Chapter 18: 18. Out of sight, out of mind.

“Lin Fan, Lin Fan, hurry up and open the door!”

“Don’t think we can’t do anything to you just because you’re hiding inside! Pay back the money! Now!”

「The next morning.」

Inside the memorial hall, Lin Fan, who had fallen asleep on the examination table, was jolted awake.

The rolling shutter outside the clinic’s glass door was being pounded on, accompanied by a barrage of impatient shouts.

“…Zhang Qiang? What are you doing here?”

As he lifted the rolling shutter, Lin Fan was taken aback. Outside stood more than a dozen familiar neighbors, all of them old customers of Suxin Clinic. At this moment, each of them wore a complex expression, avoiding his gaze.

Leading them was a short, thin man with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. With a small leather clutch tucked under his arm and his right leg shaking incessantly, he had the air of a petty boss.

“If you want to keep causing trouble, I don’t mind giving you another beating.”

Recalling the man’s past actions, Lin Fan’s eyes turned cold.

This guy was Zhang Qiang, Zhang Meili’s nephew from her family’s hometown. Ever since the Su family struck it rich four years ago, he had shamelessly come to borrow money from his aunt, Zhang Meili. Wanting to save face, Zhang Meili always reluctantly gave him whatever he asked for. She had even helped Zhang Qiang open a chain pharmacy selling Su Pharmaceutical products in a nearby neighborhood. Unfortunately, Zhang Qiang had no business sense. He only knew how to arbitrarily hike up prices, which gave the pharmacy such a terrible reputation that it was on the verge of closing. Instead of reflecting on his own mistakes, the man blamed the proximity of Suxin Clinic for his store’s poor business. He had caused trouble here many times before, and after being chased away by Lin Fan, he would invariably run to Zhang Meili to complain.

“What am I here for? You really have to ask?” Zhang Qiang tossed his cigarette butt aside, cocked his head, and shot a look at the men and women behind him.

“Brother Qiang, you’d better say it…”

Under Zhang Qiang’s intimidating gaze, the neighbors exchanged uneasy glances.

Seeing this, Lin Fan’s heart sank with a vague sense of foreboding.

“Fine, I’ll say it!” Zhang Qiang coughed twice to clear his throat and pointed at the memorial portrait of Lin Suxin inside. “Lin Fan, these neighbors all visited your mom at the hospital. They brought plenty of fruit baskets and milk, and some even gave money!”

“What is it you all really want? Just spit it out.” Lin Fan clenched his jaw, his heart sinking further.

Clearly, these neighbors hadn’t come to pay their respects. They were here with Zhang Qiang to cause a scene at the memorial!

“Your mom is dead, so this crappy clinic of yours will definitely close down,” Zhang Qiang grinned, gesturing toward the crowd behind him. “After all, you’re just a handyman at a factory. You don’t have any real medical skills. Since we won’t be neighbors anymore, there’s no need for pleasantries… Shouldn’t you return what the neighbors gave you?”

Last night, well into the early morning hours, Zhang Meili and Su Gang had spent hours cursing Lin Fan and Lin Suxin in the family group chat. They completely omitted what had actually happened at the memorial, instead just calling the mother and son jinxes. They called them ungrateful parasites, hungry ghosts who had come to the Su family to collect on a debt!

When Zhang Qiang woke up and scrolled through the chat history, he was practically delirious with joy. He’d been waiting for this for so long! Lin Fan had finally been kicked out by the Su family! Not only that, but the loser had suddenly snapped, shedding his usual spineless, compliant demeanor. He’d even driven Su Mengqing to cough up blood and faint from pure rage! How wonderful! It was a double blessing! Zhang Qiang had long lusted after his cousin, Su Mengqing, but she had ended up married to a waste of space like Lin Fan. He considered himself no worse than Lin Fan and could never understand why he had lost out. But now was his chance to show Su Mengqing what a real man was made of! He wouldn’t just vent his anger. He would kick Lin Fan while he was down and make the Su family look at him in a new light!

“But, I also know you were kicked out of the Su family without a penny, so you definitely can’t pay them back in cash.” Zhang Qiang grew more excited as he spoke, already fantasizing about the wonderful scene of Su Mengqing throwing herself into his arms. “No problem! Lin Fan, just let the neighbors go into the clinic and take things to settle the debt.”

With that, Zhang Qiang waved his hand. The men and women behind him exchanged glances, all clearly tempted. Yet they hesitated, no one making the first move.

“…Is this what you all want, too?” A chill went through Lin Fan’s heart as his gaze slowly swept over the familiar faces before him.

These were all common people from the neighborhood trying to make a living—fruit stall owners, small convenience store keepers, and people who ran little restaurants. They had always greeted him with such warm and friendly smiles.

He never imagined they would turn on him the moment his mother died. How fickle people were.

Finally, after some hesitation, one of them spoke up with an awkward, apologetic smile. “Lin Fan, don’t blame us. Your mother was a good person, but we have to keep on living here.”

“Yeah, with your mother’s clinic closed and the hospital so far away, we can only go to Brother Qiang’s pharmacy for medicine if we get a headache or a fever.”

“He’s already promised that as long as we get back the money we gave your family, we’ll get a thirty-percent discount on all medicine we buy from his store in the future!”

“And during holidays, he’ll run promotions! We’ll be first in line for free eggs, and the elderly and children can even get a double share!”

The voices grew more numerous and louder, eventually becoming a chaotic clamor.

Blocked in the doorway, Lin Fan watched these familiar neighbors, a self-deprecating smile slowly forming on his lips.

So that’s it. People’s hearts truly do change. All the kindness they’d shown before was just because they could take advantage of the clinic. Now that his mother was gone and they thought the clinic would close, they were so easily bought over by Zhang Qiang’s petty favors? The irony was that Suxin Clinic had been open for years with a constant stream of patients, yet it never even made enough to cover the monthly rent. It was always losing money! If his mother hadn’t been secretly treating influential people on the side to earn money to subsidize it, the clinic would have closed down long ago. Lin Fan had urged her more than once to close up shop and get some rest, telling her it wasn’t worth the hardship. But his mother, worried that the neighbors would have nowhere to go for treatment, gritted her teeth and persevered.

“Lin Fan, aren’t you going to say something?”

“We’re not trying to bankrupt you. There’s no need to make this so difficult, is there?”

“Exactly! It’s not that much money. And your family has made plenty off us over the years, haven’t you?”

“What’s with that ugly look on your face? It’s as if we’re forcing you to your death! Honestly!”

As Lin Fan remained silent, the men and women exchanged glances, their expressions growing impatient.

“Animals.”

The next moment, Lin Fan’s extreme anger gave way to a bitter laugh as he squeezed the single word from between his teeth.

The cacophony ceased abruptly, and the expression on everyone’s face changed. Then, like cold water hitting boiling oil, the scene erupted.

“How dare you speak like that, you child! Have you no manners?”

“No wonder you and your mom ran off to Haicheng! We haven’t seen a shadow of your father all these years. You must be an unwanted bastard!”

“I always said a woman with a figure like Lin Suxin’s couldn’t possibly be single. She must have been someone’s mistress, right?”

The crowd spat insults, each one uglier than the last.

“Animals! You’re all a bunch of heartless, treacherous animals!”

Unable to take it anymore, Lin Fan clenched his fists! His roars exploded like thunder.

BOOM!

He took a step forward, and an overwhelming aura burst from him. Terrified, the men and women stumbled back, their faces draining of color.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep