The Ultimate Epic Fail Influencer

Chapter 5

The moment those explosive words left the frail woman's lips, a heavy, suffocating silence instantly descended upon the chaotic scene. The angry murmurs of the surrounding crowd vanished, replaced by an eerie stillness as dozens of eyes darted between the battered delivery rider and the agonizingly injured pedestrian.

"Excuse me, ma'am, what exactly did you just say?" Ella Rogers asked, her authoritative voice faltering for a brief second. She blinked in profound shock, her hands pausing just inches away from snapping the cold metal handcuffs onto the rider's wrists.

"I said that is him! That is the exact same man!" The elderly woman shrieked, her voice violently trembling with a mixture of raw exhaustion and boiling anger. She pointed a shaking, wrinkled finger directly at the man groaning on the asphalt. "Just a few minutes ago, he approached my husband and me right at the main entrance of St. Mary Hospital and politely asked for directions to the emergency room. I was foolish enough to enthusiastically point out the way for him. He used that brief distraction to press up close against me and completely steal my wallet out of my heavy coat pocket!"

She was gasping heavily for air, clutching her chest as her frail body heaved with the sheer adrenaline of the chase.

"Please calm down, ma'am. Take a deep breath," Ella Rogers instructed, her sharp instincts immediately pivoting from traffic enforcer to criminal investigator. She quickly stepped forward, gently supporting the old woman by her trembling shoulders. "Take your time and explain the situation clearly from the beginning."

The surrounding crowd, previously ready to crucify the delivery rider, instantly rallied behind the heartbroken victim.

"Yes, please do not worry at all, ma'am! Take your time to catch your breath!" a burly man shouted, crossing his thick arms over his chest. "We are all standing right here to support you!"

"Exactly! With all of us surrounding this alleyway, plus the police officers already on the scene, there is absolutely no way a cowardly thief is going to escape!" another woman chimed in, glaring daggers at the injured man on the ground.

After resting heavily against the young officer for several agonizing seconds, the old woman finally managed to swallow her panic and regulate her ragged breathing. "Thank the heavens that the incredibly kind security guards at the hospital immediately helped me review the plaza surveillance footage," she explained, wiping away a stray tear. "That was the only way I discovered this wicked man had sprinted toward this specific alleyway to escape."

The very second her tearful explanation echoed through the narrow space, the live chat on the mounted smartphone completely exploded with unbridled fury.

[Holy crap! Are you seriously telling me there is a thief despicable enough to go hunting for victims at a hospital?]

[Not only did he target a hospital, but he specifically robbed an elderly woman of her life-saving medical funds! That is a new level of evil!]

[What an absolute, irredeemable animal! People like this do not even deserve to be called human!]

[Hold on a second! If the guy who got hit by the scooter is actually a fleeing thief, does that mean we are witnessing a massive plot twist right now?]

[Everyone needs to calm down and hold their horses! Right now, this is nothing more than the old woman's completely one-sided story!]

[That is a very valid point! We cannot just blindly trust a single accusation without solid proof. The police need to find physical evidence first!]

[But you have to admit, the pedestrian did look incredibly panicked and was sprinting like a complete maniac right before the crash!]

[Exactly! I was thinking the exact same thing earlier! Why would a normal pedestrian be running that fast through a blind alley?]

[Could he genuinely be the criminal they are looking for?]

[Is there a slight possibility that the old woman is just overly anxious and completely misidentified the guy in her panic?]

[It is definitely possible! When people are experiencing severe emotional distress, they often make completely irrational mistakes in judgment.]

[I do not know, man. My gut is telling me her accusation is probably accurate!]

The digital text cascaded down the screen in a torrential flood, effectively splitting the rapidly growing audience into two highly vocal factions. One side firmly believed the old woman's heartbreaking testimony, declaring the injured pedestrian a guilty thief. The opposing side remained highly skeptical, suggesting the frantic victim had simply misremembered the face of her attacker. Because of the intense, fiery debate, the engagement metrics of the live broadcast skyrocketed, effortlessly pushing the concurrent viewer count well past the one hundred mark!

Sitting bruised on the hard pavement, Sam Sparks stared blankly at the unfolding drama. His mind was struggling to process the rapid turn of events.

What in the world was actually happening here? Was it truly possible that this catastrophic accident possessed a massive, hidden twist?

Every single pair of eyes in the crowded alleyway was suddenly violently focused on the scruffy man clutching his shattered leg on the ground.

"I... I absolutely did not do it!" John Baxton stammered, his face draining of all color until it resembled a ghostly white sheet. He desperately tried to prop his upper body off the dirty pavement, sweat pouring down his forehead. "You! You are completely slandering me! You are spitting venom and making up horrible lies!"

