Beauty Saves the Hero... Wait That's a Punk Beauty, You Saved the Wrong Guy

"Lin Yu, are you okay?"

The familiar, gentle voice pulled Lin Yu back from the brink of unconsciousness. He forced his heavy eyelids open, weighed down by exhaustion, and turned toward the source of that soft voice.

A delicate, pretty face came into view.

His oxygen-deprived brain struggled to process anything. The face looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t muster the energy to recall who she was.

Amid the haze, one obsessive thought circled his fading consciousness like a curse:

He absolutely must not get involved with this girl.

Or something terrible would happen.

"What are you doing here?"

"None of your business. Get lost!"

Driven by that stubborn conviction, Lin Yu forced himself to shoo her away. But his strength was nearly gone—even speaking took tremendous effort.

The girl’s worried expression didn’t fade at his harsh tone. If anything, she seemed relieved, as if his hostility reassured her.

"Let me take you to the hospital. Your injuries look really bad," she said gently.

"I…"

"I…"

Lin Yu slurred the word twice but couldn’t summon the energy to continue. His tongue felt like lead, too heavy to form another syllable.

Still, under the influence of that overwhelming instinct, he managed the faintest shake of his head—urging her to leave, to stay away from him, to stop meddling.

But the girl misinterpreted the gesture. She assumed he was refusing because he didn’t want to go… or couldn’t afford it.

So she proposed another solution.

"Then let me take you to the pharmacy. The doctor there can help patch you up?"

"Your wounds look really serious."

Her soft, concerned voice drifted into Lin Yu’s ears, but his exhaustion had reached its limit. He couldn’t even comprehend her words anymore.

His lips twitched, his mind still screaming at him to reject her offer. But his body had nothing left to give.

All he managed was a faint movement of his lips before falling silent again.

When Lin Yu didn’t respond, the girl hesitantly added,

"If you don’t say anything… I’ll take that as a yes?"

After another long pause with no reaction, she exhaled quietly and decided for him.

His injuries did look horrifying.

The blond hair covering half his face was soaked in blood, and the visible parts of his skin weren’t any better. He looked worse than a critically wounded soldier in a war movie.

Once resolved, the girl stood and stepped out of the dim alley. She crossed the bustling street, then returned pushing a small tricycle she’d left on the other side.

After rearranging the groceries meant for her mother, she hauled Lin Yu onto the tricycle with a mix of pulling and dragging.

Thanks to helping her mom with manual labor, she was just strong enough to move his hundred-something-pound frame.

Once he was finally loaded onto the tricycle…

The girl meticulously covered Lin Yu's body with a large piece of tablecloth to prevent encountering the very people who had injured him so badly on the way to the pharmacy.

After finishing this, she wiped the thin layer of sweat from her forehead and was about to hop onto her small tricycle when a simple, melodious ringtone suddenly pierced the silence of the alley.

The abrupt sound in the quiet alley startled her, sending a shiver down her spine.

Pulling out her old flip phone, which buzzed insistently in her hand, she nervously glanced at the caller ID. After a moment of hesitation, she bit her delicate pink lips and finally answered the call before it could disconnect on its own.

"Hello, Mom," the girl said softly.

"Hey, Manman, where are you? Why aren’t you here yet? We’re almost out of seasoning."

A slightly anxious, mature woman’s voice came through the phone, questioning why the girl hadn’t arrived.

"I... I..."

The girl hesitated, glancing back at the lump under the tablecloth on the tricycle before replying in a small voice,

"Mom, the tricycle broke down. I... I can’t make it."

"Oh?"

"I see. Never mind then. Don’t worry about it—I’ll ask Xiao Yu to grab some seasoning from the store. I’ll mix it myself."

The woman’s voice was understanding.

Clutching the phone, the girl’s cheeks flushed slightly with guilt. She nodded and murmured a quiet "Mm-hmm."

After hanging up, she instinctively looked back at the tablecloth-covered bundle on the tricycle, her thoughts swirling in a mix of emotions. Only when a flurry of footsteps echoed from the dark end of the alley did she snap out of her daze and turn sharply toward the sound.

At the alley’s entrance stood two men with dyed short hair, one wielding a cleaver, the other a telescopic baton.

They glanced around, as if searching for something.

Realizing the danger, the girl tensed and quickly turned her back to them. She pushed the heavy tricycle away from the alley, hurrying toward the well-lit street bustling with pedestrians...

...

Lin Yu slowly regained consciousness, his eyes blankly fixed on the ceiling.

At this moment, he was no different from a vegetable.

Severe blood loss in his head and the brutal brick strike had left his mind in a foggy, glue-like stagnation, unable to form even the simplest coherent thought.

Several minutes passed before his sluggish brain finally registered a pressing question:

Where was he?

Lin Yu rolled his eyes to scan the surroundings. Soon, a small, plainly furnished but immaculately clean room came into view.

And then...

Nothing.

His mind was so dull that he couldn’t even string together the next thought.

The follow-up question—"Where is this place?"—might take another few minutes for him to process.

"You’re awake?"

Tang Manman stepped into the room holding an electric kettle and noticed Lin Yu’s open eyes. A trace of fear flickered in her gaze as she timidly asked.

Lin Yu, in his current state, was incapable of responding. His hollow eyes remained fixed on the plain ceiling, as if he were still alone in the room.