Chapter 17 - Burglar
"Make yourselves comfortable. I had the cooks prepare us something to eat in advance. It should be done in about an hour. Emilia should be back by then. That way, Emilia would not miss the chance to eat together with us." Jenny suddenly spoke with a warm smile on her face.
"I see… Anyway, about the matter we were talking about, do you think we could…" Riley then said to Jenny hinting at something.
With how sharp and astute Jenny was, she easily understood what Riley was implying and instantly replied. "Don't worry, we can leave the children here to watch television while we adults can discuss 'that' matter in my personal room."
Riley sighed before replying. "Alright."
She then turned to Randy and Lydia before speaking again. "You two should stay here. Your auntie and I need to talk about something."
"Okay, mom!" Lydia replied without even looking at her mother. Her mind was elsewhere at the moment.
"Okay." Randy looked at his mother and then replied briefly without any visible reaction from him.
After hearing their response, Riley left together with Jenny to the second floor of the mansion.
However, as soon as his mother and Jenny left, Randy suddenly scowled with a pondering expression.
He had long since noticed that his mother and sometimes his father included always came here to discuss some things ever since he was young, but at the time, he never paid any attention to them.
But now that he had thought about it, it is quite strange for them to always talk about things in secret.
"That matter…" He muttered.
After contemplating for a while about what could be the reason for this, a voice suddenly startled him from his thoughts.
"Brother! Look!"
It was Lydia's voice, she seemed to be pointing at something on the screen of the television. Randy unconsciously looked at where her finger was pointing before he spoke.
"What is it?"
As soon as Randy said this, it was only then did he see the headline on the screen of the television and his expression suddenly turned serious.
[Breaking news!]
[Wanted Criminal: Had stolen priceless treasures of the government which was scheduled for transport in the afternoon after disguising as one of the security guards and breaking into the storage vault. Currently on pursuit from the police.]
Seeing this headline, Randy immediately bent over to touch a screen on a flat tablet-like remote on the table and turned up the volume of the television.
[According to an anonymous tip, the burglar was last seen entering the Golden Hand Street and haven't been seen since then. The police are currently making their way towards that neighborhood as we speak. Everyone who lives in that neighborhood should stay in their houses until further notice. Anyone who sees any suspicious individual, please kindly report this to police to further ensure your safety…]
At this moment, Lydia suddenly spoke out.
"Brother, they said that there is a bad guy who was last seen around this neighborhood. Should we tell auntie Jenny about it?"
Randy suddenly turned quiet for a while without saying anything. Usually, he did not care about these kinds of things as long as it was not in his neighborhood but hearing that some criminal who had stolen and evaded been arrested was roaming close to their present location, he could not help but turn serious.
"Brother? Brother? What is wrong? Why are you frowning? Should we not tell auntie Jenny?" Lydia said to him when she noticed that her Brother was unresponsive immediately after seeing the headline of the breaking news.
At this point, Randy realized that he was acting strange, and so, he put a smile before saying. "It's nothing, Lydia. I think we should tell mom and auntie Jenny when they come out. For now, why don't the two of us play tag by ourselves? No, I guess that is not possible with just the two of us. Why don't we play hide and seek instead?"
"Really?!" Lydia's excited voice rang out.
"That's right, you hide in here, while I go outside and wait for a while before coming in and searching for your whereabouts. Remember don't come out looking me until I come back okay, hmm, well, unless mom and auntie Jenny comes back, only then should you come out of hiding, okay?" Randy said to her.
"Okay! We haven't played hide and seek in a long time. Ehehe… this is going to be fun. You will never be able to find me. Brother, I'll have you know that I happened to know a secret location that Sister Emilia told me about last time when I came here with mom." Lydia raised chin up said with a confident expression.
"Oh? Is that so." Randy appeared to be surprised and then he continued. "Then we shall see whether I'll be able find you or not in a while. I just happened to know every single little secret about Emilia. We shall compete and see who will win then."
"Hmph! Just you wait and see. Sister Emilia said that she had never told you anything about this hideout." Lydia showed a pouting expression before saying to her Brother.
However, Randy only found her expression to be cute as he displayed a smile on his face and then said. "Alright then, I will be leaving now. Since you are so confident, I better not find you as soon as I enter this room, alright?"
"Hmph! You are looking down on me too much, Brother. Do you think I am still a kid?" Lydia turned her head around from her Brother with a sulky pout before replying in a displeased tone.
Randy could not help but laugh when he noticed her supposedly angry expression.
"Hahaha, alright, you are big girl now. Brother will step out for a while. When I come in, you better be hidden by then, okay?" Randy could not help but laugh when he noticed her supposedly angry expression before he spoke.
"…"
However, Lydia did not say anything in response as it seemed that she was still angry at her Brother and only after Randy opened the door and went out of the room, did she respond.
"Okay, Brother!"
Randy could hear a childish voice resounding behind him. At that, he only let out a smile before shaking his head.
Right now, Randy had walked out of the mansion. Of course, before he left, he picked up one of the key cards of this building.
Although, no one gave it to him, but back in the day when Randy used to come by and visit Emilia, due to them feeling somewhat restrained when they are in the mansion, they usually do not stay in the house all the time, and they relied on this spare key to go out and have some fun.
It was only because of that, was he able to find the location of this spare key card.
This key card was meant for Emilia, but she pretended to have lost the key card whereas in reality, it was stashed away by Emilia and used for sneaking out whenever both her parents were not around.
However, she had always made sure to return home before her parents gets home so she was never caught.
'It seems that she hasn't been caught yet if the key card is still located where it was from two years ago.'
Randy had a nostalgic expression on his face as he thought to himself.
However, none of that matters now. Emilia's parents, especially her mother did not like him very much ever since two years ago, and she was not planning or trying to hide that fact.
Randy did not expect such a treatment from his mother's best friend and also, someone he had treated as his own aunt.
He did not bother to tell his mother afraid he would only sour the friendship between the two. Nevertheless, it is what it is, life goes on.
Now that he had awakened his ability, he does not need to concern himself with such idle matters. He only needs to focus on getting strong and one of that chance to do so was close by.
At this point, Randy had an unsightly grin on his face as he tapped the key card on the monitor of the next to the gate.
Ding!
There was a chime from the monitors indicating that it had recognize the key card before the gate started opening by itself.
Right as the gate was halfway open, Randy walked through it and made sure to tapped the key card again on the outside monitor to quickly close the door before turning around and walking away.
…
About a quarter of an hour later.
At this moment, Randy had already walked around this neighborhood quite a few times. One would wonder why he is walking around this neighborhood by himself.
But the answer to that was quite simple, he planned on catching this wanted criminal by himself and then steal, no, that is inappropriate, rather than steal, he plans on catching the criminal and taking whatever he had stolen for himself.
After all, if whatever the other party had stolen was not something of noteworthy, the police would not be chasing after them so fervently.
Perhaps, he had stolen some artifacts or maybe some secret technique book or a secret art; there is even a chance for there to be cultivation manuals among the things he had stolen.
With all that, how could Randy give up such a chance? Thus, he planned on catching this burglar before the police does, and even if he fails, there is no harm done at all, as he could always run away for his life when things go south.