The Black Clinic on the Corner

Harlem, Manhattan, New York.

Night had just fallen over New York City. It was time for people to head home.

Sally Floyd was sitting in a small two-story building on the corner of 147th Street and Broadway. One look at the furnishings made it clear that this was a clinic, but its appearance was far from satisfactory. Both the decor and the furniture radiated decay and disrepair.

Three people sat on the worn benches, whose paint was beginning to peel. The first was a young woman holding a child, and she looked like someone from a well-off middle-class family. She did not look like the sort of person who would come to a clinic like this at all.

The second was an elderly woman, dressed in old but neatly kept clothes.

The third was Sally Floyd herself. She had her left arm suspended from her neck with a scarf, the unfortunate result of a fall that afternoon. Something was probably wrong with the bone in her arm, though it was not serious. She had only come to this clinic after finishing work, on a friend's recommendation.

The treatment room door opened, and a Black woman led out a little girl of four or five. The worried expression she had worn upon entering was gone, replaced by obvious delight. She swiped her card at the nurse's station to pay, then left.

Sally Floyd frowned slightly. Patients who had only registered their names could simply swipe their cards and pay when they left? This was clearly a clinic outside the insurance system, meaning patients had to bear the entire cost themselves.

But the pain in her arm stopped her from considering another hospital.

Soon, the two patients ahead of her had both left, their expressions equally relaxed. That meant this clinic's medical skills were quite reliable.

Sally Floyd entered the treatment room. The first things she saw were the peeling walls, the paint-chipped metal medicine cabinet, and the treatment bed's slightly rusted legs. Other than the relatively clean bedsheet, there was practically nothing new to be found.

A red-haired female doctor in a sexy outfit leaned lazily against the medicine cabinet and said, "A fracture? Oh... very minor. More like a hairline crack."

Two minutes later, Sally sat at the edge of the treatment bed, laboriously pulling her coat back on with one hand as she glared at the doctor, who was still leaning against the cabinet.

"My arm is fractured, not my whole body! God! One hundred thousand dollars! I must have been insane to come here."

The red-haired doctor did not seem bothered. She had dealt with this sort of thing plenty of times. Fiddling with the collar of her provocatively tailored doctor's uniform, she replied to Sally in a listless voice tinged with regret.

"Even if your whole body were fractured, it would still cost the same. White Clinic has always charged by weight."

The red-haired doctor's words left Sally Floyd at a loss for how to respond. She stood up resentfully, ready to leave, but as she passed the doctor, she could not hold herself back. She glanced at the name tag on the woman's chest and said angrily:

"Dr. Ava Ellis, I heard that your clinic's treatments are very effective, but this pricing method is simply intolerable. I only have a minor fracture, a minor fracture! What kind of clinic charges one hundred thousand dollars? Even the best hospital probably wouldn't charge that much, would it?"

Dr. Ava Ellis sighed, straightened up, and stretched. Her explosive figure made Floyd feel a little jealous despite herself. With a snort, she turned to leave the clinic.

"The examination fee is five hundred. Don't forget."

Sally Floyd's temper instantly exploded. She had only made her take off her coat and look at her arm, and she was charging five hundred dollars!

"You're robbing me!"

Dr. Ava Ellis helplessly walked out to the waiting room and lazily pointed at the price list hanging on the wall.

Floyd followed her finger with her eyes. She had been sitting there for so long and had not even noticed it. How hidden could it possibly have been?

She nearly went mad when she saw the sign. How big was it? About the size of an A4 sheet, and it was hung on the wall by the front door. Was this deliberately designed to scam people?

Fee Schedule (the following weights refer to patient body weight)

Under 100 kilograms, including 100 kilograms: treatment fee of $2,000 per kilogram.

Over 100 kilograms: an additional $1,000 for each extra kilogram.

Note 1: Examination fee: $500. If the patient wishes to be informed of their condition, an additional 50% of the treatment fee will be charged.

Note 2: Special cases are charged separately. Please consult staff.

