The Ultimate Epic Fail Influencer

Chapter 3

Meanwhile, the bustling entrance of St. Mary Hospital teemed with a continuous stream of patients and worried families. Amidst the chaotic crowd, a man with a scruffy beard and a ferocious glint in his eyes pulled the brim of his baseball cap lower to conceal his face. This was John Baxton, a fugitive currently wanted by the local police for a string of brazen burglaries. He planned to pull off one final, massive heist to fund his escape before laying low in his remote hometown. Even the most hardened criminals usually adhered to an unspoken rule explicitly forbidding theft from hospital patients. However, driven by pure greed and the desperate need for a huge payout, he had long since abandoned any moral bottom line. His cold, predatory gaze swept across the plaza, meticulously searching for a vulnerable target.

His eyes finally locked onto an elderly couple slowly making their way toward the main doors. The white-haired old woman gently supported her frail husband, who leaned heavily on a worn wooden cane.

"Take your time, dear. Please be careful with your leg," the old woman murmured softly, her voice laced with affection. "Let us just walk slowly. There is absolutely no rush. Besides, the food delivery you ordered for us has not even arrived yet."

The old man paused, wiping cold sweat from his deeply wrinkled forehead with a frayed sleeve. "It should be here any minute now. The doctor said we just need to do a comprehensive follow-up examination today to see if this stomach tumor is malignant or benign."

The old woman forced a comforting smile, though profound worry clouded her eyes. They lived an incredibly frugal life, painfully evident in their cheap, heavily patched clothing. Determined not to become a financial burden on their children, they had painstakingly scraped together the money for this crucial medical appointment over many difficult years.

"Sigh, if the treatment ends up costing too much money, let us just forget about it," the old man said, his eyes filled with a bone-deep exhaustion. "I have already lived to a ripe old age. I do not want to drag you or the kids down with crushing medical debt."

Their children were all married with families of their own, already exhausting themselves working long hours just to survive the current economic downturn.

Her nose stung sharply at his defeated tone. "Stop talking such absolute nonsense!" she scolded gently, tightening her fierce grip on his arm. "When you fell off the roof and shattered your leg years ago, you pushed through the pain and survived. We have weathered decades of terrible storms together. We absolutely cannot give up now."

Lurking just a few feet away, John Baxton listened to their emotional exchange with a cruel smirk. They were the perfect, defenseless targets. Furthermore, he had already scouted a narrow, winding alleyway nearby that led directly from the hospital plaza to the main thoroughfare, a hidden path completely ignored by normal pedestrians.

Slipping out of the shadows, he approached them with a flawlessly faked expression of deep anxiety. "Excuse me, sir, ma'am," he asked in a courteous tone. "Could you please tell me which way the emergency room is?"

"Oh, my goodness. You just need to head straight in through those main doors and take an immediate left," the old woman explained enthusiastically, raising her hand to point out the direction.

Feigning profound confusion, John Baxton stepped dangerously close, invading her personal space. "Wait, is it over in that direction?"

"Yes, exactly, just toward..." Before the old woman could even finish her sentence, his hands moved with terrifying, practiced speed. In a completely fluid motion, his nimble fingers slipped effortlessly into her heavy coat pocket and cleanly extracted the thick leather wallet containing their entire life savings.

"I understand now! Thank you so much for your help, ma'am!" he exclaimed with fake gratitude, instantly spinning on his heel and walking briskly away without ever looking back.

The old woman stood bewildered. If the man was desperately looking for the emergency room, why on earth was he walking completely away from the hospital buildings? She entirely failed to realize the devastating truth until she guided her exhausted husband to a wooden bench.

"Wait right here while I go inside to pay the registration f*e," she said, casually patting the outside of her heavy coat.

Her heart violently plummeted into her stomach. "Where did my wallet go?" she gasped, a cold panic instantly seizing her throat. "Could I have accidentally put it inside my bag?"

"No, you didn't," her husband replied, his cloudy eyes widening in alarm. "You explicitly placed it right inside your coat pocket just a few minutes ago! That is all the money we have for your tumor examination!"

Trembling uncontrollably, the old woman frantically tore through her canvas tote bag, dumping its contents. "It is gone," she cried, her voice cracking with raw terror.

The palpable panic radiating from the couple quickly drew the attention of passing pedestrians. "What happened, ma'am? Was your money stolen?" a concerned bystander asked.

"It had to be that man who just stopped to ask us for directions!" the old woman wailed, entirely consumed by heartbreak. "He stood incredibly close to me! That wallet contained all the money my husband and I spent years starving ourselves to save!"

