Zhao Dehai tapped his silver microphone three times on the outdoor press stage outside the Municipal Medical Association hall, staring across the six-lane avenue toward the gleaming glass facade of Taichu Sanctuary Hospital.
Giant banners fluttered behind him in the morning breeze: ZHAO PHARMACEUTICAL ALLIANCE PRESS BRIEFING.
Seated in the center of the stage in an Italian wool suit, Zhao Dehai let his heavy gold Rolex gleam under the camera lights as he sipped mineral water. Beside him, Deputy Director Sun dabbed sweat from his double chin with a silk handkerchief.
“Let the news spread across the province,” Zhao Dehai said, grinning at the assembled television reporters. “Lin Mo spent eighty million yuan on a monument of glass and steel. But a hospital without doctors is just an expensive morgue. Within forty-eight hours, he will come crawling to our alliance, begging us to lease him medical teams!”
Deputy Director Sun chuckled obsequiously. “Chairman Zhao is a master of business. Those young surgeons in my hospital are terrified of your name. None of them would dare throw away their provincial licenses to join a bankrupt outlaw like Gu Qinghe.”
Across the street, on the wide marble plaza outside Taichu Sanctuary Hospital, Lin Mo stood calmly beside Dean Gu Qinghe.
Behind them, Tie Niu and four veteran guards wheeled out a massive metallic archway. The frame was constructed from brushed titanium and pulsed with faint emerald and sapphire indicator lights.
This was the System’s [Morality & Ethics Screening Gate].
Lin Mo stepped up to a microphone connected to the hospital’s outdoor audio system. His calm, deadpan voice carried across the entire avenue, echoing clearly through the Medical Association’s press courtyard:
“Attention all medical professionals in Jiangcheng. Taichu Sanctuary Hospital is now officially hiring.”
Reporters from thirty television stations turned their cameras across the street, zooming in on Lin Mo and Dr. Gu.
“We have heard Chairman Zhao’s threats of blacklisting,” Lin Mo continued in a relaxed tone. “We agree that medicine requires strict professional standards. Therefore, Taichu Hospital will not hire just anyone. We only hire physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, and nurses who possess a confirmed Moral Integrity Score of eighty or above.”
Zhao Dehai snorted into his microphone across the street, his laughter booming over the loudspeakers. “Morality? What kind of lunatic runs a hospital on moral points? Doctors work for money, you idiot!”
“I am glad Chairman Zhao brought up money,” Lin Mo replied smoothly. “Here are the compensation terms for every certified medical worker who passes our moral gate: five times your current base salary and a guaranteed annual research stipend.”
“You also receive a three-bedroom furnished riverside apartment in Green Lake District with zero mortgage, plus full medical coverage for your family. And red-envelope bribes are strictly banned—any doctor caught demanding kickbacks is fired immediately.”
Lin Mo paused, letting the words echo down the avenue.
“To welcome our founding medical staff, Taichu Benevolence Group has established an immediate twenty-million-yuan signing and relocation bonus pool. The first hundred qualified applicants will receive two hundred thousand yuan in cash the moment their contract is signed.”
A wave of loud murmurs rippled through the press corps.
“Five times salary?” a junior reporter whispered, checking his camera feed. “A riverside apartment? Two hundred thousand signing bonus in cold cash?”
Across the street, inside Jiangcheng First Hospital’s staff breakrooms and the surrounding clinics, hundreds of phones began buzzing furiously. The live broadcast went viral on medical forums within sixty seconds.
“Is that real?” an exhausted resident surgeon in green scrubs asked his colleague. “Five times salary? No twenty-four-hour unpaid shifts?”
“Look who is standing beside him,” the colleague whispered, pointing at the video stream. “That is Dr. Gu Qinghe! The greatest heart surgeon in the history of our city! If Dr. Gu is endorsing this, it is not a trick!”
Ten minutes later, the first figure appeared at the edge of the crosswalk.
It was Dr. Zhang Wei, the forty-year-old chief of neurosurgery from Jiangcheng Second Hospital. He had deep dark circles under his eyes from performing back-to-back craniotomies while his corrupt department director pocketed all the surgical bonuses.
Dr. Zhang walked up to the marble plaza, his hands trembling slightly as he approached the titanium archway.
“Step through the gate, Dr. Zhang,” Dr. Gu said gently, stepping forward to greet his former student. “Let your conscience be weighed.”
Dr. Zhang took a deep breath and stepped under the archway.
A soft, celestial emerald glow bathed his shoulders. A pleasant chime sounded from the speaker:
[VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL!]