Clearly marked prices, fair to young and old alike.

Floyd angrily threw down five hundred dollars and left, her high heels clacking loudly against the floorboards. She swore that she would make this clinic pay!

Sally Floyd was a reporter. She decided to expose this illegal clinic in the newspapers and make it pay. And there was also the friend who had recommended this place to her! That bastard had definitely done it on purpose!

In reality, the clinic's business was not as bad as Sally Floyd imagined, and its treatment fees were not actually high. That was because no matter what illness you had, treatment here came with a guaranteed cure. For many conditions, this clinic's prices were ridiculously cheap. It was just that very few people knew how miraculous it was.

Ava Ellis shrugged as she watched Sally Floyd leave. She glanced at the dollars on the floor and muttered, "I always run into patients like this who don't know anything. Tch."

The tall nurse walked over, bent down to pick up the five hundred dollars Floyd had thrown on the floor, then returned to the reception desk. She was already used to this kind of thing. Charging by weight? Americans' weight was a real weakness. She herself weighed sixty-one kilograms. Fortunately, her height of 1.75 meters balanced it out.

The nurse's name was Linda Carter. She was the clinic's nurse. She had a beautiful face and a tall figure, along with legitimate medical certification and a nursing license. She was also the only person in the clinic who understood medical knowledge.

"Dr. Ava Ellis, I really don't understand why fees have to be calculated by weight. Shouldn't they be based on the illness itself?"

Still looking lazy, Ava Ellis swayed over to the reception desk and leaned against it with one elbow propped on the counter.

"You've wanted to ask that for a long time, haven't you? It must have been hard holding it in for so long."

Ava Ellis's words made Linda Carter blush slightly. She really had held it in for a long time. She had not understood it ever since she started working here.

"Dr. White set this standard six months ago. Both you and I can see how outdated it is. But Dr. White has a unique kind of character."

Linda Carter was confused. What did refusing to change the pricing system have to do with their boss, Dr. Sean White's character?

Ava Ellis raised her chin slightly, the corner of her lips curling into an amused smile.

"The character of never admitting he's wrong!"

The Dr. Sean White they were talking about was currently wearing a thoroughly grim expression, staring unblinkingly at the woman in front of him.

"Miss DuBois, all I want is my medical fee, not favors or whatever help you can offer!"

Zelda DuBois was a beautiful blonde woman. At her feet, a giant python nearly a meter in diameter wriggled around her, flicking its scarlet tongue as it approached. Its apple-sized eyes stared coldly at Sean White. She was nicknamed the Python Queen by some and the Python Princess by others. Her specialty was playing with snakes.

"Your fees are too high, and house calls cost double. I simply can't afford such expensive medical bills."

"You're not planning to skip out on the bill, are you?"

Sean's expression changed in an instant. He pointed at another giant snake coiled up nearby, resting.

"That thing weighs over four tons. I didn't even charge you the loose change. With a discount like that, you still want to dodge the bill?"

"Of course not. I merely think I can repay the part I can't afford with something else."

"The part you can't afford is eight hundred and nineteen out of eight hundred and twenty portions, more than 99.99998%! How is that any different from not paying at all? What are you going to use to make up that part? Your favor?"

White's words made Zelda DuBois somewhat embarrassed. What's wrong with my favor? I'm a rather famous supervillain, all right? Sigh... Why are these medical bills so expensive?

Although America's sky-high medical costs had always been heavily criticized, she simply could not accept a medical bill of more than eight million dollars.

"If you're dissatisfied, I can do other things."

DuBois had never felt so dejected. Who could have expected her pet's treatment fees to be so high? She could only respond gloomily.

DuBois did not dare skip out on the bill with Dr. White. The miserable lessons suffered by those who had tried to use force in the past were enough to warn anyone who came after them. But at the thought that her future would forever be shrouded by this debt, even a proud queen had to lower her head.

Other things? You think I'll let you off just because you're pretty? The ledger won't let me off. Losses aren't allowed.

