Chapter 15 Framing

Ding Ning wasn’t a fool. He could tell from the pure Yanjing dialect and styling of Ye Shulan and her children that the Shen family was an influential family.

This was precisely the connection that he needed. He didn’t mind treating Shen Muqing as a favor for the Shen family, but it was a complete art when it came to selling this favor.

If he didn’t straighten out Shen Muyang this shit-stirrer, he wouldn’t get on the good side of the Shen family even if he slaved over curing Shen Muqing’s illness.

He had never been a servile person who took the initiative to flatter others. He wanted both the connections that the Shen family would provide him as well as the family’s gratitude. That was the only way he could get them to help him at a critical moment.

However, Shen Muyang’s callowness annoyed him so much that he lost his previous calmness today.

Of course, he would rather die than admit that he had fallen for Shen Muqing.

What young man wouldn’t be affectionate? What young woman wouldn’t dream of love? His brief, cordial relationship with Shen Muqing was enough to make him feel like he was walking on clouds. It made him feel like he had met his confidante.

The multi-talented and wise woman impressed the conceited and knowledgable Ding Ning.

Talking to her was a kind of enjoyment. It was a kind of spiritual pleasure, something that was unexplainable and indescribable. The feeling was a mystery to him, but it was as if the two of them were lovers in their previous lives.

Such a stunning beauty with incomparable wisdom had built an indescribable tacit understanding with him in the span of a brief conversation.

There was neither a sense of estrangement nor alienation between them. She was like an old friend whom he had known for decades. They had endless common topics to talk about, making him forget the passage of time entirely.

If he were to describe this with a crude analogy, they knew what kind of shit each other was excreting once they pushed their butts out. They would even discuss with great interest what kind of excrement would make the best fertilizer.

Unfortunately, his father had decided on an engagement for him. He didn’t even know who the girl was and if she was as pretty as Shen Muqing.

Ding Ning mulled over these thoughts like an idle person. He was free anyway. He then decided to take out the stone figure and start cultivating.

Some time passed. Ling Yun entered the ward several times but didn’t disturb him out of the assumption that he was sleeping. The day shift wasn’t like the night shift, after all. She couldn’t brazenly slack off next to him.

With a thud, the ward door was violently kicked in and several men in security uniforms stormed in.

“You’re Ding Ning? We’re from the Department of Safety and Security of the hospital. We suspect that you’re involved in a theft case. Please come with us.”

The leader of the security guards was thin, short, and ordinary-looking. However, he had a shrewd face. He planted his butt on the sickbed and waved his rubber baton fiercely to enhance his persuasion.

Ding Ning slowly sat up with a frown. “What theft?”

“Don’t talk so much. You’ll find out after coming with us. Hurry up,” the guard yelled.

Inadvertently, he kept glancing at Ding Ning’s mobile phone.

Ding Ning noticed how evasive he sounded and how his eyes burned when he looked at his mobile phone. He suddenly realized that Li Wensheng was no fool either. Li Wensheng wanted to destroy the evidence through this fool.

“Wang Jun, what are you doing? This is the intensive care unit. Who let you in?”

The group of security guards had stormed into the ward and even kicked the door. Other people were long alarmed. The patients and the medical staff had all gathered outside.

Ling Yun was the first to run over. When she saw that they were trying to take Ding Ning away, her long and shapely brows furrowed, and she immediately shouted at them.

“I don’t care if this is the intensive care unit or not. Doctor Li of the Department of Cardiology on the 12th floor lost a watch last night. Do you know how much that watch is worth? It’s a Cartier worth more than 40,000 yuan! After receiving Doctor Li’s report, our department discovered through the CCTV footage inside the lift that only Ding Ning went up to the floor when Doctor Li lost his watch. What was a patient doing, not sleeping in the middle of the night and going up to the 12th floor? Who would’ve stolen the watch if not him?”

Wang Jun spoke righteously.

Ling Yun was stunned. She was aware that Ding Ning went upstairs to treat a patient last night, but it was impossible that Ding Ning would turn around to steal someone’s watch.

She knew Ding Ning very well. He was definitely that kind of man with integrity and unflinching righteousness. Otherwise, why would she even bother looking at him?

However, Wang Jun had CCTV footage as evidence. She didn’t have an excuse to stop them from investigating the matter. Her face flushed and her chest was rising up and down.

She said furiously, “Even if Ding Ning went up to the 12th floor last night, he couldn’t be presumed to have stolen it, could he?”

Wang Jun cast a glance at Ling Yun’s heaving and a trace of greed flitted across his eyes. He swallowed and delivered his next words with righteousness.

“Our Department of Safety and Security will neither spare a bad person nor slander a good person. Ding Ning is currently the prime suspect. We’ll be taking him back to investigate. We’ll also be searching the room.”

When Ding Ning saw the confident look on Wang Jun’s face, he recalled how this kid had sat on his sickbed as soon as he came in. His heart immediately sank. This son of a bitch wanted to frame him.

He used his Absolute Touch and, sure enough, found himself a watch under his bed sheet.

He mentally sneered. Li Wensheng was truly despicable. That coward was actually trying to frame him and destroy his reputation alongside with the evidence.

Fortunately, he wasn’t the average Joe. He hadn’t practiced his pose in martial arts and speed of his hands in vain all these years. Otherwise, the asshole would really have entrapped him.

Immediately, he sat up at a leisurely pace. With a speed undetectable by the naked eye, he fished out the watch and conveniently placed into Wang Jun’s pocket. There were so many pairs of eyes staring at him, but no one noticed.

Ding Ning’s heart calmed. He sat brazenly on the bed and looked at Wang Jun in contempt. “You’re just a guard of the Department of Safety and Security, not the police. What right do you have to subpoena me?”

