Yan Feifan looked over from a distance and saw twenty to thirty people standing in front of the neurosurgery building.

The group was made up of men and women, old and young.

They faced the neurosurgery building, not shouting or making a scene, but standing quietly in two human walls, each row holding up a white banner with black characters.

Hiding in the back, Yan Feifan could only see their backs, not the large characters on the banners.

Wa Wei told him the banners read something like, "Yan Feifan is a huge swindler, give us back our life-saving money!"

A crowd of onlookers had already gathered around them, along with a dozen or so hospital security guards, ready for anything.

Yan Feifan was a little stunned.

’I’ve been working so conscientiously this whole time, how did I become a "swindler" in their eyes?’

"Feifan, the truth will come out. Let the hospital and the police handle this and investigate why these people are here."

Wa Wei advised him in a low voice, "It’s best if you don’t show your face."

"If someone emotional suddenly acts out, there’s no telling what could happen."

Yan Feifan thought about it and agreed. A wise man doesn’t stand under a crumbling wall.

He turned and walked toward the inpatient building where he was scheduled to perform surgery today, and he called Mr. Lo.

On the phone, Mr. Lo said he had just heard about the situation and was on his way to the hospital to handle it.

"Xiaoyan, should we postpone today’s surgery?"

"No need!"

Yan Feifan said confidently, "Mr. Lo, even though I’m completely in the dark about this, it won’t affect my performance in the operating room."

The words had barely left his mouth when Lo Jun’s voice, full of praise, came through the phone.

"Excellent. That’s the kind of strong heart a surgeon should have. Xiaoyan, you just focus on preparing for and performing the surgery."

"Leave all this messy business to us..."

Yan Feifan arrived at the inpatient building that housed neurosurgery and several other departments, entered the sterile surgical area, and sought refuge in the quiet while he prepared for the operation.

During this time, he also received a series of concerned calls from Liu Jin, Wang Chuan, Qin Ying, Chen Yu, and others.

At nine in the morning, the scheduled surgery began right on time.

Yan Feifan was the lead surgeon for this intraspinal tumor resection, with Wa Wei as his surgical assistant...

Meanwhile, in the neurosurgery conference room, Mr. Zhou, the head of the hospital’s medical affairs department responsible for handling medical disputes; Mr. He, the chief of the Dacheng Street Police Station; and Lo Jun, the director of neurosurgery, began a meeting with three representatives from the protesting crowd.

"You are all patients from Ren’ai Hospital?"

After listening to the three introduce themselves, Lo Jun confirmed this and then asked, "Since you are all patients from Ren’ai Hospital, how did you get involved with Mr. Yan from our Affiliated Hospital?"

"Dr. Lo, it’s like this..."

The oldest of the three, Wu Wenli, a man in his early fifties, explained indignantly, "Mr. Yan once came to Ren’ai Hospital as a visiting medical expert to perform an intraspinal tumor resection."

"The recovery of that fellow patient after the surgery was astonishing. We were all very envious."

"We also wanted to ask Mr. Ya... that swindler to operate on us."

"However, the attending physician at Ren’ai Hospital told us that Yan is extremely busy, and we couldn’t get on his surgical schedule at all."

Lo Jun said in a grave voice, "That is a fact."

"Xiaoyan can only take on two intraspinal tumor surgeries per week. Do you know how long my waiting list is?"

"It’s already booked out for four months."

"As for assistance requests from other hospitals, we’ve had to refuse all of them."

Wu Wenli said with a mix of grief and indignation, "We couldn’t accept that! Who wants to spend the rest of their life in a wheelchair!"

"Yeah, we couldn’t accept it!"

"We really couldn’t!"

The other two chimed in as well.

Wu Wenli calmed down a bit and continued, "Just when we were at our wit’s end, a young nurse named Sun Ying found us."

He Pengfei interrupted Wu Wenli to ask, "Who is Sun Ying?"

"She’s a nurse in the neurosurgery department at Ren’ai Hospital."

