3: 3

The moment I said it, Damian's sobbing hitched to a stop.

He was staring hard at me, and something dark and ugly slid through his eyes before he could hide it.

"Doctor! Why would you curse my wife to die?"

The next second, he was helpless again.

He knelt there in the standing water, eyes swollen red from crying.

"You don't want to save her? Fine, I don't blame you!"

"The world is cold. I accept that!"

"But how could you stand here in front of everyone and curse her dead?"

"She's eight months pregnant, and she was just calling out to you for help!"

That lit the crowd's anger completely.

"Damn, this doctor is vicious!"

"Looks so respectable, so how is she this cold-hearted?"

"His wife's clearly still alive and crying for help, and she just curses her dead?"

"This is insane! If you don't want to save someone, fine, but why say something so cruel?"

"A healer's compassion? More like a healer's ice. Not a shred of kindness!"

Seeing that everyone had taken his side,

a flicker of satisfaction slipped through Damian's eyes, too quick to catch.

He turned at once to face the crowd and poured it all out through his tears.

"My wife and I grew up together. We've known each other seventeen whole years!"

"I've never asked for anything in this life except for her to safely have our baby and for us to live a good life together!"

"Every single day I've cherished her, never once let her suffer the smallest hurt!"

"If it weren't for this sudden accident, we'd have been the happiest family……"

By the end, he was crying so hard he could barely breathe.

"This doctor says my wife is already dead?"

"Then who was that just now, calling for help inside the car?!"

That line was the finishing blow.

The crowd's mood swung completely with him.

"Right! I clearly heard a woman's voice just now! A living cry for help, how could that be a dead person?"

"This doctor really is cold-blooded to the extreme! Making up a lie like this just so she doesn't have to save anyone!"

"We have to expose her! Get her fired! Show everyone what she really is!"

Plenty of people raised their phones and turned the cameras on me.

Some went straight to livestreaming, typing out headlines built to grab eyes.

【Major crash on the Bay Bridge! Cold-blooded woman doctor lets victims die, publicly curses injured pregnant woman!】

The moment the livestream went up, the traffic on it shot through the roof.

Countless viewers poured in, all of them cursing me.

Watching it all unfold, my heart went cold, piece by piece.

Public opinion, sympathy, the underdog act, the crowd's sense of justice……

Damian had turned every weapon he could reach on me.

I fixed my eyes on him and spoke evenly.

"If you love your wife so much, why didn't you call the proper rescue services the moment it happened?"

"Why is it that after the crash, instead of staying focused on your trapped wife, the first thing you did was fix your teeth into me, a veterinarian?"

"Is the traffic really blocking the rescue route dead, or is it because the person in that car has been dead all along?"

Three questions in a row, straight to the heart of it.

Damian's face went white in an instant.

His eyes wandered; he didn't know how to talk his way out.

Just then, from the wrecked car up front came a woman's pained voice again.

"Help……please, save me……"

"Honey, I'm so scared, I don't want to die yet……our baby isn't even born yet……"

Damian seized it like the last straw.

He shouted back toward the wrecked car with everything in his throat.

"Honey! Don't be afraid! You won't die!"

"I'll get you out, I swear! Just hold on a little longer! Don't be scared!"

He lunged forward and clawed at my car window,

both hands clamping down hard on my wrists.

"Doctor! I'm begging you! Save my wife and my child!"

"I'll kowtow to you! I'll get on my knees! Please, just have some mercy!"

His grip was frantic and brutal.

He screamed and begged and shook me like a madman all at once.

The crowd caught fire at the sight.

In an instant one shout drew a hundred.

"What are you waiting for? They're almost dead! Save them, now!"

"Stop wasting words on her! She's cold-blooded and refusing on purpose! Just drag her out!"

"Hurry! Every second wasted is two lives!"

In the chaos, two young men rushed up first.

Using the moment Damian had me held, they shoved their arms into the car and found the door-unlock button.

The next second, the door was wrenched open.

They grabbed me without a word and hauled me bodily out.

4: 4

Damian saw it, and a flicker of triumph crossed his eyes.

He clamped down on my wrist and hauled me toward the crashed car.

I locked my jaw, threw my whole body into it, and gripped the door handle for dear life.

Held my ground by sheer force, refusing to give an inch.

"What are you doing?!"

"This is illegal, what you're doing!"

"I already told you! I'm just a vet, I can't save people!"

Right then, a shout went up from the crowd.

"Everyone, hold on! The people in the livestream already dug up everything on her!"

Every movement stopped.

Countless eyes swung onto me.

The man held his phone up and read out loud to the crowd:

"She really is a vet, no lie! You can find her animal hospital online!"

At that, the onlookers wavered for a second.

But the next moment, his tone turned.

"But she did her undergrad in clinical medicine!"

"She only switched to veterinary medicine in grad school!"

"And the school she graduated from is a top medical university!"

"Her emergency skills are more professional than most doctors! She is one hundred percent capable of saving people!"

The second those words landed, the whole scene exploded.

An even fiercer wave of condemnation came crashing in.

"Oh my God! So she refused on purpose!"

"She can clearly save them, but she hides behind this vet excuse! What a vicious heart!"

"She's got the skill to save a life and just watches a mother and baby die. What kind of person does that?"

"Someone like this doesn't deserve to be a doctor. She has no basic decency at all!"

Under the storm of accusations, the triumph in Damian's eyes nearly spilled over.

He wrenched my fingers off, hard.

Before I could fight back, my whole body was being dragged forward.

The ground scraped against my skin.

Left a streak of bright red blood.

"I will not treat her! There is no way I'm touching her!"

I screamed through gritted teeth, fighting with everything I had to break loose.

But Damian's strength was terrifying.

Step by step he dragged me toward that mangled car.

Closer to the abyss that could ruin the rest of my life.

The onlookers even parted on their own to open a path.

They stared me down, waiting for me to see my error, repent, and go save the victim.

Just as he was about to shove me into the car,

a burst of urgent sirens sounded not far off.

Several police motorcycles broke through the traffic, racing toward us.

The traffic officers directed the cars with practiced ease, carving out an emergency lane by force.

The police and an ambulance came right behind, pulling to a steady stop in front of us.

The clamor cut off all at once.

In the instant Damian froze, stunned.

I threw him off with everything I had and stumbled toward the officers.

"Officer! Help!"

Two officers caught hold of me at once.

"Easy, what happened here? How is the injured person?"

I gasped for air.

"Officer! I think the pregnant woman has been dead for a while already!"

"These people dragged me by force to make me save her, trying to pin all the blame on me!"

Right then, the paramedics rushed toward the crashed car with a stretcher.

Damian's face went white.

He lunged forward on instinct, throwing his arms wide to block them.

"No! You can't touch my wife!"

"She's badly hurt, you can't just move her! If something goes wrong…"

An officer beside him stopped him at once.

"Please, don't worry. These are trained emergency responders."

As he spoke, the paramedics had already pulled open the passenger door.

Leaned in to check the injuries.

Everyone held their breath, waiting for the final word.

The next second, a paramedic's muffled cry came from inside the crashed car.