Inspector Qian heard Lin Mo’s quiet remark about his paper stickers and let out a cold, mocking laugh. Walking up the three wet stone steps to Number 44 South Alley, he slapped a wide strip of yellow condemnation tape across Dr. Gu’s worn wooden door.
The red municipal letters gleamed under the rain: ILLEGAL PRACTICE CONDEMNED.
With a practiced jerk, Qian threaded the heavy iron chain through the brass door latch and snapped a hardened steel padlock shut. He tapped the lock with his baton, then pulled a laminated confiscation notice from his leather folder and waved it at the huddled elders.
“Did everyone hear that?” Inspector Qian sneered, looking down from the top step as rain dripped from the tin awning. “This young idiot wants to count how many paper stickers I have in my pocket! Listen closely, South Alley—every roll of tape in my briefcase carries the seal of the Municipal Health Bureau!”
Auntie Zhang gripped her bamboo cane with both hands, her frail shoulders shaking with anger. “Dr. Gu has treated our chronic illnesses for five winters without charging a single fen for diagnosis! If you padlock his clinic today, where are twenty sick elders supposed to go for our afternoon injections?”
“Go to the First Municipal Hospital and pay standard retail prices for Zhao Pharmaceutical’s imported capsules!” one of Zhao Kai’s bodyguards barked, resting a hand on his steel baton. “Anyone who touches this padlock gets fifteen days in an administrative cell!”
Dr. Gu stood in the rain with his ancestral needle box held against his coat. “Qian, you can chain a wooden door, but you cannot turn medicine into a private extortion racket forever.”
“Without an approved facility, a surgeon is nothing more than an unemployed beggar,” Inspector Qian scoffed, lighting a cigarette with a gold-plated lighter and leaning against the chained door. “Unless a licensed hospital falls out of the sky for you right now, you’ll be boiling herbs under a bridge tonight!”
The two bodyguards laughed coarsely, blowing gray smoke into the damp air.
Lin Mo stepped past the puddle at the foot of the steps, his hands resting calmly in his trench coat pockets.
“Inspector Qian,” Lin Mo said, his voice cutting cleanly through the rain. “How much did your bureau spend on that padlock and those two strips of yellow adhesive tape?”
Inspector Qian squinted at Lin Mo, taking in his tailored suit and the imposing presence of Tie Niu standing beside him. “Who are you, kid? Don’t meddle in business that doesn’t concern you. This clinic is condemned.”
“I am merely curious about your logistics,” Lin Mo said. “You brought one chain and two paper stickers to shut down a physician. But it seems you didn’t look behind you.”
“Look behind me?” Qian scoffed, turning his head toward the wide avenue at the mouth of South Alley. “What is there to look at?”
Lin Mo raised his right hand and pointed across the six-lane intersection of South Ring Boulevard.
Directly across the avenue stood a monumental architectural marvel. A brand-new, twenty-eight-story medical tower gleamed beneath the rain clouds. Its exterior was constructed from tinted titanium-blue glass and polished granite. A private circular helipad rested on the rooftop, and thirty automated glass sliding bays formed the ground-floor emergency pavilion.
Above the entrance hung a massive bronze plaque reading: St. Cross International Medical Plaza.
“That is the St. Cross Medical Tower,” Inspector Qian said, snorting with derision. “The Hong Kong development fund poured two billion into it, and then went bankrupt last month before opening. The municipal bank is holding a foreclosure auction next week. What does that have to do with you?”
“Nothing,” Lin Mo said calmly. “Except that the auction concluded three minutes ago.”
At that exact moment, a sleek silver Audi executive sedan pulled up to the curb. CEO Su Wan stepped out into the rain. An assistant held a large black umbrella over her head as she walked gracefully toward Lin Mo, carrying an embossed titanium tablet and a leather folder.
“Chairman Lin,” Su Wan said with crisp military precision. “The judicial debt resolution has been finalized. St. Cross Development defaulted on their eighty-million-yuan emergency bridge loan this morning. Taichu Benevolence Group executed an immediate cash clearance.”
Su Wan turned the screen toward Lin Mo. “The entire twenty-eight-story medical complex is now one hundred percent owned by Taichu Benevolence Group. That includes eight German surgical suites, three MRI facilities, two hundred forty recovery suites, and the underground pharmaceutical cleanroom.”
