Right after my father dies, I receive a call from the hospital, urging me to settle the hospital bills.

"You're the next of kin for Carl Stone, Bed 23 of the Neurology Ward, correct? You still owe the hospital 246,000 dollars. Kindly settle the bill as soon as possible."

The call completely catches me off guard. I turn around to look at my father's body in the casket. A rush of anger courses through me, but I suppress it and say, "I'm afraid you've made a mistake. My father is no longer a patient at the hospital."

"I knew people like you would never admit to it. Do you think you can get away with it just because you snuck him out of the hospital without permission?

"I'm giving you 24 hours to complete the payment. You don't want to find out what will happen if you don't!"

Well, now I'm furious. "Go ahead and test me."

I ended the call and pulled out the invoice I'd received from the hospital before Dad was discharged, specifically going through the list of medications they'd used. The record came to an abrupt stop yesterday when he'd taken his last breath.

In his final days, he'd only been receiving a basic glucose IV drip. The doctors hadn't used any sort of expensive medication on him.

The nerve of that woman from the hospital to claim that we owed the hospital 246 thousand dollars. Scoffing, I didn't bother paying any further attention to this matter.

However, within seconds, I got a call from the same landline number. This time, I didn't bother taking it. My phone kept ringing for over 15 minutes before I received a text message.

"Stop ignoring our calls, Carl Stone! To think that a man your age would behave so atrociously! How dare you act like you're in the right when you owe the hospital money?"

Taking a deep breath, I typed out a reply.

"Carl Stone has passed away. This is his son, Evan Stone. My father's hospital bill was settled when the hospital released his body. Kindly be more thorough when verifying your records."

I only bothered sending this message to ensure that I had evidence to back myself up.

Besides, the hospital had completed its end of the paperwork for Dad's death certificate. Weren't their systems connected internally? How could they claim we owed them money when he was already dead? That made no sense at all.

Unexpectedly, moments after I sent that message, the hospital called me again. As soon as I answered the call, a piercing female voice shrieked at me, "Evan Stone! How can you be so shameless? How dare you refuse to pay up just because your father's dead?

"I'm warning you—if you don't clear the outstanding payment, we'll report you to the police! You think you can just act like some deadbeat defaulter? I'll make sure everyone knows that about you!"

Maintaining my composure, I asked, "What's your name?"

"That's none of your business! You owe the hospital 246 thousand dollars, and not a single cent less!"

She dropped the call on me.

Well, I wasn't going to play nice either. I blocked the number outright.

In our family, we usually held a wake for three days, giving enough time for our friends and family to pay their final respects.

Some of our relatives who had already come over overheard the calls and asked me what was going on. I didn't go into detail, only saying that the hospital was calling to demand payment. No one pressed for more details.

I assumed that once the hospital staff checked their system, they'd realize there had been a mistake. I had a wake to run and a funeral to plan, so I put my phone on silent.

By nighttime, all of our relatives had come over. After settling them into hotel rooms for the night, I finally went home—only to find that I'd received over 100 missed calls and several 100 messages.

Every single one was from the hospital, each message more profane than the last. Just seeing the words alone allowed me to imagine just how furious the person who typed those messages was.

But I simply ignored all the curses and insult-laden messages.

To my absolute shock, the next morning, a friend of mine sent me a video.

"Evan, why aren't you paying what you owe? The hospital has exposed you online. They're saying you're a deadbeat who's refusing to pay up and that they've already reported you to the police! You need to settle things with them before the situation gets even more out of hand."

The moment I watched the video, I almost had an aneurysm.

It'd been shot at the payment counter of Central Hospital, and a woman in her 30s, wearing a white coat, looked at the camera with red eyes.

"Evan Stone, your father, Carl Stone, received treatment at our hospital. However, you secretly took him away and still haven't paid the remaining 246 thousand dollars in medical fees that you owe the hospital.

"If you don't make the full payment, we'll have to cover it with money from our own pockets! Please, I'm begging you. We're just ordinary working people. Don't make things difficult for me!"

As she cried pitifully in front of the camera, she played what she claimed was a recording from one of our calls. "Stop calling me! My dad's dead. You can forget about getting a cent from me!"

