Chapter 43 – The Chase
TL: Milaryn
Edit: IlkonEbi

The thief had been caught and the middle-aged woman finally shrieked as she realized her handbag was open. However, the situation turned complicated.

“Don’t pull on me! You meddlesome woman, why are you calling me a thief?!”

“I saw you, why are you trying to shift the blame!”

“You say you saw it, but how can you just say it’s me! I also saw that it was you! What evidence do you have?!”

“If you weren’t guilty, why did you run?”

“Who said I ran? There are so many people on the bus, where can I run to?”

“You’re obviously trying to escape.”

“I’m not!”

There was no evidence and the people on the bus were not used to stepping up to be a witness. After the middle-aged woman inspected her handbag and realized that she had not lost anything, she tugged at Mu Zhenzhen, “Hey, I didn’t lose anything… So just leave it be…”

“How can that be! Even though you didn’t lose anything, who knows how many people he robbed! No, I can’t just let him go!”

“What are you talking about? What basis do you have to keep me!” Seeing that his original target wanted to drop the matter, the thief continued saying angrily, “Let go! Stop holding on to my arm. I’m letting you know, if you weren’t a woman, I would’ve hit you already!”

“We’ll see who hits who, huh! Wah!” Before she finished speaking, the youngster pushed her roughly. Caught off guard, she staggered backwards and the few people behind her moved away trying to avoid her. Even though the bus was already jam-packed with people, when she fell back, the passengers suddenly realized that there was still some more space for them to squeeze in together to avoid her.

However, as there actually were a lot of people, Mu Zhenzhen did not fall down. She struggled to rush back at the thief, but the two youngsters that were blocking her earlier purposely obstructed her again. They pretended to advise her, “Ah, you must have made a mistake, don’t be so serious.”

“Exactly, you must’ve made a mistake. You’re a girl, you don’t want to get hurt, right?”

During 1995, young people that wanted to be stylish wore a strange style of casual wear. As the three of them wore similar outfits, it was obvious that they knew each other. When the crowd saw that there were three of them, they naturally did not dare to interfere. However, Mu Zhenzhen continued on without any fear, “You two better let me through; I will catch him and bring him to the police station today!” Even though she had a strong sense of justice, she was only a single female high school student. At this point in time, the victim did not want to pursue the matter, and the watching passengers did not dare say anything. She felt that the situation was taking a turn for the worse and her eyes reddened slightly. However, a voice suddenly came from the side.

“I can be a witness! He’s a thief!”

The voice of a boy’s who was in the middle of going through puberty could be heard, and the passengers turned to look towards him. They saw a boy wearing a Starlight Secondary School uniform, pointing at the footprint on his chest, “When he tried to escape in my direction, he kicked me in the chest. I’ve also heard that people leave their fingerprints behind on what they touch, and since that person just tried to take that Auntie’s wallet, as long as we go to the police station to check, then we can definitely discover the truth.”

As soon as that boy said that, the three youngsters blanched and the thief’s face instantly paled. Mu Zhenzhen agreed, “Yes, that’s right! Hmph, you can’t escape this time. Mr. Bus Driver, we are going to the police station!”

But the truth was, this auntie’s wallet would have definitely been touched a lot during the day. Even if there was another person’s set of fingerprints, it would be quite difficult to find them. However, this was something only a professional would know, as normal people would not be too aware of the details. When the thief thought about the fingerprinting technology used on TV to catch people, he thought that he would definitely be shown as guilty and he started thinking of how to escape.

But, just as he started thinking that way, the young boy standing nearby “naively” said, “Ms. Zhenzhen, of course he can’t escape. Isn’t Ms. Qingqing part of the police? Since she’s part of the homicide department, all you have to do is remember how that guy looks like. As long as he stays in Jianghai City, Ms. Qingqing would definitely be able to find him.”

“Oh, oh yes. My sister is a police woman. You can try escaping if you’re not afraid! Mr. Bus Driver, please hurry and drive to the police station.”

The bus driver originally did not want to drive there, but when he heard that the girl’s sister was part of the police, he did consider changing his mind. However, because he was the type of person that would not step up when something happened, and it was part of his nature to only watch a scene from afar, he ended up saying, “But… the closest police station is not part of my route and everyone might have urgent matters to attend to…”

During that part of the day, not a lot of people were in a rush. Since the thief had been caught, the passengers started to get excited instead and someone said, “I knew there was something fishy about that guy.” Someone else said, “If I knew that earlier, I would have definitely thrashed him.” The bus subsequently shifted over to another road and Jiaming was momentarily stunned.

“Oh no… I’m going to get killed at this rate…”

As they were currently on the way to the closest police station, the cinema was actually in the opposite direction of it. Now that the matter had been settled, Mu Zhenzhen watched the thief closely as she said to him, “Oh, it’s Gu Jiaming from the other day. I’m really sorry about the other time.”

“Haha…” Jiaming smiled awkwardly, his smile looking like Conan’s[1] long suffering smile, and said, “It’s fine… Ms. Zhenzhen really wants to become a police officer, huh?”

