Chapter One: Give Away One Thousand Dollars in Ten Minutes

The emergency hall smelled of disinfectant and wet shoes. Everyone seemed to need money: a laborer holding a boy's broken arm, an old man frozen before a payment kiosk, a girl crying against the wall. Who counted as genuinely in need? The system offered no definition. [05:46] An argument broke out at the cashier. "Doctor Su, this is the patient's bill. You cannot keep paying them yourself!" A young doctor pushed her card through the window. "Open the emergency channel. The child has abdominal bleeding." "Your card only has thirty-two hundred. The deposit is seven thousand short." "I'll borrow it." "You gave away last month's salary. What about your mother's rehabilitation?"