I was the exclusive seller of a special type of medicine. It had saved many cancer patients’ lives.

After working hard for a year, I thought that I would have earned the patients’ gratitude.

To my surprise, Peter Lorden, a doctor who also happened to be my rival, slandered me online and said that I was a pharmacist with no principles and scammed cancer patients.

The patients who had once expressed their gratitude to me came forward as his witnesses and demanded compensation from me.

My reputation was ruined overnight, and I was canceled by everyone online.

So, I calmly terminated the distributorship for the special medicine and shut down my pharmacy to open a mini market instead.

When their supply ran out, the lung cancer patients, who needed the medicine to stay alive, and Peter both called me while in tears.

“Mr. Zimmerman, please continue selling the special medicine!”

“Are you talking about a special medicine that costs only five hundred dollars? Could it even save anyone? I’m sure it’s just fake medicine!”

The moment I stepped into the pharmacy, I heard a young man in a black puffer jacket standing in front of the medicine cabinet, saying such outrageous things while holding a box of medicine.

My shop attendant cast him a glance before saying, “There’s a QR code on the box. You can use it to verify if it’s genuine.”

The long queue of patients and their family members waiting to buy their own medicine started snapping at him to hurry up.

“If you’re not going to buy any medicine, stop standing there and wasting our time! We need to buy medicine!”

Peter Lorde huffed and threw the medicine box on the floor before grumbling, “If it’s cheap, it’s no good. I can’t believe you’d dare buy this. Aren’t you worried about getting sick from it?”

The moment he finished speaking, everyone fell silent.

The other people queuing up to buy medicine exchanged glances and said nothing, but their grips on their cash visibly tightened.

I went over and picked up the medicine box from the floor.

“Sir, if you’re worried, you bear the right to choose not to buy the medicine, but please don’t affect my other customers.

“I can promise all of you that I don’t deal in snake oil. The medicine here is authentic. If you don’t believe me, you can check!”

Peter cast me a cursory glance before saying, “Who said I’m not buying it?”

He then snatched the medicine box from my hands and paid for it, as if out of spite.

As I watched him leave, I frowned.

I spotted him dropping a business card as he left.

I picked up the business card and learned that he was working in a private hospital. It also happened to be a hospital that sold special medicine for cancer patients.

Their hospital dean had approached me several times, hoping that I would collude with them and increase the price of my own medicine until it matched theirs, but I had always insisted on saying no.

They had resorted to sending Peter over. I was sure that they were going to do something drastic.

Uneasiness filled my heart. I had a feeling that things were not going to end so easily.

Just as I expected, on that same afternoon, the Drug Administration Bureau suddenly came knocking on my door.

“A patient complained that you sell fake medicine and expired medicine at your pharmacy. In accordance with the law, we’re going to investigate your pharmacy.”

I immediately produced all the receipts and drug sales permits for all the imported medicine from my drawer.

Then, I said to the officials, “Sirs, I have the sales permit and receipts for all the imported medicine. I also have records of all the medicine I sold.

“You can probe, but I promise you that I’ve never sold any fake medicine or expired medicine.”

After checking all the records, the Drug Administration Bureau officers checked all the medicine on sale, but everything was in order.

Before they left, they gave me a subtle reminder.

“Mr. Zimmerman, you should pay attention to the opinions online. You need to deal with false rumors as soon as possible.”

Stunned, I turned on my phone, and a short video was immediately recommended to me.

[Exposing an immoral pharmacist! The special medicine he sells is expired, fake medicine! He caused my sickness to get worse!]

I tapped on the short video and saw Peter’s face.

In the video, he held a box of medicine with a pale face and was complaining to the camera while in tears.

“Do you know what you’ve put me through? I was already in despair after learning that I had lung cancer. I wanted to try some cheap medicine to save up some money, but this scammer of a pharmacist even exploited dying cancer patients like us! He sold me expired, fake medicine, and I suffered from a 40℃ fever!

“Look, it’s this pharmacy called Mercy Pharmacy, and the owner is Luke Zimmerman! You have to avoid this place!”

Peter’s choked-up complaints were incredibly persuasive. The comment section went wild.

[Holy crap, he even scammed a cancer patient’s money? He’s a monster!]

[My mother’s condition got worse after she bought special medicine from his pharmacy! Someone is finally exposing him!]

[I lost huge clumps of my hair ever since I took the special medicine from his pharmacy! It’s definitely fake!]

[I’ve heard of this pharmacy and thought that the owner was a good person. Bah!]

[Scammers should all just die!]

[Let’s all call the Drug Administration Bureau! We need to make sure scammers like him go out of business!]

The internet was filled with insults toward me and my pharmacy.

But I ignored them all. Instead, I frowned as I clicked on the two accounts that claimed to have suffered from side effects after taking the special medicine I sold.

I believed they were ghostwriters Peter hired to slander me, but upon going to their account page, I found them to be familiar clients.

The person who claimed that his mother’s condition worsened had been buying from me for two years.

Last year, his daughter fell sick, and he needed to pay thirty thousand dollars for her surgery. I pitied him for having such a hard life, so I had given him his supply of medicine for free that year.

At that time, he had bawled as he thanked me for saving his mother and daughter. He said that I was his benefactor and that he would repay me even if it meant he had to work like a slave for it.

Apparently, he was furnishing said repayment.

As for the second one, she was even more of a familiar face.

She was Ruth Queen, and last month, she had moved out of the dorm I provided for the pharmacy’s employees.

Half a year ago, Ruth did not have the money to pay her rent. Her landlord chased her out, causing her to become homeless.

I pitied her for being a single mother. She had to take care of her son, but she had also been afflicted with cancer. Her life was truly tough.

That was why I had let both her and her son live in the employees’ dorm for free.

Last month, she moved out of the dorm because her son was about to start school.

To think that they were all ungrateful pieces of trash who bit the hand that fed them!

I clenched my phone tightly and looked at my parents’ memorial photos. My heart stung in pain.

Five years ago, my father was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer. He pitied me and would rather die than take the special medicine costing 38,000 dollars from the hospital.

To help him get better, I took every step I could, reached out to everyone I could, and finally established a direct import channel for a special medicine from overseas.

Hospitals sold it for 38,000 dollars, but I managed to get it for only five hundred.

As I saw other patients suffering from lung cancer but not having any money to buy their medicine, just like my father, my heart went out to them, and I sold them the special medicine at the original price.

More patients learned that they could buy cheap special medicine from my pharmacy, and they begged me to sell medicine for them.

When I saw them descending into despair and how their families were destroyed because of their illness, I found myself pitying them and agreed to sell them the medicine.

When my father passed away, I had wanted to put an end to my selling medicine to these people, since it was tough work and didn’t earn me any money, but upon learning that I wanted to stop, the patients wept and begged me to continue buying and selling medicine to them.

They treated me as their savior, and their eyes were full of pleading and gratitude when they looked at me.

Touched, I opened the pharmacy.

I wanted every patient, like my father, to be able to take the special medicine and not be tormented by pain and agony.

To think that my kindness had turned into a weapon they used to attack me!

While my thoughts wandered, my phone rang.

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!”