Chapter 962: No Idea About Anything

But Ma Guochao is, after all, just an ordinary doctor.

Faced with Chen Jiang’s questions, he didn’t hold out for long before he confessed everything he knew.

People like Ma Guochao simply can’t keep secrets when facing interrogation.

Many normal people think that if they don’t say anything when questioned by the police, won’t that just be the end of it? Won’t the matter be over?

But in reality, only those who’ve truly been in an interrogation room and faced police questioning know it’s not that simple.

When facing inquiries or investigations from relevant departments, even ordinary people find it hard to hold back.

The reason many cases unravel like pulling up a radish with dirt is that the person being interrogated becomes too nervous, blurting out not only their own matters but others’ affairs too.

And there’s no stopping it; sometimes even the relevant department personnel get scared.

In the end, there’s no choice but to tell the person to only talk about their own matters and keep silent about everything else.

But there’s no way to directly remind them, because these kinds of conversations, inquiries, or interrogations are supposed to be recorded according to formal procedures.

For example, during this secret arrest of Ma Guochao, although the method of arrest and location of interrogation were special, recordings were still made during the interrogation process, which Lu Chuan was very careful about.

"They came to me 5 years ago when I owed a gambling debt..."

According to what Ma Guochao confessed, the other side didn’t actually know who was orchestrating these things behind the scenes.

Five years ago, Ma Guochao lost 8,000 yuan gambling.

Back then, his monthly salary was just about 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, so losing 8,000 was like taking half of Ma Guochao’s life.

They pressured Ma Guochao for half a month; seeing he really couldn’t come up with the money, they showed him a path to make some quick money.

"It was a friend who introduced me, saying there’s a quick way to make money with no risks, just needing me to issue some lab requests."

Ma Guochao’s job was indeed pretty straightforward. When the gray chain behind the scenes had needs, they’d pass some related information to him.

While treating patients, Ma Guochao would issue some lab test orders.

And then use the lab results to screen for kidney donors that matched the client’s needs.

"In fact, at first I didn’t know they were dealing in kidneys..."

Initially, Ma Guochao didn’t realize these people were dealing in kidneys; he just thought it was for something else.

But later, he discovered that a patient he had once seen, who matched those needs through lab results, came back for a follow-up, and his kidney was gone.

It was then that Ma Guochao realized they were using him to find kidney matches, and were dealing in kidneys.

"But I really didn’t get involved in the later things; all I did was issue lab orders and find matches, and once I passed the matching information to them, it had nothing to do with me."

"Who’s performing the kidney removals?"

Ma Guochao shook his head vigorously: "I really don’t know!"

"I’m just an internal medicine doctor; I can issue lab orders and perform medical exams, but I genuinely don’t know anything about surgery. I also don’t know who they’re in contact with, but I suspect it’s someone from our hospital, maybe one of the surgeons. But I didn’t check, fearing I’d be discovered, so I just did my own thing and took the money I was supposed to."

This guy Ma Guochao is quite timid; since this began 5 years ago, he just quietly collected the money and asked no questions.

"Who else did you deal with?"

"I don’t know."

Chen Jiang glared: "You don’t know?"

Ma Guochao nodded vigorously: "I really don’t know; they always contacted me. I couldn’t reach them if I wanted to."

"So what about the money? Who paid you?"

"Cash. Every time the job was done, they paid me 20,000 yuan in cash."

Ma Guochao quickly explained: "There were 19 surgeries in total. I always received cash, and I don’t know who gave it. It’s just that when the task was completed, there’d be 20,000 yuan in my office drawer."

In the drawer?

"Who can access your office?"

Ma Guochao was nearly in tears: "Anyone can!"

"The door to my office isn’t locked, and it’s not just me who sits there usually. Other doctors rotate there for their consultations. I’m only in that office when it’s my turn, so frankly, I don’t keep many personal items there aside from my water bottle for the shifts..."

During the ongoing interrogation, Ma Guochao’s family called, and he covered it up by saying he was at a colleague’s gathering.

The interrogation continued until 10:30 PM.

However, the results weren’t particularly promising.

Behind this gray industry chain, they merely used Ma Guochao to find matching donors.

In five years, Ma Guochao hadn’t even met anyone from the other side, didn’t even know who gave him the money.

He had no understanding of the processes involved in this chain, he only speculated that the surgeons might be from the county hospital, but he couldn’t guess who exactly.

One could say the selection of Ma Guochao was quite smart, and the information isolation with him was very well done.

Still, the interrogation of Ma Guochao provided some insights.

Every time, he received information on a piece of paper, not by phone. Investigating how this paper appeared could be a lead.

Moreover, he recorded matching donors’ information in his office drawer, and by the next day, the note was gone.

This implies someone in the hospital is constantly watching or someone from that controlling force may be in the county hospital acting as a contact with Ma Guochao.

Finding this person could help trace the chain up further.

After deducing this clue, Lu Chuan and the others felt that secretly arresting Ma Guochao was a wise decision; otherwise, if they’d acted in the hospital, the whole chain would have been alerted and vanished, making the case unsolvable.

At 11 PM, Chen Jiang gave Ma Guochao a few more warnings to keep things confidential, and that all his actions are under police surveillance, sternly advising him not to make a mistake. After these cautions, Ma Guochao repeatedly agreed before they let him go home.

To prevent his family from getting suspicious, Chen Jiang even had Ma Guochao take a sip of liquor, so he’d at least have the smell of alcohol on him.