Wu Wenli explained, then added, "She’s also that Yan’s girlfriend and his accomplice in the scam."

"Girlfriend?" Lo Jun found that a bit hard to believe.

Wu Wenli added, "Sun Ying said it herself. Not a serious girlfriend, just the kind who sleeps with him, no strings attached."

"This nurse, Sun Ying, is very pretty. She even showed us many intimate photos of her and Yan."

"You know, really intimate, private photos taken in bed."

Another person took out their phone and said, "I have a few here."

He Pengfei stood up, leaned over to take the phone, glanced at it, and then passed it to Lo Jun beside him.

Lo Jun took the phone, and his brow furrowed the moment he saw the picture on the screen.

It was a seriously explicit photo.

A man and a woman, both completely naked, their bodies pressed tightly together.

It was truly hard on the eyes.

One look at the man’s face, and it was indeed Yan Feifan himself.

However, judging by the physique in the photo, it must have been taken before Yan Feifan’s accident and coma.

Yan Feifan’s current physique was still a bit thin, not nearly as built as in the photo.

Objectively speaking, the woman in the photo was quite attractive.

Although not as beautiful as that kid’s current girlfriend, Yu Suye, she could still be considered a very eye-catching beauty.

Lo Jun didn’t look at the other photos and quickly handed the phone to Zhou Yuan beside him.

Zhou Yuan took the phone, slowly scrolled through, admiring them for a moment, then lifted his gaze to the three people across the conference table.

"A few photos don’t prove anything."

"I’m well aware that with today’s Photoshop skills, anyone can create fake photos that look just like the real thing."

Zhou Yuan asked in a serious tone, "I want to know, have you ever met Mr. Yan in person? Have you had any direct communication with Mr. Yan through any means?"

Wu Wenli exchanged a look with the two people beside him, shook his head, and said, "We’ve never met him in person."

"We contacted him entirely through this nurse, Sun Ying."

"She told us that Yan’s surgical schedule was already booked out a year in advance, and the only way to cut in line was to pay extra."

"The more money you paid, the higher you’d move up the list."

"I paid 360,000 and got the eleventh spot."

The other two chimed in, "I paid 270,000 for the twenty-eighth spot!"

"Two hundred and ten thousand for the thirty-fourth spot!"

Wu Wenli said despairingly, "That was the money I got from mortgaging my house! It was supposed to be my turn for surgery, but it kept getting delayed."

"So I went to find that Sun Ying."

"She kept putting me off, saying other patients had paid more to get ahead of me and that I had to wait patiently..."

"Then a few days ago, Sun Ying suddenly became unreachable..."

「At 4:10 p.m.」

Yan Feifan, having successfully completed the surgery, briefly explained the procedure to the patient’s family and then strode over to where Lo Jun, Zhou Yuan, and He Pengfei were waiting.

"Mr. Lo, Mr. Zhou, Mr. He, has the matter been cleared up?"

He Pengfei said gravely, "Our preliminary conclusion is that a nurse from Ren’ai Hospital’s neurosurgery department, Sun Ying, committed fraud by posing as your lover."

"My lover?" Yan Feifan was stunned.

He Pengfei nodded and said, "The intimate photos of you and her that Sun Ying used to deceive people have been identified by our technicians as forgeries."

"The only problem is, this Sun Ying has disappeared."

"We’ve already launched an investigation and issued an online warrant for her arrest..."

Just then, Lo Jun sighed softly and said, "Xiaoyan, even though we can now prove you have nothing to do with Sun Ying’s fraud, those people are still gathered in front of the department building and refuse to leave."

"They say their money was scammed, and now they have no money for surgery."

"They also say they were scammed because they trusted you."

"They feel that, one way or another, you bear some responsibility."

"They are demanding that you perform their surgeries."

"Otherwise, they won’t leave."

’Are you kidding me?’

Yan Feifan felt a headache coming on.

They may be victims who were scammed out of a lot of money, and they deserve sympathy, but that doesn’t give them the right to act like being a victim makes them right, and then try to extort me with such self-righteousness.