Chapter 4

By the afternoon of the fourth day, I was chopping vegetables in the kitchen.

The phone on the coffee table suddenly began vibrating wildly.

Its ringtone was so urgent that it made my heart race.

I dried my hands and went over to look.

Jamie’s name was flashing across the screen.

I hesitated for a full five seconds.

In the end, I still pressed the answer button.

“Doctor! Please, you have to save us!”

The moment the call connected, Jamie’s roar came through, thick with tears.

The background was filled with the sharp alarms of medical equipment and the terrified shouts of nurses.

I gripped the phone tightly.

“What happened? Don’t panic. Tell me slowly!”

“It’s the old man in Bed Five!”

“He suddenly suffered a ruptured aortic dissection!”

“Ethan insisted on showing off and operating as the lead surgeon himself!”

“Then his very first cut went straight through the major blood vessel!”

“He’s bleeding out!”

“The patient’s entire chest cavity is filling with blood!”

“We can’t suction it out fast enough!”

“His blood pressure has dropped to thirty!”

“Ethan can’t find the source of the bleeding!”

“He’s standing beside the operating table, shaking so badly he can’t even speak!”

My mind exploded with a deafening buzz.

A ruptured aorta with massive hemorrhaging!

Even an experienced chief surgeon would have less than a thirty percent chance of saving a patient in an emergency this terrifying.

Ethan was a fresh graduate who couldn’t even control the bleeding.

He wasn’t performing surgery.

He was murdering someone!

“Where’s Richard Cole? Where are the people from the medical affairs department?” I roared into the phone.

“Richard is in the observation room on the second floor!”

“His face is whiter than paper!”

“Doctor, please come quickly!”

“If you’re ten minutes late, the patient will really be dead!”

I instinctively turned and rushed toward the door.

A doctor’s instincts made it impossible for me to stand by and watch a life slip away.

But just as I reached the entrance and gripped the doorknob, I suddenly stopped.

Richard’s smug face from that day flashed clearly through my mind.

“You’re nothing more than a scalpel in my hand.”

“If a scalpel won’t obey, I can replace it.”

“This hospital can keep running without anyone.”

I gripped the doorknob tightly.

The veins on the back of my hand bulged one by one.

If I ran over there right now, I would just be cleaning up Richard’s mess!

I would be cleaning up after Ethan, who treated human life like garbage!

Even if I saved the patient, Richard could still sit above me afterward.

He could still find some excuse about a policy violation and stomp me into the dirt again.

I drew in a deep breath.

Suppressing the panic in my chest, I said coldly into the phone, “Jamie, get this straight.”

“I’ve been suspended and ordered to reflect according to hospital policy.”

“I no longer have any authority to perform emergency treatment at that hospital.”

“Go find the hospital director.”

With that, I hung up without hesitation.

I knew how cruel it sounded.

But I had to force the hospital’s upper management to take a stand!

I couldn’t keep being a dog everyone was free to butcher!

However, less than five minutes later, my phone began ringing wildly again.

This time, the name on the screen was Director Bennett.

I took a deep breath to calm myself.

Then I pressed the answer button.

“Alex!”

The moment the call connected, Director Bennett’s voice came through, frantic and breaking.

“Alex, where are you?”

“Hurry! Get to the hospital now!”

“Go straight to Intensive Operating Room Three on the top floor!”

His voice was filled with barely concealed panic.

I held the phone and spoke calmly.

“Director Bennett, you’ve got the wrong person.”

“I’m at home reflecting properly.”

“What reflection? To hell with reflecting!”

Director Bennett was so anxious that he cursed directly into the phone.

“That idiot Ethan has caused a catastrophic disaster!”

“The patient on the operating table is the CEO of one of the city’s most important companies!”

“If he dies on our operating table today, our hospital’s accreditation evaluation for this year is finished!”

“I won’t even be able to keep my position!”