It sounded like my voice—but I'd never said anything like that. The audio recording had clearly been doctored.

However, the online community believed her claims, and I was besieged with a tidal wave of verbal abuse and accusations.

Before long, my phone was spammed with calls. Some people even dug up my personal information and sent funeral wreaths to Dad's wake.

Dad probably never would've thought that, after his death, we'd receive over 30 funeral wreaths—only it was my name, not his, that was written as the deceased person's name.

Mom paled in fright at the sight. "Evan? What is—"

"I'll handle this, Mom."

I filed a police report and submitted my evidence. The social media platforms ignored my request to take down the false accusations being spread online, but it would be a lot easier once the police stepped in.

Besides, this was a case of malicious online harassment, and these people had gone so far that Mom nearly had a heart attack from the emotional distress.

I was now determined to make all of them pay for what they'd done.

My next course of action was to hire a lawyer, Simon Langley.

He'd already seen the video, but I showed him my call records and Dad's death certificate. After a long silence, he said, "They have certainly made a very serious false accusation against you, but it's fine. You have iron-clad evidence to prove your innocence. That woman is definitely going to lose this case."

"I don't just want the woman to pay for what she's done—the hospital needs to pay for this as well! It was their internal system that messed up, yet they expect an innocent person to suffer because of it? I won't accept any compromise!"

Once Simon formulated the full legal strategy for my situation, I left the law firm. As I walked out, my phone buzzed nonstop with calls from numbers I didn't recognize. When I answered one of them, I was met with a litany of the filthiest words known to man.

After I set my phone to reject calls and messages from all unknown numbers, it finally stopped buzzing.

However, the video had gone viral.

Upon arriving at the company I worked for, I saw the messages circulating in the company group chat. Even before I had a chance to tell my side of the story, the company had fired me and even made a public announcement about it.

The online community cheered in celebration.

"Serves that deadbeat right. Now he's lost his job!"

"Honestly, they didn't even need to fire him. They could've just used his salary to pay the hospital. Now that he has no income, there's even less chance of him forking out the money."

"You got that right! What are the police even doing? I thought the hospital reported him. Why aren't the police getting involved?"

Paying no further attention to the online chatter, I rushed into the office. When my boss, Barnaby Olson, saw me, he waved me off, saying, "Why did you come to the office? We don't hire deadbeats!"

"I will be getting to the bottom of this situation and proving what is truly going on. However, the company fired me without just cause, which means it owes me severance compensation," I calmly declared.

He was taken aback. "Compensation? An immoral deadbeat like—"

I cut him off, saying, "My morals aren't relevant right now. If I don't receive the full severance package I'm owed, I'll take the company to court. Since you hate deadbeats so much, I'm sure you won't act like one yourself."

His face turned dark with anger, but I simply flashed him a smile and walked off. He watched as I cleared out my desk before finally spitting out, "Look at you, acting like such a big shot. You're never going to find a job as good as this one!"

I simply scoffed to myself. While it was up for debate as to whether this job was a good one, I now knew for a fact that working with him would be a terrible decision.

But right now, I wasn't in the mood to argue with Barnaby.

As I left the office with my belongings, I got a call from Mom. She screamed into the phone, "Evan! You need to come to the funeral parlor right away! A ton of reporters have gathered outside, and your father's body is still lying in the hall! What the hell have you been doing?"

Hearing this, I immediately said grimly, "I'm coming over right away. Wait for me."

When I arrived in my car, I saw a huge crowd had gathered, along with the police. My relatives looked at me in contempt.

"What on earth have you been doing, Evan? This isn't the way our family behaves!"

"That's right. If you owe someone money, you should pay up right away! How could you not only refuse to pay up but even let it turn into such a huge scandal? Your father won't be able to rest in peace!"

The reporters swiftly surrounded me as well.

"Evan Stone, when are you going to pay the debt you owe the hospital?"

"You said your father has died, but even if someone is dead, the hospital bills still have to be paid. Money that's owed must be cleared off in full. That's the rule of our society."

"On behalf of the hospital and the greater community, we've come to ask you when you intend to pay the money you owe."