Hearing the devastating confirmation that their life savings were gone, the old man's frail face instantly drained of all color. The sheer shock and overwhelming anxiety triggered a violent, agonizing coughing fit that violently shook his entire body.

A righteous fury ignited within the gathering crowd. "Hurry up and call the police immediately! That scumbag probably hasn't gotten very far!" a burly man shouted indignantly.

"How absolutely wicked do you have to be to steal life-saving medical funds from an elderly couple?" another woman yelled, outrage coloring her face.

"What kind of utter trash does something like that? I hope he gets struck by lightning!"

The surrounding plaza erupted into total chaos. The collective anger boiled over into a raging storm. This was tantamount to cold-blooded murder! People furiously dialed the police hotline, while several younger men sprinted off to hunt down the despicable culprit, determined to bring him to brutal justice.

"My dear, we have no money left for the examination," the old woman sobbed hysterically, desperately grasping her husband's frail fingers. "If something is truly wrong with you, what on earth are we supposed to do?"

"Then I simply refuse to get the treatment," the old man replied, choking back heavy tears. "You need to keep whatever little money we have left to survive on your own."

The old woman broke down completely, her heavy tears soaking the collar of her worn coat. The heartbreaking scene struck a painful chord in the onlookers, drastically intensifying their boiling anger.

"That guy is not even human! He is a complete parasite on society!"

"If I manage to find him, I am going to beat him within an inch of his life!"

Hiding just around the corner, John Baxton heard the explosive outrage and felt a spike of genuine terror pierce his chest. If that furious mob caught him now, he would be brutally beaten to a bloody pulp before the police ever arrived. Panicking, he sprinted blindly toward the dark, narrow alleyway he had scouted for his escape.

Meanwhile, inside that exact same alleyway, a high-powered electric scooter was tearing across the pavement at breakneck speed. The passage was incredibly narrow, barely wide enough for two average people to pass shoulder-to-shoulder.

Sam Sparks had intentionally chosen this treacherous shortcut because it was almost always entirely deserted. The wind screamed past his ears as he aggressively pushed his vehicle to its absolute physical limits.

"Hold on, my brothers!" Sam Sparks shouted excitedly at his mounted phone camera, his eyes burning with intense determination. "St. Mary Hospital is literally right up ahead! I absolutely guarantee you all that this delivery will not exceed the time limit!"

The chat scrolling across his screen instantly ignited with a flurry of hyped responses.

[Streamer! Go, go, go! Floor it!]

[I was totally laughing at his epic fail earlier, but this high-speed run is actually kind of insanely intense!]

[Can the streamer please put on some intense racing music in the background?]

[I swear to God, that scooter looks like it is about to start smoking from the sheer speed!]

[Why do I still have this incredibly strong feeling that he is going to spectacularly crash and burn again?]

[If he actually manages to pull this off without failing, I am instantly dropping a fifty-dollar donation!]

Seeing that specific comment, Sam Sparks let out a triumphant, greedy laugh. Live stream viewers truly had deep pockets. A casual fifty dollars for a simple delivery!

He opened his mouth to shout his profuse thanks to the generous viewer when a dark, frantic figure suddenly burst out from the blind corner dead ahead. It was a man wearing a pulled-down baseball cap, sprinting like a complete maniac with a mask of absolute, unadulterated terror on his face.

The exact second they locked eyes, both of them froze in sheer, paralyzed shock.

John Baxton felt his brain completely short-circuit. He had meticulously monitored this shortcut for days, and it was always completely empty! Why did a speeding delivery guy have to appear at this exact, critical moment? But with a furious mob hunting him down, escaping was his absolute only priority.

"Hey! Get the hell out of my way right now!" John Baxton screamed at the top of his lungs, waving his arms frantically. "I am in a massive, goddamn hurry!"

"Are you kidding me? Who here isn't in a hurry?" Sam Sparks roared back, aggressively squeezing his brakes as the tires violently skidded across the dirty pavement. "My damn delivery order is about to expire!"

Glancing down at his navigation app and seeing the timer drop to a measly two minutes, Sam Sparks felt a wave of absolute numbness wash over him. This was directly tied to his very first chance at drawing a legendary system reward! He absolutely could not afford to stop now.

They found themselves locked in a tense, high-speed standoff in the dead center of the suffocatingly narrow alleyway. Neither of them was willing to yield a single inch of ground.

"Then what the hell do you suggest we do?" John Baxton demanded in a sheer panic as he continued sprinting forward.

"It is simple!" Sam Sparks bellowed over the deafening screech of his tires. "You go left, and I will go right!"

"Alright! Deal!" the thief screamed in desperate agreement.

Without a single second of hesitation, both men forcefully threw their bodies in the exact same direction to dodge.

BANG!!!