During a livestream of my brother, Douglas Wilcox's heart transplant surgery, I, the lead surgeon, turn tail and flee with my tail between my legs halfway through the surgery.

Because of that, Douglas ends up dying on the operating table, and I become a murderer.

My mom kneels on the floor with tears streaming down her cheeks. She questions me, "You're the only one capable of performing this surgery in the entire country! Why did you run away?

"We've been waiting for 20 long years for a suitable heart that can save Douglas' life! You're the one who killed him!"

In the face of the growing public outlash and the pressure exerted by the health department, the police built a case on this incident and decided to investigate me.

On the day I'm whisked away by the police, the enraged onlookers and the reporters have me surrounded.

"Dr. Wilcox, although you're just an adopted daughter, the Wilcox family still loves and pampers you to no end. Why did you do this?

"People without medical ethics like you are murderers! You deserve to get skinned alive!"

I just look at the camera with a stony expression.

"Someone else is the actual murderer here. The truth and the proof that all of you badly want are already revealed in the livestream."

An emotional crowd blocked the road ahead of me, hurling all kinds of garbage in my direction.

Camera flashes went off incessantly as various media outlets scrambled to capture my disheveled state.

"Kathleen Wilcox, your adoptive parents spent so much energy and money raising you, yet you killed their biological son? You're a demon!"

"What kind of ungrateful jerk does something like this? How can you live with yourself after doing something like this?"

I remained expressionless, kept my head down, and made no response.

Meanwhile, my adoptive parents, Roger Wilcox and Amber Cohen, squeezed through the crowd, leaning on each other. In just three short days, their hair had become streaked with gray.

"Kathleen, Douglas suffered from illness for over 20 years and finally had a chance to recover. Why did you have to kill him? You wanted to study medicine and go abroad, and we drained every penny we had to put you through school. What did we ever do to deserve this from you?"

Dad steadied Mom with one hand while pointing a trembling finger at me with the other.

"Kathleen, I truly regret adopting you! I should've let you rot in the orphanage, you ungrateful murderer!"

The grief-stricken and furious state of the elderly couple enraged the onlooking crowd.

"What more is there to investigate? Just take her and have her shot!"

"See, this is why you shouldn't casually adopt kids. Maybe Kathleen's birth parents were murderers too, and she was born evil."

"She must be punished for such a horrific case of medical malpractice. Otherwise, how can anyone ever trust a doctor again?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, we will definitely seek justice for you!"

Justice?

Did Mom and Dad even deserve it?

I suddenly raised my head and glared viciously at them.

"Douglas deserved to die! I only wished his life had been even shorter! I couldn't wait for him to drop dead sooner!"

Everyone present gasped sharply.

Mom was so furious that her eyes rolled back and she fainted in Dad's arms.

Someone picked up a stone and hurled it at my head.

"Go to hell, you evil murderer!"

Blood trickled down my forehead, and yet I laughed.

My reaction completely infuriated the crowd.

Just as the situation was about to spiral out of control, the police got the crowd under control and escorted me toward the police car.

The moment I was about to get into the police car, a journalist suddenly rushed toward me, holding out her microphone.

"According to investigations, you've saved over 100 heart disease patients and actively participated in medical charity events over the past five years. Kathleen, are there some circumstances behind this case of medical malpractice that you can't speak about perhaps?"

I recognized her as Maureen Ingram. She never published a story without investigating it personally. Her relentless pursuit of truth and justice had earned her a reputation as the most ethical journalist in the field.

She was also the only member of the media present who never hurled abuse at me.

I stared at the camera lens beside her and leaned closer to the microphone.

"Ms. Ingram, let me tell you a secret—the real murderer is someone else. The truth and evidence you want to find are all in the live stream."

Before the crowd could even react, I was already in the police car, vanishing from everyone's sight.

To my surprise, Maureen came to see me at the detention center early the next morning.

"I watched the replay of that surgery's live stream 15 times last night but didn't find anything out of the ordinary throughout the entire procedure.

"I also interviewed the other doctors and nurses who participated in the surgery, and all the evidence points to you intentionally abandoning the operation, resulting in the patient's death."

Mid-sentence, she suddenly paused, then looked at me with a complex expression.

"Kathleen, do you need me to arrange a psychological evaluation for you?"

I smiled and replied, "I'm not crazy, Ms. Ingram."

She stared fixedly at my face, as if trying to find some answer there.

"Tell me, why did you flee in the middle of surgery?"

Instead of answering her question, I asked her one of my own, "Why do you think a couple who gave birth to a son with congenital heart disease would go and adopt a girl?"

Maureen was stumped by my question.

After a long silence, she suddenly rose to leave.

But before she did, she asked me seriously, "Can I trust you?"

"Ms. Ingram, you only need to trust the truth," I replied with a smirk.

After Maureen left the detention center, she drove straight to Mom and Dad's house.

But by the time she got there, several media outlets were already there. They'd all come to interview Mom and Dad. One media outlet was even running a live stream the entire time.

