The scene had been very spooky, the hair on her fair skin stood up when the cold wind of midnight swooshed by.

The silence of the place which came after that mind-boggling scene was so eerie and heart-stopping too. She knew this was exactly the moment when most people would just be compelled to run back inside the store or faint on the stone pavement.

Oddly though, despite Wendy's hairs standing, the first thought that came to her was,

'd.a.m.n! What's that? It can't be? Am I that unlucky? It's a suspicious man for sure! How did he vanish? Where did he go? Is he a criminal or a serial killer?'

Wendy, the weird brainy G.o.ddess of HCA and also a known beauty of her current school Edogawa High, had thought of this first instead of wondering if the shadow that appeared before her was a ghost or not. She worried more if there would be news of crime here reported tomorrow, if that shadow was that of a thief, or a kidnapper, or a rapist.

If her conjecture was correct... oh no!

Due to her odd sense of righteousness and cautiousness acting up, she seriously started to weigh out whether to check out what she saw or not.

After her eyes wandered the place with great vigilance, she made up her mind and picked up an old-fas.h.i.+oned long umbrella from the rack near the trash bin. She mentally vowed to return it on a later time. For now, what mattered was to be prepared in case she would need weapons to ambush and knockout a criminal wannabe. This umbrella just happened to be the best weapon nearby since it was quite st.u.r.dy, not to mention, has a good reach.

'Let's do this, fighting!'

Unfortunately, the woman's silly fantasies of detective heroics were broken when she cautiously and determinedly approached the location, only to find out it was merely a huge black bundle pa.s.sed out ungraciously under the hard stone bunch. It was not a ghost, and it also didn't seem like a criminal whom the girl would find alright to pummel to her heart's content using a stolen umbrella.

"... Just a drunkard?" She frustratedly murmured to herself.

Bending down, she irritatedly looked at the bundle, using her phone to s.h.i.+ne upon the man's feature and see why he collapsed face down at this place. Not long after, she discovered what was wrong with him. She smelled the faint scent of metal and iron. With a quick scan of her phone's light all over the person's body, she noticed that there were blood trails starting from his forehead. Blood was also pooling underneath his midsection, letting her realized that he was injured in the stomach area.

"Hmm. He looks pitiful. Must phone the nearest hospital from here quickly."

For some reason, at Wendy's mention of the word hospital, the person lying motionlessly on the sidewalk moved slightly. Accurately put, his body twitched. The girl heard a soft and weak groan from the man which informed her that he was actually still conscious.

Despite being a bit surprised though, the fingers tapping across the screen did not pause. Amidst this and without straying her eyes off of the man's b.l.o.o.d.y side of the face that was exposed to her, she even managed to say, "Oh? Good that you're still awake, it means you won't be dying anytime soon. Just a second, I'm now dialing the hospital's number. Since Country J's hospitals are pretty responsive and alert, I'm sure they'll get here within ten, no, five minutes."

Just when she was scrolling her contacts for the toll-free number of the local hospital here, she was surprised by the cold, blood-wet hand that suddenly grabbed her hand. Due to shock, her typing froze. Her eyes too widened at the man's face that suddenly turned to her.

"..."

Son of a beast! Such a handsome face! So poreless!

The eyes were very expressive and could speak thousands of profoundness! His perfectly shaped full lips were so kissable. The brows had a nice shape too.

d.a.m.nable! Even with blood covering half of the man's flawless face, it was still almost prettier than hers!

She thought when she recovered from the shock. '... I'm suddenly very p.i.s.sed off. The place is dark but his skin is glowing. What the effin' m.u.f.fin!'

In the midst of her unreasonable fits of jealousy, the man's voice echoed softly and weakly in the air, teasing her eardrums.

"... Don't...send...me to...the...hospital..."

Wendy blinked for a while. Towards his pleading stares and words, she tilted her head to the side, her eyes peering suspiciously at the man.

"Instead of asking for help, you're begging not to be sent to the hospital. Aren't you an oddball? The heck!"

"..."

"Hmmmm.... You're so suspicious. I'm being tempted to not only call the hospital but the police too."

Out of consideration for her self-esteem, she didn't start voicing out her hypothesis of what he could have possibly be doing in the middle of the night with his impossibly pretty face to end up b.l.o.o.d.y and injured in a gloomy street.

However, she did hold up her phone and began dialing the police's hotline. To her extreme bafflement, when she was about to press the go b.u.t.ton, the lighting of her screen just went bonkers.

"Eh?"

It didn't take long for the phone to go dead.

With blinking eyes and blank face, she exclaimed, "d.a.m.n! But I saw its battery is still forty-seven percent full. What happened?"

The dumbfounded woman studied the baby blue handheld device, her right index finger repeatedly pressing on the power b.u.t.ton. When several seconds pa.s.sed without it coming to life, her gaze went back to the man who was now almost lying dead underneath the stone bench.

She suddenly felt an extreme headache coming due to this trouble and regretted why she approached the place.

'Great... My conscience won't let me leave this guy to die here, no matter how angry I was for how good-looking he is.'

Wendy's face soured the more she thought of what she would surely go through in the next few hours.

...

...