Chapter 4

“Heart rate spiking to 140! Defibrillator ready!”

Under the monitor’s shriek, my eyes locked on the open chest cavity. A high-difficulty CABG was at the point where life and death were decided in breaths.

And one meter from my operating field stood the sandy-golden curls that made me sick—Lucas.

To polish this trash’s résumé, Emma didn’t just use her tenure privileges at the university. Under the ridiculous banner of “interdisciplinary training,” she had forced him into my department for clinical observation.

“Lucas,” I said without looking up, voice razor-strict, “identify the left anterior descending artery.”

“Uh… it’s probably… under the right atrium?” His trembling answer sounded stupid under the surgical lights.

He didn’t even have basic anatomy.

Rage boiled in my chest, but I forced it down and stayed on the vessel beneath my blade.

Then the next thing he did crossed the surgeon’s line.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Lucas pull out his phone and raise it—trying to take a Snapchat selfie with me and the open chest in the background, just to brag.

To get a better angle, he stepped backward blindly.

Clang—crash!

Metal slammed against metal, ripping through the OR’s silence. Lucas’s back smashed into the sterile instrument table, sending precision scissors and hemostats crashing to the floor. The sterile drape tore off.

“Oh my God!” the circulating nurse screamed.

The sterile field was fully compromised. In open-chest surgery, this was a lethal infection bomb.

“Get out!” I spun, needle driver still slick with blood in my hand, eyes red as I roared at him. “You worthless piece of garbage. Are you trying to murder my patient? Out—now!”

Lucas went white. His phone hit the tile. He fled like a beaten dog.

When I finally stripped off my sweat-soaked surgical gown, my fingers still shook with rage. I slammed a red-stamped evaluation into the system:

“Extremely unethical. Gross negligence. Permanently rejected.”

The moment it uploaded, the surgeons’ lounge door was kicked open.

Emma stormed in on high heels. She didn’t look at my exhausted, drained face. Her first move was to pull the teary-eyed Lucas behind her as if shielding him.

“James, have you lost your mind?” She barked like a rabid guard dog, voice stabbing my ears. “How dare you abuse your authority and humiliate my student in front of the whole department?”

I stared at her coldly. “He contaminated the sterile field. He almost killed someone.”

“It was an accident! He’s only pre-med!” Emma lied without shame. Then she turned, used a soft handkerchief to dab Lucas’s tears, voice suddenly tender. “You’re jealous of his talent—jealous I care about him. Your petty revenge is disgusting.”

Watching her stroke another man’s face in front of me, acid surged up my throat.

“Don’t be scared, Lucas.” Emma shot me a vicious look. “I’m taking you to my office. I’ll give you ‘private counseling.’ I won’t let this tyrant ruin your future.”

As they left pressed together, even my anger drained out, leaving only dead, cold silence.

My phone buzzed.

“Bro, good news.” Mike’s voice came with frantic keyboard clacking. “I got into the school network. Those smear-campaign bot IPs on the anonymous boards—all traced back to Lucas’s frat dorm. I packaged the proof and sent it to the university ethics committee.”

The tide was finally turning.

I was about to give my next instruction when chanting erupted outside.

“Boycott workplace bullying! Cancel the cancer doctor!”

I pushed open the lounge door.

In the hallway, a dozen young men wearing visitor badges were marching toward me, aggressive—Lucas’s frat buddies.

A dozen phones were raised high. Flashlights and camera lights stabbed into my face like blades.

“Dr. James!” the baseball-cap leader shoved his lens inches from me, smug as hell. “We’re live on TikTok and the campus group chats. You’re abusing power because you’re jealous, bullying an underprivileged med student, Lucas. We’re going to ruin you.”

Facing these clowns trying to destroy me with online violence, I didn’t dodge the cameras. I didn’t explode.

A surgeon’s calm dropped over me like ice.

And I noticed something: the direction Emma took Lucas wasn’t toward the elevator.

It was toward the abandoned sterile-supply storerooms at the far end of the hallway.

“You want the truth?” I looked straight into the black lenses, a cruel smile curling. “You want a scandal that’ll break the internet? Good. Don’t end the livestream. Follow me.”

I turned and walked steadily down the hallway.

The pre-meds froze, exchanged looks, then followed close behind—phones raised—hungry for views.

The deeper we went, the quieter it got. Only sneaker soles whispered across the floor.

Until we stopped at the farthest end, in front of a half-closed supply-room door.

Every footstep died.

Because from the crack in the door came wet, sticky sounds of flesh smacking flesh—obscene and unmistakable.

“Oh… Professor… does that old bastard James ever go this hard?” Lucas’s rough, filthy panting came through the door clearly.

“Don’t mention that boring deadweight…” Emma’s syrupy moan followed, nauseating. “As long as you satisfy me right here… that top-tier med school recommendation letter is yours. Immediately…”

A deathly silence seized the hallway.

A dozen pre-meds stood rigid, their righteous fury shattering into horror and worldview collapse.

The livestream’s high-definition mics captured every word, broadcasting it cleanly to the entire internet.

I watched their faces go white, then lifted my hand slowly and shoved the half-open door wide.