Dr. Gu Qinghe froze. His silver-rimmed glasses slipped slightly down his nose. “Eighty... eighty million yuan? The entire St. Cross complex?”
Lin Mo turned to Dr. Gu with a deadpan smile. “Dr. Gu, your old wooden door was drafty anyway. The hinges squeaked every time the wind blew. I figured a twenty-eight-story tower with central heating and German surgical lights would be slightly better for your posture.”
Lin Mo pulled out his matte emerald-green Benevolence Charity Card and tapped the confirmation terminal on Su Wan’s tablet.
“Authorize the eighty-million-yuan endowment,” Lin Mo instructed. “Allocate the entire complex as Dr. Gu Qinghe’s independent surgical sanctuary and medical research center. Not a single bureaucratic fee will ever be charged to honest patients.”
A sharp, majestic chime reverberated through Lin Mo’s mind:
[DING! COLOSSAL SANCTUARY INFRASTRUCTURE EXPENDITURE DETECTED!]
[TARGET: DR. GU QINGHE (GOODNESS: 96/100) & TAICHU MEDICAL SANCTUARY!]
[SPENT: ¥80,000,000.00 RMB!]
[100x PURE-HEART REBATE TRIGGERED: +¥8,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[PERSONAL VAULT BALANCE: ¥28,269,680,000.50 RMB!]
[BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS: +8,000,000 BMP (TOTAL: 30,350,528 BMP)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK MAINTAINED: 587 ELITE MEMBERS!]
A tidal wave of pure golden benevolence qi surged through Lin Mo’s dantian.
The liquid golden energy circulated through his widened meridians, nourishing his internal organs and solidifying his Rank 1 High Martial foundation. His eyes flashed with a crystalline golden light, so intense that the air around him seemed to hum with electrostatic energy.
Across the boulevard, a sudden electrical hum rolled through the wet morning air.
The massive, sixty-meter-wide ultra-high-definition LED display spanning the top four floors of the twenty-eight-story tower flickered to life. The old St. Cross logo shattered into digital gold dust, replaced by towering emerald characters that lit up the entire southern half of Jiangcheng:
TAICHU SANCTUARY HOSPITAL PRESIDENT & CHIEF SURGEON: DR. GU QINGHE PURITY, COMPASSION, RIGHTEOUSNESS
The brilliant emerald glow reflected across the wet asphalt, illuminating the dark shacks of South Alley in dazzling light.
Inspector Qian’s jaw hung wide open. The cigarette fell from his lips, sizzling out in a puddle.
In his sheer shock, his hand twitched violently. The heavy iron padlock he had been holding slipped from his fingers and crashed directly onto his right big toe.
“Aaaagh!” Inspector Qian shrieked in agony, hopping on one foot on the wet stone steps. “My foot! My toe!”
The two Zhao bodyguards dropped their iron chains in horror. Their faces were pale as chalk as they looked up at the towering twenty-eight-story medical citadel.
“He... he bought the whole tower in cash?” one bodyguard stammered, his knees trembling. “That’s... that’s the most expensive private hospital in Jiangcheng!”
Lin Mo walked slowly toward Inspector Qian, who was still clutching his crushed toe on the pavement.
“Inspector Qian,” Lin Mo said, his tone perfectly level. “Dr. Gu’s old clinic is indeed closed. You don’t need to waste any more government tape on that door. But if you want to seal the building across the street, you are going to need about twenty thousand rolls of yellow paper.”
Lin Mo tilted his head, looking down at the groveling inspector. “Would you like me to purchase a stationery factory for you, so you don’t run out of stickers?”
“I... you... this is an outrage!” Inspector Qian stammered, backing away on his hands and knees. “The Medical Association hasn’t approved your operating permit! Zhao Pharmaceutical will never let you open!”
“Commander Tie,” Lin Mo said quietly.
“Here, Chairman!” Tie Niu stepped forward, his heavy combat boots crunching against the pavement.
“Escort Inspector Qian and these two gentlemen out of South Alley,” Lin Mo said. “If their feet touch the ground within three blocks of our hospital, remind them of municipal pedestrian safety rules.”
