Fu Jing Rong stood frozen for a heartbeat—just one—but it stretched like eternity.
Something inside him cracked. No, shattered. A suffocating kind of fear, brittle and wild, tore through his chest. He didn't know what it was, but he knew—he had to get there.
The world around him blurred. The chatter of stunned onlookers, the distant honking, the city lights—all of it faded. All that existed now was that car.
The one wrapped around a lamppost, metal crushed like paper.
The crash had happened in a quieter part of the city, just off the award venue. The street was narrow, almost deserted. A cold drizzle had fallen earlier, and the ground was slick beneath his shoes as he sprinted forward. His dress shoes slipped slightly as he ran—he didn't care.
The scent of smoke hit him first—sharp, biting, metallic.
Then the sparks.
The car was smoldering at the hood, faint orange flames licking out from under the bonnet. And in the driver's seat—
Hua Jing.
