The death scene was the Chairman's bedroom, but at this time, it looked more like an intensive care unit, with small oxygen generators, respirators, ECG monitors and other equipment.
The Chairman was lying in bed with obvious cadaveric rigidity, and there were significant hypostases under his body. He had been dead for over twelve hours.
And yet, it was after eight o'clock at night.
Jian Jing bent down and carefully examined the Chairman's corpse, asking, "What time was the corpse discovered? Was the scene disturbed? Did anyone examine the body?"
Jiang BaiYan said, "A little after three in the morning, the ECG monitor alarmed. Everyone came to the scene at that time and was in a panic, so..." He scratched his cheek and added, "Whether to examine the body or not, we haven't decided yet."
Jian Jing wondered, "How do you know the cause of death without an autopsy?"
"I guess they're afraid to find out something," he said slowly. "Family scandals should not be made public. It's best if everyone believes it was natural causes and splits the money to settle things."
Jian Jing glanced at him and asked, "What about you?"
Leaning against the wall with the back of his head resting on it, looking like a naughty schoolboy punished to stand, Jiang BaiYan said, "I don't care."
She raised an eyebrow.
"After all the fuss, it's just about money," he said. "No one cares about the truth."
"In that case, you shouldn't have asked me to investigate," Jian Jing said. "I'm not interested in money. The truth is what I want."
"I'm not finished yet," Jiang BaiYan said with a smile. He lowered his head and said happily, "From now on, what you want is what I want."
He tilted his head, and his sidelong glance fell lightly on the lifeless corpse. His tone rose: "It's so much fun. They've bullied me for so long, and now I can finally make them feel bad too."
Jian Jing looked at him and laughed.
"Teacher Jingjing—" he dragged out the words teasingly.
"Okay, I'll pretend I don't know what you really think," she made a zipping motion over her mouth. "Let's get back to business. Did the Chairman have a personal doctor?"
Jiang BaiYan nodded.
"What did he say?"
Jiang BaiYan thought about it and said, "He was very cautious. He just said that given the Chairman's condition, he was going to pass away in a day or two anyway. Earlier or later doesn't make much difference."
Jian Jing nodded. "That is odd indeed. When someone is on their deathbed, passing at any time is not strange at all. Why was there a dispute among you?"
"The will," Jiang BaiYan pulled a face. "Last night, he said he was going to change his will."
Jian Jing: "..."
He said, "Although in theory, apart from Cai Lawyer, no one else knew what was written in the final will. But if someone wanted to send the Chairman off early, it must have been about the will."
"Has the will been announced now?"
Jiang BaiYan shook his head. "Cai Lawyer said it can only be made public and executed after everyone is satisfied he died a natural death."
Jian Jing clicked her tongue.
This case was interesting.
"In short, everyone suspects the Chairman was murdered now because someone didn't want him to change his will. But no one knows which final will is detrimental to whom, so everyone denies involvement." Jiang BaiYan felt it was quite amusing. "Isn't it like opening a mystery box?"
Jian Jing smiled at him. "It's like investing in stocks."
If they don't investigate, they're worried the final will may be unfavorable to them. But if they investigate, it may not necessarily be favorable either.
It was purely a gamble. They may make money or lose money.
"Actually, there's only one answer," Jian Jing shook her head with certainty. "Someone must want to take a gamble. That is human nature."
Jiang BaiYan nodded but said, "My second brother put it much nicer — 'If we don't investigate, someone will surely be unhappy when the will is announced later. We might as well get to the bottom of this now'."
"That's right. Schrödinger's cat has to be let out of the box to get the only definitive answer," said Jian Jing as she lifted the corpse's arm to examine it. "Is the doctor here? I want to talk to him."
"He's here."
The Chairman's doctor was Tao Doctor, 42 years old, clearly balding.
Jian Jing borrowed the villa's small dining room, closed the doors and windows, and spoke with him alone: "My surname is Jian. I'm commissioned to investigate Chairman Jiang Guangze's cause of death."
Tao Doctor smiled wryly, "Miss Jian, just ask what you want."
Unsure if he was someone's man, Jian Jing asked carefully, "First, tell me about the Chairman's condition."
"The Chairman had stomach cancer. He had chemotherapy before but relapsed this year with extensive metastasis. Frankly speaking, it was going to happen in a day or two," Tao Doctor answered.
"Was he conscious in the last two days?"
"Fairly conscious."
"What medication was he on?"
"Miss Jian, there's not much point with medication at this stage. It's mainly to alleviate some of the patient's suffering."
"He had an IV line in his arm," Jian Jing pointed out her findings. "What medication?"
Tao Doctor said politely, "The stomach cancer caused interstitial pneumonia. Breathing was very difficult for the patient in the last two days. To relieve this, I prescribed morphine for him."
Jian Jing considered, "The dosage was...?"
"10 mg," Tao Doctor said. "Miss Jian, I've been working in oncology for over ten years. I hope you can trust my medical skills."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to question your prescribing at all," Jian Jing said. "It's just that there are no obvious external injuries or signs of poisoning on the Chairman's body. If it was an unnatural death, I have to consider the possibility of morphine poisoning."
Tao Doctor said warily, "Miss Jian, I left here at eight pm yesterday and was called back at five am this morning."
"What about the medication?" she asked.
Tao Doctor hesitated.
After a long pause, he said, "The nurse was going to give him an injection last night."
"Did you check the quantity of medication?"
