Chapter 001 Picking Up a Scary Man

In the midsummer night, the rain was pouring heavily. The voice of the weather forecast announcer came from the car radio, sounded soft and graceful, “There will be rainstorms from tonight until tomorrow morning in Jincheng. Please be prepared in advance and reconsider the night trip.”

There was only Victoria, who was driving on the mountain winding road.

The car headlight lighted up the zigzag and bending road but the lights couldn’t penetrate through the raindrops. The large raindrops fell on the car window. The rain washed down the car windshield. Her vision became blurred, drenched, and flustered, as if there’s no end.

Victoria took one of her hands away from the steering wheel and stroked her throat. It was slightly hard to breathe. After being on the road for several days, her energy was completely drenched. The female announcer on the radio continued to soothe people with her warm voice, “ In a few days, it will be Chinese Valentine’s Day, Qixi Festival. I believe that many couples will hold their weddings on this day. The wedding of the remarkable fashion designer, Ashley Tan, and her fiancé, Frank Lu, will also be held on the day of the Qixi Festival.”

Ashley and Frank.

Listening to both the names that were stuck together, Victoria’s eyes were sore and her heart was pounding. She almost couldn’t hold the steering wheel. Just when she blinked her tears away from the corner of her eyes and the car made a right-angle turn, a tall dark figure suddenly appeared in the woods ahead.

Victoria stepped on the brake hastily and could only hear the squeaking sound. Then, followed by the shock from the car frame that hit a hard object, the car stopped abruptly. Before she could recover from her shock, the black shadow collapsed to the ground.

The accident happened too fast but after a few seconds, it was silent again. The rainstorm continued to pour. The wiper on the windshield regularly swept away the raindrops, and the radio continued to play a relaxing love song. If it wasn’t because her car stopped on the edge of the winding road and almost hit the guardrail, Victoria would think that the shadow just now was just an illusion.

She hit someone.

With her blank mind, Victoria changed her car transmission to the neutral gear, unlocked her seatbelt, and got off the car, while ignoring her umbrella. She walked around in front of her car and saw someone was lying on the ground. He was about half a meter away from her car.

Victoria exhaled and blinked a few raindrops on her eyelashes away. Luckily, she didn’t hit him.

But she didn’t hit him, and yet, he’s lying on the ground. Did he try to blackmail her?

It was dark with rainstorms. She couldn’t use see his face clearly even with the headlight. Victoria immediately became alert. She went into her car and took a wrench and a flashlight, then she returned beside that man. She shone the flashlight on his face.

This man had scars on his face and bruises on the corner of his lips. He wore an ordinary gray T-shirt. His eyes were shut and his limbs were stretched out. He seemed unable to move since he didn’t have any response when the raindrops fell on him.

Out of her instinct as a medical student, Victoria squatted down. She lifted his eyelids using two fingers and shone his pupils with her flashlight.

He’s still alive, just unconscious.

Yan Mountain is in the suburbs. It was a highland, the road was difficult to go along, even after calling an ambulance, she didn’t know when it would arrive, especially in the middle of the stormy night.

Today she’s met with a terrible situation. No, she had met with much worse situation in this year. It was just nothing.

Victoria wiped her face. She was completely soaked. Her hair was softly resting on her scalp. The water kept seeping down her short hair then into her T-shirt neckline. But she still helplessly lifted him from the water puddle and used a lot of effort to drag him into the car backseat.

She thought that she would be able to rush to Jincheng overnight, but the weather and the unexpected incident seemed to joke with her. After going around several times in this remote place without even finding a small clinic, Victoria had to park her car in front of a small inn. After booking a room, she took the medicine box from her car and quickly checked on the man, then treated his wounds.

The innkeeper was a middle-aged woman in her early forties. She wore a colorful pajamas, followed upstairs as she’s worried. She leaned on the door as she cracked on the melon seeds and frowned while looking at her and the unconscious man, “He won’t die, right? Since you said that it’ll be fine so I let you brought him in. Or else, I’ll call 110 to get the police for you.”

Victoria didn’t look back and continued to check up the wounds, “Weak body, malnutrition, dehydration, skin trauma. He won’t die. Landlady, please help me to take his clothes off.”

“Oh, I don’t dare to take it off. He’s so dirty.” The landlady was disgusted as she frowned but still approached enthusiastically, “Fine. I’ll support him and you’ll take it off.”

Victoria wasn’t being coy. She neatly took off that man’s wet and dirty clothes. The landlady looked at the man’s face and looked at Victoria’s behavior that didn’t avoid any suspicion, then asked clearly, “Young lady, do people still elope nowadays? Did your family break his legs?”

Victoria slightly smiled, “I don’t know him. I found him on the road.”

