Chapter 93: At Last, the Con Artist's Address

If you can’t use messaging, you can transfer the money through a bank. I’ll send you my account number now.

Ten thousand dollars. The temptation was too great.

I’ve already transferred it. It should arrive in twenty-four hours.

Then he attached a screenshot.

Of course, the screenshot was fake; he had edited it himself.

For him now, image editing was still easy.

When the swindler saw it, delight surged through him at once. He had transferred the money so readily. That ten thousand dollars had come far too easily.

His finger hovered over the block button. Should he press it?

By rights, he should block, delete, and vanish in one clean stroke.

But... with the money not yet in his account, he still felt uneasy.

It was only twenty-four hours. He could wait. The swindler made up his mind.

For the moment, he would not delete Jiang Zheng. He would keep him around until the money arrived.

As for Jiang Zheng—

After fooling the swindler, he got to work.

His fingers flew across the keyboard, and lines of characters incomprehensible to outsiders appeared on the screen.

He was writing a small program.

In the end, Jiang Zheng still used the skill known as Programmer's Power.

He felt miserable, always as though he were letting his hair down.

But there was nothing to be done. He needed to lure the swindler out now, bypass that iron wall called WeChat, and lock onto the man’s address.

And the crucial thing in this plan was this little program.

Writing a program could also be done with the hacker skills of Cyber-Devil, but not well enough, and certainly not this quickly.

Every craft has its specialty. Hacking excels at breaking into and defending networks.

When it comes to writing programs, the job must still be left to the proper technical skill.

So Jiang Zheng grimaced and used Programmer's Power, at the cost of his hair.

The twenty-four hours for the transfer became the time he needed to write the program.

...

At the police station, Yang Po walked in with a knot of unease in his heart.

I want to file a report.

After walking out of the police station, Yang Po somehow felt a strange sense of relief.

Faced with the officers' lecture, he could only nod again and again. The police also assured him they would do their best to track down the骗子, though there was no guarantee the money could be recovered.

Yang Po said he understood.

Li Sha said, Why did you insist on coming to the police station today to file a report?

Thinking of Jiang Zheng's instructions, Yang Po said, I just don't want those swindlers to get away with it. I accept that the money is gone, but I still want them to face the punishment they deserve. Doing nothing would only encourage them.

Hearing this, Li Sha's expression softened. You're right. We can accept that the money was cheated away, but we can't let the swindlers run free.

Both of them understood that the chances of getting the money back were slim.

Unless the swindlers had not used it at all, there was still a chance to recover it. But after so many days, could they really not have spent any of it?

Of course not. One could only hope they had used only a little, so at least some of the loss might be salvaged.

Mm. Yang Po nodded beside her.

Let's go. Today we'll keep looking for work. Yesterday I saw a place hiring someone to hand out flyers. If nothing else works, we'll go take a look there.

Okay. Yang Po agreed.

At this point, any job would do. He was no longer being picky.

Living outside meant every meal, every item of clothing, every night’s lodging cost money. Nearly all the money on him had been swindled away, and these days even what he ate and used came from Li Sha.

He also dared not tell his family about it, afraid of shocking his parents.

...

Jiang Zheng looked over the program he had written and ran it a few times. There were no major problems.

The program's main function was to keep the swindler occupied. As long as he entered it and stayed inside longer, it would buy Jiang Zheng more time to lock onto his location.

Twenty-four hours passed.

The money the swindler had been waiting for still had not arrived. He waited another two hours, and it was still missing.

Unable to hold back any longer, he sent Jiang Zheng a message.

Did you really transfer it? Why still nothing on my end?

Seeing the message, Jiang Zheng laughed to himself. He had wondered how long the swindler would hold out, but apparently not that long at all.

I transferred it. I even sent you a screenshot of the transfer record. Check again—how could it not have arrived?

The swindler looked at the message and checked once more. It really still hadn’t arrived.

As a seasoned con man, the WeChat account, bank card, and identity information he used were not his own; they all belonged to someone else.

It really didn't arrive. I'm not lying to you. Check again.

Jiang Zheng replied, All right. I'll take another look.

Then he deliberately left the swindler hanging for a while, not replying at once.

The initiative was in his hands now.

Leaving the man hanging would make him more anxious. The more anxious a person became, the less they thought things through.

And the one on the other side was a swindler, someone who understood human nature better than anyone. Jiang Zheng did not dare be careless for a second.

If he let him slip away at the last moment, that would be regrettable indeed.

The longer the swindler waited, the more anxious he grew. It felt as though the ten thousand dollars were already right in front of him, only to be drifting slowly away.

Just as his heart was burning with impatience, Jiang Zheng finally sent another message.

Sorry. I just checked. It seems there was some missing paperwork. They told me to download this app and complete the required procedures before the money could arrive. I’m not very good with this sort of thing. Help me take a look.

The message was full of holes, and Jiang Zheng felt a little tense. He did not know whether the swindler would take the bait.

Anyone normal, reading it carefully, could spot the flaws immediately.

And the other side was a swindler besides.

Jiang Zheng sent over the link to the mini program.

All right. I'll help you look.

Then, on Jiang Zheng's end, the mini program showed as downloaded.

At once, Jiang Zheng let out a quiet breath.

His expression hardened, and his fingers began working on the keyboard again, striking it at high speed.

After long periods of writing, even his own typing speed had improved.

Using his hacking skills, he locked onto the other party's true address.

The man on the other end was still cautious and knew a little about hacking; he had set up some cover.

But in Jiang Zheng's eyes, those cover-ups were all but nonexistent.

Before long, Jiang Zheng had locked onto the swindler's real address and appearance.

After finishing, he packaged everything together and sent it anonymously to the police.

What happened next was no longer his concern. He only needed to leave it to the authorities.

He had already provided the exact address and face. Arresting the man would be easy enough.

As for the swindler's WeChat account, Jiang Zheng no longer wished to play along. He blocked him and deleted him in one clean motion.