Inside the mediation room at the police station, my passenger looked disheveled with messy hair and rumpled clothes.

She cried as she complained to the police officer, “Sir, it’s him! The Grab driver had bad intentions! He even tried to harass me!

“People like him should be put in jail! And I want compensation for the emotional distress he caused me!”

Right after she finished speaking, she slumped down on the floor and threw a tantrum.

I could not believe someone could be this shameless. All I did was tell her not to smoke in the car, and she falsely accused me of harassing her.

On top of it, I was a woman too! It was just that I usually dressed less femininely. How could I possibly have harassed her?

I sat on a cold, hard metal chair as I watched the farce unfold in front of me.

Fiona cried her eyes out.

She pointed at me with trembling fingers.

“It’s him! He stared at me in the car so creepily. He even tried to touch my thigh!”

Sergeant Lemony, the young officer taking the statement, frowned and looked at me.

There was obvious disdain in his eyes.

To him, I was probably nothing more than a creepy, tanned-skinned male driver with a buzz cut in cargo pants.

I said, “Sir, I—”

“Shut up!” Fiona screamed in a high-pitched voice and cut me off.

“You harassed me, and you have the nerve to talk?! If I hadn’t fought back with everything I had, I’d have lost my dignity by now!”

Then, she cried even louder. Her wail filled the entire mediation room.

Sergeant Lemony knocked on the desk. “Quiet! This is a police station!”

He turned and glared at me. “Behave yourself! Where’s your ID?”

I was about to reach into my pocket when Fiona abruptly lunged at me and grabbed my hand.

“Don’t move! Sir, he has a knife in his pocket! He threatened me with it in the car!”

I instantly flew into a fit of rage. Without hesitation, I yanked her hand away.

“Are you out of your mind? I’m just taking out my ID!”

“Ahh! He hit me! The pervert hit me!”

Fiona pretended to collapse onto the floor. She held her stomach and writhed on the floor.

She did it so smoothly that it was almost impressive. What a waste that she was not an actress.

Sergeant Lemony jumped to his feet at once with one hand on his belt. “What do you think you’re doing? Sit down!”

Two officers rushed in and pinned me to the chair, one on each side.

It felt like my shoulders were about to be crushed.

“I didn’t strike her, and I don’t have a knife. I was trying to get my ID to prove my innocence.”

I gritted my teeth and suppressed my anger.

Meanwhile, Fiona lay on the floor and peeked through her fingers as she wept. “I can’t go on living like this! I might as well be dead from being harassed by trash like him!”

Apparently, she did not come to file a police report. It was a setup.

I had been a Grab driver for three years, and I had seen plenty of oddballs. But this was my first time facing a malicious one like her.

The whole thing was actually pretty simple.

Two hours ago, I accepted a ride request from Fiona.

The moment she got in the car, the stench of cheap perfume almost knocked me out.

We had not even gone a mile when she pulled out a cigarette.

My car was strictly a non-smoking zone. To keep it from smelling, I always insisted on leaving the windows open to air it out, no matter how hot or cold the weather was.

I politely asked her to put the cigarette out.

She ignored me. She even flicked ash onto the leather seat.

I had no choice but to stop my car by the roadside. I told her that if she continued smoking, I would have to ask her to get out of the car.

That set her off.

She screamed and cussed at me. She snapped my phone mount in half. She threw the half cup of coffee she had been drinking all over me.

Before I could lose my temper, she yanked at her neckline, grabbed her hair, shoved the door open, and ran off. As she ran, she screamed for help.

The bystanders who had no idea what was really going on almost flipped my car over.

As a result, I was hauled off to the police station.

At this moment, her cup of spilled coffee had probably soaked through and ruined the leather seat in my car. On top of that, I still needed to stay here and listen to her make things up.

“Sir, he’s totally a blight on society!”

When Fiona saw that the police officers had me under control, she quickly got up from the floor. Her stomach did not seem to hurt anymore, and she stopped crying.

