patient's condition critical, the patient is immediately transferred to the resuscitation room for emergency treatment."

"Once the patient's vital signs are stabilized, the next stop is the operating room."

Saying this, he swept a stern look across the five people before him:

"He's been in the emergency room this long and hasn't come out yet—doesn't that make it pretty obvious his injuries aren't serious?"

Seems... that's how it is.

Captain Hua and the others exchanged glances, momentarily at a loss for a comeback.

Care makes one lose their head.

They only knew Yu Dazhang had been shot and had lost a lot of blood, yet not one of them had paid attention to these details.

If severe injury is divided into three steps, Yu Dazhang had stopped at the first.

So how could there possibly be any danger to his life?

This patrol officer didn't look very old, yet his thinking was clear and well-organized—a few sentences and he'd calmed them all down.

"How do you know the hospital's procedures so well?"

The one asking was Lu Zhongxin—upon hearing his apprentice was fine, his whole person relaxed.

"Well, about that…" the patrol officer said with a slightly embarrassed smile:

"My ex-girlfriend got hit by a car last year—she went through exactly this process."

Ex-girlfriend?

Now that they weren't so tense, the few of them naturally grew gossipy.

Did she become an ex because she died, or did they break up after she healed?

They all wanted to ask, but not one of them actually did.

Another ten minutes passed.

The emergency room doors opened, and this time it was a doctor who came out.

The few of them immediately went up to meet him.

"Physician, how is he?" Captain Hua asked.

Lu Zhongxin and the others stood behind him, watching the doctor with tense faces.

"He's fine—it was just the excessive blood loss that caused the shock and unconsciousness."

The doctor spoke as he pulled off his mask, looking relieved as well:

"Good thing he was brought in in time—his condition is now stable."

Though his tone was flat, it sounded wonderfully pleasant to their ears, and everyone couldn't help but let out a long breath.

Once a person calms down, their IQ retakes the high ground, and naturally more things come to mind.

Lu Zhongxin stepped forward half a pace and, looking at the doctor, asked:

"Removing a bullet should count as surgery—why wasn't it done in the operating room?"

He said this in an interrogating tone.

In his eyes, the hospital had been somewhat perfunctory with the patient.

Even if Yu Dazhang's injuries weren't fatal, surgery shouldn't be performed in the emergency room, right?

The others heard it and immediately realized the same issue, casting questioning looks at the doctor one after another.

"Bullet?"

The doctor looked at them in confusion:

"What bullet?"

Oh no—they'd run into a quack.

"He has a gunshot wound!" Captain Hua grew anxious, his volume rising several notches:

"According to colleagues at the scene, he was hit by at least two bullets."

This one even made the doctor panic.

"That can't be." The doctor then said in a firm tone:

"We did both an X-ray and a CT scan—no foreign object was found inside the body, and I carefully examined the wounds; they're not the kind of entry wounds a bullet would leave."

The doctor paused, furrowed his brow, and continued explaining:

"The wound on the top of his head was left by a bullet grazing across—although it caused heavy bleeding, once the bleeding was stopped, it's just an ordinary flesh wound."

Then the doctor pointed at his own left shoulder:

"The shoulder wound wasn't caused by a direct hit—it was grazed by a stray bullet."

"Although the wound is a bit deep, it didn't damage the bone."

Now the group finally understood.

After all that fuss, Yu Dazhang hadn't actually been hit by any bullets at all—it was all grazing wounds.

In other words, although a lot of blood was lost, it was really just flesh wounds.

"However…"

Seeing that they had all relaxed, the doctor reminded them:

"Judging by the blood loss and the depth of the wounds, his injuries aren't exactly light either — seven stitches on the head, five on the shoulder."

Everyone present was a criminal investigator, so they all had some understanding of these things.

Deep wounds with continuous bleeding generally can't heal through simple bandaging, so sutures are needed to promote repair.

This also reduces the chance of scarring.

"Then when will he wake up?" Lu Zhongxin asked again.

This time his tone was much better, and the way he looked at the doctor was no longer as aggressive as before.

"That depends on his own condition."

For questions like this, a doctor couldn't possibly give an exact answer — if the patient never woke up, who'd be held responsible?

There was once a fellow who had a polyp removal surgery scheduled for Monday.

Because he was scared, he stayed up for two days and two nights over the weekend, playing games the whole time.

The surgery was under general anesthesia, and he should have gradually woken up within half an hour after the procedure, but instead he slept for a full day and night.

When he finally woke up, he found the anesthesiologist standing at his bedside, staring at him with a deathly pale face.

This kind of situation wasn't an isolated case.

So the doctor could only answer vaguely:

"Under normal circumstances, hemorrhagic shock patients wake up within one to three days; some wake up within a few hours. Of course, there have also been cases of prolonged coma."

He'd said something, but it felt as if he hadn't.

Everyone present stared at the doctor, and that thought popped into their heads unbidden.

Shortly after, Yu Dazhang was wheeled out of the emergency room and sent to a ward.

His head was wrapped up so thoroughly that anyone who didn't know would have thought he'd just had a craniotomy.

When the senior leader arrived, only Captain Hua and Lu Zhongxin were left at the hospital.

Zhang Sen and the other two had already gone to the Baling City Bureau to meet up with the task force.

After hearing Captain Hua's brief report, the senior leader's expression visibly eased.

Especially upon hearing that Yu Dazhang had only suffered flesh wounds and was not in any life-threatening danger, the vertical crease between his brows finally smoothed out.

But immediately, his face darkened again:

"These people have some nerve!"

After dropping that line, the senior leader walked aside and made several phone calls in a row.

The next day.

After last night's interrogation, the case had made significant progress.

Zhang Chao's mother, knowing escape was hopeless, confessed everything that very night.

Mainly because she couldn't hold out any longer.

The top official at the provincial department had given a hard order: obtain the confession within one day.

To that end, the pre-trial officer had arranged the most rigorous interrogation for her directly.

Can a suspect be interrogated while receiving medical treatment?

Well, that depends on what kind of case it is and what kind of person the suspect is.

Moreover, the law doesn't explicitly prohibit a suspect from being questioned while receiving medical treatment.

Just as Yu Dazhang had inferred, the case had been planned from the very start by Zhang Chao's mother.

Once the underground prison was set up, she handed the entire criminal chain over to Zhang Chao and his wife to run.

Yang Jieru came up with the plans, Zhang Chao handled the actual execution, but any major decisions still had to go through Zhang Chao's mother.

The foreigner, meanwhile, was held separately.

It wasn't until deep into the night that people from the Ministry of State Security arrived.

A group of three conducted a surprise interrogation of that foreigner that night.

(End of this chapter)