Chapter 158: Fighting Theft with Theft

There is a thief!

Yet this technique is truly subpar!

Compared to professional foreign thieves, their sleight of hand is simply not in the same league. A foreign pickpocket can distract you for a split second, and your wallet is already in their possession—far superior to these petty thieves who rely on brute human crowding to create chaos.

Professional foreign thieves have masters and lineages; they are mainstream, orthodox criminals practically eligible to apply for World Intangible Cultural Heritage status, naturally incomparable to these amateur troupes.

As for Xiao Cheng, one of his current great hobbies is stealing money from the pockets of foreign thieves—it brings him an immense sense of achievement.

This was like brandishing a broadsword in front of Guan Yu; too lazy to make a fuss, Xiao Cheng took out his phone and pretended to make a call, secretly recording everyone at the scene. Nowadays, dealing with such petty pickpockets requires video evidence for conviction; otherwise, the moment you drop your guard, they will toss the wallet onto the ground and deny it to the death, leaving the police genuinely helpless.

There was no immediate rush to apprehend them, nor did he have the time to waste on them right now, or he would be late for class. He quietly took a few steps back, his eyes tracking the movements of the crowd. Their numbers and coordination became clear to him in the blink of an eye. The thieves were not particularly old, and some even deliberately dressed to look more mature, but visually they appeared to be around twenty years old.

Aside from Yang Liushan's mother, Xiao Cheng witnessed with his own eyes that three other people were pickpocketed. The wallets were passed along through various hands until they finally reached a chubby young man at the very edge of the crowd. The chunky fellow wore baggy denim overalls with a crotch hanging down to his knees in that so-called hip-hop style; his loose garments served as the best cover, and this kid took the stolen goods handed over by his accomplices and turned to leave.

Naturally, none of this escaped the lens of his phone.

The passengers were mostly boarding now, and the accomplices were slipping away in different directions. Had anyone paid attention, it would have been easy to see they were fleeing in all directions. Ignoring the others, Xiao Cheng walked straight toward the chubby kid. As the two brushed past each other, the chubby fellow suddenly seemed to have lost a circle of weight.

By the final boarding, there were actually only seven or eight standing passengers left on the bus, and even Yang Liushan and her mother, who boarded later, found seats in the back. With the doors closed and the vehicle slowly starting up, Xiao Cheng sauntered leisurely toward the rear and, relying on his memory, began returning the wallets to the victims one by one.

"Yours."

"Yours."

"This is yours."

When he reached Yang's mother at the very back and handed her wallet over, he said, "Auntie, yours."

"What... what is going on?" The passengers on the bus were somewhat dumbfounded. The young man had started handing out wallets to everyone the moment he got on—not red envelopes, but actual wallets—and it was only when people touched their own pockets afterward that they realized they had been targeted by thieves. The owners, having recovered their lost items, offered repeated thanks; even the most inarticulate ones nodded at Xiao Cheng with expressions of deep gratitude.

"Is this young man from the anti-pickpocketing squad?"

"We owe it all to him! This is two thousand yuan I was going to use to buy medicine for my old man; this has saved my life! Young man! Thank you so much!"

Xiao Cheng nodded and acknowledged them one by one, "Don't mention it, just a trivial effort, a trivial effort."

"This young man is amazing! None of us even knew how our things were stolen, yet he quietly retrieved them all! A master indeed!"

"Everyone, regardless of whether you lost your wallet or not, let's give the young man a round of applause, shall we?" The bus instantly livened up as a crowd of men, women, young and old alike applauded toward Xiao Cheng.

"Hold on, hold on!" Xiao Cheng had no time to bask in the compliment right then. "Everyone check your pockets again. Is anyone else missing a wallet? I've got one extra here."

When he was pilfering from that chubby fellow earlier, he saw him collect four wallets, yet he fished out five from the kid's body. He had originally assumed the extra one belonged to someone the kid had previously stolen from, but upon boarding the bus, he couldn't find the owner. He had been waving the wallet around in his hand for a long time, yet no one claimed it.

"No, my wallet is right here."

"I don't even have a wallet." — There are always some people who remain invincible.