She stepped right up to Sergeant Lemony and said something to him with absolute confidence.

“I won't accept anything but his imprisonment, plus $100,000 in total compensation for emotional distress, lost wages, and damage to my reputation!”

‘$100,000?!’ I thought.

She must be out of her mind with her obsession with money.

I snorted and said, “$100,000? Why don’t you just rob a bank?”

Fiona pointed at me, cursed, and said, “A broke driver like you can’t earn $100,000 in your entire life! If you can’t pay that, then rot in jail!”

Lemony knocked on the desk impatiently. “Enough! Let’s get the facts straight first. Do you have a dashcam in the car?”

When he mentioned the dashcam, I felt even more confident.

“Yes. I have a dual-lens dashcam. Everything’s recorded on the memory card.”

Fiona’s face changed for a moment. But the next second, she resumed her smug-looking facade.

“He definitely deleted the footage! He was messing with his phone in the car earlier!”

I did not bother to respond to her. I said to Lemony, “The memory card is still inside the dashcam. You can go and retrieve it. I’m innocent. The footage will make that clear.”

Lemony nodded. He sent an officer to my car to collect the evidence. My car had already been impounded and was sitting in the station yard.

Just then, someone pushed open the door to the mediation room.

A burly man, with tattooed arms and a thick gold chain around his neck, entered the room.

The moment I saw him, I knew things were about to get a lot worse.

“Who is it? Who harassed my wife?”

His voice was loud enough to rattle the glass in the room.

When Fiona saw him, she practically launched herself into his arms. She cried even harder than before.

“Drake, it’s him! He’s a pervert! He touched me and attempted to harass me!”

Drake glared at me viciously.

He strode over and raised his hand. He wanted to hit me.

Lemony acted swiftly by stepping between us and stopping him.

“What’re you doing? This is a police station! Are you trying to start a fight here?”

Drake pulled his hand away. He pointed at me.

“Fine! Since the cops are here, I won’t lay a finger on you, kid. Just you wait. Once we’re out of the door, I’ll kill you!” Drake said threateningly.

I did not flinch. I only pushed back harder when pressured.

I met his gaze. “Really? I’d like to see exactly how you’re going to kill me.”

Apparently, Drake did not expect me to be so stubborn. He was stunned momentarily. Then, he let out a bark of vicious laughter.

“You’ve got a sharp tongue! Honey, tell the police exactly how this punk treated you. We’ve got money. All we want now is justice.”

With someone backing her up, Fiona grew bolder.

“That’s right! You must be punished! Asking for $100,000 earlier was letting you off easy. I want $200,000 now! Not a penny less!”

I laughed.

Did she think this police station was an auction house where she could raise the price as she saw fit?

“You’re blackmailing me,” I said calmly.

“Blackmailing?” Drake slammed his palm on the table.

“You touched my wife’s thigh and attempted to ruin her dignity. What’s wrong with asking you for some money? If we weren’t in a society governed by law, you’d have already lost an arm!”

Lemony snapped, “Watch your mouth! Sit down!”

Drake cursed under his breath as he dragged a chair and sat next to Fiona.

The two whispered to each other and occasionally shot me nasty looks.

It did not take long before the officer returned with the evidence.

He had my dashcam in his hand, but he looked troubled.

“Sergeant Lemony, this cam has no recording.”

“What?!” I was stunned.

“The memory card is broken. There’s no data on it at all.” The officer shook his head.

My heart sank.

“Officer, how could that be possible?”

I checked the dashcam every day. It was working fine.

The moment Fiona heard that, she perked right up.

“I told you he deleted it! He destroyed the evidence. Sir, you’ve got to do something!”

Drake played along. “Isn’t it obvious? If he has nothing to hide, why delete the footage? This kid’s clearly a repeat offender!”

Lemony’s gaze hardened as he looked at me.

“Explain yourself. Why is the dashcam broken?”

I opened my mouth but had no words to defend myself.

