Chapter 4

Perhaps the desperation in my eyes was too real.

The young officer who had been observing me grabbed the team leader's arm.

"Team leader, let her."

"What if... what if it's true?"

The team leader was silent for two seconds, then snorted coldly and let go.

"Watch her. Don't let her delete anything."

With trembling hands, I pulled my phone from my pocket. As soon as the screen lit up, countless red notifications popped up.

All from the director of the neighboring state's Central Hospital.

I frantically opened the conversation and held the phone screen up to the officers.

"Look... please look!"

"This is the Twitter account of the neighboring state Central Hospital director!"

"This is the child's medical record!"

"These are real-time surveillance screenshots from their operating room!"

I cried while scrolling through the screen, my voice breaking.

The officer frowned, half-believing as he took the phone and randomly clicked on the most recent long voice message.

The next second, an elderly voice came through.

"Chloe! The child's heart rate has dropped to 40! Blood pressure can't be measured!"

"There's too much pleural effusion compressing the heart. We have to open the chest!"

"But no one dares to do this surgery except you! The blood vessels are too thin. One tremor and it's a massive hemorrhage!"

"All the hospital's experts are here watching, all waiting for you alone!"

"Chloe! I'm begging you! Please hurry!"

In the background, you could hear a nurse's anxious shouts: "Epinephrine injection complete! Heart rate still dropping!"

The voice message stopped. The entire interrogation room once again fell into dead silence.

But this time, it wasn't from suspicion.

The security team leader's expression changed. He instinctively looked at the clock on the wall.

Four minutes left. My eyes were red as I stared hard into the officer's eyes.

"Officer, this isn't a recording. This was sent twenty minutes ago."

"I'm not acting either. I'm begging you... let me go..."

The security team leader, who had been so firm just moments ago, moved his lips as if wanting to say something.

The suspicion in his eyes looking at me was rapidly fading.

However, just as I thought I could leave smoothly, Bella's shrill voice rang out again.

"Pfft."

She covered her mouth, laughing so hard she could barely stand.

"Chloe, you really went all out with this performance."

"Where did you hire this actor? The director? That old guy's voice imitation is pretty good."

"You even prepared background audio? Must have spent quite a bit of money."

She leisurely walked up to the officer, pointing at my phone with utter disdain.

"These days, fraud software is so advanced."

"You can buy a bunch of these voice generators online for a hundred bucks."

"The background audio is just downloaded material from the internet."

"If she was really so urgent, why didn't she show this earlier? Why wait until now?"

"She obviously just made this up on the spot, trying to fool you!"

"Besides, if the surgery was really this urgent, that hospital would have sent a helicopter by now. They wouldn't make her take a commercial flight, would they?"

"The logic doesn't even make sense. Only laypeople would fall for this."

Bella became more pleased with herself as she spoke. She turned to look at me, her eyes full of provocation.

"Chloe, to avoid responsibility for medical malpractice, you'd even fake a critical condition notice."

"Do you have any medical ethics left?"

"You're the scum of the medical profession!"

The security team leader, who had just been about to let go, became uncertain again because of these words.

He was getting annoyed and ordered directly:

"Continue interrogating both of them! Hurry up and verify Chloe's real identity!"