Scapegoat

"Why are your hands shaking? Pass me the forceps!"

Leo's greasy fingers rummaged through Snake Eyes' chest cavity, as if he were picking through offal at a wet market.

Lynn gripped the hemostats, his knuckles turning white.

He stared at the heart exposed to the air on the operating table, watching it beat once, then again, slower and slower.

Something was wrong.

Leo's blade had slipped.

The scalpel had sliced through the coronary artery at the edge of the pericardium, and blood surged out instantly, flooding the entire chest cavity into a pool of gore.

"Leo, the coronary artery is ruptured!" Lynn growled.

Leo's hand paused, a flicker of panic crossing his face, but it was quickly replaced by a strange, eerie calm.

He didn't even attempt to stop the bleeding.

"It's too late." Leo stepped back and peeled off his blood-soaked gloves, his tone as flat as if he were discussing what to have for dinner.

Lynn's pupils constricted.

Too late?

You motherfucker, you didn't even try!

He instinctively lunged forward, thrusting his hands into the chest cavity, trying to compress the ruptured vessel.

Warm blood welled up between his fingers, and Snake Eyes' heartbeat turned into a faint tremor beneath his palms.

Then, it stopped.

The heart monitor emitted a sharp, continuous tone.

A flatline.

Lynn froze in place.

The blood covering his hands cooled rapidly in the air, the metallic scent of rust hitting his senses with full force.

He couldn't save him.

"Step back."

Leo's voice came from behind him, cold and unrecognizable.

Lynn turned his head, but he didn't see panic or fear.

He saw a gun.

The muzzle of a Beretta was pointed directly at his forehead. Leo's greasy face held no expression, as if he had rehearsed this moment long ago.

"Leo, you—"

"Shut up."

Leo's hand was steady.

This was not the reaction of a doctor who had just "accidentally" killed a patient.

"Stay right there. Don't make a sound, don't move."

Leo gestured with the gun toward Snake Eyes' corpse on the table, the meaning clear: disobey, and you'll end up just like him.

Lynn didn't speak.

Not out of bravery, but because he knew clearly that in front of a loaded handgun, any questioning was meaningless.

Leo backed toward the door, the muzzle never wavering from Lynn.

"Click."

The iron door was locked from the outside.

Footsteps retreated rapidly, accompanied by the sound of Leo rummaging for something—likely clearing out the safe.

Then came the sound of the rolling shutter outside being raised and lowered.

A car started.

The engine roar vanished into the night.

The clinic fell silent.

Completely silent.

Lynn stood where he was, staring at the locked iron door, his mind blank.

Three seconds later, he finally snapped back to reality.

He ran.

Leo ran.

And he had locked him in with a corpse.

Lynn rushed to the door, twisting the handle, pounding on the iron, and slamming his shoulder against it.

It didn't budge.

Leo had specifically installed this door; it was high-security, locked from the outside with a key, and impossible to open from within.

He turned to the window.

There were no windows.

This operating room was in the deepest part of the clinic, surrounded by solid brick walls on all four sides. The only ventilation was a palm-sized exhaust fan in the ceiling.

Not even a cat could squeeze through it.

Lynn took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

Call the police.

He instinctively reached for his pocket—it was empty.

Leo had taken his phone before the surgery, claiming it was for "sterile operating protocol."

Thinking back, that had been part of the plan, too.

Wait.

A plan?

What plan?

Lynn furrowed his brows, a sense of unease welling up in his heart.

He began searching every corner of the room.

The instrument cabinet, the medicine shelves, the sterilization unit, even the storage compartment under the operating table.

No phone, no walkie-talkie, no communication devices of any kind.

Leo had taken everything that could contact the outside world before he left.

But Lynn didn't give up.

He kept searching.

Drawer after drawer was pulled open, revealing gauze, cotton balls, expired lidocaine, rusted forceps...

Until he pulled open the bottom drawer of the instrument cart.

A manila envelope.

Lynn paused, pulled it out, and opened it.

Inside was a complete surgical record.

His gaze swept over the first line, and his pupils contracted sharply.

Lead Surgeon: Lynn.

Assistant: None.

Anesthesiologist signature line: Blank.

He flipped quickly to the back—the surgical consent form was also signed with his name.

But the handwriting was forged.

The date was a week ago.

A week ago.

Back then, Leo hadn't even received this surgery request.

Lynn's hands began to tremble.

Not from fear, but from rage.

He wasn't a fool.

Forged surgical records, a date from a week ago.

Taking his phone, locking the iron door, and even that "accidental" fatal cut—every step had been arranged in advance.

This wasn't a medical accident.

This was a conspiracy.

Leo never intended to keep Snake Eyes alive from the very beginning.

And he, Lynn, was the chosen scapegoat.

But he couldn't figure it out.

Why?

Snake Eyes was a top enforcer for Kingpin; killing him was equivalent to declaring war on Kingpin.

Leo had been working in this territory for so many years; he couldn't possibly be unaware of the consequences of offending Kingpin.

As an underground doctor in a black-market clinic, where did he get the guts?

It made no sense.

But that didn't matter anymore.

What mattered was... when Kingpin's men came to investigate, all they would see was a dropout surgeon who made a fatal mistake and killed a gang leader.

All their rage would be poured onto this scapegoat, locked at the crime scene with no way to fly away.

And Leo had already vanished into the night.

Lynn slammed the file folder onto the floor.

Then he kept searching.

He searched the entire room.

Every cabinet, every drawer, under the operating table, behind the lamp stand, even crouching down to check every brick in the corners.

Looking for an exit, for tools, for anything that could keep him alive.

There was nothing.

Forty minutes later, Lynn stopped.

He slid down the wall to the floor, facing the blood-stained operating table, with the buzzing fluorescent light overhead and the air thick with the smell of rust and disinfectant.

On the table, Snake Eyes' corpse was already beginning to cool.

He had only transmigrated here three days ago.

The original owner's memories told him that this world had Superman, Batman, Iron Man, and all sorts of superheroes who could fly and move mountains.

But none of that had anything to do with him.

He was just a bottom-feeding ant who couldn't afford medical school, dropped out, and was sold out even while working illegal odd jobs.

No money, no identity, no phone, no weapons.

Locked in a sealed operating room, with a corpse that would lead to his doom, and outside was Kingpin's territory.

When dawn broke, the gangsters would arrive.

At that point, what awaited him would be either a bullet or the cold waters of the Hudson River.

Lynn closed his eyes.

This was probably the end.

Transmigrated into a world of gods and monsters, and on the third day, dying in a foul-smelling black clinic.

Not dying from an alien invasion, not from a supervillain's plot.

Dying from the framing of a third-rate underground doctor.

Like an ant, crushed casually in the filthiest corner.

No one would know.

No one would care.

He slowly loosened his clenched fists, the last bit of strength seemingly draining away with them.

Just at that moment...

Deep within his mind, a cold, electronic notification sound exploded without warning.

[Ding!]