Chapter 4

Alex’s voice sounded completely hoarse. “The recipient has been put on ECMO, but he will not last long. His liver and kidneys have begun to fail. The entire surgical team of thirty people has waited here for four hours. Tell me when the heart will arrive.”

I opened my mouth, and no words came out. I wondered how I could tell him. I wondered how I could tell him that the heart was already a discolored piece of dead tissue on the tray in the interrogation room.

My voice trembled. “Dr. Fedric, the heart… the heart has…”

I could not finish. I burst into tears and covered my face.

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a long time. It lasted so long that I thought the signal was gone.

Alex finally spoke in a low voice. “Vivienne, do you know who this recipient is? Do you know how long the entire hospital has prepared for this surgery? Do you know…”

A rapid alarm cut him off.

Beep, beep, beep.

A nurse shouted in the background. “Blood pressure cannot be measured. Heart rate has dropped to zero. Dr. Fedric, the ECMO is failing.”

Alex did not respond.

Chaotic footsteps, instrument noises, and shouts filled the call.

After two minutes, Alex picked up the phone again. His tone was flat. “Vivienne, the recipient suffered heart failure at eleven fifty‑one in the morning and is declared dead. You are on your own.”

The call ended.

I leaned against the wall as my body sank downward.

My tears had dried. My eyes felt sore, and every joint in my body ached.

It was a human life. He was seventy‑two years old. The matching heart he had waited eight months for was gone.

The interrogator kept his head down and avoided my eyes.

A cold sneer came from beside me.

Ariana put down her milk tea and clapped her hands. “Are you done acting?”

She stood from her chair and stretched. “Vivienne, your acting skills are wasted on the operating table. What dead recipient? What heart failure? I bet these are paid actors. Even funeral home voiceovers are not this professional.”

She walked up to me, squatted down, and tapped my forehead with her fingertip. “Vivienne, stop playing the victim. Do you think you can turn things around by crying? Half a million people watched today’s live stream, and your drug‑dealing doctor hashtag is trending. Your career is over.”

I snapped out of my daze and looked up at her. “Ariana, this is a human life. A living, breathing human life. He is dead because of your kick. How can you live with yourself?”

Ariana paused for a moment, then burst into laughter. She laughed so hard she almost fell over. “Conscience? What is my conscience worth? Vivienne, do not try to scare me with dead people. People die in hospitals every day. One more or one less makes no difference. Besides, who knows if that old man is dead or alive? Maybe he is perfectly fine. You are trying to morally blackmail me.”

She straightened up, took out her phone, glanced at it, and pursed her lips. “Speaking of which, Vivienne, let us not push things too far. My brother is still waiting for news at home.”

She walked closer and lowered her voice. “You know my brother and you have been married for three years, and that demolition compensation house has always been in your name. My dad’s medical expenses of three hundred thousand dollars came from that house. Now that my dad is gone, should you not return that house to us?”

I stared at her with wide eyes. “You caused this scene at the express train station today just for that house?”

Ariana nodded. “Or what? Do you think I followed you here for no reason?”