"Hmph." Mu Leng snorted. She felt that all her worries had been utterly unnecessary after she saw the look of smug satisfaction on Cheng Nuo's face.
Cheng Nuo bent down and laid the bag out on the ground again. Then he picked up his self-made "plaque" and resumed his business.
With two beauties by his side, he had many customers again.
Before long, they only had fewer than 20 toys left.
"Cheng Nuo, do you think the police will come again?" Xiaoxiao asked, concerned.
Cheng Nuo replied cheerfully as he gave his customers their change, "Don't worry. He won't. Besides, I don't even know where he's gone to…!"
The smile on his face suddenly froze.
A few feet away, a young man in a police uniform was walking towards them.
"Height: 176.82 cm, Weight: 70.54 kg, Lung capacity: 4215…"
Once he saw the set of statistics, Cheng Nuo knew that this was the same man who had chased him earlier. "Oh man, it's you again! Why do you have to do this to me?" Cheng Nuo felt frustrated.
"Run!"
"Stop there, kid!"
They shouted at almost the same time.
Without a word, Cheng Nuo took to his heels without looking back. Behind him, the officer clenched his teeth and followed Cheng Nuo closely. The officer's cheek was slightly swollen because he had fallen earlier thanks to Cheng Nuo. Hence, he was determined to catch the boy and teach him a good lesson.
"Distance: 14.24 mm, speed: 6.7 m/s…"
Puzzled at the officer's incredible speed, Cheng Nuo looked back at him and thought, "Hey, man, why are you so angry with me? I didn't offend your ancestors!"
Cheng Nuo's escape route was the same as last time. Soon, the pair had dashed into the shopping district again. Using his data analysis powers, Cheng Nuo successfully avoided every pedestrian and ran through the crowd in no time.
Meanwhile, the officer had used the same trick as last time. The crowd stepped back to let him pass once he showed his work pass. However, many people found it strange that this man had come again. He had been there just a few minutes ago!
A few seconds later, the pair had run to the turning point again.
"Inclined angle: 19.24 degrees, Speed: 4.21 m/s."
Since it was the same place, Cheng Nuo didn't bother to do the calculation again. He managed to make the turn with the same set of data he had obtained previously.
This time, the officer had learned his lesson. Instead of turning at the high speed of 6 meters per second, he estimated Cheng Nuo's speed and started running at the same running speed as him.
"The floor must have enough friction, since the kid can make the turn at such a high speed," the officer thought.
However, what he did not know about was Cheng Nuo's incredible calculating powers. At the very least, the officer had overlooked the angle his body should be inclined at.
After the officer had decelerated to about the same speed as Cheng Nuo, he sprinted forward.
In the next instant…
Bang!!
It was the loud noise of someone's body falling onto the ground.
At the very instant the officer fell, his mind was totally blank. After a few cloudy moments, his vision had finally recovered.
The officer struggled to stand up and looked around, but Cheng Nuo was long gone. He touched his swollen cheeks and sighed.
…
Five minutes later, Cheng Nuo walked up to the bridge, panting heavily. He sat down on the ground immediately without checking whether it was clean. Before Mu Leng realized it, he had snatched the bottle of mineral water from her hands and gulped the contents down.
"Cheng Nuo, you…!" Mu Leng glared at Cheng Nuo, raising her eyebrows. She had only drunk one mouthful of water!
Cheng Nuo was too tired to tease Mu Leng right now. His face was pale from the intense running. He waved his hand and said, "Give me a break. You girls take charge for a while. Damn it. I bet that officer has something wrong with his brain. He has chased me twice! He's gonna get me killed from always running around!"
After ten minutes…
When Cheng Nuo's eyes met the officer's from a distance. Both of them were dumbfounded.
"Why is that kid still here?!!"
"Why did the officer come again?!!"
After that…
"Run!"
"Stop there, kid!"
It was like a replay. Their words, expressions, actions were exactly the same as the previous time. It was as though it had been staged.
The crowd was speechless as they watched the show.
There's a song that goes "We have returned once again to the start, standing blankly in front of the mirror [1. From Hu Xia's "Those Bygone Years", theme song for "You Are the Apple of My Eye"]". That's so very apt for the current situation.
The officer paused when he reached the turning point for the third time.
However, one had to pick himself back up at where he fell. Having learned his lesson the hard way, the officer decided to slow down even more, even though Cheng Nuo had made it through at a seemingly high speed in the blink of an eye.
The officer took a deep breath and decelerated to about 4 meters per second. Then he ran towards the turning point.
This speed should be safe, right?
However…
Bang!!
"Good progress! He just fell even harder than the first two times!" Cheng Nuo thought.
This time, the officer couldn't hold it back anymore. Tears started to well up his eyes with his face pressed against the cold floor.
"That's just not fair! How come you can make it through all three times and I always end up lying on the floor?! Why does God favor that kid?!"
A middle-aged fruit seller sighed deeply and said to another fruit seller beside her, "Hey, do you think that young man is a fool? It's the third time already! He falls every time he runs there. If he's not stupid, why is he doing it over and over again?"
The woman beside her agreed. "Sigh. What a pity. I wanted to introduce him to my daughter because he's got a pretty face. But now I'll give it a pass since he's a fool."
Crack!
The officer's heart broke.
…
20 minutes later, when Cheng Nuo was about to pack up after the last toy had been sold, he looked up and saw the grumpy-looking officer again.
The officer was in terrible shape. His left cheek was visibly swollen and there were bruises on his handsome face. Even his uniform was very dirty.
But this time Cheng Nuo didn't run because all his toys had been sold out. Without any concrete evidence, the officer couldn't do anything to him anyway.
"But why does he look so pathetic?" Cheng Nuo wondered. "Did he fall into a drain?"
Neither Cheng Nuo nor the officer made a move.
They simply stared straight at each other from across the street.
It was weird to have another guy looking at you like this. Both Cheng Nuo and the officer were starting to get goose bumps.
"Hey, bro. Good day!" Cheng Nuo grinned, trying to ease the awkward atmosphere. "What happened to your face?"
"What happened to my face? Do you not have a single idea about that?!"
The officer's face remained cold as he recalled the feeling of despair he had felt when he was lying on the cold ground.
Hence, he gave a snort of indignation and left.
But… the way he limped heavily somehow made him look even more forlorn.