The bell signaling the end of PE class rang, and Guo Kunnan, with Dan Kaiquan and a few others, dashed toward the school gate as swiftly as the wind, as if a pack of wild dogs were chasing them.
The PE representative, Zhang Chi, watched his fellow ball players disappear into the distance, hugging the basketball, planning to return it to the classroom.
Jiang Ning packed up his table tennis paddle and held it in his hand.
After leaving the sports field, he headed towards where the bicycles were parked.
He didn't leave his table tennis paddle in the classroom because, in a previous life, Class 8 would often lose things, such as earphones and power banks, left in the classroom before the holidays, which would be gone by the ti school resud.
Jiang Ning had once lost a 10,000-mAh power bank.
Such incidents were quite annoying; classmates collectively cursed the thief, but because the items lost were not that valuable, typically under one hundred yuan, and no expensive items like mobile phones were lost, no one made a big fuss to find the culprit.
They chalked it up to bad luck and thereafter tried not to leave personal belongings in the classroom.
It was not until after high school graduation that they caught the culprit.
The culprit turned out to be Dan Xiao, a classmate of Jiang Ning's who looked simple and honest with a rough voice, dressed in an unfashionable manner, and also served as the Chinese class representative.
No one expected such a person to be the "Four Middle School Thief".
The reason he got caught was that, before graduation, Dan Xiao committed a major theft.
Interestingly, just before graduation, Jiang Ning had a chat with a junior girl, who lived in a rented house near Fourth Middle School.
Fourth Middle School was quite old, and the nearby houses were sowhat dilapidated without elevators.
Once, the junior girl ca ho after evening self-study, unlocked her door without removing the key, leaving it open while she did other things. When she returned to take out the key, she found it was gone.
She ntioned this incident in a QQ chat with Jiang Ning, saying it was possible she had taken it out but forgotten where she put it. She planned to continue using a spare key.
At that ti, Jiang Ning advised her that it might really have been taken and urged her to change the locks quickly.
As it turned out, Jiang Ning was spot on.
A few days before graduation, Dan Xiao showed off his skills outside the school with mighty punches.
The situation with the junior girl's lost key was exactly his MO: slipping into apartnt buildings and stealthily pulling out keys when residents were unawares.
Then, when the students went to class, he would return and "deliver warmth" to their hos.
If the locks were not changed, he would practically empty the place of mobile phones, jewelry, cash—stealing who knows how much, probably totaling over thirty thousand.
The junior girl, having changed her lock, narrowly escaped disaster.
As for Dan Xiao, he had planned to make a final big score before graduation, which should have satisfied his desires. However, due to his long-term focus on the school market, he couldn't bear to give it up.
So, choosing a rest day and a dark, windy evening, Dan Xiao displayed his thief skills, scaling the walls to sneak into the school and scoured the entire teaching building's desks, stealing more than a dozen power banks.
Just as he was leaving, he was spotted by the PE teacher, Gu Wei, who was out for a walk with nothing better to do. Gu Wei often went out for drinks with the Security Director, and the two were sowhat acquainted.
Gu Wei imdiately sensed sothing was off about Dan Xiao. Dan Xiao tried to escape but didn't make it very far. How could he run fast with a dozen power banks? Especially when being pursued by a PE teacher...
He was first taken to the Fourth Middle School security office, then the police were called, and he was escorted to the police station.
The Security Director's daughter attended Fourth Middle School and had complained to her father about her newly bought power bank being stolen.
Seeing so many power banks on Dan Xiao, the Director was filled with both fresh outrage and old grudges, clearly aware that this boy was a habitual offender.
He inford the police of this discovery.
Faced with police interrogation, an ordeal not even average adults can withstand, let alone Dan Xiao, a high school senior yet to experience society's hard knocks.
He didn't hold out for long and spilled everything.
This caused quite a stir and he was sentenced for several years, unable to attend college.
Jiang Ning rembered, by the ti he graduated from college, Dan Xiao had just been released.
Jiang Ning felt no sympathy for such people, considering them both bad and stupid.
