There was still something big to do that night.
By the time he finished farming points from Crazy Old Man and climbing Plow Mountain, it was already past midnight.
Jiang Fan quietly arrived outside Chen Wenhua's home alone. His pupils narrowed slightly, shimmering with light as he directed his invisible Psychic Power into the bedroom and found the safe with practiced ease.
Ignoring the safe's combination, Jiang Fan used his Psychic Power to destroy its internal mechanism, opened it, and took out two gold bars.
He hefted them. They weighed over three hundred grams.
The market price of gold had fluctuated over the past two days, rising another few yuan per gram. Altogether, he could exchange them for over three hundred thousand in Great Xia Currency.
Early the next morning, Jiang Fan headed to the gold-buying shop.
Meanwhile, Old Wu and Xiao Qian appeared inside the shop.
Old Wu took out his phone. The person on the screen was Jiang Fan, who had appeared near Chen Wenhua's home a few days earlier.
"Sir, have you seen this person?"
Just yesterday, Xiao Qian had discovered that the person in the photo had visited this shop, so they had come to investigate first thing in the morning.
The owner recognized him at a glance. "Oh, him. He left a very strong impression on me. A few days ago, he came in with two hundred grams of gold to exchange for cash when it was barely light out."
At this point, the owner seemed to think of something, and his expression turned ugly.
"Th-those two hundred grams of gold weren't stolen goods, were they? Officers, I really didn't know! I just buy gold. When a customer brings gold in for money, of course I'm going to do business with them. I already paid him, and I melted the gold down and just sold it. Y-you can't pin this on me!"
Old Wu continued, "Did you get a clear look at him?"
"He had his face covered up tightly, so I couldn't see him very clearly." The owner recalled, "But he deliberately lowered his voice. I've been in this business a long time, though, and I could tell he was probably a lot younger than he made himself seem."
That was a useful lead. Old Wu pressed on. "How old would you guess he was?"
The owner thought for a moment before replying, "Probably under twenty."
That young?
Xiao Qian suddenly muttered, "Jiang Fan's only seventeen too, I think."
Hearing that, Old Wu gave Xiao Qian a look as though he were an idiot. "Why do you keep suspecting him? He's just a kid with only 19N of qi and blood-"
As he spoke, Old Wu abruptly looked toward the entrance.
Jiang Fan had only just stepped one foot inside when he saw the scene before him.
He was wearing a black hoodie, his face covered by sunglasses and a mask, exactly like the thief in the photo on Old Wu's phone.
"That's him!" The owner suddenly pointed at him.
Not good!
Jiang Fan turned and bolted outside.
"Stop! You brat, stop right there!" Old Wu and Xiao Qian chased after him.
Jiang Fan sprinted ahead, occasionally glancing back at the two men in hot pursuit.
He suddenly darted into a maze of alleys, took off his hoodie, then used his Psychic Power to send the black hoodie into another alley.
Xiao Qian noticed a black shadow flash past and immediately pointed ahead.
"Old Wu, over there!"
Old Wu had seen the black shadow too. Although he inexplicably found it strange, he did not give it much thought and followed Xiao Qian in pursuit.
After the two left, Jiang Fan emerged from an alley to the side.
Light shimmered in his eyes as he continued controlling his hoodie, making it weave through the alleys.
He had exchanged all the points he had farmed from Crazy Old Man over the past two days for Psychic Power. His Psychic Power was now 2162P, and his range of control extended just over two hundred meters. That distance was more than enough to run ordinary people like Old Wu and Xiao Qian around in circles.
With a whoosh, the black hoodie flew over the dead-end wall and returned to Jiang Fan's hand.
When Old Wu and Xiao Qian reached the dead end, they found nothing there at all.
"What happened? Did he climb over the wall and run?"
Xiao Qian stared at the wall over two meters high at the end of the alley, his mouth falling open.
An ordinary person could not scale that height so easily.
Old Wu looked around, his brows knotting together. The old district bore the marks of time everywhere, its walls mottled and peeling, garbage and clutter piled all over. It was nothing like the bustling new district, where surveillance cameras were everywhere.
He looked all around, but there were only a handful of cameras. He had no idea whether those aging devices had captured what had just happened.
"Come on, let's go back and have someone pull the nearby surveillance footage."
After a long stretch of work, Old Wu and Xiao Qian had stared at the footage until their eyes were practically green, yet they still found no useful leads.
"Ah! My eyes." Xiao Qian rubbed his sore, aching eyes, and tears spilled out as soon as he did.
"That kid was really lucky. Everywhere he went was a surveillance blind spot."
Old Wu narrowed his deep-set eyes and said gravely, "You think that was luck?"
Xiao Qian looked over in confusion. "You mean he planned it beforehand and deliberately avoided those cameras? How is that possible? We caught him by surprise, and he panicked and ducked into that maze of alleys. How could he know where the cameras were? And how could he have such a precise grasp of their blind spots?"
Old Wu pressed his lips tightly together. He knew Xiao Qian's analysis was perfectly reasonable.
The thief's shock when he first entered the gold shop could not have been an act. Clearly, he had not expected investigators to be inside.
That made it even less likely that he had scouted the area in advance to find an escape route.
But the instincts he had developed over years of investigating cases told him that the thief might really have known where those blind spots were and deliberately avoided them.
Hmm... Old Wu sank deep into thought.
Jiang Fan arrived at Plow Mountain, dug a hole, and buried his hoodie in it. Only then did he feel completely at ease.
Outside the cemetery management office at the foot of the mountain, Crazy Old Man watched in bewilderment.
"What's that kid burying his clothes for first thing in the morning? Is he copying Daiyu burying flowers, only burying clothes instead?"
Crazy Old Man found that he understood Jiang Fan less and less.
Once Jiang Fan had finished all this, he hurried toward school.
His brows remained tightly furrowed the whole way.
The Police Bureau had caught wind of this. It seemed he would not be able to sell the gold in his possession for the time being.
It was Friday. Once Tang Fugui handed the hundred thousand over to the school, he would have almost no money left.
It seemed he would have to bring forward his plan to work part-time at the studio.
That afternoon.
Jiang Qifeng arrived at the school gates in a bespoke suit.
The moment he arrived, a group of parents surrounded him.
"Congratulations, Mr. Jiang! I'm so envious that you've raised such a fine son."
"Indeed, Family Head Jiang. Youtian really has amounted to something. Unlike my son, who's only just reached the threshold of early-stage martial apprentice. It looks like he won't be getting into a martial arts school this year. Still, if he repeats a year, he'll have another chance next year."
Jiang Qifeng thoroughly enjoyed the parents' flattery, his grin stretching almost to his ears.
Just as he was about to exchange a few pleasantries, he caught sight of Tang Fugui out of the corner of his eye, riding an electric cargo tricycle loaded with garbage.