Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The motorcyclist didn’t have time to react. Seeing Nan Mu charging head-on toward his bike, he instinctively let off the throttle.

In the split second before they collided, Wen Miao saw Nan Mu suddenly burst with incredible jumping power. He launched himself into the air, slamming into the rider.

Nan Mu and the rider hit the ground simultaneously, tumbling several meters. With no one at the controls, the motorcycle whistled past Wen Miao like a gust of wind before crashing heavily into the curb. It hit the ground with a loud thud and skidded for several meters.

Nan Mu was also down on the ground.

When he hit the pavement, he had quickly adjusted his posture to use the rider as a cushion, absorbing some of the impact. However, the bike had been moving too fast; the sheer momentum sent them both rolling a long distance.

He wasn’t wearing a helmet. Because he had been focused on dragging the rider down, he had used both hands to grip the man tightly, leaving him no time to protect his own head.

His head hit the ground with a sickening thud.

For a moment, Nan Mu’s vision went black and his mind went blank.

A moment later, waves of pain signals surged through his body, but the agony served to wake his brain up. He had fought so hard to pull the man off the motorcycle specifically so the rider could no longer threaten Wen Miao’s life.

He couldn’t let the man get back to that bike.

With a jolt of adrenaline, he stumbled to his feet.

Seeing the rider still groaning on the side of the road, he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.

Wen Miao’s heart, however, was in her throat. In her eyes, it was hard to tell who was in worse shape, Nan Mu or the rider. Although Nan Mu was the first to stand, he looked terrible-he was swaying on his feet, and a streak of blood from his forehead was trickling down over his brow, eye, and cheek.

The rider was still groaning, but he was wearing a helmet, so his head was surely fine; at worst, he might have some broken ribs. Wen Miao even found herself praying that his ribs were broken badly enough to puncture his pleura and lungs.

Nan Mu felt his vision blurring, but he didn’t have the presence of mind to dwell on it. He simply lunged at the man, pinning him down, intending to beat him into submission while he was still dazed.

However, between Nan Mu’s impaired vision and the protection of the rider’s helmet, he couldn’t land his blows where he wanted. Furthermore, perhaps fueled by the unimaginable burst of strength people find in a crisis, the rider suddenly surged up during their struggle and threw a punch at Nan Mu.

Nan Mu’s head had already taken a heavy blow; this punch caused him to lose consciousness almost instantly. By the time he came to, the rider had flipped him over, pinning him down and raining blows on his head.

In that moment of peril, the rider suddenly froze. Then, his body slumped heavily onto Nan Mu.

Looking past the rider’s body, Nan Mu saw Wen Miao holding a wooden club as thick as an arm, staring at him in a panic.

Nan Mu pushed the man off of him and sat on the ground, gasping for air.

The rider lay face down on the ground, still wearing his helmet.

Nan Mu looked at the rider’s neck, somewhat surprised. “How did you know to hit the neck?”

Wen Miao wiped away her tears. “Isn’t that how boxing works? Boxers are usually knocked out by hooks or uppercuts, not jabs. Because a jab hits from the front, it’s hard to cause the head to swing violently. Hooks and uppercuts hit the head from the side or below, which easily causes the head to whip around, affecting the normal function of the brainstem.”

Nan Mu was in immense pain and had little strength left, but he still managed to curl his lips into a smirk and give her a thumbs-up. “Smart girl!”

It would have been better if Nan Mu hadn’t smiled; when he did, his swollen eyes squeezed together, his face was covered in blood, and the corners of his mouth were split. Seeing him like this, Wen Miao’s heart ached so much that her tears wouldn’t stop falling.
Seeing her like this, Nan Mu felt a mix of heartache and amusement. “Don’t cry.”

He swayed as he tried to stand up. Wen Miao rushed over to support him, asking anxiously, “Should we call the police?”

Nan Mu fell silent for a moment. Given his current condition, he wouldn’t be able to go to the station to give a statement. “Call a taxi first.”

He couldn’t leave on his own, and he didn’t want to leave Wen Miao alone with the “criminal” while waiting for the police. His plan was to call a taxi and have the driver take both Wen Miao and the perpetrator to the police station.

Wen Miao used a ride-hailing app to call a taxi.

She looked around, searching for a piece of rope to tie the rider up.

“I’ll go look inside the construction site. There might be some hemp rope.”

“No!” Nan Mu shouted sharply, startling Wen Miao into a standstill. Only then did he soften his voice. “Just stay by my side. Don’t leave my sight.”

Wen Miao had no choice but to nod.

The taxi arrived quickly, but perhaps because the newly built road hadn’t been updated on the maps yet, the driver kept circling the perimeter without finding them.

The driver called Wen Miao, asking her to walk toward him.

Wen Miao wanted to go find the taxi alone and then lead the driver back to pick him up, since he was currently having trouble moving. But Nan Mu was like a bird startled by the mere twang of a bowstring; he didn’t feel safe letting Wen Miao go off on her own.

In the end, the two of them had to leave the unconscious motorcyclist behind to go find the taxi driver first.

Once they were in the taxi, they guided the driver back to the spot.

The driver and Wen Miao got out to search the area, but not only was the rider gone, the motorcycle had vanished as well. All that remained were scattered fragments of the bike and bloodstains-the only traces of the struggle that had taken place.

“What should we do? It looks like he ran away,” Wen Miao said worriedly.

Nan Mu frowned, looking at the pitch-black construction sites on either side. He guessed that because Wen Miao lacked physical strength, the man must have regained consciousness quickly.

“It’s possible.”

However, Nan Mu still rejected Wen Miao’s suggestion to go inside and search. “It’s too dark, and visibility is poor. If you go in there with a light, you’ll be a sitting duck. Forget it, let’s leave first.”

Wen Miao nodded, got back into the car, and told the driver to head to the hospital.

***

Late at night, the hospital was still bustling with people and brightly lit.

The moment they stepped inside, Wen Miao felt Nan Mu’s tense body suddenly relax, and most of his weight slumped onto her.

Nan Mu’s injuries looked severe. As they walked through the emergency room, people of all ages instinctively cleared a path for them.

Upon learning that Nan Mu had not only been hit by a motorcycle but had also been punched in the head several times by the perpetrator, the ER doctor immediately ordered a gurney. He instructed Nan Mu not to move and sent him for a full-body CT scan and a cranial MRI.

Outside in the poor lighting, Wen Miao hadn’t noticed much. But once they were inside the hospital and Nan Mu was lying on the bed, she was horrified when the doctor cut away his clothes.

Setting aside the various bruises on his body, tiny red dots were densely erupting across his pale skin, stretching from his neck down to his waist.

“This… what’s happening?!” Wen Miao’s legs went weak, and tears began to fall like pearls from a broken string. “Is there internal organ damage? Doctor, please, save him!”

“Was this not there before?”

“No!” Wen Miao answered urgently.

The doctor’s expression instantly became very grave. “We’ll have to wait for the CT results to know exactly where the problem is. I’ll call and push for the scan results right now!”