The first witness was Aunt Du.
She was old, loud, and wrapped in the kind of self-righteous fury that made strangers believe her on instinct. Back when she had come to Song Bing's clinic, she had not even been able to stand upright. He had treated her for free, then pressed three hundred yuan into her hand because he knew she lived on a pension.
Now she stood in court and jabbed a finger at his face.
"You cheated me. Your medicine did nothing. You swindled more than one hundred thousand yuan from my retirement fund, you motherless beast."
Song Bing looked at her for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
The system chimed inside his mind.
Heart disease successfully delivered. Merit minus one.
Brain cancer successfully delivered. Merit minus one.
High blood pressure successfully delivered. Merit minus one.
Current merit: 96.
Aunt Du was still shouting when he turned to the next witness.
Then the next.
And the next.
To everyone else, the process was humiliating but ordinary. Song Bing asked calm questions. The witnesses hurled abuse. The prosecutor smiled. The livestream comments exploded with disgust.
Only Song Bing understood what was really happening.
Every person who slandered him had once come crawling to his clinic on the edge of death.
Every person who denounced him in court had owed that borrowed life to him.
And one by one, as they lied, he returned what had always been theirs.
For chronic disease, he gave it back.
For terminal illness, he gave it back.
For the ones whose mouths were especially filthy, he added interest.
By the time the eighteenth witness stepped down, Song Bing's merit had plummeted to sixty-six.
The judge adjusted his glasses. "Defendant, do you plead guilty?"
Before Song Bing could answer, a crisp female voice cut across the chamber.
"Wait."
Heads turned.
A tall woman in a dark suit strode into court with a leather folder in her hands and fury in her eyes. She moved with the kind of confidence that parted a room without asking permission.
Song Bing recognized her at once.
Three days earlier she had come to his clinic with a rare cardiac defect and a failing prognosis. He had cured her in minutes. She had offered him a reward of one million yuan. He had refused.
He had not expected to see her again, least of all here.
She stopped beside the defense table and bowed to the bench.
"Your Honor, I request permission to speak for the defendant."
The gallery went silent.
The prosecutor frowned. The judge hesitated. Wu Yashu's expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
The woman opened her folder. "I am Sia of the Sea family. Here are the transfer records connected to these allegations. They show that Song Bing's total earnings from the plaintiffs amounted to roughly three thousand yuan. There is no evidence of malicious fraud on the scale described here."
The courtroom rustled.
Sia did not pause.
"My client did, however, practice medicine without a license. For that violation, he is willing to accept a financial penalty. Furthermore, the Sea family is prepared to offer generous private compensation to the plaintiffs, on the condition that they withdraw their exaggerated accusations."
The eighteen witnesses, so fierce a moment before, changed color immediately.
"How much compensation?" someone blurted out.
Sia looked at them with cool disgust. "Five million yuan each."
Aunt Du stopped breathing for two full seconds.
The judge banged his gavel before the room could explode.
The prosecutor tried to object, but the witnesses had already begun falling over themselves to forgive. Their moral outrage vanished so quickly it was almost elegant. The devil became a misguided youth. The fraud became a foolish mistake. The attempted murderer became someone who deserved one last chance.
Song Bing watched it all with his hands resting lightly on the rail.
This, then, was the price of righteousness.
Not truth.
Not justice.
Just cash.
By the time the hearing ended, the sentence had changed.
No prison.
Heavy fines.
A lifetime injunction forbidding Song Bing from practicing medicine ever again. If he violated it, the law would treat it as attempted murder.
The judge slid the order toward him.
"Sign."
Song Bing picked up the pen.
Across the room, Wu Yashu finally smiled.
He signed his name without hesitation.
As he did, he looked at the black line of ink and thought only one thing:
Fine.
If he could not be a doctor for men, then he would become something much more useful.