As soon as the train came to a stop, Chubby jumped out of the carriage. He had only walked a few meters when he heard someone behind him say, “Hey, you forgot something.”

Chubby paused briefly but kept walking forward, only to feel a light breeze at the back of his head, and an arm was already draped over his shoulder. A hand waved right in front of his eyes, holding half an orange, and that same voice said by his ear, “Hey, you forgot your orange.” Chubby turned his head and saw Ethan Bennett’s face, half-smiling.

The train continued on, and Ethan Bennett lay back down on his lower bunk. He had already returned the girl’s and that Chubby’s money and belongings. Now, under the bedside lamp, he was flipping through a wallet in his hand. He pulled out an ID card—the photo showed a chubby, round face, but the cute expression couldn’t hide the shifty look in the eyes. Maybe it was just the lighting! Ethan Bennett thought, and casually tore it up, tossing it along with the wallet into the trash can under the table. As for the money in the wallet, it was now in Ethan Bennett’s pocket.

As for the bespectacled Chubby, now without his ID and penniless, after eating half an orange, he fell into a deep sleep in the wild field by the railway in the mountain town.

Volume One, Chapter Four: On the Bus

Ethan Bennett leaned against the pillow and fell asleep. When he woke up, the train attendant was already calling him to get off.

The letter that came with the admission notice said that the school would have someone to receive new students these days, so as soon as Ethan Bennett exited the station, he started looking around. Ethan Bennett’s school was A City Normal University, and his major was the rather inexplicable Chinese language. In fact, neither the school nor the major was Ethan Bennett’s own choice. He had originally applied to a university in his own city, but due to a careless mistake in the evil file allocation process, Ethan Bennett was assigned to a school several hundred kilometers away.

Claire Foster and Ryan Hughes, not wanting the three of them to be separated, encouraged Ethan Bennett to take another year of prep classes and retake the exam. But Ethan Bennett had been taught by his father since childhood that grades didn’t matter at all, and as he grew up, he increasingly felt his father was right. Later, he refined the theory further: if grades didn’t matter, then whether or not to go to college didn’t matter either. If it didn’t matter whether he went or not, then it certainly didn’t matter where he went, so he came to A City without much concern.

After searching for a long time, he still didn’t see any sign of the Normal University. Ethan Bennett was helpless. He thought about just taking a taxi, but worried that the hospitable taxi driver would take this out-of-towner on a sightseeing tour of the city, so he decided to take the more reliable city bus. The letter at least mentioned which bus route to take, so Ethan Bennett asked for directions to the bus stop and headed that way.

Along the way, there were countless people hawking maps and pulling him toward hotels—more annoying than the two Chubby on the train. Ethan Bennett, on impulse, wanted to “star-kill” all of them. In the end, of course, he held back.

Although A City Normal University wasn’t much of a school, A City itself was a bona fide big city. On his way to the bus stop, Ethan Bennett saw four or five BMWs whizzing by, which left him quite impressed.

The bus stop was the starting station. Ethan Bennett happily pondered which side was sunny and which was shady, and how he should choose his seat, when a bus slowly pulled into the station.

Suddenly, like in a Gu Long novel, a crowd of old and young folks appeared out of nowhere. Before Ethan Bennett could use his superior strength and speed, he was already pushed to the outer circle. He could only sigh at the power of the crowd and, like a model citizen who respects the elderly and cares for the young, lined up properly at the very edge.

When Ethan Bennett finally got on the bus, he realized there weren’t as many people as he’d imagined; it was just the scramble that had given him the wrong impression. The fact that he could still maneuver his suitcase freely was proof enough.

The bus started moving slowly. Of course, Ethan Bennett was busy taking in the city scenery outside the window, while counting how many stops were left until his destination.

Suddenly, Ethan Bennett saw a sinister black hand reaching for a girl’s shoulder bag. The nimble fingers made Ethan Bennett secretly admire the skill—a mere five seconds, and the wallet in the girl’s bag had already been snatched and slipped into the thief’s own pocket. No one around reacted—not because the city was cold or people were indifferent, but because the pickpocket’s technique was just that good.

As soon as the thief succeeded, he started moving toward the bus door, and Ethan Bennett quickly followed with his suitcase, drawing annoyed looks from people at his suitcase and himself.

The thief stood at the door, one hand gripping the rail, the other in his pocket, where the girl’s wallet was—maybe still clutched in his hand. But this didn’t matter to Ethan Bennett; he wasn’t going to steal, but to snatch—though in a way that no one would notice.

It wasn’t easy for Ethan Bennett to get behind the thief, and by then the bus was already pulling into a stop. Taking advantage of the jolt as the bus came to a halt, Ethan Bennett shot out his right hand like lightning, in and out in a flash. The thief sensed something, but his reaction was half a beat slower than Ethan Bennett’s. By the time he realized, the wallet was already in Ethan Bennett’s hand.

While the thief was still dumbfounded, the bus started moving again, and the girl was already squeezing toward the exit. Ethan Bennett saw the perfect opportunity—when the girl passed by him, he deftly slipped the wallet back into her bag and even helped zip it up.