Fifty-Thousand-Dollar Bullet

The day after the news broadcast, a black SUV pulled up in front of the clinic.

Lynn was seeing a patient.

Sitting before him was an older woman complaining of knee pain. It was meniscus wear combined with mild synovitis; a prescription for anti-inflammatories and some rest would clear it right up.

Just as he was explaining to her why surgery wasn't necessary, he picked up on sounds from outside—four people exiting a vehicle, heavy footsteps, long strides.

One person's gait was particularly heavy, with their right shoulder hunched down, as if carrying something heavy or suppressing some form of pain.

The faint clinking of metal—firearms.

The sound of the car doors closing—solid, not the doors of an ordinary SUV.

They were armored.

Lynn's expression remained unchanged.

He handed the prescription to the woman. "Follow this, and apply a hot compress for twenty minutes every day. Come back next week for a follow-up."

The moment the woman stepped out, the four men walked in.

Leading them were three hulking men, each one two sizes larger than Lynn.

They wore black leather jackets, and their necks were adorned with either gold chains or tattoos.

They entered with a strict protocol—two went in first, splitting left and right to clear the room before the third followed.

A standard VIP protection formation.

Behind the third thug, a pale, middle-aged man walked in.

He was around forty-five, of medium-to-sturdy build, wearing a brown leather jacket, his hair slicked back meticulously with pomade.

His left arm was wrapped in several layers of gauze, with dark red blood seeping through the fabric.

Super Senses completed a full scan the moment he stepped into the clinic.

Three bodyguards, three firearms.

The first man's gun was under his left armpit, a Springfield XD-S, .45 caliber, nine-round magazine.

The second man's gun was behind his waist, a Glock 19, 9mm.

The third man's gun was in a holster strapped to the outside of his right ankle, a PPK, small caliber.

The middle-aged man himself: gunshot wound to the left arm.

All-Things Diagnosis popped up—9mm Parabellum Bullet, embedded depth 2.7 centimeters, located on the lateral side of the mid-humerus.

It hadn't damaged the radial or brachial arteries, but fragments were already embedded in the bone.

The system simultaneously displayed a note—[Target: Ordinary human, no special talent detected. Saintly Hands Copy will not trigger.]

An ordinary person.

No value to copy.

But there was cash value.

The middle-aged man looked around the clinic—white walls, brand-new equipment, cleaner than anything Hell's Kitchen should have.

His gaze finally landed on Lynn.

"You're the doctor who was on the news?"

"Depends on what kind of doctor you need." Lynn sat in his chair, not standing up.

The man pointed to his left arm with his right hand. "Took a bullet last night. It's stuck in the bone. Can't go to a regular hospital—you know how it is. Other back-alley clinics won't touch it either. Someone said you can fix anything here."

"What's your name?"

"Murphy." The man said the name with a natural tone, as if he were just stating his house number.

Lynn flipped through the criminological data he had acquired from the Batman database—Murphy, a mid-level drug distributor in Hell's Kitchen.

Not a big fish, but not a small fry either.

His superiors had loose ties to Kingpin's organization.

"I can treat your wound," Lynn said, shifting his gaze from Murphy's face to his gauze-wrapped arm, then back again, "but I have three rules."

Murphy's brow twitched.

"First, you are the only one entering the operating room. Your men wait outside."

The three bodyguards glanced at each other.

"Second, you will hand over the weapons on your person for me to keep during the surgery."

Murphy didn't respond immediately.

"Third—the fee is fifty thousand dollars."

Murphy's expression became quite colorful for a moment.

"Fifty thousand?" His voice rose by half an octave before he forced it back down.

He probably felt it was unseemly to lose his composure in front of his subordinates. "Do you have any idea that taking out a bullet on the black market costs two thousand at most? You're charging me fifty thousand?"

"Can a black-market doctor guarantee they won't damage your nerves?" Lynn's tone remained unchanged. "The bullet is embedded only four millimeters away from your radial nerve."

"Ordinary back-alley doctors use brute force to extract bullets—sticking in forceps, clamping, pulling, and yanking it out."

"But if they use brute force in this location, there's a thirty percent chance they'll hit your radial nerve."

"If they hit it, your right hand will be useless from then on; you won't even be able to pull a trigger."

Murphy's face shifted slightly.

Lynn continued, "There's one more thing you might not know."

"The bullet shattered a small piece of the cortical bone on the lateral side of your humerus, and fragments have already migrated." "If they aren't removed, it will trigger osteomyelitis within forty-eight hours."

"At that point, it won't be a question of whether to take the bullet out, but whether you can keep that arm at all."

The clinic was silent for a few seconds.

Murphy looked at Lynn.

Lynn looked back at him while holding his coffee cup.

"How do you know the fragments migrated?" Murphy's voice was much lower than before. "You didn't even take an X-ray."

"I don't need to take an X-ray."

Murphy remained silent for a few more seconds, his right fingers tapping against his thigh.

Then, one of the bodyguards behind him suddenly reached into his leather jacket.

The other two moved at almost the same time.

Three guns were drawn simultaneously.

The muzzles weren't pointed at Lynn—but rather generally toward the room, creating a deterrent posture of "ready to fire at any moment."

The atmosphere in the clinic dropped below freezing instantly.

Lynn sat in his chair, not moving an inch.

He held his coffee cup and even took a sip.

He had completed a threat assessment within 0.3 seconds—the angle of the bodyguards' muzzles, the position of their fingers on the triggers, and the direction of Murphy's own gaze.

Conclusion: They wouldn't fire.

The reason was simple—Murphy was here to see a doctor.

He had a bullet and several bone fragments in his arm that could trigger osteomyelitis at any moment.

His presence here meant he had no other options.

What good would it do him to kill the only doctor who could save his arm?

The guns were for intimidation.

But this tactic had no effect on Lynn.

"Mr. Murphy." Lynn set down his coffee cup, his voice quiet but every word clear.

"Your men can put the guns away. Flashing weapons in my clinic won't save you money; it will only put me in a bad mood."

"If my mood is bad, my hands won't be steady, and if my hands aren't steady, I can't guarantee the safety of your radial nerve."

Murphy stared at him for three seconds.

Then he waved his right hand.

The three bodyguards holstered their weapons simultaneously.

"Fifty thousand it is."

The surgery began fifteen minutes later.

Murphy walked into the operating room alone, leaving his gun and phone outside.

Lynn closed the door to the operating room and pulled the soundproof curtain shut.

All-Things Diagnosis provided a complete surgical navigation.