Chapter 108: Farce at the Clinic
A rumor could kill a man—Chen Dong had no doubt about that—let alone a vicious, calculated one.
Chen Dong stressed again, "You're not sick at all. You're just here maliciously starting rumors!" A peculiar glint flashed in his eyes.
The woman's expression was fierce and aggressive. "Who says I'm not sick? It's you quack doctors who can't see it! I come to this garbage clinic, you turn my minor illness into a major one, and when it gets major you tell me to go to a big hospital. Then you quacks just wash your hands of me. You're all frauds!"
Several burly men standing by, clearly her backup, were ready to make their move. They planned to start smashing up Jiang Yao's clinic the moment the woman whipped the crowd into a frenzy.
The glint in Chen Dong's eyes grew brighter. He said to the woman, "You say you're sick. Why don't you tell me where it hurts?"
The woman spat contemptuously, "I said my stomach hurts! This quack spent half... half an... oh, God! Mom... my stomach hurts so bad!" Halfway through her sentence, she clutched her stomach and began to wail.
It looked completely real; you couldn't tell she was acting at all. An exhausted, sickly pallor washed over her face.
Chen Dong chuckled and asked again, "Are you sure your stomach hurts?"
The woman managed a pained nod, but the pain in her stomach only intensified, as if her intestines were being tied into countless dead knots.
The pain was unbearable. She started rolling on the ground, wailing, "Mom! Ah! Help... help me, I'm going to die!"
A roguish smile played on Chen Dong's lips. "I can save you, but you have to tell the truth. Only if you tell the truth can I save you. Did your stomach hurt this much when you first came to the clinic?"
The woman continued to howl, "Yes, yes! The pain is killing me... I'm going to die!" Her hands clutched her stomach tightly, as if trying to crush it.
Jiang Yao saw something was wrong. The woman's state didn't look like an act. She quickly moved forward to treat her.
But Chen Dong raised a hand and stopped her.
The woman's accomplices watched, genuinely impressed. 'Her acting is incredible,' they thought. 'No wonder she's getting twenty thousand yuan for this.' Little did they know, the woman wasn't acting at all.
Seeing that a large crowd had gathered, they knew it was almost their turn to step up, and they began to crack their knuckles.
Chen Dong continued, "Think carefully. Were you actually feeling unwell when you came to the clinic? Your condition will only improve if you tell the truth."
To the woman, Chen Dong's calm words held an irresistible allure. She felt like she was dying from the pain, and her only hope for salvation was to do exactly as his voice commanded.
And so, she said weakly, "When... when I first came to the clinic, my... my stomach didn't, didn't hurt!"
The moment the words left her mouth, the pain in her stomach vanished. She let out a huge sigh of relief.
But her accomplices nearby were stunned. 'This isn't part of the script!'
Immediately, one of the men stepped forward to do damage control. "What kind of clinic is this?" he demanded, pointing an accusatory finger. "A patient is in this state and the doctor won't even take a look!"
Chen Dong smiled. "She's faking it. Can't you tell?"
The moment the woman saw her accomplice, she knew she had almost blown her act. She quickly cried out, "You don't deserve to be doctors, especially that Jiang Yao! I'm about to die from the pain here, and she won't even look!" As soon as she said it, she clutched her stomach again. "Agh! No... I can't take it, it's killing me, it's killing me!"
Chen Dong said with contempt, "I already told you, you have to tell the truth. Otherwise, it will only get more and more painful. Say it out loud: you're faking this illness, aren't you!"
The woman's condition was merely the result of Chen Dong's psychological suggestion and hypnosis. It only worked on people with a guilty conscience and weak mental defenses, and this woman just happened to be the perfect subject. As long as she claimed her stomach hurt, she would feel excruciating pain. Conversely, if she said she was fine, she really would be perfectly fine.
The woman grew flustered, her eyes darting about. "I... I'm not..." Before she could finish, the abdominal pain became unbearable again, and she started rolling on the ground!
The man roared, "Everyone, look at this! She's in this state, and this clinic still says she's faking it! How can a harmful clinic like this stay in business!"
Murmurs of outrage rippled through the crowd.
The man let out a triumphant laugh. 'My performance is worth twenty thousand yuan, too,' he thought. He roared, "Why is a clinic that preys on the public even open? Let's smash it!"
Just as he was thinking the twenty thousand yuan was as good as his, the woman on the ground cried out, "I'm faking it! I'm faking it! Someone paid me to come here and slander the clinic! Please, make my stomach stop hurting, I'm begging you..."
The man's jaw nearly hit the floor. He felt like he was about to have an aneurysm.
'What a goddamn troll teammate!' It was like his Malphite was about to land a five-man ultimate, and as Yasuo, he was spamming R, ready to follow up, but then the moron Malphite used Zhonya's mid-cast... The knock-up vanished, and his own ult fizzled!
Most of the onlookers were actually former patients who trusted Jiang Yao implicitly; only a few were curious bystanders. The woman's confession didn't just ruin the plan—it turned the entire crowd's anger and resentment toward them.
Now, anyone could see that someone had deliberately orchestrated a plot to slander Jiang Yao's clinic.
Faced with the crowd's hostile stares, the man decided to make one last desperate gamble for his twenty thousand yuan. 'What if I can still turn this around!'
Following his boss's instructions, he roared, "That Jiang Yao was fired from First Hospital for abusing medication and taking bribes! What right does she have to open a clinic!"
