CHAPTER 821: CHAPTER 821: SAVING LIVES

"Get out of the way, you up front," the female doctor waved her hand at Xu Ke, hoping he would clear a path for her. She couldn’t afford to slow down right now, but she disliked the idea of someone getting hurt because of her even more, so she slowed her pace.

The female doctor, kind-hearted as she was, feared accidentally hurting someone. However, the man chasing her with a knife had no such scruples about causing injury. He even wished to escalate the situation; only by doing so could he gain the attention and money he so desperately sought.

The man’s eyes burned with the imagined prospect of the good life he craved, and the blade in his hand almost blinded under the white lights. The female doctor’s eyes instinctively closed from the knife’s glare. Just as she shut her eyes, she heard the gasps of those around her, as if the knife would fall on her at any moment.

Prepared to endure physical pain, the female doctor awaited it as seconds ticked by, but the anticipated pain never came. Instead, a wail erupted from a man in front of her.

The female doctor cautiously opened her eyes to see a distinctly jointed hand extending from behind, tightly grasping the wrist of the man holding the knife. The man, who had been eagerly pursuing her before, now had a contorted face as he tried to free his wrist from Xu Ke’s hold.

"Brandishing a knife in a crowded place, do you realize that’s illegal?" Xu Ke spoke with an indifferent voice.

Raising her head, the female doctor looked up to see a sharply contoured chin, and she realized she was standing in a position that seemed as though she was enveloped by him. In just that instant, her face turned red.

Deep down, every girl harbors a little pink princess, and even a doctor accustomed to bloody scenes is no exception. For a moment, the female doctor forgot her current predicament, lost in her shyness.

Xu Ke hadn’t noticed this; he raised the man’s wrist higher, stepping out from behind the female doctor, gradually pulling the man away from her.

"Let me go! You’re going to break my hand," the man winced at the pain in his wrist but couldn’t help gasping, his tone softened, yet he looked at Xu Ke as if seeing a sworn enemy.

"I warn you, you’d better let go of me now. I’m not in good health. If something happens to me, I assure you, you won’t get away with it," the man warned, eyeing Xu Ke.

"I’d really like to see how I won’t get away with it," Xu Ke replied expressionlessly.

The man looked at Xu Ke’s fearless demeanor, then at the crowd gathering to watch, gritted his teeth, and shouted, "Help! Is there no justice? Someone is trying to kill me in broad daylight! Help! There’s a murder in the hospital!" The man’s coarse voice echoed down the hospital corridor, attracting plenty of people, most of whom were bystanders unaware of the truth.

"Come and see, folks! The hospital is trying to kill someone to silence them! This is an unethical hospital; the doctors here are heartless," the man’s eyes glinted with satisfaction as people crowded the corridor.

"I sent my healthy father to this hospital, and now he can’t stand up anymore due to these unscrupulous doctors. He became paralyzed because of their treatment. I came to seek an explanation, and this is how they treat me—using violence against a patient’s family. Would you trust this hospital with your loved ones’ care? They might turn a minor illness into a major one, or worse," the man accused tearfully, trying to garner sympathy. Many in the crowd, unaware of the truth, began looking at Xu Ke and the female doctor with suspicion.

Listening to the man’s accusations, the female doctor’s fair face turned red with anger and indignation.

"He’s twisting the truth; don’t believe him. He’s lying," she shouted, pointing at the man.

Expecting rebuttal, the female doctor had already prepared her retort, but to her surprise, the man didn’t argue. Instead, his face displayed a pitiful and silent grievance, his expression changing as fast as a professional actor’s, even surpassing some.

"Alright, this is a hospital, and you’re the doctor. How can ordinary people like us argue with you? Whatever you say goes; we’re just cannon fodder, unfit to seek justice. I just want to take my father to a better hospital for treatment. Please, spare us and let us live," the man cried.

The scene unfolding looked every bit like Xu Ke and the female doctor were ganging up on the man.

"Oh my, how pitiful! How can the doctors in this hospital be like this, paralyzing that man’s father and showing no remorse? They even called someone to bully him. Just because he has no money or power, does he deserve to be bullied? This is too much," someone in the crowd filled in the details with imagination, sharing their perceptions with newcomers.

In no time, all criticism was aimed at Xu Ke and the female doctor.

Xu Ke, listening to the bystanders, wasn’t bothered, but the female doctor behind him was thin-skinned, never having witnessed such a distortion of truth, nor suffered such injustice. Not knowing how to retort the pointing accusations, she couldn’t help but cry.

"It’s not like that; it’s not like he said. I’m innocent; I’ve never bullied him. He was bullying me; he even tried to stab me," she cried.

But her tears did little to change the preconceptions; only those who had witnessed the entire incident believed her, while eighty percent of newcomers did not.