Hearing his panicked, overly defensive tone, the expressions of the surrounding police officers instantly hardened. Their casual demeanor vanished, replaced by cold, professional suspicion.

"Search his pockets immediately!" the senior officer commanded sharply.

Three officers lunged forward without a moment of hesitation. They forcefully pinned John Baxton to the ground, aggressively patting down his heavy jacket and flipping his pockets inside out.

"I found it!" one of the younger officers shouted triumphantly, holding his hand high in the air.

Clutched tightly in his gloved fingers was a visibly worn, cheap floral-patterned women's wallet. The officer quickly unzipped the main compartment, revealing a thick stack of tightly folded cash, several bank cards, and a folded hospital prescription receipt. Everything remained completely untouched inside. Furthermore, tucked carefully into the transparent plastic sleeve of the wallet was the elderly woman's official government identification card!

However, the shocking discoveries did not stop there.

As the officers continued their rigorous search, they extracted two entirely different, expensive-looking leather wallets from the thief's deep trouser pockets.

Then, with a terrifying metallic clink, an officer pulled out a heavy, foldable steel fruit knife!

The very moment the old woman laid her eyes on the gleaming, sharp blade, her knees completely buckled beneath her. If it were not for the young female officer tightly supporting her arms, she would have collapsed directly onto the unforgiving concrete. A wave of profound, sickening terror washed over her. If she had somehow been just a few seconds faster and successfully caught up to this desperate criminal by herself, he would have undoubtedly drawn that hidden blade and stabbed her without a second thought!

Ella Rogers felt her eyebrows knit tightly together, a dark, murderous fury flashing in her beautiful eyes. While petty theft was certainly a punishable offense, carrying a concealed, lethal weapon during the commission of a crime elevated the severity of the situation to an entirely different, highly dangerous level!

A collective gasp of sheer horror and disbelief rippled through the gathered crowd.

"Oh my god! He really is a despicable thief!"

"He had three different wallets hidden on him! He is clearly a highly experienced, career criminal!"

"The absolute audacity of this scumbag is staggering! He actually dared to steal life-saving medical money right on the hospital steps! He possesses absolutely zero moral bottom line!"

"And he was carrying a massive knife! Was he planning to murder someone if his robbery failed?"

"This is completely disgusting!"

"Hold on a second! If this guy is actually a dangerous, armed criminal, then the delivery rider did not just cause a reckless accident. He literally stopped a fleeing felon!"

"So his speeding was not a selfish traffic violation? He was actually performing an incredibly heroic deed!"

"I was literally just cursing him out for riding too fast, but it turns out he was aggressively chasing down a violent thief!"

"I honestly never expected to see such a hot-blooded, righteous young man in this day and age!"

"This delivery rider is genuinely incredible! Not only does he have massive guts, but he quite literally smashed the escaping criminal with the swift hammer of justice!"

The collective sentiment of the crowd shifted with whiplash-inducing speed. The harsh reprimands and judgmental insults from mere moments ago completely vanished, instantly replaced by loud cheers and overwhelming praise. Several enthusiastic bystanders even pushed to the front of the crowd to flash bright, encouraging thumbs-up directly at the stunned rider.

The deeply invested audience enthusiastically concluded that riding a scooter slowly in this specific scenario would have been a catastrophic mistake. If he had not been pushing the vehicle to its absolute physical limits, the armed thief would have completely escaped into the city!

[Holy crap! This is the most insane, massive plot twist I have ever seen in my life!]

[Are we absolutely sure this is not a heavily scripted movie scene? Why does this feel so incredibly cinematic and surreal?]

[How could this possibly be a scripted act? Actual, uniformed police officers are literally standing right there conducting a real criminal investigation!]

[I am literally standing up in my living room and giving this man a standing ovation! That high-speed collision was so unbelievably satisfying to watch!]

[I can only say that this streamer has some serious, undeniable skills!]

[One second I thought I was watching a tragic, local news broadcast about a fatal traffic accident, and the very next second it turned into an inspiring national propaganda film for justice!]

[The streamer's luck is honestly bordering on the supernatural at this point!]

[It absolutely lives up to its title as the Luckiest Stream on the Internet! I almost completely misunderstood your genius, streamer!]

The live chat underwent a magnificent, instantaneous reversal. The skeptical voices and sarcastic mockery were entirely drowned out by a tidal wave of enthusiastic compliments and digital applause.

