Chapter 2248 - 2151: Comfort
It wasn’t until Huo Sining had bundled Su Anning into the car that the little girl finally started to come back to herself.
Seeing the panic and distress in Su Anning’s eyes, Huo Sining knew the girl had been badly frightened. She hurried to pat Su Anning on the shoulder and comforted her softly, "Okay, it’s over now, you’re fine."
As she spoke, Huo Sining rubbed Su Anning’s head, and at the same time quietly channeled Spiritual Energy from her palm into Su Anning’s Governor Vessel acupoint.
Sure enough, with the stimulation of the Spiritual Energy, the girl shuddered all over, and in an instant she came fully back to her senses.
"Sister Ning Ning... I..."
The little thing thought back to what had just happened and still felt a lingering fear.
She’d never run into anything like this before, so she’d been completely at a loss. She could clearly see those two had something wrong about them, but no matter how she tried to explain, the people around just refused to believe her.
Huo Sining shook her head with a smile. "Don’t dwell on it. Didn’t you get your things back? Besides, that thief didn’t get any advantage out of this. I bet they’re regretting it already—if they’d known there’d be all this unexpected trouble, they definitely wouldn’t have chosen you, this little living ancestor, as their target."
Su Anning curled her lip. "What are you talking about? If you hadn’t gotten there in time, I probably really would’ve fallen for their scam! These con artists are disgusting! By the way, when did you get there, sis?"
Huo Sining laughed. "Actually I was there pretty early, I was just watching from outside the crowd. The moment I saw them, I felt like the two of them were working together on a scam, but I didn’t know exactly what trick they were running, so I didn’t speak up. I stayed on the sidelines and waited for them to slip up and show their hand."
"When I heard them bring up the money missing from the wallet, that’s when I realized that was their real focus. So I quietly picked up my phone and called Director Guo, asked him to bring a few people over."
"If I stepped in by myself, I could only help you subdue those two scammers. But you know con artists have silver tongues—they can turn black into white. I’m clearly on your side, so chances are the people around would start wondering whether you and I were in cahoots. In that kind of situation, only the police showing up can really settle everything."
"So I got Director Guo to come. I wasn’t expecting that before they even arrived, that woman would sense danger, grab the stolen goods and try to run. Perfect for me, actually. If she hadn’t run, she might’ve managed to talk circles around people and wriggle out of this whole incident. But the moment she bolted, she completely nailed down her own guilt."
When Huo Sining mentioned the police, Su Anning’s expression turned a bit unnatural, and she said awkwardly:
"I actually... did think about calling the police. But the scammers said if we went down to the station, they’d notify the parents. You know how my grandpa is—he’s so old now and especially protective of his reputation. If this got dragged into Grandpa’s name, who knows what kind of stories the media would spin out of it. I was afraid it would hurt Grandpa’s reputation, so I just froze and didn’t dare to call."
Huo Sining couldn’t help laughing. "That was them trying to bluff you. They thought you were a student and would be worried about the school. You just got scared by their talk and your brain locked up for a moment. This whole thing wasn’t something you did—if the police really investigated properly, they’re not going to smear you without distinguishing right from wrong. Since it clearly isn’t your responsibility, why on earth would they need to notify your family?"
"Even if it really got to the point where someone had to come sign you out, you could completely have called me or some other friend. You don’t have to go straight to your elders at home! As long as someone shows up at the station, pays the fine or does the necessary paperwork, they can take you out—it doesn’t have to be an immediate relative."
Hearing this, Su Anning froze for a moment, then suddenly realized, "Right, why am I so stupid I didn’t even think of that? I was only thinking about not embarrassing my grandpa and totally forgot there were other ways to handle it!"
Huo Sining hadn’t expected that this usually spoiled, delicate girl would, at a moment like this, actually be so intent on protecting her grandfather’s face.
That really was different from those hereditary family brats in the Imperial Capital. The city is packed with officials’ kids and rich second-generation heirs swaggering around like they own the place, forever waving their family banners and using their surnames as tiger skins to scare people while they mess around outside—arrogant, lawless, terrified that nobody knows which big shot’s son they are.
Whenever they get into trouble, they just dump a mess there and wait for the elders at home to clean it up. There are more than enough of these good-for-nothing dandies in this Forty-Nine City.
Huo Sining really hadn’t expected Su Anning to be different from those hereditary family kids. It seemed this little girl, though she looked fierce and sharp on the surface, wasn’t actually bad at heart.
But then Huo Sining thought it over and realized that her earlier attitude of looking down on Su Anning had been somewhat inappropriate.
Even though the girl’s words had been a bit rude at Su Zhongqing’s birthday banquet, she hadn’t actually caused Huo Sining any real harm. And after seeing what Huo Sining could do, she’d turned into a little shadow, always trailing after her.
Which showed that this girl wasn’t the type to hold grudges; on the contrary, she was actually a pretty humble, outgoing little thing.
And it made sense. With someone as respected and upright as Master Su, Su Zhongqing, there’s no way he’d raise a granddaughter who’s truly lawless and only knows how to make trouble. You don’t get to call yourself a scholarly family just because you want to. A clan with that kind of deep foundation is extremely strict about their children’s upbringing. Since Su Anning comes from the Su Family, she’s not going to go completely off the rails.
Huo Sining couldn’t help sighing as she looked at the girl who had just narrowly escaped disaster.
"You just got taken in by a few lines of patter from those scammers. In reality, they’re more afraid of the police than you are. If you’d insisted on calling the cops, those two would probably have chickened out and run. They were banking on human psychology—they’ve studied female students’ worries and fears to the bone."
"That also shows they don’t pick targets randomly. They go for girls who look rich but are young and inexperienced. Your bag and the jewelry and clothes you’re wearing all look very refined at a glance, obvious signs of money, so they picked you. People in that line of work have sharp eyes—much sharper than those clueless onlookers."
"Luckily you happened to run into me this time, or you really would’ve been taken to the cleaners. That pendant, if I remember right, was the one Liu Pengcheng bought for you?"
Su Anning nodded, a little embarrassed. "Yeah, Uncle-Master Liu specially had someone custom-make it for me. It’s worth over several hundred thousand. I really like this chain and pendant, so I always wear it close to my skin."
Huo Sining had handled that pendant before. The Mutton Fat Jade was warm and fine in texture, genuinely beneficial to the body—especially suitable for someone with a relatively weak constitution like Su Anning. You could tell Liu Pengcheng had put real thought into choosing that gift.