He actually only needed to mark his racket, so even if it were stolen, he could easily find it again.
But table tennis rackets aren't worth much, and even if Dan Xiao admitted to the theft, it wouldn't have much consequence.
Unless Jiang Ning took matters into his own hands to teach him a lesson.
Jiang Ning thought about intentionally leaving his smartphone in the classroom. Smartphones can be tracked, but he worried Dan Xiao might dismantle it, rendering the tracking useless.
He could use his Spiritual Sense to locate the phone, but proving it was Dan Xiao wouldn't be easy. Could he really tell the police he used his Spiritual Sense to retrieve his phone?
Now that Jiang Ning's Cultivation wasn't sufficient, he didn't want to face official forces, filled as they were with shrewd individuals.
It's better to avoid trouble. Usually taking the racket ho was enough, and a self-destructive person like Dan Xiao would sooner or later ruin himself. Jiang Ning didn't intend to interfere too much unless a real threat erged.
For example, Ding Shuyan. A few days ago, Jiang Ning had gone to observe Ding Shuyan again; the girl was now very honest and had completely stopped her investigations.
When Jiang Ning was observing, Ding Shuyan also noticed his prying. He couldn't deny envying those naturally gifted with certain perceptive abilities.
This kind of perceptive ability was unrelated to one's realm. It was an inexplicable kind of intuition, very taphysical, sothing humanity's current technology couldn't begin to analyze the principles of.
The Cultivation World, on the other hand, did conduct research on this kind of phenonon.
Unless Jiang Ning broke through to the Golden Core Realm and executed highly advanced stealth techniques, he couldn't avoid detection by soone's Sixth Sense.
Jiang Ning was lost in these thoughts when Xue Yuantong gently tugged on his arm.
"What's up?" Jiang Ning asked.
Xue Yuantong patted her pocket and declared generously,
"We're not eating at ho tonight. Let's go check out the food street outside; I'll treat!"
She had saved up a bit more than thirty yuan in pocket money. Recently, Jiang Ning had taken good care of her, and she wanted to make it up to her little brother.
It had been a long ti since she had eaten out, and this ti she intended to sample the entirety of the Fourth Middle School's food street!
"Sure," Jiang Ning didn't refuse. It was Xue Yuantong's first ti treating, and he was quite curious to see.
In his past life, he had never been invited by a girl to go to a food street.
During his junior and senior high school years, he was under Shen Qing'e's control, and in college, he was imrsed in gaming. It wasn't until he entered society and reached the age of considering marriage that he began to think about it. Usually, when having appointnts with won, he would go to sowhat upscale restaurants with a starting price of four to five hundred yuan per al.
If you invited soone to a food street, you'd really be laughed at.
Even though those won often frequented food streets themselves.
Once you're in the marriage market, everything changes. Won might ride electric bikes on their own, but if it cos to marriage talks and you don't have a car, their good impression plumts, and you could be imdiately ruled out.
Jiang Ning knew that indeed, so won wouldn't mind. They were willing to live such a life with a man and create a future together.
It was just his bad luck that he'd never t one.
Xue Yuantong led the way, and Jiang Ning followed behind her.
"How about we walk around the campus first?" Jiang Ning suggested.
School had just let out, and the main path was crowded with students hustling to leave.
Xue Yuantong found the idea quite sensible, so they decided to sit in the small garden for a while. After all, her ho was not far from the school, and it was not yet four o'clock.
With Jiang Ning present, she could return ho at any ti.
Xue Yuantong tiptoed and gently hopped onto the wooden bridge over the flower pond, her two braids swaying.
She stood in the center pavilion of the flower pond, leaning on the railing.
Students grouped in twos and threes nearby, focused on their phones, occasionally relaxing their brows as they shifted positions.
Through these behaviors, Xue Yuantong deduced they were trying to catch the wifi signal.
During forr tis, she too wouldn't have resisted pulling out her phone, making use of the school's sluggish wifi speed to download a few TV episodes over the course of an hour, to watch at ho.
Now things were different; she had wifi next door.
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