After The Divorce I Became Untouchable: The Rise Of Ghost Do

Chapter 3: The Seal Breaks

The past has a way of catching up with us. Especially when you had been running from it for three years.

Ivan sat on a bench in Memorial Park, watching the city lights flicker across the lake. It was past midnight.

The wine had dried crusty on his shirt, and he had no other shirt to change into.

A homeless man two benches over was having better luck than him; at least he had a shopping cart full of belongings.

Ivan had nothing.

By choice.

He closed his eyes and let the memories come.

The ones he had buried. Locked away for years. Pretended they didn't exist while he played the role of a worthless son-in-law in the Zhao family.

Blood, so much blood.

Sand and smoke and the screams of dying men.

Operating theaters that weren't theaters at all, just tents with flickering generators and supplies that ran out halfway through surgery.

The warlord who had knelt before him, begging him to save his daughter.

The rebel leader who had offered him a hidden mountain of gold for an impossible surgery.

The Ghost Doctor, they had called him. The surgeon who appeared in warzones and disaster zones, performed miracles with a scalpel, then vanished like smoke.

Ivan opened his eyes.

That life had ended three years ago. Ended when he'd made a promise to someone dying. A promise to disappear. To bury himself. To become nobody.

And he had kept that promise. Until tonight.

He searched his entire pocket. Just a 20 dollar.

Immediately, the homeless man's little radio made an announcement; **BREAKING: International Magnate William Jerome in Critical Condition**

**Businessman flown to Lakecity Central Hospital**

**Family offers $50 million for successful treatment**

Ivan listened word for word. **Brain hemorrhage. Complications. Every specialist in the city had refused the case. Too risky. Too likely to fail.

William Jerome would die within forty-eight hours without intervention.**

Ivan stood up and spotted a phone with the homeless man. It was old, cracked screen, cheap model, not sure it worked.

He approached, and the homeless man looked up. "You got spare change, buddy?"

"No," Ivan said. Then he paused. “Your phone in exchange for twenty dollars.”

The man looked at the phone and shook his head. “Doesn't work. You'll find no use for it.” Ivan smiled. He took the phone anyway and gave twenty dollars to he homeless man.

“Thank you, kind sir.” The man said.

Ivan turned to leave, then he stopped. "Take this advice for free. Go to the shelter on Fifth Street. Tell them Marcus sent you. They'll give you a bed."

"Who's Marcus?" The man asked.

"Someone who owed me a favor." Ivan started walking.

"Hey, wait! What's your name?"

But Ivan was already gone, heading toward the distant glow of Lakecity Central Hospital.

---

Lakecity Central Hospital rose like a glass tower against the night sky. Private wing. Where the rich came to die comfortably.

Ivan walked through the main entrance like he owned the place.

A security guard looked up. "Sir, visiting hours are—"

"I'm here for William Jerome," Ivan said.

"The Jerome family isn't accepting—"

"Tell them the Ghost Doctor is here."

The guard blinked. "The what?"

"Never mind." Ivan kept walking.

Two more guards moved to intercept him, but something about the way he moved with absolute certainty.

His aura, made them hesitate just long enough for him to reach the private wing elevator.

"Sir, you can't—"

The elevator doors opened, and a man in an expensive suit stepped out, flanked by two assistants. Dr. Raymond Chen, the hospital director. His face was red with stress and exhaustion.

He saw Ivan and stopped.

Glanced at the wine-stained clothes, the cheap suit, the lack of credentials.

"Who the hell are you?" Dr. Chen demanded, switching glances between Ivan and the Security men.

A security man came forward…“Sir, sorry for the intru…”

"I'm here to save William Jerome," Ivan said calmly.

All eyes shifted to him, and Dr. Chen laughed.

It was an ugly sound. "You? Look at yourself. You look like you crawled out of a dumpster."

Ivan sniffled. "Looks can be deceiving."

"Security is going to throw you out on the street where you belong." Dr. Chen waved his hand dismissively.

"We have real doctors trying to save Mr. Jerome. Not homeless con artists looking for the reward money."

Ivan didn't move. "Your real doctors can't help him."

"And you can?" Dr. Chen's voice dripped with sarcasm. "What makes you so special?"

"I've performed three procedures that would be relIvant to Mr. Jerome's condition," Ivan said quietly.

Dr. Chen rolled his eyes. "Oh really? Enlighten me."

"The Lazarus Protocol. Emergency cranial decompression with induced hypothermia while performing simultaneous hemorrhage repair. Forty-seven-minute procedure. Patient survival rate in my hands, one hundred percent."

Dr. Chen's smirk faltered.

"The Damascus Method," Ivan continued. "Triple-site hemorrhage control using microscopic cauterization while maintaining cerebral blood flow to prevent brain death. Sixty-three minutes. Zero fatalities."

The director's face had gone pale.

"And the Kabel Resurrection." Ivan's voice dropped. "Complete neural pathway reconstruction after catastrophic brain trauma. Four hours and sixteen minutes. The patient walked out of the tent healthier than ever after three weeks."

Silence filled the hallway.

Dr. Chen's mouth opened, closed, and opened again.

"Those procedures..." he whispered. "Those are myths. Stories. The Ghost Doctor..."

His eyes widened.

He stared at Ivan—really looked at him for the first time. Past the stained clothes. Past the cheap suit.

At the absolute certainty in those calm, dark eyes.

Dr. Raymond Chen froze in shock.

"It's you," he breathed. "You're real!”