Su Qiao abruptly changed direction and dashed toward the alley on the left.
Inside the alley, two middle-aged vagrants wearing tattered straw hats and old military overcoats were surrounding a skinny boy dressed in a drab padded jacket.
Only after Su Qiao drew closer did she see the black plastic bag in the boy's hands. It had already been torn open, revealing the pears inside.
Besides that, two pears had rolled onto the ground. They looked as though they had been sitting around for quite some time, covered in numerous dark scratches. One of them was even rotten in one spot.
All this over that?
A few rotten pears?
Su Qiao wiped the rain from her face and charged over, shouting at the two middle-aged vagrants, who were clearly much stronger than the boy, "What are you doing? If you're going to steal something, at least see whose things you're stealing."
The slightly taller vagrant turned around and glared viciously at Su Qiao. "Brat, you'd better mind your own business."
The other, somewhat shorter one, impatiently waved his hand as if shooing away an annoying fly. "Go on, get lost. Don't meddle in things that don't concern you. Watch out or you'll bring trouble down on yourself."
"Achoo!"
She had been sneezing nonstop and was cold, so Su Qiao was even more impatient than they were. She bent down, picked up a fist-sized stone from the ground, and pointed it menacingly at the two vagrants.
"Don't babble at me. I'll count to three. If you don't get lost, you won't be leaving tonight. You can stay right here."
"Besides, it's raining this hard. Even if something happened, no one would see it, and no one would care whether two vagrants lived or died."
"You...?"
The two vagrants hadn't expected a