Free Web NovelChapter 282: Chapter 284: Catching a Thief
After tossing the two people aside, An Ning dusted off her hands and strolled off to chase her backpack.
She wasn’t in a hurry. Her spiritual power was tracking it.
The main reason was that her bag only contained a few rock-hard savory pancakes. Even her most valuable item, the water bottle, was in her hand.
The gems from before, as well as the down payment for a house she had withdrawn from the bank, had long been stored away in her space.
It was a habitual action, something she did subconsciously.
Besides, something was off about the man who had grabbed her bag and run off.
He was running incredibly slowly, as if he were deliberately waiting for An Ning to catch up.
When An Ning rounded a corner and saw the thief, she played along and shouted.
"Stop, thief!"
Her cry made the man speed up a little, but in An Ning’s eyes, he was still painfully slow.
Still, she didn’t pick up her pace. Instead, she pretended to be an ordinary, delicate woman, panting as she ran.
One hand waved in the air as she yelled for help, while the other was pressed to her side.
The thief ran ahead, and An Ning gave chase from behind.
Just as An Ning’s patience was about to run out, three well-dressed men and women appeared from the opposite direction. Upon hearing her shouts, they immediately stepped in to be the heroes.
Just as the three of them subdued the thief, An Ning arrived, perfectly composed.
"Thank you, thank you so much."
"Is this your bag?"
An Ning, bent over and panting, nodded her head.
One of the men politely said, "How about I open the bag and confirm the contents with you?"
"Okay, that’s reasonable."
An Ning straightened up and said, "My bag has three large millet flour pancakes, two buckwheat flour pancakes, three peeled green onions, and a tub of authentic Northeastern ’My-Mom-Made-It’ brand soybean paste."
The world fell silent.
The thief on the ground was dumbfounded. The three "good Samaritans" were dumbfounded. The man who was unzipping the bag was so stunned he stopped halfway, his hand frozen.
An Ning inwardly snickered, but on the outside, she asked anxiously, "What’s wrong? What is it? Are my pancakes missing?"
"N-no, that’s not it."
The man finished opening the bag and checked its contents against what An Ning had said. It was an exact match.
There really were only pancakes, green onions, and soybean paste.
But where was the money?
They had clearly received intel that this woman was rich.
The man held the backpack open for An Ning to see and asked with concern, "Are you sure there’s nothing else? Like a wallet?"
"A wallet? What would I need that for? I’m afraid I’ll run into bad people. What would I do if I lost it?"
An Ning was playing the part of a simple-minded, blunt girl from the Northeast.
She put on her backpack and muttered to herself, "My momma sewed a pocket on the inside for me. I’ll never lose anything from there."
An Ning observed them covertly. After she spoke, their eyes lit up, and they secretly exchanged glances.
’They really are a team.’
An Ning hadn’t known for sure beforehand, but the thief’s strange behavior, combined with the many scams Jiang Xia had taught her about, made her suspicious.
The more sophisticated the scam, the more likely "good Samaritans" were to be involved.
This was a lesson Jiang Xia had summarized for An Ning.
And it wasn’t just Jiang Xia. Along the way, An Guoming had also told An Ning plenty of stories from his travels across the country.
He did it for no other reason than to keep An Ning on her guard.
After checking her backpack, An Ning glared hatefully at the thief on the ground and gave him a swift kick.
"I’ll kick you to death! How dare you steal my stuff!"
"AHHH— AHHH—"
The thief on the ground was in real pain; An Ning had put her full force into it.
After kicking him a few more times, An Ning looked gratefully at the three "good Samaritans" and said, "Will you be my witnesses? Let’s take this guy to the police station, okay?"
"Huh? Oh, of course. We can do that."
"Right, we’ll take you."
The group enthusiastically offered to lead the way. Then, to their utter shock, An Ning pulled a hemp rope out from under her clothes and trussed up the thief so tightly he couldn’t have escaped even if he had wings.
"This’ll keep him from running away," An Ning said.
An Ning led the thief away by the rope. The three people beside her exchanged glances, then started chatting with her, hoping to probe for more information.
"About that rope...?"
An Ning tilted her head and asked, looking even more confused than they were, "You guys don’t carry rope with you when you go out?"
The three shook their heads, silently screaming on the inside. ’Who the hell hides a hemp rope under their clothes when they go out!’
"It’s fine. You just haven’t seen much of the world."
An Ning turned back around and walked ahead, carefree and brazen.
After a few hundred meters, the three of them ran into a police officer and greeted him familiarly.
"Miss An, this is the local police officer. You can just hand the man over to him."
The officer came forward, asked a few professional-sounding questions, and said to An Ning, "Don’t worry, I’ll take it from here."
Unfortunately for them, An Ning refused to play by the script.
"No way! I want to see him taken in with my own eyes. I’ve already got my witnesses, and we haven’t even given our statements yet."
"Let me tell you, I’m familiar with the police station. I’ve been there plenty of times."
This half-true, half-bluffing statement gave the group a completely different impression of her.
No matter how the three tried to back him up, or how much the conveniently appearing police officer assured her he’d take the man to the station, An Ning wouldn’t budge.
They could say what they wanted; she simply wouldn’t listen.
Her stubbornness made the trussed-up thief want to cry but have no tears.
In the end, An Ning asked for directions herself and, with the thief in tow, actually found the police station.
At the entrance to the police station, An Ning looked back at the others and asked, "Why’d you stop walking?"
The "temporary" police officer had long since disappeared, supposedly off to continue his patrol.
The smiles on the faces of the other three "good Samaritans" were a little stiff.
"We’re going, we’re going."
It’s unclear if they exchanged some kind of signal, but they braced themselves and escorted their own accomplice into the police station.
The thief didn’t put up much of a struggle. After all, there was no money in An Ning’s bag. As an experienced thief, he figured he’d be out in a few days.
According to the intel they had, An Ning was a big fish.
As long as his partners on the outside could close the deal, he’d be living the high life once he got out.
With An Ning reporting the crime, the thief cooperating, and his accomplices acting as witnesses, the case went through the process quickly.
When the four of them came out of the police station, An Ning put on her simple-minded act again and thanked the group.
She treated them to a meal, and during their conversation, the topic naturally turned to what they did for a living.
"Is jadeite valuable?"
An Ning asked the most naive question, looking like a complete amateur.
The three of them sensed their opportunity had come. The only woman in the group cozied up to An Ning as if they were old friends and whispered.
"Of course it is. An Ning, do you want to go take a look? We’re heading to a place in a bit. We feel a connection with you, so it’s no trouble to bring you along."
"Really?"
This "naive" An Ning, aside from her blunt way of speaking, perfectly fit the scammers’ criteria for a target.
The group kept talking, trying to persuade An Ning to go with them.
"An Ning, let me tell you, we don’t know much about it either. We’re just going to have a look."
"It’s the kind of thing you shouldn’t get involved in. It’s easy to lose everything."
An Ning listened with a fearful expression, but a flicker of interest in her eyes gave her away as she asked, "But... are there people who win?"