[CANDIDATE: DR. ZHANG WEI (CHIEF NEUROSURGEON)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 89/100 (DEVOTED, REFUSED ILLEGAL DEVICE KICKBACKS, WORKED 300 DAYS OVERTIME)]
[TIER: ELITE FOUNDING FELLOW!]
A printed contract slid out from the side slot of the gate. CEO Su Wan stepped forward, handing Dr. Zhang a red folder containing the deed to a Green Lake riverside apartment and a bank card loaded with two hundred thousand yuan.
“Welcome to Taichu, Dr. Zhang,” Su Wan said with a warm smile.
Dr. Zhang stared at the contract, his eyes welling with tears. “No mandatory drug sales quotas? I can simply focus on saving brains?”
“Your only quota here is saving lives,” Lin Mo replied dryly. “If you waste time filling out sales quotas, I will dock your administrative chores instead.”
Dr. Zhang laughed through his tears and signed the papers immediately.
Seeing Dr. Zhang sign the papers and receive the key card, the dam broke completely.
From subway exits, bus stops, and hospital corridors across the district, white coats and blue scrubs began flooding toward South Ring Boulevard. Overworked pediatricians, brilliant young cardiology fellows, and battle-hardened ICU charge nurses marched across the street in waves.
Head Nurse Wang from the provincial pediatric trauma unit arrived with five of her senior scrub nurses.
“Last month, the First Hospital cut our sterile gauze supplies to pay for Director Sun’s overseas vacation,” Head Nurse Wang said angrily as she stood in line. “I would rather scrub toilets for Dr. Gu than watch another premature infant suffer from supply shortages!”
She stepped through the archway.
The emerald light flared brilliantly:
[VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL!]
[CANDIDATE: NURSE WANG MEILING (CHIEF TRAUMA NURSE)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 94/100 (FEARLESS, SAVED 400 INFANTS, SHIELDED JUNIOR NURSES)]
[TIER: CHIEF NURSE FOUNDING FELLOW!]
Su Wan handed her the keys and signing bonus with a respectful bow.
One by one, the honest healers of Jiangcheng stepped through the Morality Gate.
Emerald chimes rang out continuously:
[VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL: DR. LIU (CARDIOLOGY) — MORAL SCORE: 92/100!]
[VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL: DR. CHEN (PEDIATRIC SURGERY) — MORAL SCORE: 88/100!]
[VERIFICATION SUCCESSFUL: DR. FANG (ANESTHESIOLOGY) — MORAL SCORE: 91/100!]
Within three hours, exactly one hundred and twenty-three elite physicians, surgeons, and specialized ICU nurses passed through the gate, signing contracts on the plaza.
Watching the massive stream of talent cross the street, thirty greedy department heads and hospital administrators from the Zhao alliance grew desperate.
“Five times salary...” muttered Chief Director Feng from the First Hospital’s billing department. “I make forty thousand a month. Five times would be two hundred thousand! Plus a free riverside villa!”
Director Feng and twenty-nine corrupt clinic managers (Goodness: 15–32/100) broke away from Zhao Dehai’s press conference and pushed their way toward the archway.
“Out of the way, junior doctors!” Director Feng shouted, shoving a young pediatric resident aside. “I am a senior clinical director! Let me through first!”
Director Feng stepped eagerly beneath the titanium archway.
Instantly, the emerald lights vanished, replaced by a blazing crimson strobe. A harsh, hundred-and-twenty-decibel klaxon wailed across the plaza:
[ALERT! PARASITIC MEDICAL SPECULATOR DETECTED!]
[CANDIDATE: FENG RONG (DIRECTOR OF BILLING)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 19/100 (HABITUAL BRIBERY, EXTORTION OF CANCER FAMILIES, FAKE INSURANCE FRAUD)]
[VERDICT: PERMANENTLY REJECTED & BLACKLISTED!]
The giant outdoor LED screen flashed red, displaying Director Feng’s secret offshore bank records and three recent invoices where he had extorted twenty-thousand-yuan red envelopes from dying patients.
The crowd of citizens and reporters erupted into loud jeers and laughter.
“Shame on you, thief!” a bystander yelled, tossing a half-eaten bun at Feng’s shoulder.
“Lock him up!”
Director Feng turned red as a beet. He covered his face with his coat and fled down the avenue, tripping over his own loafers.
Another corrupt pharmacy supervisor tried to slip past the sensors, only for the alarm to blare his record of selling watered-down antibiotics. The other twenty-eight corrupt managers turned pale and scattered into the crowd like cockroaches caught in bright sunlight.
