The Young Urban Doctor
Chapter 1571: Cause of Death

Chapter 1571: Chapter 1571: Cause of Death

Seeing Ling Ruonan crying aggrievedly there, while Wuyue kept his head down in a dejected manner, Luo Ziling finally couldn’t bear it.

He wiped his hands clean on his apron, then pulled a tissue from his pocket to wipe the tears off Ling Ruonan’s face.

"Mom, why don’t we talk again after dinner," Luo Ziling said softly, "Wuyue and I will tell you everything, and then you can decide what to do. If there’s anything you think needs remedying, you can decide."

"Alright," Ling Ruonan took the tissue, wiped her tears herself, and then instructed Wuyue, "You go out first, report anything to me at any time."

"Yes," Wuyue nodded and walked out.

Luo Ziling and Ling Ruonan continued to busy themselves in the kitchen, but neither of them said anything more. Apart from the sound of the range hood whirring, only the sounds of chopping and frying vegetables could be heard, making the atmosphere dreary and oppressive for Ling Ruonan and uncomfortable for Luo Ziling.

However, neither mother nor son knew how to break this oppressive silence.

As Luo Ziling and Ling Ruonan pondered their anger, chaos erupted inside the high-ranking VIP ward at Yanjing People’s Hospital, about three kilometers from their residence.

An unexpected incident left everyone bewildered.

The VIP patient, Yang Yunzhong, who had been staying here for nearly a month with his injuries stabilizing, suddenly deteriorated. Medical staff quickly attempted resuscitation but ultimately failed as the heart monitor showed a flat line.

After more than an hour of resuscitation efforts, the hospital finally announced the patient was deceased.

When Yang Yunzhong’s condition worsened, the hospital promptly called the police, and the officers arrived swiftly to secure the floor where Yang Yunzhong’s ward was located. Most of the hospital’s leadership also rushed to the ward in a short time.

After announcing Yang Yunzhong’s death, the doctors involved in the emergency wrote up the resuscitation records in full and handed them over to the police.

The doctor in charge of Yang Yunzhong also reported the cause of death to the hospital leadership.

"The patient was injected with a large amount of potassium chloride, leading to cardiac arrest and death." This was the cause of death as written in the medical records and reported by the doctors involved in the resuscitation.

It was the discovery of the deliberate injection of high-concentration potassium chloride that prompted the hospital to call the police immediately.

Before Yang Yunzhong was pronounced dead, the police on the scene had already discovered something unusual.

A nurse in the ward had been found unconscious in the medication room, her work uniform taken off.

Upon discovering this, the police quickly reviewed the video surveillance from the ward.

The surveillance showed that the nurse entered the medication room and came out quickly.

She wore glasses, a mask, and a cap, making it impossible to notice anything unusual from the surveillance footage.

The nurse pushed a cart out of the medication room and directly entered Yang Yunzhong’s ward.

Though security guards were stationed at the entrance of the ward, they did not question the nurse.

The nurse came out after about a minute.

When leaving, she said a couple of words to the guard at the door.

Without an audio system, the surveillance couldn’t distinguish what was said.

After pushing the cart away, the nurse walked towards another ward, disappearing from the range of that surveillance but quickly appearing in another one.

After reaching the room closest to the elevator, she glanced back at the surveillance direction, parked the cart at the door, and walked towards the elevator. Once the elevator doors opened, she stepped in.

The police continued to track the elevator surveillance and discovered that the nurse reached the laundry room in another wing and then never reappeared.

Police rushed to the laundry room and discovered a nurse’s uniform had been left there, but no one was inside.

Checking the laundry room, the police found that the adjacent room was a restroom.

After this discovery, they continued reviewing the surveillance and found that several men and women had entered and exited the restroom after the nurse disappeared.

After repeatedly reviewing the surveillance footage, they noticed there was an odd number of people leaving compared to those entering, meaning that the "nurse" had exited through the restroom.

Upon detailed comparison, the police identified a woman wearing a pink down jacket, a knit hat, and a face mask as the suspect.

After leaving the restroom, the woman took the elevator down again.

Frustratingly, the elevator’s surveillance was malfunctioning, leaving no video footage.

After reviewing all surveillance footage inside the hospital, the police were still unable to track the woman’s whereabouts again.

Surveillance footage from nearby blocks was also reviewed, with a massive deployment of personnel to scrutinize all nearby surveillance, but they still found no clues. In other words, the woman vanished into thin air.

The situation was clear—this was a case of deliberate murder. Someone from outside impersonated a nurse and injected a large dose of potassium chloride into Yang Yunzhong, leading to cardiac arrest and death.

During resuscitation, medical staff also conducted electrolyte and other biochemical tests on Yang Yunzhong.

Among them, the blood potassium concentration was as high as 18.7 mmol/L, several times above the normal upper limit of 5.5 mmol/L.

Simultaneously with the high blood potassium, several indicators were also abnormal.

Originally, Yang Yunzhong’s biochemical indicators were mostly normal, and the later abnormalities were likely due to high potassium levels.

The large injection of potassium chloride resulted in Yang Yunzhong’s death, a fact acknowledged by the police, yet both medical staff and police were puzzled: why hadn’t Yang Yunzhong reacted at all when injected with potassium chloride?

Remember, injecting high concentration potassium ions into the bloodstream is unbearably painful.

The patient would undoubtedly struggle and call out, but Yang Yunzhong did not exhibit any such behavior and remained calm.

This defied scientific explanation.

The police also took blood samples and sent them to the forensic center to test for abnormal substances in the blood.

After death, red blood cells in the body begin to break down.

Potassium in red blood cells rapidly releases into extracellular space after cell rupture, meaning that post-mortem, the blood potassium concentration in the body rises quickly. The potassium concentration in red blood cells is thirty to forty times that of plasma, so the post-mortem blood potassium levels from a deceased person lose significance.

However, the police detected an anesthetic component in the patient’s body—a barbiturate capable of ultra-short action, which explained everyone’s doubts.

The woman disguised as a nurse injected Yang Yunzhong with a high-efficiency anesthetic known chemically as sodium thiopental mixed with potassium chloride, or administered the anesthetic first, followed by the potassium chloride. In this way, Yang Yunzhong would quickly fall into anesthesia without any reaction.