Sean White irritably pulled a ledger from his coat. After flipping through a few pages, he found the entry.

It read: Debtor: Zelda DuBois. Debt Amount: $8.19 million.

"Sign it."

The Python Queen looked at the contents, and her heart trembled... At the thought of the name White's Black Ledger, even her hand began to shake. In the end, under White's threatening gaze, she signed her name. A lifelike phantom of Zelda DuBois instantly formed on the page.

White was very satisfied with DuBois's cooperative attitude. He closed the ledger and tucked it back into his coat.

"All right. Pay it back slowly from now on."

"..." Slowly... Heh. The Python Queen, DuBois, laughed bitterly inwardly. With a monthly interest rate of three percent and compound interest, how could she possibly repay it? In six months, it would become more than $9.7 million. Even the interest alone would be over $240,000 per month, and she could not afford that.

"What a loss. Treating that big snake cost quite a bit. Why call a doctor if you don't have money? I should consider demanding payment upfront for house calls in the future. I really need to be more careful with overweight creatures like this."

The Python Queen was mortified. Was it really appropriate to say that right in front of her?

If her partner Nikki had not been severely injured and on the brink of death, how could she possibly have called this blackhearted doctor for a house call... She knew White Clinic's fees very well, but only this blackhearted doctor could heal her Nikki in such a short time. How could she not know White's Black Ledger's reputation? She had known from the beginning that she would have to go into debt. She had only brought up other options because she wanted to try.

Sean White was not actually native to this world. Or rather, part of him was not. Inside the somewhat scruffy, decadent, handsome doctor's body lived a soul from twenty-first-century China, one that had transmigrated into Sean White's body seven months ago after he had drunk himself to death at home.

He had brought along a ledger from before his transmigration.

This was a magical ledger~ sigh~

Write all debtors inside it~ ah~

From then on, no debt would be too large, and no one could dodge repayment~ ah~

Sean's ledger was the standard transmigration cheat, unquestionably at the level of a divine artifact.

It defined the value of all living beings as one point of source essence per kilogram. One point of source essence was equivalent to one ounce of gold, worth over fourteen hundred dollars. If exchanged directly for dollars, one point of source essence cost two thousand dollars.

That was why Sean calculated his treatment fees by kilogram.

Sean's method of treating illnesses and injuries was to use source essence to purchase the patient's illness or injury. The purchase price was based on the volume of the living being affected by the illness or injury, though it was ultimately still calculated by kilogram. Generally, the cost of an illness or injury was fifteen to twenty-five percent of the creature's total value. The profit from treatment was enormous: three hundred to five hundred percent. On top of that, Sean obtained the illnesses and injuries themselves, which he could use as attack methods.

That was the ledger's other function: gifting. It could gift illnesses and injuries to someone without their consent. How absurdly unfair was that?

Dare to dodge a debt? Want some polio?

Dare to use force? Watch me drop you with a heart attack~

Anyone who knew about Dr. White's debts did not dare evade them~

As long as a debtor signed and left a mark, or even without signing, once a debt actually occurred, White's Black Ledger would automatically record it. Once the debtor-creditor relationship was established, everything the debtor possessed could potentially belong to the creditor. Just like the Python Princess, Zelda DuBois: after she signed, she herself, her pets, and every item the ledger considered valuable would completely become Sean White's private property. Sean could take everything from her, including value beyond the living being itself, such as beauty, abilities, lifespan, and even her soul. Of course, taking these things would correspondingly offset part of the debt.

So long as the debt was large enough, Sean could do whatever he wanted to her.

Moreover, Sean held full authority to interpret every clause stated in the ledger. He could even "loan" something to the Python Princess without her permission to increase her debt, such as stuffing an "asthma condition" or "twenty kilograms of body weight" onto her in order to collect interest.

Thus, the reputation of White's Black Ledger... heh.

A piping-hot blackhearted doctor is served! Dear readers, give me some encouragement! Add it to your collection~ vote~ show some support!