Lin Mo stepped up to the payment console beside the archway. He drew his matte emerald-green Benevolence Charity Card and swiped it to clear the entire signing bonus pool and first-month payroll advance.
[DING! HISTORIC MEDICAL TALENT RESCUE EXPENDITURE DETECTED!]
[TARGET: 123 PURE-HEART MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS (GOODNESS: 82–94/100)!]
[SPENT: ¥20,000,000.00 RMB!]
[100x PURE-HEART REBATE TRIGGERED: +¥2,000,000,000.00 RMB!]
[PERSONAL VAULT BALANCE: ¥30,249,680,000.50 RMB!]
[BENEVOLENCE MERIT POINTS: +2,000,000 BMP (TOTAL: 32,350,528 BMP)!]
[GOOD PEOPLE NETWORK EXPANDED: 587 -> 710 ELITE MEMBERS!]
Golden qi swirled through Lin Mo’s meridians like a soaring dragon. His senses sharpened further; the entire hospital structure felt linked to his consciousness, humming with the pure, righteous goodwill of hundreds of healers.
Dr. Gu Qinghe gathered the one hundred and twenty-three doctors and nurses in the center of the sunlit marble plaza. His eyes shone with a deep, reverent pride.
“Colleagues,” Dr. Gu said, his voice ringing with quiet strength. “Today, we take back our sacred profession. For years, monopoly syndicates forced us to choose between feeding our children and preserving our oath.”
“Today, Chairman Lin has granted us total professional freedom. In this hospital, no patient will ever be turned away for lack of money. No doctor will ever be pressured to prescribe poison.”
The hundred and twenty-three medical workers stood tall, raising their right hands in unison. They recited their physician’s pledge, their voices echoing across the boulevard.
Lin Mo watched them with a quiet nod. Giving honest people the dignity they deserved was the most profitable venture in the world.
Across the boulevard, Deputy Director Sun’s phone rang frantically.
“Director Sun!” the emergency nursing supervisor screamed through the phone. “Our entire ICU department just walked out! The operating rooms are shut down! There is not a single qualified thoracic surgeon left in the building! All forty scheduled surgeries are canceled!”
Deputy Director Sun clutched his chest, his eyes rolling back in terror. “What... what did you say? The entire department?”
Sun collapsed into his chair, knocking over the Medical Association podium with a thunderous crash.
Zhao Dehai’s face was purple with fury. He kicked over a microphone stand, his hands shaking violently as he stared at the laughing crowd across the street. “Lin Mo... you dare poach my entire clinical backbone? I will crush your supply chain to dust!”
Before Zhao Dehai could finish his threat, the piercing wail of heavy sirens split the sky.
A red-and-white heavy fire-rescue ambulance tore around the corner of South Ring Boulevard, its tires screeching on the asphalt. It bypassed the Medical Association stage completely and hurtled straight toward Taichu Sanctuary Hospital’s emergency bay!
The ambulance doors flew open with a violent slam.
Three blood-soaked paramedics leapt out, pushing a heavy gurney with frantic speed.
“Emergency trauma! Clear the bay!” the lead paramedic screamed, his voice cracking with hysteria. “Severe fourth-degree chemical burns! Extensive inhalation injury and spinal crush trauma! The First Hospital turned us away because the patient’s captain has no cash deposit!”
Lin Mo’s Pure-Heart Eye focused on the young man lying on the gurney.
The patient wore the scorched remains of a municipal firefighter uniform. His breathing was shallow and ragged, his chest heaving with agony.
A blinding, celestial golden light exploded from the firefighter’s body, so pure and bright that it outshone the midday sun:
[EMERGENCY PRIORITY ALERT!]
[TARGET: FIREFIGHTER CHEN LIE (AGE: 24)]
[MORAL INTEGRITY: 97/100 (SUPREME HERO, RESCUED 12 ORPHANS FROM CHEMICAL INFERNO)!]
[VITAL STATUS: CRITICAL — SEVEN MINUTES UNTIL SYSTEMIC MULTI-ORGAN FAILURE!]
Dean Gu Qinghe rushed forward, his eyes locking onto the young hero’s scorched chest. “Clear Operating Room One! Prepare the bypass pumps! This boy must not die today!”
Lin Mo stepped beside the gurney, his hand resting on Chen Lie’s trembling wrist as golden qi flowed quietly into the hero’s failing pulse.
“No hero dies in my hospital,” Lin Mo said coldly. “Open the doors.”