But Xiajun wasn't called a detective for nothing.
He ran as fast as he could to the reception of the hotel.
"Miss!" he said, a little out of breath. He had kept an eye out for the old woman the whole time he was running and doing two things at once could be very tiresome. "Where's the control room?"
The petite receptionist looked up and was taken aback by the handsome stranger. She was already working overtime so she didn't really care what happened now, but seeing handsome men like these made overtime hours worth it.
"W-Why would you like to go to the control panel room, sir?"
Xiajun tapped his fingers on the marble counter impatiently and pulled out his card from his pant pocket. The woman looked at it once and her expression instantly sobered. "Right there, sir," she said monotonously and pointed to a door at the back.
Xiajun nodded and before he proceeded in the direction he yelled, "Tell the guards to shut the doors. Let no one out till I say so. We've a criminal on the loose."
The poor receptionist nodded, afraid, and picked up a phone. Meanwhile, Xiajun barged in through any crowds that stood between him and the control panel room.
"Get out of my way!" Xiajun bellowed as he smashed open the door with his heel and walked in confidently. It was a dark room,. On one wall were many monitor screens embedded to the wall and two men sat lazily in front of them on wheelie chairs.
One security guard was chewing on a lollipop stick as his eyes browsed the many screen showing live footage of the CCTV camera and the other security guard was on his phone. As Xiajun approached them with calm but swift movements and both of them turned around at the sounds of his heavy steps.
"Show me the footage outside Room#404."
"Excuse me, sir," Security guard 1 stood up unsteadily and blocked the way to the control panel. "You're not allowed in her-"
"Didn't you hear me? I need to see the footage outside Room#404" Xiajun muttered bitterly as he barged past Security guard 1 and started pressing buttons on the control panel. "I'm a detective; I have a warrant."
Xiajun, in fact, did not have a warrant. He was lying. But the authority in his voice made the guards stand back and watch on uncertainly.
Xiajun finally caught the a bird-eye view footage outside his room on one of the monitors. Quickly, he rewound the footage back a few minutes and looked on carefully as the old woman knocked on his door and how Xiajun himself mistakenly lets her in. Xiajun fast-forwarded a couple minutes and looked with great interest as the woman slips out of his room while wearing a blue T-shirt and jeans and holding a bulging purse under her arms.
"Ahh," Xiajun let out a frustrated sigh. The woman had changed her clothes before she left! That's why he hadn't been able to recognize her.
Xiajun followed the woman's movements from screen after screen as she ran like a mouse, zig-zagging between corridors. No wonder Xiajun had lost sight of her...
He typed in something on the control panel and a live footage of the restaurant popped up. The old woman sat at a table in the very corner of the large, carpeted hall and was furtively counting yuan notes from Xiajun's familiar black wallet.
'How foolish must this woman be...' Xiajun thought as he rolled his eyes. 'It would have been much harder for me if she had just left the hotel, but look how she has stupidly decided to enjoy her newly stolen money on a hefty meal.'
Xiajun scoffed and stood back in a mixture of disgust and bewilderment.
"You two," he said without turning back, addressing the two security guards cowering in a corner behind him. "Send your men to arrest this woman right here. She's a thief. And not a cunning one at that."
Hurriedly, the men behind him shuffled with their walkie talkies till they finally crackled and a ratchety voice of a man broke through. Security guard 2 told him all about the matter and with an affirmation, the walkie talkie crackled silent once again.
"T-The guards will get her, Sir," he said.
Xiajun nodded with relief, his eyes still on the old woman and the thick file bulging from her purse on the floor beside her. It looked still intact. Xiajun waited till a couple of burly men in black shirts arrived at the restaurant and walked directly over to the old woman. The woman was too busy counting notes, so when the men called upon her and she looked up, her eyes instantly filled with fear. She tried to bypass them in an attempt to escape, leaving all the money on the table, but the men were equally fast and the woman was in handcuffs in no time.
One guard took all the stuff the lady had with him while the other guard held the woman tightly by the shoulders as he led her out, walking her the walk of shame past all the people just wanting to enjoy a decent meal.
Xiajun smiled, finally satisfied as he saw the woman walk off and beyond the eye of the CCTV camera.
"Good work, gentlemen," Xiajun said, commenting the two scared security guards behind him. "Tell your men on your little walkie talkies to kindly bring my things to the reception. You can do whatever you want with the woman for all I care, though she better repent on her sins. Good day."
With a flourish of his coat, Xiajun strode off confidently and waited near the reception desk for the two burly mean to bring his stuff back. It was soon when they arrived with the ashamed woman in handcuffs and they gladly passed over my things to me. The woman's purse was left at the reception.
Before the woman was led out of the hotel, Xiajun stopped the guards so he could offer some last words to the thief who tried to steal his possessions.
"Just a little reminder," Xiajun whispered in the woman's ears, a smirk on his handsome face. "Don't ever mess with a detective. I hope the little bathroom break was enjoyable though"
The woman's face colored red with humiliation as she stared at her feet and she was led off without another word.