Chapter Nine: The Cause

Ten minutes later.

With dark circles under his eyes, Chen Ning drove his Wrangler up to Lin Lei.

“Chief Lin—”

Lin Lei nodded at him. “Take this man back to the Bureau for investigation.”

Chen Ning nodded, strode forward, and unceremoniously grabbed the middle-aged man. “Come with me!”

Having been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night, he was full of pent-up frustration. He dared not vent it on Lin Lei and naturally took it all out on the middle-aged man.

The boy, watching this, bared his teeth in a nervous grimace. But Lin Lei gently took hold of his arm.

The boy glanced at Lin Lei with a complicated look, then finally stopped what he was doing.

He seemed very concerned about the middle-aged man, watching anxiously as Chen Ning escorted him into the car. Although he remained wary of Lin Lei, he obediently followed him into another vehicle.

The car started up with a roar.

Lin Lei sat beside the boy. Outwardly calm, he was in fact fully alert, his pistol always ready in his hand to respond instantly should the boy try anything rash.

In truth, the boy was most likely a newly awakened Source-wielder. Lin Lei suspected the reason his abilities fluctuated so powerfully was that his Gift was of a very high grade.

After they had driven for a while, Lin Lei suddenly heard a low growl.

He frowned, looked down at the boy, then shot a glare at the middle-aged man.

“You bastard, you make him steal for you, but you don’t even feed him enough!”

The boy looked up at Lin Lei, as if something occurred to him, but he hesitated to speak.

The middle-aged man’s expression turned aggrieved. “That kid’s always hungry—he could eat ten meals a day! What was I supposed to do?”

Lin Lei raised an eyebrow, realizing there was something special about the boy.

It was common for Source-wielders to have odd quirks. Li Xueshu, for instance, was obsessed with sweets and could never be without them. Lin Lei himself became hungry easily. Such things were side effects of their Gifts.

Compared to the mental strain and the threat of Source “corrosion,” these little eccentricities were nothing.

Lin Lei turned over his hand and took out a compressed biscuit, passing it to the boy. “Eat.”

Because he was prone to hunger, he always carried these biscuits and other filling foods.

The boy hesitated, then took the biscuit. He quickly unwrapped it and began to eat. Though small, it was very filling—a high-grade ration supplied by the Bureau, enough to replace a meal for most people. The boy devoured it in just a few bites.

Afterwards, he looked at Lin Lei with noticeably softer eyes. “You’re a good person.”

He glanced at the middle-aged man. “He’s not my father…”

Then he looked at Lin Lei again. “Are you my father?”

Lin Lei couldn’t help laughing and shook his head. “Not everyone who treats you kindly is your father.”

The child stared at him in confusion, eyes wide.

Lin Lei reached out and ruffled the boy’s hair, his own eyes gleaming. The boy was simple-hearted, his mental age not matching his appearance—easily moved by kindness. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have regarded the middle-aged man as a father after knowing him only a few days.

If Lin Lei treated him well enough, he was sure the boy would respond in kind.

Judging from the Gift the boy had just displayed, it was likely an exceptionally advanced ability. Perhaps it was some “spatial” power, or a “theft” concept ability—either way, it was formidable.

At this thought, Lin Lei’s eyes grew even more fervent.

…

At the Bureau.

In front of an interrogation room.

Gazing through the one-way glass at the youth and the man within, Chen Ning asked, “Chief Lin, do you want my help with the interrogation?”

Lin Lei held a standard interrogation form and waved his hand. “I’ll handle it myself. You wait outside.”

With that, he walked straight into the room.

“Name?”

“My name is Ling Da, male, forty-one this year. Freelancer. I run a food stall on Yunhai Road snack street and live in the nearby shantytown…”

He clearly knew how interrogations went, and before Lin Lei could ask in detail, he began introducing himself.

Yunhai Road was the snack street near Lin Lei’s home. If not for the close distance, he might not have noticed the Source fluctuations.

In fact, Lin Lei remembered that time when he’d used his Source Radar. He’d sensed an abnormal light point in the vicinity, but the radar’s usage period was almost up, so he hadn’t investigated further. Now he wondered if that fleeting light was the abnormal fluctuation triggered by the boy’s awakening.

It seemed highly possible. After all, the light had appeared and vanished in an instant, more like a Source-wielder activating their power than an ordinary anomaly.

Lin Lei narrowed his eyes and asked the man in front of him, “What happened after I left that day?”

Given the situation, Ling Da was no fool; he could guess this wasn’t an ordinary police station and dared not lie. He answered honestly—

That night, at Lin Lei’s suggestion, he’d given some leftover pancakes to the boy and, after closing his stall, brought the child back to his place for the night.

Originally, Ling Da had planned to shelter him for one night and take him to a shelter the next day. But the following morning, he accidentally discovered the boy’s supernormal abilities. He changed his mind and kept the boy with him.

Afterwards, he used the boy to rob local gold shops. But the shop in question had underworld connections—after only a few transactions, people took notice.

That night, those people came to his home to corner him. At the critical moment, the boy activated his spatial transfer ability and brought Ling Da away, escaping death by a hair’s breadth…

Lin Lei finally understood: those people he’d encountered in the shantytown were indeed connected to this man.

“No wonder the Source fluctuations I sensed were so extreme…”

Bringing someone else along in a spatial transfer, as opposed to just moving an object a short distance, made a world of difference—the Source energy wave would naturally be far greater.

Lin Lei regarded Ling Da with an odd feeling. Was this man lucky or unlucky? He’d stumbled upon a rare spatial Source-wielder, yet before he could profit, he was already being watched.

In fact, had he chosen to steal cash instead, he wouldn’t have attracted attention so quickly.

“A petty thief like him wouldn’t think that far—gold is worth more than cash, after all…”

Lin Lei shook his head.

Since this case involved a Source-wielder, it couldn’t be handled according to ordinary laws and procedures. Although the thefts had been committed by the boy, whose mind was not fully developed and who had only just awakened his Gift, he would not be held responsible.

Ling Da, however, even after returning all the stolen goods and receiving the boy’s plea for leniency, would still be detained for a period.

Were it not for the special circumstances and the absence of serious consequences, Ling Da might have faced years behind bars.

Because of the situation, he would be held directly at the Bureau.

“Officer Lin, thank you for your mercy!” When Ling Da learned he would only be detained and not imprisoned, he was moved to tears.

Lin Lei shook his head.

“If you’d known this would happen, you wouldn’t have done it. Don’t try anything foolish again.”

He felt little sympathy for Ling Da and waved at Chen Ning. “Take him to the holding cell.”

Chen Ning nodded and stood up.

Suddenly, Ling Da scratched his head with his cuffed hands.

“Officer Lin, um, can I speak to the kid again? If I just leave like this, I’ll feel uneasy… We haven’t known each other long, but I can tell he’s a stubborn one. Let me persuade him for you—to stay here…”

Chen Ning hesitated and looked at Lin Lei.

Lin Lei nodded. “Let him go.”