Chapter 3

I had received a message. When I opened it, I found that it was a message from Peter.

[It doesn’t feel good to be insulted and betrayed, does it, Mr. Zimmerman? Are these ungrateful traitors really worth you insisting on selling the medicine for cheap? I suggest you think about working with my hospital.]

I stared at the phone. Before my rage and sorrow faded away, I suddenly heard loud knocking on my door.

I looked at the pharmacy’s pulled-down roller shutter.

After all, how could I still be in the mood to open my pharmacy for business when I had been insulted this way? I had closed down shop a long time ago.

Suddenly, Peter’s voice pierced through the thick roller shutter.

“You scammer, don’t just hide in there and stay silent! I know you’re in there! Come out here and solve this problem!”

With a scowl, I pulled up the roller shutter to argue with Peter, only to find patients surrounding the pharmacy.

They were not here to buy medicine. They were here to demand an explanation.

When they saw me, the TV news stations and reporters immediately shoved their microphones in my face while asking me all sorts of questions.

Very smugly, Peter stood at the front of the crowd. He looked like a general who was about to win a war.

Some returning clients who were once grateful to me and said that I saved their entire families were standing behind Peter and demanding explanations as well.

“Mr. Zimmerman, is your medicine really okay? My wife has been taking it for a long time, but it doesn’t seem to work.”

An old man who had been buying from me for three years had asked that question, but his eyes were shifty, and he did not dare to meet my gaze.

Peter immediately took over the conversation with a loud voice. “It doesn’t seem to work? That’s because it’s fake! How can it be effective?!

“I’m a real-life example! I took the medicine he sold, and I immediately suffered from high fever! That’s not special medicine! That’s poison!

“Luke Zimmerman, you must answer to this right now! We all trusted you, and you sold us fake medicine?!”

Their accusations pierced into my body like sharp arrows.

As I watched the formerly friendly faces warp into something even scarier than demons, I found my heart turning cold.

I sucked in a deep breath to squash down my anger and indignation.

“I contacted a legal drug manufacturing plant abroad to buy the medicine. On the boxes are traceability QR codes from the plant itself.

“They’re cheap because I practically didn’t increase the price!

“I just don’t want more people to end up like my father and end up dying in pain because they couldn’t afford medicine charged at exorbitant prices.”

When I said my final sentence, I was already choking up.

“A private hospital sent Peter over to ruin my reputation so that I won’t sell special medicine at an affordable price anymore. He wants all of you to buy their medicine for 38,000 dollars!”

The crowd exchanged glances and started doubting Peter.

But when Peter saw this, he swung his arms and shouted at the crowd, “Don’t listen to him, everyone! This scammer is slandering me! Don’t trust him!

“Make him give a full refund of all the medicine he sold, then pay all of you five thousand dollars as compensation, or we’re trashing his pharmacy today!”

His words caused the crowd to look at me with hate again.

Someone threw an egg from the crowd, and it hit my head.

Before I could react, they demanded that I refund them while they surged into the pharmacy and started trashing the place.

When I wanted to stop them, someone shoved me down.

Amid the chaos, someone kicked me.

I covered my head to avoid it getting attacked, but that meant that the rest of my body was open to burning pain.

While my guard was down, someone stomped on my fibula.

With a loud snap, my fibula snapped. The sharp pain caused me to cry out in pain.

But they did not seem satisfied. Peter stomped down on my other leg and said to the crowd, “People like him should be bound to a wheelchair forever and never stand up again! If he can’t move anymore, he won’t be able to hurt anyone!”