Tao Doctor licked his lips, shifted in his seat a little, and seemed vaguely uneasy: "The thing is, according to the nurse, the monitor alarmed last night and scared everyone. People came in and out of the bedroom, and some bottles of medication...were broken."
Jian Jing smiled, "Including the morphine?"
Tao Doctor nodded.
"Roughly how much was lost?"
Tao Doctor calmed down again, "That's easy to calculate. Morphine hydrochloride injection is a controlled drug. I only had one box left here, ten 1ml ampoules, 10mg each. I used one ampoule yesterday, and the nurse used one when he went to bed. Two intact ones remained, so 60mg was missing, far below the lethal dose."
Jian Jing nodded. The lethal dose of morphine was 200-500 mg for adults. But 60 mg of morphine could still cause acute poisoning in adults, let alone the terminally ill Chairman.
Especially since... "As far as I know, morphine may cause respiratory depression," she said.
"Yes, but the probability is low, and it's easy to relieve as well. I also prepared naloxone, just in case the patient had similar problems. Those are easy to solve too," Tao Doctor said.
Jian Jing understood.
"Did the family know the patient was on morphine injections?"
"Of course, they must be informed and consent for it to be used."
Very well, it was the usual case of everyone being a suspect yet no one could be eliminated.
"Which nurse stayed to attend the Chairman last night?"
"Nurse Yu."
"I'd like to talk to her."
Nurse Yu was 40 years old with a neat appearance. She had been a nurse at a public hospital for over ten years before resigning. She now specialized in one-on-one care for wealthy people.
She was very coherent: "I was staying in the next bedroom of the patient's suite these two nights. I would check on any movement. At 3:20 last night, the monitor suddenly alarmed. I immediately went to his room. His heart had already stopped. I started CPR and defibrillation right away for fifteen minutes but couldn't save him."
"Do you think this was normal?"
She paused for a while, choosing her words carefully: "Given the patient's condition, it wouldn't be strange for him to pass at any time."
As someone used to working with words, Jian Jing was very sensitive to the choice of vocabulary. Staring into Yu Nurse's eyes, she asked, "Not strange, but not exactly normal either, right?"
"How to put it," Yu Nurse frowned awkwardly. "Every patient's situation is different. Rapid deterioration is quite common too. I really can't tell you 'yes' or 'no'."
"Then let me rephrase," Jian Jing said. "Please go through what happened last night in detail."
Yu Nurse's brows relaxed slightly as she delved into recollection.
"Yesterday afternoon, I gave the patient an injection. He slept for a while and felt much better. After dinner, he chatted with Cai Lawyer for a bit. Around 10 pm, I gave the patient a second injection as prescribed. He soon fell asleep. I went back to my room around 10:30 pm and fell asleep around 11 pm. At 3:20 am, I was woken up by an alarm."
"What time did he meet with Cai Lawyer?"
"Around 7 pm, I don't know the exact time."
"Did anyone else meet with him after that?"
"Yes, in fact—" Yu Nurse hesitated subtly, "It seems like everyone came by."
Jian Jing: "Seems?"
Yu Nurse: "I didn't stay in the room the whole time. They wanted to discuss private matters, I didn't think it was appropriate for me to stay."
Jian Jing drew a "?" in her notebook, but didn't probe further. Instead, she asked, "Did anyone go into the room after 11 pm?"
Yu Nurse frowned, confusion hiding in the fine lines around her eyes: "I...am not sure."
"Just tell me what you remember," Jian Jing said.
"I was half-asleep at the time, maybe I was dreaming, or misheard something."
Jian Jing assured her repeatedly that this was just a casual chat, not a police statement, and that she didn't need to take responsibility.
Only then did Yu Nurse hesitantly say: "I heard the sound of the door opening, after a while, something bumped, at the time I thought, maybe it was the Chairman turning over. Then there were no more sounds. I didn't think much of it at the time, after all the patient was wearing a monitor, if his heartbeat stopped there would be an immediate alarm."
"Do you remember anything else?"
She shook her head.
"Then let's stop here," Jian Jing closed her notebook, "Is Cai Lawyer still here? Please ask him to come over, I have some questions for him."
Cai Lawyer hadn't left, but his mouth was very tight.
Jian Jing asked: "What were you and the Chairman discussing last night at 7 pm?"
Cai Lawyer answered: "That is client confidentiality, I cannot divulge anything."
Jian Jing asked again: "I heard that last night, the Chairman decided to modify his will?"
Cai Lawyer pushed his glasses up and cautiously said: "That statement is inaccurate. The Chairman requested to discuss his will this morning, no one knows the specific details."
"You should understand," Jian Jing leaned forward, gazing into his eyes, "If that was all, there wouldn't be so many doubts now. I think everyone suspects the Chairman's death is related to changes in his will."
Cai Lawyer was silent.
She said: "I want to know, what is the story with the Chairman's will?"
"Let me explain, I have served the Jiang family for many years. The Chairman started making his will over ten years ago. As his health deteriorated over the years, he became more attentive to his will, modifying it many times. The most recent version was set two months ago."
"Who knows about this latest will?"
"Myself and another witness, but I swear I haven't mentioned the contents to anyone." Cai Lawyer said.
"How did the Chairman tell others about his will?"
Cai Lawyer said: "Three days ago, he announced two things to everyone: First, he had made a will, appointing me as executor. Second, after his death, the will would only be disclosed and executed if all his children had no doubts about the cause of his death."
"He didn't mention the contents?"
"At least not explicitly."
