In the Clink

In the Clink

The car drew closer and closer to the police station.

Yet Lin Fan's heart grew heavier. He simply could not understand what kind of mindset that Tigress had. She robbed nothing else—only food.

Fine, rob food if she wanted to, but she specifically struck places with surveillance cameras...

Wasn't that digging a pit for herself?!

As the police talked around him, the atmosphere gradually grew grim.

From what they were saying, the matter had to be thoroughly investigated. If it really was a publicity stunt, then it had to be severely punished!

"We don't care if they're trying to create hype, but if it really is a stunt and they still made false police reports, wasting our manpower, they must pay the corresponding price!"

"Exactly. And this is even worse than an ordinary false report. It must be severely punished."

"Once we get back, start investigating this immediately!"

Lin Fan: "..."

Why was his life so bitter?!

At that moment, the spirit of complaint within him burned fiercely.

Damn it.

When other people transmigrated, they either got a system, an Old Grandpa in the Ring, or became the Empress's fiancé or something. Didn't they all have it made?

But him? He got nothing, and after coming back, he went straight into the clink. Who knew how this would end...

Just what kind of bizarre thought process did that Tigress have?!

A Saintess?

Give him a break!

Had anyone ever seen a Saintess run around snatching delicacies like some glutton?

At that moment, the image of a Saintess in Lin Fan's mind came crashing down.

From a peerlessly beautiful figure—noble, aloof, and cold as an iceberg—she had become an unbelievably gorgeous foodie.

Not just a foodie, either. She was a walking disaster!

While he continued grumbling inwardly, they arrived at the Police Station.

After the handover was completed, Lin Fan was thrown into a holding cell. From the conversations among the Police Uncles, he learned that they had gone to investigate whether this was really a publicity stunt.

Once they had an answer, the decision on how to deal with him would follow.

Lin Fan rubbed his brow. For the moment, he stopped thinking about anything related to that Tigress and focused instead on how to break out of his current predicament.

He was a law-abiding, upstanding citizen. He could not just be detained for no clear reason~!

"First, my attitude in admitting fault has to be proper. Whatever compensation needs to be paid, I have to pay it."

Lin Fan was not worried about the publicity stunt angle. With that Tigress's style of doing things, she would never join forces with anyone to manufacture hype. Besides...

When he transmigrated into that world, he had been completely in the dark. Wouldn't it have been the same for her when she came here? How could she possibly understand something like hype?

So there was no need to worry about whether it was a stunt. What he should worry about was how to minimize the impact and avoid being detained...

Trying to argue his way out was definitely impossible.

The surveillance footage clearly showed that he had done it, and he had been caught red-handed. That half-cup of milk tea was still sitting in the evidence room...

He did not have a twin brother or anything. He could not exactly say that some Tigress Saintess had transmigrated over and done it, could he?

Wouldn't they take him for a lunatic and slice him up for study?!

Therefore, he could only shoulder the matter himself. Apologize where he needed to apologize, pay where he needed to pay.

"The second step is to come up with a reasonable explanation for this."

"Otherwise, they'll probably think I'm mentally ill, or at best that I have some kind of split personality. It would be awful if they sent me to a psychiatric hospital."

There was no helping it...

No normal person could do something like this!

Who had ever seen a normal person—a graduate student, no less—run around robbing food from dozens of food shops within three days?

"And these shoes of mine..."

"Why is there only one left?"

No matter how hard Lin Fan thought about it, he could not figure that out.

Just like how Qi Zixiao could not figure out why the potted plants in her Saintess Pavilion had grown so much taller in only three days.

"So... I still have no clue!"

He scratched his messy hair and thought hard, but he still could not come up with any good "reason" to explain this.

"Should I really call it performance art?"

Unable to think of a solution, Lin Fan could not help considering what the Police Uncle had said before.

It seemed... that was the only explanation that could pass muster, right?

It was still a stretch, but at least it could barely be made to work.

"As long as I act normally and don't make them mistake me for some kind of lunatic, it should not become too serious."

"But that depends on those shop owners not making things too difficult for me. Otherwise..."

Lin Fan was an engineering guy, not a law student.

He did not know how his actions should be classified, much less what crime they constituted.

Robbery?

Or something else?

It was hard to say...

This dragged on for most of the day.

When the police officers who had arrested Lin Fan returned separately and gathered together again, they began discussing their findings.

"How did it go?"

"I investigated all the transaction records for the bank cards and online banking apps under Lin Fan's name. I found no unusual payments. Everything was normal."

"I also looked into Lin Fan's prior behavior. He was basically an utterly ordinary college student, with no similar incidents before. At the same time, he had almost no contact with the influencer circle."

"I investigated the businesses that were robbed as well. I found no evidence proving they were creating hype..."

"So it wasn't a publicity stunt?"

"It's good that it wasn't. Otherwise, we really would have been led around by the nose these past few days."

"Led around by the nose? We were practically being played like monkeys!"

"Still, that kid Lin Fan can really run..."

After basically confirming that it was not a publicity stunt, the Police Uncles looked much more relaxed. After all, no one wanted to be played like a monkey for several days.

"Since that's the case, notify the people in charge of those shops to come to the station this afternoon. Then we can discuss compensation and... how to deal with Lin Fan."

The captain pondered for a moment before saying this.

There was no helping it. They did not know how to handle this matter either.

Because they had never encountered anything like it!

People robbing food had existed in the past, though such cases had nearly vanished in recent years. But someone robbing this much food? Even in the past, that would have been one of a kind!

How should they charge him?

Perhaps they could transfer the case to the court.

But then came the problem.

What Lin Fan had robbed was not money, but food worth anywhere from a few yuan to a few dozen yuan... If they directly classified it as robbery and handed it over to the court for sentencing, that seemed a little too harsh.

Police officers had human feelings too, and this case was rather absurd enough to make people laugh.

So they did not want to go too far. He was a perfectly normal young man, yet because of food worth a hundred yuan or so, he could end up in prison... his whole life ruined.

"Let's see what the shops think."

"We'll mediate in the middle and try to persuade them. Best case, they settle it privately."

That was the police officers' decision.

They could persuade the parties, but they could not make the decision for them. If the shops insisted on pursuing the matter...