Saying the dashcam just malfunctioned sounded like a weak excuse, even to me.

“I didn’t delete anything. Maybe the memory card itself is faulty or…”

“Or what?” Lemony interrupted me.

“There’s no direct evidence proving your innocence right now. She’s firmly accusing you of sexual harassment. You’re in a very difficult position.”

I was not just in a difficult position; I was screwed.

Without the dashcam footage, this had turned into a classic he-said-she-said situation.

But I still had an ace up my sleeve.

I was about to say something when Fiona suddenly took out her phone and started filming me.

“Guys, can you believe this? He’s a perverted driver! He’s acting tough, even at the police station! The police just said he deleted the dashcam footage. It’s clear to see that he’s guilty and panicking!” she said as she filmed.

She shoved her phone right up in my face.

Lemony frowned and stopped her. “No filming in the investigation room.”

Fiona ignored him. She hid her phone behind her. “I’m recording evidence. What if you cover him?”

Drake chimed in, “She’s right. We need to expose his behavior! We need the internet to know what the offender really looks like!”

I looked at their faces twisted with malice. The anger I felt only intensified.

Since they wanted to expose me and blow this up, I would play along to the very end.

I sucked in a deep breath. I did not stop her from filming me. Instead, I looked into the camera.

“Are you sure you want to post this online?” I asked.

Fiona sneered and said, “Why? Are you scared? You should’ve thought about that before doing something so disgusting in the first place. Are you trying to beg for forgiveness? It’s too late! Unless you transfer $20,000 on the spot and prostrate three times, I’ll post this!”

Drake stood by the side with his arms crossed. He clearly enjoyed watching the show.

“Kid, if you want to settle this privately, do it fast. As long as the money’s paid, I won’t post the video online. If not, the video will go public, and your life’s over.”

They had the nerve to ask me to transfer $20,000 to them on the spot!

If I really did give in, I would never be able to clear my name.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Whoever doesn’t post is a coward. I dare you.”

Fiona was stunned.

Drake froze, too.

Perhaps they had not encountered a suspect this stubborn before.

“Fine! You’ve got some nerve!” Fiona said through gritted teeth. “I’m going to post it online now! Let’s see how you live your life after this!”

Her fingers flew across the phone in front of Lemony.

I did not even need to look to know that she had embellished the story by piling on more “details.”

Lemony looked troubled. Disputes like these were the hardest to handle. There was no surveillance footage as evidence, and both parties had completely different stories to tell.

“Enough!” Lemony stood up. “Since mediation isn’t working, we’ll follow the procedure. Take out your IDs so we can register them.”

Lemony extended his hand to me.

This was the perfect moment to reveal my trump card.

When I took out my ID, the word “female” under “gender” would shatter every lie.

I reached into my pocket and felt the stiff card between my fingers.

Just as I was about to take it out, my phone rang.

It was a call from the platform.

I answered the call. A customer service representative’s cold, mechanical voice sounded through the other end.

“Chris, are you the Grab driver? We received a serious complaint from your passenger. Your account has been permanently banned.

“Your actions have severely damaged the platform’s reputation, so we reserve the right to pursue legal action against you.”

They did not even give me a chance to explain myself.

Just like that, they handed me a death sentence.

My grip tightened around the phone until my knuckles turned white.

They decided I was guilty without evidence.

When Fiona saw the look on my face, she grinned triumphantly.

“That’s what you get! Serves you right!”

I hung up. I had not handed over my ID yet. It was still in my hand. I looked down, and then I changed my mind.

Since the people from the platform could not tell right from wrong, and the shameless couple wanted to ruin me completely, I decided to let everything blow up.

If I showed them my ID, I could clear my name, but they would be let off with only a slap on the wrist and a lecture.

That was not enough.

That would be far too easy for them.

I wanted to let them fly, just so they would crash harder later.

I wanted them to pay the price.

I pulled my empty hand out of my pocket and showed them.

“My ID must be in the car. It’s not in my pocket.”