The Hospital Wants Its Money? I'm Done Playing Nice!

At midnight, the corridors of the city center’s top-tier hospital were as cold as an ice cellar.

The ghastly white lights stretched Su Wanqing’s solitary shadow across the floor. The air was thick with the smell of disinfectant mixed with despair, making her gag again and again.

She clutched a sheet of paper in her hand: a critical condition notice that had just come off the printer, still warm from the machine. It burned like a red-hot iron, making her fingers ache.

“Miss Su, your father is in critical condition. The bleeding in his skull is pressing on his nerves, and he needs surgery immediately.”

Behind the payment counter, the nurse’s icy voice held not a trace of emotion, as though she were reading out a verdict that had nothing to do with Su Wanqing. “The surgery and subsequent ICU care will cost at least another 280,000 yuan. The deadline is final. If we haven’t received the payment by ten tomorrow morning, we’ll have to stop his medication.”

Stop his medication.

The words struck Su Wanqing’s heart like a heavy hammer.

She lowered her eyes to the glaring figure on her mobile banking app: 37,208 yuan.

It was every last bit of savings she had scraped together over five years of work.

But in this money-devouring city, faced with a devastating illness, the amount was laughably small.

The glow of her phone screen fell across her face. Her usually radiant, exquisitely made-up features were now pale and exhausted.