Chapter 2

Claire was roughly pushed aside, but she still held Ellie tightly in her arms. Her face was pale, her voice trembling, filled with a humble plea.

"Madam, my daughter has a fever of 40 degrees Celsius and can't even breathe properly... Please let us see a doctor first, okay?"

Mrs. VanderMeer stopped and glanced at Claire as if she were a piece of smelly garbage.

"So what if it's 40 degrees? A fever won't kill you." She scoffed, stepping back in disgust, as if Claire and her daughter carried some kind of virus. "That's what's so annoying about the regular emergency room at the Presbyterian Hospital—all sorts of poor, low-class people crowd in. My time is more valuable than your lives, understand?"

Ellie was terrified by her shrill voice and coughed hysterically in Claire's arms, tears streaming down her face.

The weak sobs did not evoke any sympathy, but instead attracted the chubby boy in the custom-made suit.

The boy leaned closer, a wicked glint in his eyes. Suddenly, he reached out his chubby hand, grabbed Ellie's thin, blonde hair tightly, and yanked it down sharply!

"Shut up! You sick person! Stop yelling!" The boy said, spitting at Ellie as he pulled hard.

The excruciating pain in her scalp caused Ellie to let out a piercing scream, and her small body convulsed violently.

"Don't touch my daughter!" Claire's heart was breaking, and she instinctively reached out to block the boy's arm. "Please let go!"

The back of her hand had barely brushed against the boy's sleeve when Mrs. VanderMeer shrieked as if her tail had been stepped on.

"Are you blind?! How dare you touch my son with your filthy hands?"

She yanked the fat boy behind her, pointed at Claire's nose, and yelled, "What are you two good-for-nothings standing there for? Push this shrew against the wall!"

Two burly bodyguards immediately pounced on them like wolves.

They mercilessly twisted Claire's slender arms behind her back and slammed her against the rough tile wall.

With a muffled thud, Claire groaned in pain. But she still desperately bent her back, using her own flesh and blood to create a little breathing space for Ellie in her arms.

"Mommy...it hurts..." Ellie's weak sobs pierced the corridor like needles.

"Call security! Throw these two ungrateful mother and daughter out into the snow like trash!" Mrs. VanderMeer commanded from her high and mighty position, even stepping heavily on Claire's registration slip that had fallen to the ground.

The string of reason snapped at that moment.

I strode forward, grabbed one of the bodyguards' wrists, and pressed down hard on his ulnar nerve node with my thumb, which I had used to hold a scalpel for years.

The bodyguard's face contorted in pain, and he instantly lost his strength and let go of her hand.

I used my shoulder to push the other person aside and held the swaying Claire and Ellie tightly behind me.

Claire looked up, her tear-filled eyes filled with disbelief and grievance the moment she saw me.

“Madam,” I forced back the urge to break the bodyguard’s arm, and calmly looked at the arrogant woman, “everyone’s children are sick, please show some basic human decency.”

Mrs. VanderMeer thought she had heard the biggest joke in the world.

She looked me up and down in my plain gray coat, which was unmarked and stained with snow, her disdain almost overflowing.

"Consideration? Who do you think you are, to even mention those two words to me?"

She curled her lip in a mocking smile: "You coward who can't even protect his wife and children, and can only bring them here to suffer, what are you pretending to be, a hero saving a damsel in distress?"

After saying that, she took out her phone from her expensive handbag, dialed the number of the head of the hospital's emergency department, and pressed speakerphone.

"This is Mrs. VanderMeer! Does your ER want to quit?" she berated the person on the other end of the phone. "What kind of lowlifes are you letting in to bite people?"

The person in charge sounded extremely nervous and apologetic on the other end of the phone.

She glanced at me disdainfully, deliberately raising her voice so that the entire corridor could hear the condescending sense of privilege in her words:

"My husband's father is scheduled to undergo heart bypass surgery on the top floor of your hospital tomorrow morning! Is this how you treat VIP family members?"