In the video, Mom and Dad clearly recognized Maureen as the journalist who'd handed me the microphone the day before, and they promptly put on devastated expressions.

Maureen directly asked them the very question I had posed to her before.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, may I ask why you adopted Kathleen? Does it have anything to do with Douglas having a heart condition?"

Mom and Dad exchanged a glance, and the former immediately replied with a troubled expression, "To be honest, we did adopt Kathleen for selfish reasons.

"Since Douglas had a heart condition, we were terrified of outliving our only child and just as afraid that if we died first, there'd be no one left to care for him. But we've always seen Kathleen as our own daughter and even treated her better than Douglas."

Mom and Dad opened the doors to my room and Douglas', respectively.

"Everyone, take a look. This big room here? That's Kathleen's. She's got the largest bed in the house all to herself, and because she loves dressing up, she even has two closets.

"Meanwhile, Douglas lives in the smallest room. Once you fit a single bed and a closet in there, there's barely room to turn around."

At that moment, Dad walked up to the camera holding a ledger.

"There are people online claiming we pushed Kathleen to study medicine just so she'd treat Douglas and look after him, but we never did that. Kathleen pursued medicine because it was her own passion."

He then held the ledger out for the reporters to see, turning each page one at a time.

"When her first SAT score wasn't high enough, we paid to send her to the best prep school to retake them. Treating Douglas' illness had already drained most of the family's savings, so in order to send her abroad to study, we had to sell the houses we both owned back in our hometowns.

"Her tuition and living expenses abroad cost us nearly 400 thousand dollars. We were so worried that she might feel insecure about being adopted that we even transferred this house, our only remaining home, into her name. What more does she want from us?"

Mom wiped the tears from the corner of her reddened eyes and added, "Even biological parents who've done this much would have a clear conscience! But I never imagined she'd repay us like this. She just stood there and watched Douglas die on the operating table."

The reporters couldn't help but tear up at Mom and Dad's words.

The video ended.

Maureen flipped her phone face down on the table, frowning deeply as she looked at me.

"Kathleen, Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox are right. They did everything they could possibly do for you, so why on earth did you kill Douglas?"

I lifted my glass and took a sip before replying calmly, "Are there really parents that perfect out there? Ms. Ingram, don't you think the fact that they were so good to me is precisely what makes it suspicious?"

Maureen's patience was wearing thin, and her voice took an edge of urgency.

"How are they treating you well somehow their fault? Kathleen, I didn't believe it when Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox said you suffered from paranoia. But now, I have no choice but to think you really need to see a psychiatrist."

I didn't get angry even under her skeptical gaze.

"I already told you that both the truth and evidence are all in that live stream. Ms. Ingram, you must've overlooked something."

A heavy silence settled over the room.

Then, the officer urged, "Ms. Ingram, visiting hours are over."

Maureen got up to leave. When she reached the door, she stopped and looked back at me, as if expecting me to say something more.

However, I just hung my head in silence.

Three days later was the day of Douglas' funeral.

Mom and Dad applied for my bail so I could attend it.

Many strangers came to the funeral—reporters, Douglas' fellow patients, hospital staff, and even netizens who wanted to see him off. They laid flowers beneath his tombstone and clasped Mom and Dad's hands, murmuring words of consolation.

The moment I appeared, every pair of eyes turned on me with pure hatred.

"How does a murderer like her have the nerve to show her face here?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox are just too kind-hearted. They even applied for her bail."

"I bet she's come to kneel before Douglas and beg for forgiveness."

"A life for a life. No matter how much she regrets it now, it can't bring Douglas back!"

A bouquet of lilies was thrust into my hands.

Under everyone's watch, I walked toward Douglas's tombstone.

Unfortunately, I didn't drop to my knees in a flood of tears and beg for forgiveness the way they'd hoped.

Instead, I violently smashed the bouquet onto the ground, then forcefully kicked the photo of Douglas on the tombstone.

"You deserve to die a thousand times over, you monster! Rot in hell, Douglas!"

Everyone stood frozen in shock at the scene unfolding before them. By the time they snapped out of it, the photo on the tombstone was already smeared with mud.

"She's completely lost her mind!"

"Arrest her now!"

"She really is the devil. She's causing trouble even at Douglas' funeral!"

Just as people were about to get physical with me, the police officers maintaining order swiftly pulled me away from the crowd.

Mom and Dad wiped their tears while beating their chests and wailing.

"Kathleen, Douglas is already dead, and yet you're not even willing to see him off one last time. You two grew up together… Why have you become like this?

"Do you know what Douglas' last words were? He told us not to hate you and that you'll always be his sister."

At this, the crowd instantly grew enraged.

"Hey, officers! Why are you still protecting this murderer?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox, it's better if you consider Kathleen dead to you from now on. She doesn't deserve your forgiveness at all!"

"If you ask me, she should pay with her life and kill herself right in front of Douglas' tombstone."

Just then, Maureen came running from afar.

"Kathleen, I found it!"