Chapter 183 - 138: Natural-Born Criminal (Part 2)

’Once they’re no longer useful, we’ll just round them all up in one go to boost our stats.’

"Really? Nothing?"

Li Jianye grumbled, his patience wearing thin.

’A case involving seven lives...’

’But these guys are as sly as monkeys, and they don’t lie.’

"Have there been any out-of-towners stealing things?"

Xu Huo asked after a moment of thought.

"From December first until now."

These territories were managed, so they wouldn’t just let outsiders come in and steal.

If the perpetrator had been stealing here since six years ago, it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have been discovered.

"Well..."

The gang bosses hesitated for a moment before speaking up:

"There have been many, but based on the information you officers provided, none of them are the same person..."

Hearing this, everyone fell into deep thought.

Without hesitation, Xu Huo turned to the phone shop owner on the side.

"Show me all the hot merchandise you’ve received during this period."

An awkward smile appeared on the owner’s face.

He glanced at the surrounding gang bosses, cursing them up and down in his head, but he didn’t dare object.

His shop was one of the main places where thieves fenced their goods.

They sold to him cheap, he’d do some minor repairs, and then he’d sell them as new. He more than doubled his money on each transaction.

Knowing it was useless to argue, the owner simply put everything he’d received on the table.

"This is all of it."

With a CLATTER, a pile of metal junk was dumped onto the glass counter.

Li Jianye and Qian Hua stared at the pile of variously shaped phones, their expressions showing both astonishment and a growing headache.

’Having too much isn’t a good thing...’

Xu Huo ignored them and sniffed the air.

[Wang Die’s Scent!]

The next second, a faint, almost imperceptible scent of blood drifted into his nostrils.

He paused, then began to sift through the pile of phones in front of him.

「A moment later.」

Two phones lay before him.

One was a basic feature phone with buttons.

"Who sold this phone?"

Xu Huo set the phone down and stared at the owner.

Behind him, Li Jianye and Qian Hua were completely stunned, staring at each other in disbelief.

’He just... picked it out like that!?’

The owner stared at the phone, thought for a moment, glanced at the gang boss beside him, and said with a sheepish smile:

"A young man, a new face. He’s sold me some good stuff a few times."

"Around his early twenties, very young, quiet. He’s about five-foot-nine, decent-looking, with a mole near the corner of his eye."

Li Jianye quickly formed a mental image of the suspect.

But before the police could say anything, one of the men behind them couldn’t hold back anymore.

"A new face? Didn’t we have a deal? You’re supposed to call me first if a new face comes to you with goods!"

One of the gang bosses glared at him, his face filled with rage.

"The stuff he steals is out of your league. It doesn’t conflict with your business, so why should you care..."

The owner grumbled, but his words trailed off as he met Qian Hua’s dark, intimidating gaze, and he sheepishly shut his mouth.

"Are you saying he sold you other things as well?"

Xu Huo paid no mind to their argument. After a moment of thought, he looked at the owner.

"Were any of them inexpensive items?"

The owner thought for a moment, then pointed at the phone and said:

"This phone is the cheapest thing he’s ever sold me. Before this, he brought in flip phones, or some other phones that looked so expensive I didn’t even recognize the brand."

"Oh, and some high-end women’s purses, wallets, and some indoor electronics. He had me sell all of them."

’So aside from the victim’s phone, everything he sells is high-end?’

Xu Huo’s brow furrowed.

"He only steals from the rich?" Li Jianye was baffled. "Does that mean he can get close to wealthy people at will?"

"And come and go from rich neighborhoods as he pleases?"

"And even those big shots have to just suck it up because they can’t catch him..."

The gang boss finally understood the owner’s position. He clicked his tongue. "He even dares to steal from *those* people..."

Stealing from the poor and stealing from the rich were two completely different things.

First, there was the penalty. Get caught stealing from the former, and you’d spend a few days in a holding cell.

But for the latter, if you stole something even slightly valuable, then congratulations, you’ve just won yourself a deluxe all-inclusive package for several years in prison.

On top of that, the victims themselves would launch investigations even more thorough than the police’s, not to mention the difficulty of the theft itself. Basically, no one would consistently break into rich people’s homes. A one-off job was the smart way to do it.

But this guy was still out there, scot-free...

"Holy crap, did we run into the second coming of the master thief himself...?"

The gang bosses all started chattering at once.

To pull something like this off in a wealthy neighborhood—with all the electronic locks, surveillance cameras, and alarm systems—not even the founding patriarch of thievery could manage it.

After all, when master thieves like them went to a rich neighborhood, forget about stealing—just looking at the so-called keypad locks and fingerprint scanners was enough to leave them bewildered for a good while.

"The rich..."

Xu Huo murmured, his brows knitting together tightly.

"How much money did he get from you?"

Xu Huo asked.

"Seventeen thousand in total..."

The owner said with another sheepish grin.

"Son of a bitch, you’re even more ruthless than I am! All that stuff—those phones and bags—from those people, and you only gave him seventeen thousand for it?" one of the gang bosses exclaimed in shock, as if seeing the owner for the first time.

"Just how much did you make off him?!"

Xu Huo, however, wasn’t concerned with how much the owner made.

He was more concerned about...

’Seventeen thousand, and that’s just from one shop where he fences his goods. And he’s been selling off a large amount just within the last month...’

’How much did he make in total? Including any stolen cash, is it over a hundred thousand?’

’What does he need so much money for?’

Li Jianye, finding it all mind-boggling, voiced the very question on Xu Huo’s mind.

"Is he that desperate for money!?"

"A hundred thousand isn’t enough for him!?"

How long would a hundred thousand last if you weren’t buying luxury goods?

Put it this way: to spend it all in a month, you’d have to burn through thirty-three hundred a day!

These days, a person’s monthly salary was only around six or seven hundred.

"Write this down. This could be an important clue."