Chapter 001: A Truly Classic Collision

"Stop, thief!"

On a noisy summer night, a sudden scream rang out, followed by the bang of a door slamming shut and hurried footsteps. Gavin Dawson, who had been sitting in front of his computer searching for job postings, froze. The sound seemed to come from upstairs.

The next moment, Gavin Dawson almost instinctively sprang up from his chair and rushed toward the door.

He yanked open the iron door, and a figure darting down the hallway ahead leapt into Gavin Dawson's view.

When it came to thieves, Gavin Dawson now felt a kind of instinctive disgust and anger—just today, his phone had been stolen. This, on top of not having found a job yet and only a few hundred yuan left for living expenses, with next month's rent still up in the air, made his situation even worse. What was even more infuriating was that he didn't even know exactly when or how his phone had been stolen. He only realized it when he tried to make a call earlier, reached into his paper bag, and found a hole cut in the bottom. The resumes and other documents he needed for job applications were still there, but the phone was gone...

"Stop!" With nowhere to vent his pent-up frustration, the thief before him had clearly touched a nerve in this hot-blooded young man. Gavin Dawson shouted, locked onto the shadow, and charged forward with a punch. If it had been any other day, he might not have intervened at all...

"Get lost!" The thief shouted back, lunging straight at him from the opposite direction. But the thief's agility was beyond Gavin Dawson's expectations. Already sprinting at full speed, he managed to turn nimbly on the not-so-wide staircase, and as he passed diagonally by Gavin Dawson, he suddenly pushed hard with his right hand along Gavin Dawson's back.

"Smack."

With his own forward momentum and the thief's shove, Gavin Dawson instantly lost his balance and fell headlong toward the stairs. As he fell, Gavin Dawson instinctively reached out his arms to break his fall and protect his head, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a white handbag clutched in the thief's left hand. A surge of uncontrollable rage welled up inside him—was this how his phone had been taken away so easily too?

Frustration, anger, and unwillingness—just as his hands were about to hit the stairs, Gavin Dawson suddenly twisted, trying to grab the bag in the thief's hand. But he had clearly overestimated his own abilities; to twist his body mid-fall was already a stretch, let alone anything more.

With a heavy thud, the back of Gavin Dawson's head slammed into the hard stairs, and his hands flailed uselessly in the air before dropping limply.

"Buzz..."

A roaring sound filled his ears, and Gavin Dawson's vision blurred.

"Ah! Murder!"

Almost at the same time, another sharp, piercing scream echoed from the stairwell above. A woman in a blue dress stood there, clutching her face, staring in terror at Gavin Dawson lying motionless on the ground, her face pale with fright.

"Huh? Wasn't it just a thief? How did it turn into murder?"

"No way?!"

Gavin Dawson wasn't the only neighbor who heard the commotion and came out; others had as well, though they didn't live right across from the stairwell like he did, so they were a bit slower to respond. When these people, just stepping out, heard the sudden scream, their faces changed and they cried out in shock.

Even the thief, who had already reached the landing between the fourth and fifth floors, stopped dead in his tracks when he heard the scream. His face instantly drained of color. Murder? No way—he was just a thief! Theft and murder were two completely different crimes.

"Thud, thud, thud..."

Pale as a ghost, the thief hurried back up the stairs. When he saw Gavin Dawson lying there motionless, his eyes filled with panic. "Bro... you... you can't do this to me... I was just stealing something... you can't set me up like this..."

Choking back tears, he threw down the bag in his hand and reached out to shake Gavin Dawson's arm.

As he shook him, Gavin Dawson suddenly let out a low, dreamlike groan and slowly opened his eyes. A sharp pain shot through the back of his head, making him grit his teeth.

"Ah, you're awake? That's great! Haha, you're not dead, you're awake, he's awake!" The thief, seeing this, was instantly overjoyed, as if he'd been pulled from hell to heaven. He quickly helped Gavin Dawson up, supporting him with one hand and pointing to the approaching neighbors with the other, eager to prove he hadn't killed anyone.

"Not dead?" The back of Gavin Dawson's head still throbbed with pain, and he didn't quite understand what the man pulling him up was saying. But seeing the man laugh with relief at his awakening, he managed a smile and said, "Thanks."