“With pleasure, Chairman,” Tie Niu grinned. He grabbed the two bodyguards by the napes of their collars and lifted them off their feet like two scrawny chickens, tossing them headfirst into their own Mercedes. He kicked the driver’s door shut with a dent that warped the steel frame.
“Drive!” the terrified bodyguards screamed, gunning the engine and speeding away, leaving Inspector Qian limping desperately behind them down the muddy alley.
The elderly residents of South Alley broke into wild cheers.
Lin Mo turned to Dr. Gu and the twenty elderly residents. “Dr. Gu, Auntie Zhang, let us cross the street and inspect our new facility. Standing in the rain is terrible for arthritis.”
Dr. Gu followed Lin Mo across the avenue in a daze, clutching his ancestral needle case to his chest.
When the automatic glass doors of Taichu Sanctuary Hospital parted, a wave of warm, filtered air greeted them. The grand lobby was tiled in pristine white marble, featuring soaring glass atriums, automated triage bays, and digital pharmacy distribution chutes.
Su Wan led them through the express elevator up to the fifth-floor central surgical theater.
Inside, eight brand-new German laminar-flow operating rooms stood pristine and sterile. The overhead LED surgical lamps gleamed like polished silver. Stainless steel instrument trays, endoscopic towers, and computerized cardiac bypass pumps were already plugged in and humming quietly on standby.
Dr. Gu walked into the main theater with slow, reverent steps. He reached out a trembling hand and gently touched the arm of a state-of-the-art heart-lung machine.
“German precision engineering,” Dr. Gu murmured, his eyes moistening behind his glasses. “The micro-vascular clamps are titanium. The optical monitors have zero latency. With equipment like this, a surgeon can repair infant coronary arteries with total precision. Not a single child needs to die of delayed bypass surgery.”
Lin Mo stood by the glass observation wall, watching the seasoned doctor’s expression.
“Everything here belongs to your medical team, Dr. Gu,” Lin Mo said. “The operating rooms, the cleanrooms, the diagnostic laboratories. You will never again have to beg a corrupt bureaucrat for sterile gauze or surgical thread.”
Dr. Gu turned around, his shoulders squared with renewed purpose. “Chairman Lin, a twenty-eight-story hospital is a grand palace of healing. But... a building cannot heal patients alone. A modern hospital requires at least a hundred elite surgeons, anesthesiologists, and specialized ICU nurses. The Zhao family controls the municipal physician union and the hospital credentialing board. They will never allow licensed doctors to step into this building.”
Lin Mo smiled faintly. “Dr. Gu, an honest man who possesses the truth never stands alone for long. Let them try to block us.”
At that exact moment, Lin Mo’s phone buzzed with an urgent news alert.
CEO Su Wan held up her tablet, her face tight. “Chairman Lin, Zhao Pharmaceutical Group just called an emergency press conference at the Municipal Medical Association headquarters. It’s broadcasting live right now.”
On the tablet screen, Zhao Dehai—the ruthless CEO of Zhao Pharmaceutical—stood at a wooden podium, surrounded by fifty senior hospital directors and association chiefs. His face was twisted with arrogant malice.
“Attention all medical professionals and hospital networks in Jiangcheng!” Zhao Dehai’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Taichu Benevolence Group has illegally acquired the St. Cross facility and appointed a disgraced, blacklisted malpractice convict as their head!”
“The Zhao Medical Alliance hereby issues an absolute industry ban!” Zhao Dehai roared at the cameras. “Any doctor, surgeon, anesthesiologist, or nurse who applies to work at Taichu Sanctuary Hospital will be permanently stripped of their provincial medical license! No hospital in China will ever hire you again! Let us see if Lin Mo’s empty glass tower can perform open-heart surgery with empty rooms!”
Dr. Gu’s face darkened with sorrow. “Dehai is ruthless. He is threatening the careers of every physician in the city. No one will dare cross that line.”
Lin Mo let out a soft, dry chuckle.
“A boycott based on threats only works when doctors are paid in pennies and treated like slaves,” Lin Mo said, turning toward the gleaming glass entrance of the new hospital. “Su Wan, prepare the recruitment broadcast. Tomorrow morning, we are going to show Chairman Zhao what happens when honest healers are offered genuine dignity.”