After everyone checked around, no one else was missing anything. At that moment, Xiao Cheng realized the truth: he had accidentally pickpocketed the thief himself...

Opening that wallet, he found an ID card inside, and the photograph was indeed that chubby young man! This made capturing the gang even more convenient; with the video on his phone combined with the information on the ID card, pulling on one thread would bring down the whole bunch. On second thought, however, it would be rather tricky to explain to the police—was he supposed to tell them, "This is the thief's wallet, and I stole it from him"?

The strangers on the bus showered him with praise and compliments, but in the eyes of Yang's mother and Yang Liushan, Xiao Cheng's actions were downright shocking. Yang Liushan fared slightly better, knowing of Xiao Cheng's monstrous brain; no miracle happening to him would be surprising. Yang's mother, however, could not remain calm. To retrieve the victims' wallets one by one from a group of thieves—had Xiao Cheng been doing this in the past?

Although the passengers on this bus had encountered thieves, thanks to Xiao Cheng's appearance, they ultimately suffered no losses, leaving the thieves to bear the brunt instead.

Halfway through the journey, at the Town Maternity and Child Healthcare Hospital, a batch of passengers disembarked, leaving the rear seats empty. Yang Liushan scooted inward, patted the seat she had just vacated, and called out to Xiao Cheng, "Come, sit here!"

Xiao Cheng sat down and, seemingly casually, pointed toward the maternity hospital. "Look over there, I was born in that hospital."

Yang Liushan immediately leaned forward to ask her mother in the front row, "Mom, I remember you telling me I was born in this hospital too!"

Outwardly, Xiao Cheng remained composed, but inwardly he was tense to the absolute limit.

"Yes, it was in this very hospital," Yang's mother provided the affirmative answer.

The answer was now in place. The mysterious switcher had altered only a single person's files, and that person was himself, while the other infant injected with the drug was among those girls! Wu Mengmeng, Chen Yuming, Wang Ziyi, Jiang Ya, and Yang Liushan!

Chen Yuming was a classmate from the same grade, usually keeping a low profile. A very ordinary, honest girl, she lacked any notable cleverness and didn't even show a spark of brilliance, so she could basically be ruled out. As for the others, their whereabouts were still unknown, but the Yang Liushan sitting right beside him—among her peers, she could definitely be considered truly outstanding!

With Xiao Cheng's overshadowing presence, Yang Liushan's brilliance might not seem overly conspicuous, but a girl who had never been exposed to Olympiad math could independently expand her knowledge simply through textbook concepts and advance in an Olympiad competition renowned for its difficulty! Such cleverness and ingenuity were extremely rare to begin with; otherwise, the school administration wouldn't have been so excited earlier as to paste the congratulatory banner right at the school gate.

At this thought, Xiao Cheng secretly gripped Yang Liushan's hand beneath the seat. The girl's cheeks flushed slightly, yet she did not pull away.

Truth be told, Wen Xiao Cheng was not the only one with complicated feelings. Yang's mother felt the exact same way.

Scoring a full mark in Olympiad math and ranking first in every single subject on the final exams—as a parent, it was difficult not to feel a certain fondness and curiosity toward such a "neighbor's child." Having lived through it all, Yang's mother naturally could not miss the youthful romantic stirnings between Xiao Cheng and her daughter. Because of this connection, her observation of him grew all the more meticulous.

A mother-in-law viewing her son-in-law: the more she looked, the more pleasing he became.

Born into such a family—with a father in prison and a mother who had vanished without a trace—it was inevitable that it might exert some negative influence on a child. Yet throughout her observations along the way, Xiao Cheng's deportment was proper, his conversation witty; he behaved like a modest gentleman before elders and maintained a keen sense of propriety even when joking with her daughter, leaving absolutely no room for criticism.

This boy was quite interesting.

The bus arrived at Hongxing County, where they transferred to a long-distance bus heading to the city via the Hongxing Night Market. The stretch of road from the county to the city happened to coincide with the morning rush hour, making the crowds even denser. After a bumpy ride, they finally arrived at Xiangyang City.

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A quick preview: Chapter 162 will feature another speech. This time it won't be a self-reflection, but an acceptance speech.