"I see you're using the latest phone model. If you have the money to upgrade your phone, why can't you pay off your debts?"

Snorting in the face of their questioning, I retorted, "Instead of confronting me, you should be asking the hospital your questions. Why would they have released my father's body to me if we still had outstanding payments to make?

"And secondly, how does a dead person rack up 246 thousand dollars in medical fees in a single day?"

Someone from the crowd stepped forward and said, "The same can be said about you! Why haven't you gone to the hospital to challenge the claims if you think there's been a mistake?"

"Exactly! Why are you busy holding a wake instead? Are you just trying to earn everyone's sympathy in hopes they'll contribute to the funeral expenses? You're just a greedy scumbag!"

As I scoffed in anger, Mom came over to me. "What on earth is going on, Evan? Stop causing such a scene!"

"Hey, old lady, don't you know your son's a deadbeat? You guys didn't even pay off the hospital bills before getting your husband's body released, and now, you're forcing the hospital workers to foot the bill of over 200 thousand dollars! How can you be so shameless?"

Mom was completely stupefied. "Evan?"

"Don't worry about it, Mom."

But Mom refused to listen to me. "You can't do this, Evan! Your father was an honest man his entire life! We can't owe anyone money. Go down to the hospital and pay off the bill right away! This is the reason for everything that has been happening the last few days, isn't it?"

Our friends and family also started urging me. "You shouldn't owe the hospital anything, Evan. Hurry up and pay off the bill. Your father won't be able to rest in peace otherwise."

I couldn't contain my fury any longer. "Dad died, yet the day after he died, he somehow racked up 246 thousand dollars in medical expenses at the hospital? Just who received those treatments, huh?"

Everyone was dumbfounded to hear me. Even the reporters looked at me cluelessly. "What do you mean by that?"

"You don't believe me, huh? Fine. Let's take my father's body and the death certificate to the hospital. I'll confront them face to face and see who's the real shameless deadbeat!"

Fuming, I whipped my head around and said, "Guys, help me out. Load my dad's casket into the funeral parlor's van. We're heading to the hospital right this minute."

A few of my friends and relatives got right to it. "Leave it to us!"

I also arranged for the rest of them to bring along the funeral wreaths and Dad's funeral portrait.

When we arrived, Albert Hawkins, the hospital president, stopped us at the hospital entrance.

"If you're here for a reasonable discussion, Mr. Stone, we're more than happy to engage with you. But if you're here to cause a scene, we won't allow it. You're not allowed to bring a corpse into the hospital, either."

"Exactly! It's just 246 thousand dollars anyway. Not only are you refusing to pay what you owe us, but you're trying to cause trouble for us! Once the police arrive, you'll all be taken away!" a shrill voice rang out.

It sounded impossibly familiar, and I soon realized it belonged to Tina Hawkins, the very woman who started the online witch hunt against me.

"Where's the itemized bill for the 246 thousand dollars I supposedly owe the hospital? Give it to me. If the expenses are legitimate, I'll make the payment right away."

Tina snorted. "Oh, now you say you'll make payment, huh? It's too late! A deadbeat will always be a deadbeat. Since you've admitted to your wrongdoing, you should be punished!"

"And how do you wish to punish me?"

"246 thousand dollars is only the initial amount you owe us. You should also be penalized for trying to default on your payment, so you should give us 300 thousand dollars in total instead!"

Tina's brazen shamelessness made me laugh. "Sure. I'll even give you 500 thousand dollars, but first, I want to see the itemized bill."

Snorting, she threw a stack of papers at my face. "Go ahead! Let's see if you can weasel your way out of it now!"

She crossed her arms and eyed me smugly. But after glancing at the bill, I laughed.

I brandished Dad's certificate and the invoices for the previous payments I'd made to the hospital, saying, "My father died on the first, and I took his body with me once your hospital completed the paperwork for his death certificate.

"I came back on the third to complete the hospital paperwork, only to get a call on the fourth for supposedly owing the hospital 246 thousand dollars.

"Now let's see. Care to explain how a dead person received these so-called emergency treatments and hospital care services on the second and third? How did a body lying in a casket at the funeral parlor incur 246 thousand dollars in medical expenses, huh?"