Wang Jun smiled sinisterly at him. “I think you must be suffering from a guilty conscience. Come, someone. Take him away. Seize all his belongings and search the ward.”

“Let me see who’ll dare to do that,” Ling Yun bellowed, inserting herself in front of Ding Ning like a protective mother hen. The girl widened her almond-shaped eyes and furrowed her finely-shaped eyebrows.

The guards who were about to come forward immediately stopped in their tracks and looked awkwardly at Wang Jun.

These security guards were contract employees that the hospital could fire at will. However, Ling Yun, the most beautiful of all nurses, was an honest-to-goodness medical school graduate with professional qualifications. She would become a regular employee of the hospital after her internship and start establishing her career. She wasn’t an ordinary nurse on contract. These security guards were no match for her whether in terms of status or position. Even though Wang Jun was also a contract employee, he was nevertheless the deputy section chief. He was their backbone. He had more say when it came to offending others.

“Ling Yun, don’t obstruct us in handling the case. If you continue being obstinate, I might just apprehend you as his accomplice,” Wang Jun said in a strange tone.

He thought, “I would give you some face in the past, but I now have Li Wensheng’s backing. Do I still have to fear a little nurse?”

He continued to mutter in his mind, “Could this little girl be having an affair with this kid? Goddamnit, the swine has gotten away with the good cabbages. I swear I’ll have you suppressed under my crotch and obediently allow yourself to be conquered someday.”

“Move aside. I’ll take care of it!”

Ding Ning patted Ling Yun on the shoulder. They were now in the hospital, not outside their house door. Ling Yun’s title as the female gang leader of Fuxing Road was useless here.

“What exactly is going on here? Did you offend someone?”

Ling Yun cast him a worried look. She could also sense the confidence of the bastard, Wang Jun. She was sure that he had someone’s backing and obviously came with malicious intentions.

“Different situations call for different actions. It’s an old enemy trying to frame me. Ling Yun, call the police!”

Suddenly, Ding Ning straightened his back and his aura instantly turned deadly sharp. His face sank. “Your name is Wang Jun, isn’t it? Let me tell you this. I won’t go to the Department of Safety and Security with you. You all don’t have the right to subpoena me, much less to search the ward. Now that we’ve called the police, let’s wait for the police to deal with this. I know that you have ulterior motives to make this incident bigger. I know I’m innocent but don’t blame me for not reminding you that being a dog also requires the consciousness of being a dog. Based on Article 243 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, fabricating facts to falsely accuse and frame a person with the intention of making him subject to a criminal investigation will bring you not more than three years of imprisonment, detention, or perhaps surveillance, if the circumstances are serious. If serious consequences are caused, you’ll be sentenced to an imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than ten years. Members of a state organ who knowingly commit an act shall be given an even heavier punishment.”

Wang Jun’s face paled. He looked at Ding Ning with indecision and bewilderment. Wasn’t this guy a medical school graduate that no hospital would take in? How did he know so much about the law?

Ding Ning seemed to have read his mind. He said meaningfully, “I’m a graduate who majored in both law and clinical medicine. Never mind the fact that Doctor Li’s watch isn’t in my ward. Even if you find it here, you won’t find my fingerprints on it and can’t convict me for it. If anyone attempts to frame me for the crime, they must be wary of a lawsuit.”

Wang Jun felt a sudden shock but swiftly calmed down. Since he wanted to hurt Ding Ning, he naturally wouldn’t be so stupid as to leave his fingerprints on it.

Before he took the watch, he had specially coated a layer of glue on his fingers. Even if he couldn’t harm Ding Ning, he also wouldn’t be involved in it. Either way, he was just doing his job with impartiality.

What did he have to fear with a strong backer like Li Wensheng? He immediately became bold and said arrogantly, “Save the nonsense. We’ll find out whether or not you stole the watch after you come with me to the Department of Safety and Security for investigation.”

Ding Ning shook his head in disdain and chuckled. “Looking at your shrewd face, I thought you’re a smart person. I didn’t expect you a fool with bricks for brains. I’m now being warded in the intensive care unit. I’m a patient. Never mind the fact that you’re a security guard. Even if the police comes here, they can’t do anything to me if I don’t want to cooperate with them. Of course, you can try your luck. If you dare to do it, I guarantee that everything that happened here today will be uploaded to the Internet immediately. The deputy chief of the Department of Safety and Security of Changjiang Hospital enforces the law barbarically. When that happens, not even Li Wensheng’s uncle would be able to save you.”

Wang Jun’s heart quivered. Seeing how Ling Yun and others had already taken out their mobile phones to film, he realized that Ding Ning wasn’t as simple as Li Wensheng had described the latter to be. Li Wensheng had called Ding Ning a timid and cowardly university graduate, but this guy was definitely someone difficult.

He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of regret. Had he known this earlier, he wouldn’t have gotten himself involved in something this troublesome just to curry favor with Li Wensheng. However, he had already placed the watch under the sheets of Ding Ning’s bed. He could only stick to his ways.

But he no longer had the courage to take Ding Ning away by force. The only reason he tried to curry favor with Li Wensheng was so that he could eventually get the favor of his uncle and become the chief of the Department of Safety and Security.

If he dared to take Ding Ning away by force, the news of the Department of Safety and Security of Changjiang Hospital illegally and forcibly taking a patient for interrogation would probably become the most searched topic on the Internet tonight.

When that happened, the reputation of Changjiang Hospital would suffer, and Executive Zhou would become furious. Never mind being the head of the Department of Safety and Security, he might even lose this job.

Wang Jun’s expression shifted uncertainly. He was in a dilemma and didn’t know what to do.

Though he was slick and even a little clever, he was nevertheless a young worker fresh out of the countryside who had never seen much of the world. Once he encountered an unexpected situation, he would immediately panic.