The concurrent viewer count effortlessly shattered the one-hundred milestone and continued to aggressively climb! Cheap, animated digital gifts rained down across the screen in a colorful, endless shower. The channel's total likes and new subscriber notifications pinged relentlessly. A completely fresh broadcasting account, created less than an hour ago, had incredibly broken past the one-hundred follower mark in a matter of minutes!

"Holy crap," Sam Sparks murmured to himself, his jaw dropping slightly. "Is this the terrifying, uncontrollable power of the internet?"

The unprecedented speed at which his new account was growing was almost frightening. If he managed to successfully survive a few more bizarre incidents like this, wouldn't his follower count easily explode past a thousand by the end of the week?

Driven by intense curiosity, he mentally summoned the holographic system interface.

He immediately noticed that the glowing text on the primary task panel had magically updated.

[Successfully resolve this current incident to its final conclusion!]

[Upon completion, the host will immediately receive the promised reward!]

"Could it actually be possible?" Sam Sparks thought, a sudden, chilling realization sending goosebumps racing down his arms. "Riding the scooter and attempting to deliver that takeout food was never the actual objective! It was merely a calculated prerequisite. Violently crashing into this specific, fleeing thief was the system's true, hidden goal all along!"

He felt his scalp tingle with profound awe. No wonder the mysterious entity called itself the Epic Fail Influencer System! Every single disastrous event had been meticulously orchestrated from the very beginning! From his original battery dying, forcing him to borrow a highly modified, lightning-fast vehicle, to pushing him into taking a completely deserted shortcut, it was all a flawless, incredibly complex setup.

He could confidently conclude that claiming his first legendary reward was now an absolute, undeniable certainty!

"I sincerely apologize. We completely misunderstood your intentions earlier," Ella Rogers said, her voice softening significantly as she stepped away from the suspect. "Your swift actions perfectly qualify as legitimate self-defense and can even be officially recognized as a courageous act of a good Samaritan. However, as an officer of the law, I still cannot endorse riding a vehicle at such dangerous speeds. I sincerely hope you will correct that specific behavior in the future."

Her complex gaze shifted toward Sam Sparks, entirely stripped of its previous hostility and heavily laced with genuine, professional respect.

When she turned her sharp eyes back toward John Baxton writhing on the ground, her burning anger seemed to physically materialize in the air. "People exactly like you are the absolute lowest scum of society!" she spat, her voice dripping with venom. "You actually had the utter gall to steal a vulnerable old woman's desperate medical funds! Where is your basic human conscience?"

Throughout her intense career as a dedicated police officer, she had encountered and interrogated countless thieves from all walks of life. While those criminals possessed sticky fingers, the vast majority still adhered to a silent, unwritten code of the underworld: they would never, under any circumstances, steal life-saving money from the desperately ill.

Yet, the miserable bastard bleeding on the asphalt before her was entirely different. Not only did he intentionally choose a hospital as his hunting ground, but he maliciously targeted an elderly, fragile couple. He was a thoroughly rotten, irredeemable monster!

After the police formally returned the recovered wallet to her trembling hands, the elderly woman completely broke down into heavy, relieved sobs.

"Thank you so much, my brave child!" she cried, large tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks. "If you had not bravely stepped in and stopped him with your vehicle, my husband and I would have been completely and utterly ruined!"

She firmly grasped Sam Sparks's bruised hands, shaking them vigorously with overwhelming gratitude.

Sam Sparks felt a powerful tremor run through his entire body. Looking at the old woman's trembling, thankful hands, and glancing at the deeply apologetic faces of the surrounding crowd who had just viciously judged him, he felt as though he were floating in a bizarre, surreal dream.

It was only in this exact, triumphant moment that he finally comprehended the true, terrifying nature of the God-Tier Luck ability!

The system deliberately orchestrated a spectacular, devastating failure first. Then, just when he was pushed to the absolute brink of inescapable despair, the miraculous luck ability flawlessly activated, completely flipping the desperate situation into an incredible, monumental victory!

Just as the warm glow of success began to settle in his chest, the heavy, black radios clipped to the shoulders of the surrounding police officers suddenly crackled with loud, frantic static.

"Attention all units! Target identified! The Class-A Wanted Fugitive, John Baxton, has officially appeared in the vicinity!" the urgent voice of the central dispatcher blared loudly into the alleyway. "He was last spotted by surveillance cameras fleeing directly toward the South Alley of St. Mary Hospital! We just received a civilian emergency call claiming a positive visual confirmation of the suspect!"

Ella Rogers froze entirely, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.

Her mind raced as she quickly processed the impossible information. The exact geographical location they were currently standing in... was it not the South Alley of St. Mary Hospital?