Chapter 4: The H Virus

No one was sending red envelopes anymore.

Looking again at her battered phone, she saw the battery indicator in the status bar: only 5% left, about to die.

Five percent, and it still hadn't shut off automatically?

Impressive.

Shi Qingqing didn't wait any longer. She switched off the nearly dead phone—now that she had money, she needed to buy her mom's medicine as quickly as possible.

The closest pharmacy was just across Central Park.

So Shi Qingqing took off at a run toward the park…

The trees in the park were lush, the light dim. As soon as Shi Qingqing rounded a corner—"Bang!"—she crashed into a rock-solid wall…

Wait—no, that wasn't right. There were no walls in the park.

Was it a person?

Shi Qingqing looked up. Because of the poor lighting, she couldn't make out the features clearly—just that it was a tall young man, at least 180 cm. There was something odd about him: on such a hot day, he was dressed immaculately in a crisp white long-sleeved shirt and gray casual trousers.

Shi Qingqing was petite; her forehead had slammed into his chin, making her wince with pain.

"Hey, can't you—" Walk properly!

She never finished the sentence. A chill swept over her, icy and suffocating, forcing her to swallow the rest of her words.

Something was wrong—there was killing intent!

The next second, her body was airborne…

He shoved her hard, sending her flying into the thick shrubbery by the path. If the bushes hadn’t been so dense, who knows if she might have been hurled ten meters away, landing face-first in the mud?

What the hell!

Had she run into a maniac?

Her phone—had it flown out of her pocket? She patted her pocket anxiously. Thank goodness, still there.

Otherwise, she wouldn't let this go!

Shi Qingqing glared furiously at the lunatic, and from this distance, she finally saw his face.

Half of his face was hidden in shadow, the other half illuminated by the stray glow of a streetlamp.

Slanting, sword-like brows, a coldly handsome face, eyes black and clear as obsidian, glinting with a steely, sharp light. Beneath the calm surface of his gaze lurked a blade-like edge. The perfect, finely chiseled features could have been sculpted by an artist—his presence overwhelming, icy, impossible to meet directly…

In short, to put it plainly—damn, he was gorgeous!

But handsome or not, did he have to be such a psycho?

He’d just sent a delicate young girl (her!) flying with one hand. Anyone watching would have thought he was tossing a sandbag!

Wait a second—he actually looked a bit familiar. Where had she seen him before?

After shoving Shi Qingqing away, the young man’s expression grew even more frigid, gaze filled with undisguised loathing.

Shi Qingqing shrank back, suddenly nervous. "Hey, you maniac! You crashed into me, then shoved me? What are you trying to do? If you try anything funny, I’ll—I’ll scream for help…"

She no longer suspected he might harass her; she suspected he might silence her for good.

That aura, that murderous intent!

The young man kept his devastatingly handsome face frozen in an icy expression. He pulled out a clean handkerchief and scrubbed his chin hard, then tossed the cloth into the trash can a few steps away.

Only then did Shi Qingqing realize—that was exactly where her forehead had hit him!

So disgusted by her?

Come on, she was a girl and hadn’t even found him disgusting, but he was acting so repulsed by her?

"Do you have to be so dramatic? Wiping it off and then tossing the handkerchief? Honestly, someone with a psychological problem like you should go straight to the hospital and get a disinfectant drip. Who knows, maybe I’m carrying the T-virus, the I-virus, the H-virus, or some other XX-virus—you might just drop dead from the contamination…"