The landlady’s expression changed and became slightly suspicious, “Tsk, tsk, young lady, you’re brave enough. Nowadays, there are a lot of old ladies that blackmailed people on the roadside. They just randomly lying on the ground and will get more than hundreds of thousands. You can’t be too kindhearted. What if he blackmails you when he wakes up? Although this man is thin, he’s big. Maybe, he would slander you hit him and made him like this. Everything is unclear since it’s raining heavily.”

Victoria cleaned up the last wound on that man’s forehead. After she disinfected it, she applied the medicine, and put a bandage on it. After listening to the landlady’s words, she didn’t stop her movements, “If I don’t save him, there’ll be a notice for claiming the corpse by tomorrow. Landlady, please prepare some saltwater and food for me.”

Nowadays, there were all sorts of people. The landlady saw that she wouldn’t take her advice, so she didn’t care much anymore. She only stood up and said in a business-like-manner, “Okay, fine then. The bedsheet and bed cover that he used, I can’t use anymore. The muddy stain can’t be cleaned anymore. Since it’s rainy and stormy tonight, please pay more for the room.”

“Okay, tomorrow I’ll settle it together,” Victoria didn’t object and simply responded.

The landlady delivered things quickly.

Victoria fed the man saltwater and also prepared rice porridge. She had given every first aid treatment that she could before she remembered that she was completely soaked. She went to the bathroom to take a bath, changed into a set of fresh clothes, and came out. The landlady was standing in the room. When she came out, the landlady clicked her tongue again, “Young lady, you’re really brave. Both of you are a single man and a single woman, you also didn’t avoid any suspicion, what if he suddenly wakes up?”

In fact, Victoria understood the sick man’s physical condition but she didn’t answer her. The landlady put the new bed sheet and bed cover. There were only a few guests in the family inn. This was her only guest today so she tried to make small talk with Victoria, “Young lady, I saw that you looked calm when you treated the wound just now. You are so pretty and have a good temperament. Are you a nurse?”

Even though angels-in-white refers to their dedication as medical staff, but the profession of nurses mostly left an impression as beautiful workers.

When she heard the word ‘nurse’, Victoria was slightly in a daze, and then her eyebrows dropped. For the first time, she didn’t look at the landlady’s eyes, but the smile on her lips widened, as she said lightly, “I studied medicine in the university.”

“Hey, it’s good to be a doctor.” As soon as the landlady heard her profession, she immediately moved closer. Her voice and tone were nicer and warmer than before, as if she met her relatives, and said in a friendly manner, “I’ve always wanted my son to study medicine. But he said that he’s afraid of blood. How can a big man be afraid of blood? Being a doctor is very good. You can get a high social status, earned quite a lot of money, and don’t have to worry about finding a doctor when we’re older. When we have a slight illness or anywhere uncomfortable, there’s always someone we know in the hospital. It’s also convenient when we’re sick. Young lady, how old are you? Do you have a boyfriend? Which hospital are you working at? In which department are you?”

As the landlady was full of enthusiasm, Victoria wiped her hair with the towel. After washing her short and neat jet-black hair, she felt completely refreshed. She smiled and cut off the landlady’s loudness, “I’ve changed my career and stopped being a doctor.”

“Why? It was such a fine job.” The landlady widened her eyes and sighed with regret. She really wished that she could hold Victoria’s hand to wake her up.

Victoria smiled, stopped talking, and didn’t plan to continue the conversation anymore.

The landlady helplessly shook her head, as she really regretted Victoria’s decision, “Young people, you don’t understand your parents’ heart. Everyone was so rebellious. You must’ve broken your parents’ heart. I really pity every parent in the world.”

Seeing that the topic had changed, the landlady didn’t have anything much to say anymore. As she walked off the door, she warned, “By the way, young lady, I’ll tell you again. You picked this person up but he didn’t have any credentials. Even we’re just a small inn, we should register his ID card. He didn’t have anything. Who knows his identity? What if he’s a fugitive or a thief? You have to be careful. After you check out tomorrow, just hand him over to the police. This way, it will be safer."

When people reached middle age, they seemed to be particularly lonely. They always love to vent about their life experience to young people, either it’s useful or useless. Regardless of whether the landlady was kind or purely curious and talkative, Victoria nodded and thanked her for her concern, “Thank you very much, landlady. I understand.”

After the landlady closed the door and went out, Victoria went to the bathroom to dry her hair. With the sound of the hairdryer, she thought of the landlady’s words. The profession of a doctor always had a good reputation. Every year, the scores of the college entrance for medical school were always high. A lot of students put a lot of effort to study medicine.

Every family has a different situation. For an average family, studying medicine could create a good way out. But for the seventh young lady of the Tan family, the six-year medical study had brought a lingering shadow to her life.

Short hair is easy to dry. Victoria turned off the hairdryer. Just after she returned to her senses, she saw a dark shadow appeared in the mirror. She turned around abruptly and found the man who was supposed to be unconscious and lying on the bed, was holding on to the door, and creepily stared at her.