Chapter 1

After receiving the punishment notice, I kicked open the door to the administrative office.

The door slammed into the wall, startling every nurse and doctor passing through the hallway into stopping in their tracks.

I strode into the office and slammed the reprimand and fine notice onto the desk.

“Richard Cole, explain this to me!”

“I’ve just performed emergency surgery on three consecutive patients with Type A aortic dissections!”

“I had barely dragged the last patient back from the brink of death, and I didn’t even have time to drink a sip of water!”

“What gives you the right to reprimand me? And why are you fining me ten thousand dollars?”

I glared at the administrative director sitting in front of me, Richard Cole.

My eyes were webbed with red veins, and my hands were still trembling involuntarily after gripping a surgical scalpel for so long.

Richard sat in his oversized leather executive chair without even lifting his eyelids.

He picked up the ceramic teapot on his desk, leisurely blew across the steam, and took a sip of tea.

Only then did he look at me with the expression of someone watching a monkey perform.

“Dr. Morgan, what are you getting so worked up about?”

“This is the hospital’s administrative wing, not some neighborhood market.”

“Watch your conduct.”

I slammed my palm onto the desk, making the pen holder jump.

“You’re lecturing me about conduct now?”

“I’ve worked myself to the bone at this hospital for eight full years!”

“I’ve answered emergency calls at two in the morning!”

“I’ve spent seventy-two straight hours without stepping away from the operating table!”

“Whenever the department needed me, when have I ever failed to show up?”

I pointed at the fine notice, my voice trembling.

“I’d just managed to save enough for my daughter’s piano examination fee next month!”

“Your little piece of paper just wiped out my entire bonus!”

“Was I wrong for saving a patient’s life?”

Richard set down the ceramic teapot.

He leaned back in his chair and comfortably crossed his legs.

“Dr. Morgan, your skills are indeed excellent.”

“Everyone in the city knows the name of Alex Morgan, the cardiac surgeon they call the Scalpel.”

“But remember one thing.”

“No matter how good your skills are, you’re still just a scalpel in my hand.”

“If a scalpel refuses to obey, I can replace it.”

My heart sank.

An indescribable fury shot from the soles of my feet straight to the top of my head.

Richard opened a drawer and took out a medication release form.

He pushed it directly in front of me and struck the desk hard with his finger.

“Did you already forget what you did at three in the morning last Tuesday?”

“You smashed open the emergency medication cabinet in the ER without authorization!”

“You took two doses of epinephrine without going through a single approval process!”

“The pharmacy supervisor sent this report straight to me yesterday.”

“At best, you seriously violated the hospital’s internal regulations and deserve an internal reprimand.”

“At worst, you stole medical supplies!”

“If I report this to the health authorities, take a guess. Do you think you’ll still have a medical license?”

I stared at the medication release form, my fists clenched tight.

I remembered.

A young man with severe injuries from a car crash had been brought into the ER that morning.

He suddenly went into ventricular fibrillation, and his ECG had already become a flat line.

The overnight pharmacy employee had locked up and gone to the bathroom without permission.

The nurse on duty had been crying hysterically in the hallway.

If we had waited for that person to return with the key, the patient would have been long dead!

I was the one who rushed over and smashed the emergency cabinet’s glass with a fire extinguisher.

I was the one who took those two lifesaving doses of epinephrine and injected them into the patient’s vein myself.

I was the one who forcibly dragged that twenty-two-year-old man back from the gates of death.

On the day he was discharged from the ICU, his elderly parents knelt outside the intensive care unit and bowed to me.

They cried and called me a living saint.

But now?

In Richard Cole’s eyes, I had become an uncooperative tool and a thief!

Richard looked at my furious face, the corner of his mouth curling smugly upward.

“Dr. Morgan, I’m protecting you.”

“Taking ten thousand dollars from you is also meant to teach you a lesson.”

I drew in a deep breath and felt an icy chill spread through my entire body.

This was the hospital where I had sold eight years of my life.

This was the place I had protected with everything I had.

All because of two doses of epinephrine that cost less than twenty dollars in total.

They wanted to erase every achievement I had made and were even using my career to threaten me.

I looked at Richard’s greasy face and suddenly didn’t want to argue anymore.

There was no reasoning with an animal who recognized power but not human lives.

I forced down my anger.

I pulled a smile onto my face.

“Director Cole, you’re right.”

“It was my mistake. I shouldn’t have violated hospital policy.”

“I really have been too exhausted lately, and my mental state hasn’t been good.”

“I’d like to take a month of leave and go home to reflect on my actions.”

Richard froze for a moment.

He clearly hadn’t expected me to give in so quickly.

But soon, a satisfied smile spread across his face.

He thought he had me completely under his control.

He picked up a leave form from the desk and quickly signed his name.

Then he tore it off and tossed it onto the desk.

“That’s more like it. You need to have some self-awareness.”

“Go home and get some proper rest. While you’re at it, copy the hospital regulations a hundred times.”

“Once you’ve figured things out next month, come back to work.”

I picked up the leave form.

Without sparing him another glance, I turned and walked out of the office.