Building a Gaming Empire From Scratch

Chapter 174 - 174: 172: The Capture Is Underway!

He was too lazy to get involved in the following matters and just wanted to follow the standard procedure.

However, it seemed like Yue Pengju was reluctant to leave…

“How about you stay, Brother Yue, to keep an eye on the progress for me?” Lincoln found an excuse for Pengju, “In that case, you can inform me of any updates immediately, right?”

Despite the fact that he had no interest in the subsequent developments at all.

As before, Boss Lin dealt with millions and tens of millions all the time— recovering the losses of over a dozen consoles was just a novelty. As long as he knew what was going on, it wasn’t worth occupying his mind too much.

Anything at home was far more important than this matter.

Not to mention the R&D of the large-scale neural modulator-demodulator— watching TV with Mavis was more valuable than this.

But Pengju did not accept the offer. He immediately refused, “No, I have to follow you all the time. Let’s go; your matters are more important.” Having said that, he promptly drove Lincoln home.

As Lincoln hadn’t arrived home yet, the police had already knocked on Ma Lian’s door.

Ma Lian’s father opened the door.

Old Ma was cooking while wearing an apron, holding a spatula in his hand.

When he saw the police outside, he was confused, “Hello, what’s the matter?”

“Hello, we are looking for your son Ma Lian. He is suspected of being involved in a theft case, and we need him to cooperate with the investigation at the station.”

“What?” The man didn’t react for a moment, “Stealing?”

He wanted to say it was impossible but then, considering his son’s character, he felt… it wasn’t entirely implausible.

“What… what did he steal? Is it very valuable?”

“Yesterday evening. 17 consoles worth a total of 170.000 yuan were stolen at

Cloud Dream Experience Store. Your son was captured on surveillance video carrying a console away. So, we need him to cooperate with the investigation.”

This old police officer was very patient, “Ask him to come out, cooperate, and find the remaining suspects. If he strives for merit, he may avoid jail. Otherwise, he might have to rot in jail for ten years.”

In fact, this was said deliberately to facilitate the case by exaggerating the severity.

As expected, Ma Lian’s father’s face turned ghastly pale. If it weren’t for him gripping the doorknob tightly without letting go, he might have been unable to stand.

“Do you want to call him out, or should we go inside?”

“I… I’ll call him.” Ma Lian’s father spoke before trying to close the door.

The old police officer outside stretched his hand out, blocking the door. With a gentle pat on the man’s shoulder, he said in a friendly tone, “You go on, it’s okay, we won’t go inside. We’ll just wait here, but please hurry up.”

Ma Lian’s father became more flustered, saying repeatedly, “Okay.”

He then turned around and hurriedly ran into the house to find his bastard son.

In his room, Ma Lian sat cross-legged on the floor, staring at the console packaging box under the bed, extremely conflicted.

Last night, while his parents were asleep, he sneakily brought the console home and hid it under his bedroom bed, spending the whole night feeling both excited and scared.

At times, he felt like he was doomed. If he got caught, the entire neighborhood would know, and he’d lose face!

Sometimes, he thought perhaps he wouldn’t be discovered.

Maybe the console he took would be attributed to the other people, and since those people were so professional, they probably wouldn’t get caught either.

So he might have hitched a free ride. He couldn’t play with the console, but selling it for over ten million would count as his revenge!

After a while, he started to think that the risk was too high—what if he got caught?

Should he call the police and turn himself in? Maybe they could just write it off like nothing happened?

So he spent the whole day wavering between these thoughts, and Ma Lian still could not make up his mind, unsure of what to do.

Just then, Ma Lian heard his father’s footsteps approaching rapidly, and he quickly put down the sheet to cover the console and stood up from the ground.

The door was being banged loudly.

“It’s coming, it’s coming, don’t break the door!” Ma Lian complained as he opened the door.

As soon as he unlocked the door, his old dad pushed it open, almost hitting Ma Lian’s nose. “Dad, what are you doing…”

“Slap!”

Ma Lian hadn’t finished speaking when a solid slap hit his face, leaving a red handprint.

Ma Lian was stunned by the slap, opened his mouth, but his mind went blank and he didn’t know what to say.

Old Ma scolded him in a torrential outburst, “You’re no good! No good! How did

I raise such a bastard!”

While scolding, Old Ma forcefully patted his bastard son’s back, “How have your mother and I been teaching you every day! You went to steal things?! Now the police are here! Do you know you’re going to jail! Ten years! If you really go in, your life is over, and so are your mother and I!”

Ma Lian was dodging at first, but after hearing these words, he suddenly panicked, with “Going to jail” and “Ten years” occupying his mind.

As Old Ma was scolding, he suddenly stopped, grabbed Ma Lian’s arm, stared at him, and said, “You tell me! You didn’t steal! You didn’t, did you?! They must have made a mistake! They definitely made a mistake!”

But Ma Lian avoided his father’s gaze.

Old Ma’s lips were trembling, feeling both angry and heartbroken, and he couldn’t bring himself to scold his son any further.

His son had actually gone to steal things!

Finally, Ma Lian came to his senses, “No, Dad! It wasn’t me who stole it! No, not all of it! I just took one, others stole everything else, it can’t be blamed on me!”

Ma Lian tightly grabbed his father’s arm, as if holding onto a lifesaving straw.

“Others stole it? You saw it?” Old Ma saw some hope in his son’s words, “Quick! Tell them clearly! We can’t take the blame for others! Hurry up! Hurry up!” Having said that, he dragged his son out of the room.

As they walked out of the bedroom, Old Ma suddenly realized something, “Where’s the thing you stole? Hand it over quickly! Explain everything clearly and apologize sincerely!”

“Alright, I got it.” Ma Lian nodded repeatedly, ran back to grab the console from under the bed, and carried it out with his dad.

Seeing the two of them come out, the old police officer smiled slightly and extended his left hand to Old Ma, “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Old Ma thought the officer was a left-hander and, although a little confused, still reached out with both hands to shake his hand.

During the handshake, the old police officer kindly stretched out his right hand, patted Old Ma’s shoulder, and unobtrusively removed the miniature eavesdropping device that had been stuck on his shoulder before.

-Theft of more than 100,000 is a huge amount. Furthermore, given his superior’s insistence on not letting anyone escape, how could he possibly just wait outside without doing anything?

Not directly arresting the suspect was an attempt to see if more clues could be obtained.

After all, this was a criminal gang, and many of their accomplices hadn’t been identified yet.

Directly arresting the suspect tended to make them evasive and difficult to interrogate during questioning.

But when facing their most trusted family members, suspects might reveal crucial clues.

It might not necessarily yield results, but there was no harm in trying, right?

In fact, a key clue was indeed obtained, although it was bad news.

Nevertheless, the experienced old police officer remained calm. While organizing his team to take the criminal suspects and stolen goods to the police station, he made a phone call away from the suspects, reporting the situation to his superior.

Yue Pengju had just sent Lincoln home when he received the news: There was another group of people.

Ma Lian was simply an unlucky kid with no sense of the law and knew nothing about the real theft gang.

The case took a twisty turn..