“Yes I do. I’m graduating next year, and I’ve always wanted to take the exam for police school, hehe. Hmph, brat, don’t get any funny ideas. I’m a black belt third dan in Judo!” The latter half of that sentence was directed at the ashen-faced thief.

Jiaming did not keep talking and the thief’s two accomplices also did not dare to say anything. When the bus arrived at the police station and the door opened, the thief instantly tried to escape. However, Mu Zhenzhen grabbed onto his clothing, and both the thief and Mu Zhenzhen went tumbling out of the bus as Jiaming, who had been standing by the door, “accidentally” tripped the thief.

“Who said you can run… you still want to escape…”

As the two of them fell off the bus, the thief fell straight down to the ground without any cushioning and Mu Zhenzhen flopped on top of him. Because he cushioned her fall, she was not wounded and picked herself off him easily. When she pulled the thief up, blood streamed out of his nose and his forehead and his face had been scratched and wounded by the gravel on the ground. The middle-aged woman that was going to be pickpocketed and a few other witnesses that were being “warriors of justice” helped escort the thief into the police station. Jiaming mentioned that he had things to do, so he rejected Mu Zhenzhen’s offer of candy as a reward and rushed to the cinema.

When he turned around the corner, the thief’s two accomplices speedily caught up to him.

“You must feel like a hero, brat.”

“A great hero, huh.”

One of the guys shoved Jiaming’s shoulder, but Jiaming only sighed, “I don’t have time to play with you guys. Run along now, little boys.”

“You f*cker… oi, don’t run from me…”

Before the two of them finished cursing him, Jiaming had already dashed past them.

“Sh*t, you better not let me catch you…”

“If you keep running, I’ll kill your whole family…”

Thus, two big boys started chasing after a small boy all over the streets of Jianghai City. However, regardless of how much effort or energy the two men spent, they could not catch up to the relatively short young boy. Before long, the two of them started to feel frustrated. The child was running extremely swiftly even when crossing roads or leaping over fences; just looking at how he was running was giving them a headache.

They had never encountered a child that could run so fast!

The two of them swore at Jiaming as they chased after him for around three to four blocks. However, they were gradually losing steam and when they turned a corner on one of the streets, a bicycle suddenly screeched to a halt and hit one of them. One of the youngsters sprawled on the floor, but then hollered,

“Don’t mind me, follow him! Catch him!”

Their self-esteem was quite affected by the fact that the two of them could not catch up to a 14-15 year old boy. Thus, even when one of them had been hit by the bike, he did not forget to encourage his partner to his last breath. The other youngster only glanced back briefly, clenched his teeth and started to run after Jiaming even faster.

After desperately pursuing him, he finally managed to somewhat close the gap between them. Huffing and puffing, he turned into a small alleyway and saw that the young boy was not far ahead. This alleyway actually led to a dead-end and was filled with heaps of trash and several garbage cans. Overjoyed with this fact, he panted out while running, “You… you can’t run… you’re stuck now…”

Having finally gotten closer, the delinquent felt that he would be able to catch him, but was unsuccessful. The young boy did slow down, despite it being a dead-end. In fact, the boy continued on and hopped on top of one of the garbage cans, then leapt across onto the opposite wall.

Bump—

Clattercrash—

Bangclangclang—

Astonished at what he saw, the delinquent was unable to stop in time and crashed into the garbage heap. He was buried in a large amount of garbage bags as the young boy’s figure easily leapt over the wall and disappeared from his view.

How is that… how is that possible…

*****************************

Having jumped over the wall, he arrived on the street where the cinema was. When he took a look at his watch, it was 2:58pm and he had just made it on time. Two gorgeously dressed-up girls were bored to death waiting by the entrance of the cinema – Lingjing was looking around while Shasha’s impatience was shown on her face. When the two of them saw Jiaming rush towards them, the two girls excitedly ran towards him. He expected them to complain or beat him up like how relatives do when they met up.

“Hey, where did you go!” Shasha questioned him while punching and kicking him a few times.

“Why did you come from there?” Lingjing asked softly compared to Shasha – she only patted the dust off his clothes while peering curiously at the dead-end behind him.

“Argh, you said 3pm! I risked my life to run here, Shasha don’t hit me anymore. Look, it’s only 2:59pm!” He said self-righteously as he thrust his watch out in defense.

“Mine says a minute past 3pm,” Lingjing raised her watch.

“And mine says two minutes past!” Shasha also showed her watch.

“Uh, just because your watches aren’t right… it’s not my fault!” Jiaming said gloomily.

Shasha did not respond. As she also scanned the alleyway behind him, her face darkened, “It’s a dead-end! That means… you weren’t actually late, but were waiting there for a chance to scare us, right?”

“Ah, about that… Help…” Seeing that the situation was taking a turn for the worse, Jiaming hurried to escape out of Shasha’s reach. Lingjing hoisted her skirt up and then the two girls laughed and ran after him to beat him up. The scene of a young boy being chased by two people over several blocks along Jianghai City’s main streets reappeared again.

“I’m going to kill you!”

“Don’t you dare run!”

[1] Detective Conan (or Case Closed) – a teenage detective gets drugged by baddies and his body got reverted back to a child’s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_Closed

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