Chapter 24

Chapter 24: Quit Playing Dead, Get Up

“So… does this count as her killing him?”

“If she hadn’t yanked the arrow out, he might’ve lasted another minute…”

“Isn’t she that drug peddler from yesterday? Didn’t she swear her hemostatic medicine could stop even a torn artery? Looks like she was full of it.”

“It was stuck in his neck. That’s worse than a torn artery, isn’t it?”

Whispers rippled through the crowd. Someone even murmured, half-awed and half-suspicious, “What if she did it on purpose… just to test her medicine?”

Qian Qi lifted her head and swept them with a cool look. She heard every word and couldn’t have cared less. After dumping the powder, she rose to her feet.

A hand shot out and clamped onto her arm.

“What are you doing? Trying to run?”

A boy with a perfectly punchable face grabbed Qian Qi hard and yelled at the people around them, “This is murder! You can’t run, junior!”

Some classmates hadn’t seen clearly and panicked at the word “run.” They started shouting too. “You can’t run! You have to stay here!”

Qian Qi turned. The moment she saw his face, a flicker of unfamiliar memory swept through her mind. She paused—then her lips curled into a smile that wasn’t remotely friendly.

She grabbed his arm right back, fingers biting in. “Classmate, who are you? You open your mouth and start spouting nonsense. That puts me in a really awkward position.”

The boy’s expression stiffened, then twisted into a sneer.

So Chen Miao Miao hadn’t lied. Qian Qi’s head really was messed up—she’d forgotten things.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t fail to recognize him.

Chen Tong.

“Junior, don’t misunderstand,” Chen Tong said, voice turning righteous. “I’m not trying to cause trouble. But someone died, and you just accelerated it. That’s negligent homicide. You should stay here and wait for the school to investigate.”

He’d been wondering how to get rid of Qian Qi without anyone noticing. Then he heard about her hemostatic magic potion, tailed her, and practically watched fate deliver him a flawless opportunity.

And it was her own fault. Who told her to be stupid enough to pull an arrow out of someone’s throat?

Chen Tong forced down the giddy thrill trying to burst out of him. In his head, Qian Qi was already being dragged away while he paid someone to make her life hell.

Qian Qi studied his face—the way his eyes tried so hard to look concerned while something ugly squirmed underneath.

Unlike him, she didn’t bother hiding her grin at all. It was sharp, feral, almost delighted.

Interesting.

So very interesting.

Let her think. How should she play with this Senior Chen Tong?

Chen Tong saw that smile and his stomach dropped. A chill crawled up his spine.

Under his increasingly uneasy stare, Qian Qi lazily lowered her gaze, lifted her foot, and gave the body on the ground a solid kick.

“Quit playing dead,” she said. “Get up.”

Everyone froze.

Then the classmate who’d been lying there like a corpse suddenly sucked in a massive breath—loud, ragged, desperate. His upper body snapped upright like something out of a cheap horror movie.

Little Wang doubled over, coughing violently. He hacked up the blood still stuck in his throat, then grabbed his own neck with shaking hands. His eyes went wide.

“Holy shit,” he croaked. “I’m not dead?”

For a heartbeat, the whole plaza went silent.

Then someone screamed, “No way! That hemostatic magic potion is that insane? This can be saved too?”

“This is a miracle drug! Pinch me—tell me I’m not dreaming!”

“Big shot! Do you still have that powder? I’ll buy!”

“Me too! Big shot, I want a bag!”

“Don’t cut in line! I was here first! Big shot, I want five bags!”

The mob surged toward Qian Qi like a tidal wave, people already opening their light-brains, desperate to pay and cling to her.

“Big shot, big shot! What’s your ID? Add me! Add me!”

The atmosphere flipped in an instant. Moments ago, they’d been tense enough to choke on their own fear. Now it was a frenzy—loud, hungry, and glittering with money.

Chen Tong’s eyes flicked around. The moment he realized the situation had turned against him, he tried to slip away in the chaos.

He took one step—

And stopped.

Qian Qi’s fingers were still locked around his arm, iron-tight. In the riot of voices, she stared at him like she’d found a toy she’d misplaced.

Her lips moved without sound.

Found you.

Chen Tong’s heart lurched.

At that moment, the second-year shooting instructor and the school doctor came sprinting over. They shoved through the crowd, panting. “Where’s the patient? Where is he? You didn’t move him, did you?”

Then they saw Little Wang smearing at his blood-soaked neck.

The school doctor shrieked, “Don’t touch the wound! Who pulled the arrow out? Are you trying to die?”

The students around them started laughing in that weird, embarrassed way people laugh when reality refuses to behave.

Little Wang looked at the instructor and doctor, still coughing. “Teachers, it’s fine. My injury’s already healed.”

“What?” The school doctor stared. “Didn’t the classmate who called say an arrow pierced your neck?”

Even in controlled sparring, shooting students kept their arrowheads small—but that still wasn’t a paper cut.

“It’s really fine,” Little Wang insisted. “I used hemostatic magic potion.”

He wiped his neck and held it out.

There was only a faint, pink, diamond-shaped scar—like the powder had done most of the job but not all of it.

The school doctor leaned closer, checked carefully, and frowned harder. “That’s… an arrowhead scar. But this fast… What did you say you used? Hemostatic powder?”

A neck wound wasn’t easy to treat. And “hemostatic” was supposed to mean stop bleeding, not—whatever this was.

Little Wang opened his mouth to explain—

Qian Qi cut in, grabbing the school doctor’s sleeve with urgent sincerity. “Doctor, you should still take him to the hospital for another check. Just in case.”

The school doctor snapped out of it and nodded quickly. “Right. Yes. Come on.”

A colleague helped haul Little Wang into the school doctor’s vehicle.

The shooting instructor stepped forward as if to follow, but Qian Qi tugged her back.

“What is it?” the instructor asked, suddenly patient, thinking Qian Qi had something important.

Qian Qi was still holding Chen Tong’s arm like a clamp. She turned to the instructor, and her eerie grin vanished—replaced by a wobbling, wronged expression that looked ready to cry.

“Teacher! I want to report someone. He took advantage of the chaos to harass me!”

The instructor’s face hardened instantly. “Who? Which girl harassed you?”

Qian Qi blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Then she decided she was done being polite and stabbed a finger at Chen Tong. “Him!”

The instructor turned her head, saw Chen Tong, and visibly short-circuited.

She looked at Chen Tong. Then at Qian Qi.

Then back at Chen Tong.

Finally, carefully, she asked, “Classmate… this classmate says you harassed him. Is that true?”

Chen Tong’s face went black.

“Qian Qi!” he snapped. “Are you fucking sick? You’ve got nothing at all—why would I harass you?”

Qian Qi’s smile turned sweet as poison. [So you’re allowed to lie through your teeth, but I’m not?]