24: Chapter 24 Go to the police! Try to salvage as much as you can!

"Fuck!" The person on the other end cursed again, but this time there was a clear hint of panic in their voice.

Immediately after, "Beep!" The video call was ruthlessly hung up.

The screen reverted to that cold, indifferent chat interface.

Zhao Xiaobei clicked the video call button like a madman.

"The other party is busy." He clicked again. "The other party is busy."

He wouldn't give up. With trembling fingers, he sent a message: "Baby, what's wrong? Who was that person just now? Say something!"

This time, a red exclamation mark popped up on the screen.

[Message sent, but rejected by the recipient.]

Blocked.

The move was smooth and executed without hesitation; clearly, they were a repeat offender.

The phone in Zhao Xiaobei's hand fell onto the table with a "clatter," knocking over a bikini-clad figurine.

He slumped in his chair, staring blankly at the ceiling with lifeless eyes. His lips trembled, and tears fell like beads from a broken string.

He looked as miserable as anyone could possibly look.

"Impossible, this is absolutely impossible..." He continued to mutter to himself, as if possessed.

"The phone must have been stolen. The person just now must have been a thief..."

"Mengmeng must be very scared right now. She must be looking everywhere for a phone to contact me..."

"Master!" Zhao Xiaobei suddenly sat up straight, his bloodshot eyes staring fixedly at Su Yun.

"Master, you said that was an urban village just now, right? A thief must have snuck in! I want to call the police! I have to go save Mengmeng!"

The viewers in the live stream looked at him in this state, finding it both funny and pathetic.

Even at this point, he was still making excuses for the scammer.

This wasn't just being lovesick; this was cerebellar atrophy, right?

Su Yun looked at the nearly broken Zhao Xiaobei on the screen, his face expressionless.

Cruel? Yes, it was cruel.

But if this abscess wasn't lanced, this foolish boy would live in that fake dream forever, and who knows how much more money he would be scammed out of.

"Alright, stop with the tragic drama." Su Yun's voice wasn't loud, but transmitted through the microphone, it carried an unquestionable penetrating power.

"A thief?"

"Which thief steals a phone and accurately knows your name is Zhao Xiaobei? And knows you were about to transfer him 50,000 yuan?"

"Which thief would curse at you for interrupting their screen because they lost a team fight?"

Su Yun leaned forward slightly, his gaze like two knives, stabbing straight into Zhao Xiaobei's heart.

"Zhao Xiaobei, you are an adult, use your brain."

"That voice just now was the Mengmeng you've been chatting with for three years."

"Do you want to know who he is?"

Su Yun didn't give Zhao Xiaobei any chance to escape; he directly tore open the cruel truth and displayed it bloodily before him.

"Wang Dazhuang, male, thirty-eight years old, unemployed."

"Just like you, he's a veteran shut-in, but he's doing much worse than you."

"He doesn't have some big balcony, nor any school belle dresses."

"Right at this moment, he has a five-yuan Hongmei cigarette in his left hand, and his right hand is frantically pounding the keyboard, cursing his teammates."

"On the table is a finished cup of Old Altar Pickled Cabbage Beef Noodles, the soup has gone sour, and next to it is half a bottle of leftover soda."

"His feet are resting on the chair's crossbar, and he's shaking his leg while picking at them."

"When he sent you that voice message just now, he used that very hand he just used to pick his foot to press the send button."

"Ugh!" Someone in the live stream started it, and the whole screen was filled with vomiting emojis.

"Master, please stop, I have a mental image now!"

"My god, it's confirmed, a foot-picking brute!"

"I wonder what the area of Zhao Xiaobei's psychological trauma is right now!"

"Sending a 'muah' with a foot-picking hand? I can't take it, I need to go wash my eyes!"

Listening to Su Yun's description, Zhao Xiaobei's stomach churned violently.

Those sweet love words that once made him blush and his heart race now turned into a wave of disgusting bile, rushing straight up to his throat.

"No, I don't believe it..." His voice was as weak as a mosquito's hum, and the light in his eyes had completely extinguished.

The so-called school belle, the so-called pure love, the so-called future.

At this moment, it all collapsed.

It turned into that foot-picking brute in the internet cafe, turned into that bowl of sour instant noodle soup.

Three hundred thousand.

That was money he had saved by living frugally, eating scraps, and even selling his own blood.

And in the end, he was supporting such a thing?

Zhao Xiaobei suddenly covered his face and began to wail.

The weeping was heart-wrenching; it truly sounded miserable beyond words.

"My money! My three hundred thousand!"

"I'm so stupid! Really! I only knew online dating had risks, I didn't expect it to be a complete pit!"

"Wuwuwu, my Mengmeng, my wife..."

Although the viewers in the live stream were snarky, seeing this scene, they couldn't help but sigh a little.

"Sigh, this guy is also a pitiful person."

"Thirty thousand to buy a lesson, that's some expensive tuition."

"Can only say the scammer is too wicked, using someone's feelings to get money."

"The pure love warrior ultimately fell under the butcher's knife of online fraud."

Su Yun watched him cry quietly for a while, and only after his emotions had vented enough did he tap on the table.

"Alright, what's the use of crying? Can crying bring the money back?"

Zhao Xiaobei looked up, his face covered in snot and tears, and asked with a sob: "Master, can I still get my money back?"

Su Yun curled his lip.

"Getting it all back is impossible."

"That Wang Dazhuang is a spendthrift; most of the money he scammed has been spent on games and tipping female streamers."

Hearing this, Zhao Xiaobei's face turned even paler.

"However." Su Yun changed the subject.

"He just scammed you out of a few large sums recently, so he should still have a few tens of thousands in stolen money on hand that he hasn't had time to spend yet."

"Plus his game account and equipment, selling those can also be worth a decent amount."

"Recover what you can; it's better than having nothing at all."

After speaking, Su Yun took a sticky note from the side, scribbled a few lines, and then showed it to the camera.

"Write this down, this is Wang Dazhuang's ID number."

"And the specific address of that internet cafe."

"Stop moping here, hurry to the nearest police station to report the crime."

"Just say you were scammed out of three hundred thousand; this is a huge amount, the police will open a case."

"Give this address and ID number to the police officers; I know the community police over there, they are very fast at responding."

"If you go late, and that Wang Dazhuang runs away or spends all the money, you won't even have this last chance to cut your losses."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Xiaobei didn't dare to delay any longer.

He wiped the tears from his face haphazardly, grabbed the car keys from the table, and rushed toward the door.

Running to the door, he suddenly stopped and bowed deeply to the screen.

"Thank you, Master! Thank you for saving my life, Master!"

"If I can recover the money, I will definitely come back to gift the Master!"

After saying this, the guy rushed out of the room like a gust of wind, forgetting even to disconnect the live stream.

In the end, Su Yun had to manually cut the signal for him.