“But all the other waiting rooms are full, and I’m not allowed to sit on the floor. It was so hard for me to find this spot. I just want to rest for a bit. I’ve been standing all day…”
“Save your breath for the security guards. I’m just a doctor who’s taking a paycheck. I don’t want to run the risk of dying in the line of duty.”
The patients standing around couldn’t help but feel a surge of fury in their hearts. They originally had no intention of getting into a disagreement with a doctor and were doing their best to restrain their anger. But when the woman burst into tears at Xie Qingcheng’s harsh, aggressively overbearing manner of speaking, someone roared at him, “What are you doing! Do you not have a mother? Surely you’re not going to condemn every patient because of one bad apple? Yi Beihai was an outlier! Someone as selfish as you can’t compare to Mr. Qin Ciyan at all! Do you think you deserve to be a doctor?”
Xie Qingcheng looked up, revealing a pair of peach-blossom eyes that were incisive to the point of being cruel. “I’m a doctor regardless of your opinion. I don’t think dying for the sake of a patient is worth it, and to be murdered by a lunatic would be such a waste it’d be laughable. Medicine is merely a profession—you shouldn’t romanticize it with selfless sacrifice and guilt-trip me like this.”
He enunciated his words clearly: “The life of a doctor will always be more valuable than the life of a lunatic who can’t even control himself. Do you understand?”
For a moment, everyone fell silent.
The video footage became a bit chaotic after that. In the rage of the mob, someone shoved the person who was doing the filming, causing the video to shake and become blurry. All that could be heard was the furious cursing of the patients.
As the video got to that point, notifications from various group chats and direct messages started flooding the countless phones that were broadcasting the clip.
All the phones in the car that weren’t set to silent, including Xie Qingcheng’s own, started buzzing incessantly.
It seemed like the video had been swiftly spread to every corner of the internet.
He Yu sat in the police car, allowing the medic to tend to the gunshot wounds on his shoulder. He’d had his forehead pressed against the window the whole time, quietly watching the video splashed across the broadcasting tower.
It was the video that his hacker opponent had sent to him, the one he’d chosen not to play.
Xie Qingcheng could feel his heart sinking.
So, this was it.
In order to mess with He Yu, their opponents had chosen to reveal this video.
Xie Qingcheng wished he could say something to He Yu, but he didn’t know what he should say—or if there was even anything he could try to explain. He stopped watching the video; he knew very well what he’d said and done back then.
The sins he couldn’t explain and the secrets he had to keep that were hidden within that video—at that very moment, they had all been spilled into the open for everyone to see.
He didn’t care. He had known when he did those things and said those words that he’d be crucified for it after the fact, that he’d face a lifetime of criticism, that everything had a price. He’d already been prepared to keep that secret for a lifetime, and he knew very well the kind of future he’d face if the video got out.
But when his gaze landed on the still, quiet youth beside him…
He Yu’s shoulder was still bleeding with no sign of stopping. The doctor had treated it with a tourniquet, but the sickly scent of blood still suffused this half-sealed police command car. Inexplicably, Xie Qingcheng thought back to a few hours ago, to the first time he looked at this youth as an equal. He Yu had extended his hand to him. At that time, no one was willing to help him; even Chen Man had chosen to follow the rules.
But He Yu had said, “I can help you.”
That outstretched hand was fine-boned, broad, clean, and beautiful; even the nails were neatly trimmed. It was clear it belonged to a pampered young master who took good care of himself.
Free of blood, free of injury.
There were only faint scars on his wrists, but those had already healed.
“Why…would you help me?”
“Because you did the same for me once.”
“I’ve never, ever forgotten.”
The glaring crimson stung Xie Qingcheng’s eyes.
Just as the images from that uninterruptable video cut their way into He Yu’s field of vision, the scene projected on the broadcast tower changed again. It was now showing a conference room at the hospital.
It seemed as if Xie Qingcheng had just given an outstanding academic talk, and the administration was in the middle of acknowledging his professional achievement. But his colleagues clapping in the audience weren’t enthusiastic about the situation at all. It looked like this video was taken soon after his contentious encounter with that patient.
The director thanked him. Xie Qingcheng stood up, and his gaze swept calmly over every single person below the stage. He didn’t speak any words of gratitude. What he said was, “This will be the last time I give a talk at this hospital. I’ve decided to resign.”
No one spoke. A few brainless medical interns were still clapping robotically, but before they could get more than a couple of claps in, they came back to their senses. Their eyes widened in shock as they stared blankly at Xie Qingcheng, their mouths hanging open. Everyone else in the audience wore the same stunned expression.
Xie Qingcheng was the youngest and most promising doctor at their facility. He was so formidable that he scarcely seemed human. Prior to his tenure, Huzhou First Hospital had never had an assistant director as young as him. Even if he’d recently made some improper remarks, it wasn’t anything so extreme that people wouldn’t get over it eventually. After all, what doctor didn’t get into a few conflicts with patients over the course of their career?
But Xie Qingcheng said he was going to resign.
The director’s expression instantly stiffened. With a dry chuckle, he said, “Doctor Xie, why don’t you sit down for now? We can discuss work matters after the conference is over.”
The head of medical affairs also forced a smile and took over the microphone. “Doctor Xie, you’ve probably been feeling upset lately. None of us can accept what happened to Professor Qin, and your unit was close to his, so you must have been close colleagues. You even witnessed Professor Qin’s sacrifice firsthand, so we can understand how you feel…”
“I didn’t know Qin Ciyan very well,” Xie Qingcheng said, cutting her off. “Nor am I feeling upset because of Professor Qin. I just don’t want to be the next Qin Ciyan.”
A few of Qin Ciyan’s students in the audience couldn’t bear it anymore. “Xie Qingcheng, watch your mouth! What do you mean you don’t want to be the next Qin Ciyan! My teacher devoted his entire life to medicine, how dare you—”
“But I don’t.”
Silence fell.
“Medicine is just a career to me. I will complete all my responsibilities with due care, but I don’t think it’s normal to give one’s life in this line of work. Nor do I understand why so many of you here today feel so strongly about it to the point of finding it glorious, to the point where you would ignore your own safety to treat patients without following the proper procedures. Professor Qin is worthy of respect, but what happened to him in the end was his own fault. Why did he elect to perform surgery on an unstable man’s mother when the paperwork hadn’t been properly filed?”
Qin Ciyan’s students shot to their feet. “Xie Qingcheng, you—!”
“Forgive me, but I don’t understand at all.”
The conference had become a scene of chaos; the grief and fury felt by the younger doctors couldn’t be suppressed anymore.
“How dare you sneer like this!”
“What do you mean it was his own fault? You think that Professor Qin’s to blame for his own death?”
“Xie Qingcheng, have you forgotten how you spoke of mentally ill patients in the past? You were the one who wholeheartedly supported letting them live in society, saying we should accept them and treat them as if they are ordinary people! How come that’s changed? You got scared the moment there was an incident, didn’t you? You saw with your own eyes how Professor Qin lost his life in the line of duty that day, and now you’re afraid!”
“You watched as he was thrown into a pool of blood, saw the red splattered all over his office, and you got scared, didn’t you? You’re afraid that it will happen to you one day! All the patients you interact with are mentally ill; you’re in far more danger than him! If you’re afraid, just say it! No one will make fun of you! But stop cheapening Professor Qin’s sacrifice!”
“Yes, I am afraid,” Xie Qingcheng replied coolly.