Chapter 066: The Little Thief Under the Moon
“Damn it, can’t a man get some peace in the middle of the night!”
After receiving the alarm from the trap he had set, Chen Ran lazily climbed out of bed, casually threw on a vest, and went out in his slippers. He wanted to know what kind of legendary food thief this was.
Chen Ran wasn’t in a hurry. The magic trap he had set was not something an ordinary person could easily escape. Could you expect a food thief to have any heaven-defying abilities?
The broken lock on the kitchen door had indeed been picked. It seemed he needed to get a sturdier one.
At this moment, a figure caught in a magic net was rolling on the ground, trying to break free. However, Chen Ran’s net was not only sturdy, but it also had a special feature: the more you struggled, the tighter it got.
Chen Ran rubbed his sleepy eyes and looked at the thief’s appearance. It was… really a little thief…
It looked like a thin little boy of at most eleven or twelve years old.
“Let me go!”
Upon seeing someone appear, the figure in the net couldn’t help but exclaim.
Since it was a child, Chen Ran couldn’t be too hard on him. He walked over to the magic net and gently dispelled the magic fluctuations on it.
The net suddenly loosened. Chen Ran casually grabbed one of the child’s feet and lifted him upside down.
“Kid, you’re the one who’s been stealing from the kitchen these past few days, aren’t you?”
In the faint light of the magic lamp, the child’s face was not very clear, but there was no doubt that this child was too thin and weak. He was all bones when he was picked up. However, the kid’s eyes were quite bright, with a hint of cleverness.
“Let me go, you bad guy!”
The child kicked and punched, trying to break free from Chen Ran’s grasp. But his hands and feet were too short. After Chen Ran shamelessly cast an Inner Fire buff on himself, he let the child’s other leg kick his hand like a rain of blows.
“Kid, get it straight. This is my territory. I haven’t even settled the score with you yet. Believe it or not, I’ll strip you naked and hang you upside down from a tree for three days and three nights!”
“You! Shameless!”
Perhaps because he had never seen such a ruffian of a high priest, the child’s face turned red with anger.
Seeing that this child was not going to stop, Chen Ran became a little impatient. “You came here in the middle of the night to steal things. I could have sent you to prison. I could have arranged for you to be charged with stealing hundreds of gold coins worth of things from me, which would be enough to lock you up for several years. If you make any more noise, believe it or not, I’ll send you in right now.”
Perhaps this threat was too great. The child was finally frightened and immediately became quiet, trembling all over. Then, with a pitiful look on his face, he begged for mercy, “Big brother, I know I was wrong. Please don’t send me to prison, okay?”
Looking at that thin and pitiful face, for a moment, Chen Ran’s heart really softened for a little while. But with a jolt, he immediately came to his senses.
Damn, that was close. This kid’s change of face is too fast. He has some of my own style. If Chen Ran wasn’t an expert in this, he would have really been fooled by this kid’s performance.
But a child was a child, and Chen Ran couldn’t be too hard on him.
“Kid, I can put you down, but you have to be honest with me. I have some questions for you later, and you have to answer them obediently.”
The child nodded with a look of compromise, which made him look very reassuring. Chen Ran’s guard couldn’t help but lower a little, and he gently put him down…
The moment Chen Ran let go, a sly glint flashed in the child’s bright eyes. His starting movement was surprisingly swift. In the instant that Chen Ran was stunned, he used his small body to slip between his legs like a mouse. Chen Ran instinctively grabbed, but caught nothing. He cursed inwardly that this kid was too cunning. With a quick turn, his eyes and hands were fast, and he grabbed the arm of the child who had just gotten up and was about to run outside.
“Trying to run!”
Feeling that he had lost a lot of face, Chen Ran felt that he needed to teach this kid a good lesson. But the child turned around, brought his head over, and opened his little canine teeth, biting down hard on the arm Chen Ran was holding…
“Damn it…”
Looking at the clear row of teeth marks on his hand, Chen Ran didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But if this kid could escape like this, it would be an absolute blow to his prestige.
He cast Wings of Light on himself, and Chen Ran’s speed suddenly increased. For a kid whose body was clearly underdeveloped, it was a piece of cake to catch him. Although his speed was fast, the kid was also clever and slippery. He slipped through Chen Ran’s hands several times like a hamster, showing his solid thief skills, but he still couldn’t escape Chen Ran’s clutches…
“Kid, let’s see where you can run now!”
Chen Ran once again grabbed the child by one ankle, his face filled with frustration.
He felt that it had taken him too long to deal with this kid, which was a disgrace to his great name. But he couldn’t be too hard on a child. In the spirit of teaching him a lesson, he pretended to scare the child. “Tell me, do you want to be steamed or fried!” The implication was, how do you want to die, kid? At the same time, he rolled up his sleeves, raised his big palm high…
Slap! Slap!
In the night sky, the crisp sound of slaps echoed.
That’s how they taught children on TV. It just hurt his hand a little. But what surprised Chen Ran was that this kid didn’t even cry out. He kept gritting his teeth, quite spirited.
The continuous commotion also woke up Sister Marian. She hurried out with a magic lamp. Seeing Chen Ran holding a child, her expression was a little surprised as she looked at the captured child.
“Mmm, I’ve caught the little food thief. It’s a kid,” Chen Ran said, blowing a few blades of grass from his hair.
Seeing that there was one more person watching, the child was obviously much more honest. A mist gradually appeared in his eyes, and he really started to sob.
“Wuwu… wuwu…”
Sometimes, the tears of a child and a girl are essentially a headache. Chen Ran was not afraid of this kid playing tricks again. He could only pretend to be generous and put him down on the ground again. But he kept a close eye on him, afraid that this kid would run away again.
However, the child who had fallen to the ground had no intention of running away this time. Perhaps he knew that he couldn’t escape from Chen Ran’s grasp, so he gave up resisting. He wiped his eyes and cried, “Bad guy, I was just hungry and wanted to steal something to eat. I didn’t take anything else from you. Do you have to bully me like this? You people in the church always say you save the poor and needy. The old high priest here was so nice. He often gave us food, until they themselves had no more supplies…”
“I’m dizzy,” Chen Ran criticized unceremoniously. “I don’t deny that the old high priest is a good person, but stealing is stealing. It’s wrong in the first place. If the fruits of your hard labor were easily stolen by someone, how would you feel? You can say I’m rich and this little bit is nothing, but I can tell you directly that so-called bandits all start from petty theft. Once it becomes a habit, it’s hard to change. So if you’re not taught a profound lesson, you won’t remember.”
