Chapter 3

The air in the ward seemed to be completely sucked out at that moment.

My mother's once delicate face turned deathly pale, like a rough sheet of rice paper, and the finger pointing at me trembled violently in mid-air.

I leaned against the cold pillow, the excruciating pain in my internal organs had completely numbed me. "Didn't you always say 'a doctor's heart is benevolent, saving lives' in front of the camera?"

I looked at her calmly, my voice as soft as a falling leaf, yet sharp enough to tear flesh apart.

"When you pinned me to the cold lab table, did you ask me if I wanted to?"

The mother's lips trembled, and she couldn't utter a single word.

“Every time you hold a syringe filled with some unknown liquid and say to me, ‘For Liam,’” I stared intently at her, “have you ever thought, even for a second, that I am also your biological son?”

"Outrageous!" My father rushed to the bedside, veins bulging on his forehead, and pointed at my nose, cursing, "Are you only satisfied when you've driven your mother to her death?!"

Before my anger could reach me, a loud thud came from the doorway.

Without warning, Liam collapsed to his knees. He covered his face with his hands and wailed wildly, "It's all my fault! I shouldn't have been born!"

He scrambled to his feet and stumbled toward the stairwell outside, pleading, "Auntie, please stop the experiments! I'd rather die right now and give my life back to Ethan!"

"Liam!" His mother screamed shrilly, rushing over like a madwoman in her high heels and grabbing his arm tightly.

She pulled Liam tightly into her arms, and the moment she turned to look at me, the disappointment in her eyes had completely transformed into an unyielding hatred.

"Are you satisfied now?!" the mother roared through gritted teeth, as if addressing a murderer of her father. "Liam has been on the verge of death since he was a child; he could only dream of surviving! And you?"

Her hands, which had won countless medical awards, were now pointing at my body riddled with wounds.

"You've always been healthy, so what's wrong with doing experiments for him for a few years? Why are you being so selfish and forcing your brother to his death!"

Looking at her self-righteous face, I suddenly let out an extremely absurd low laugh.

The laughter strained my already failing lungs, causing me so much pain that I couldn't straighten up, and I tasted the nauseating metallic taste of blood in my mouth again.

"What a great physique." I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, my gaze piercing her eyes like a knife. "Then why don't you use your own body for experiments?"

The mother shuddered, as if she had been slapped hard by an invisible hand.

"Your body is fully developed, and all your indicators are definitely more stable and suitable than those of a twelve-year-old!" I raised my voice, shouting with all my might, each word piercing to the heart, "In the end, you just can't bear to feel pain yourself!"

My heavy breathing echoed in the ward.

"You're using my life to save his! To achieve your great medical reputation!"

The mother's mouth was open, her face turning pale and then red, as if she had been choked, unable to utter a single word in rebuttal.

Dr. Anderson, who was standing to the side, couldn't bear it any longer. He stepped forward, trying to smooth things over: "Dr. Hart, Ethan's organs can't withstand any more intense emotional fluctuations right now. You should all leave..."

"Shut up!" the mother snapped, completely tearing away the last layer of pretense from the renowned doctor.

She took a deep breath, held Liam's hand tightly, and coldly delivered her final judgment to me.

“From today onwards, Liam is my only son, and I will take care of him for the rest of my life.” She glanced down at me condescendingly. “As for you—we’ll talk again when you come to your senses and are willing to kowtow and apologize to Liam!”

After saying that, she grabbed Liam's hand and turned to leave without hesitation.

My father gave me a cold look, left me with the words "hopeless," and quickly followed me out. The sound of his high heels fading into the distance, without a moment's pause or lingering.

Through the small glass window in the ward door, I looked at the dim yellow light of the corridor. My mother was gently patting Liam's back, while my father was softly comforting him beside her.

The shadows of the three of them merged under the lamplight, creating a warm and dazzling effect.

I closed my eyes and listened to the chaotic heartbeat in my chest, which felt like a lump of mud.

The shadows outside the glass window vanished completely. The ward fell silent once more.

Dr. Anderson stood at the foot of the bed, clutching my medical record tightly in his hand. He hesitated for a long time, his expression a mixture of extreme anger and struggle.

This unusual silence made me open my eyes again: "Dr. Anderson, now that things have come to this, what other bad news is there? Tell me all at once."

He took a deep breath, his voice trembling slightly: "Actually... last month, our hospital introduced an experimental therapy specifically for drug-induced organ damage."

My heart skipped a beat.

“If we had intervened immediately, there would have been a very high chance that your kidneys and liver could have been saved.” Dr. Anderson’s eyes reddened, and his hands clenched into fists. “But when I handed the consent form to your mother, she refused to sign it on the spot.”

"Why?" I heard my own voice, eerily calm.

“Because…” Dr. Anderson bit his lip, almost uttering in a breath the words that plunged me into an ice cave, “she was worried that leaving those records of emergency treatment would allow the review committee to discover your severe side effects, thus affecting the approval of her new drug for market launch.”

boom--

My brain exploded instantly, and all I could hear was a sharp ringing in my ears.

It turns out it wasn't that I couldn't be saved. It was that she, for that fake certificate, personally uprooted my last chance at life.

To conceal the "toxicity" of the new drug, and for the sake of her flawless medical achievements, she simply chose to let me die.

"I understand." I was surprisingly calm, unable to muster even a trace of anger. There is no greater sorrow than a broken heart.

Dr. Anderson rushed to the bedside urgently: "Ethan, don't give up! I've already contacted independent research institutions in out of state privately. They're very interested in your case. Maybe we can still give it a shot—"

"No need." I shook my head, interrupting him directly.

This body is completely rotten. Even if it manages to cling to life, it will only be a transfer from one laboratory to another to continue being a guinea pig.

I looked up at Dr. Anderson and said, "Could you please give me some paper and a pen?"

"what are you up to?"

"I want to make a will."

I took the paper and pen he handed me, my hands trembling so much I could barely hold the plastic pen. But I gritted my teeth and wrote each stroke with great force.

There are only two things on the paper.

First, after his death, he must sever all kinship ties with Evelyn Hart and her husband, and they must not handle his funeral arrangements.

Second, refuse any medical autopsy and cremate the body directly. Do not buy a cemetery plot for the ashes; scatter them all in the fir forest north of the city.

That forest is the last remaining beautiful memory I have of this family before I became a drug testing subject, when I was six years old.

The pen tip scratched and scraped across the paper. On the last line, I wrote a sentence heavily, the pen tip almost tearing through the paper:

"I want freedom."

I handed the blood-stained will to Dr. Anderson, whose eyes were red and swollen, then leaned back weakly against the pillow, staring at the pale ceiling.

“For the rest of my life, I have been locked in a dark and sunless laboratory…” I gently closed my eyes, feeling my life rapidly slipping away from my body. “When I die, I never want to be locked in a cold cemetery again.”