"Brother Tiger, say something!" the man who came in later said anxiously.

"Run!" Tiger suddenly stood up and pulled the person who came in later to run outside.

An Moxue saw the two people leave the house and enter the courtyard, so she followed them out and kicked each of them in the lower back. The two of them fell face-first to the ground with two thuds.

"Run, keep running." An Moxue stood behind the two, watching them get up from the ground and run towards the gate.

Then she chased after them and kicked them twice more, knocking them both to the ground.

This time, the two of them stood up and stopped running.

The one who came in later asked, "What do you want?"

An Moxue watched the two men wince in pain, feeling somewhat satisfied. She thought to herself, "Why don't you run away then? This is so boring." She only kicked one of them twice.

"Not running anymore?" An Moxue asked casually.

She nodded twice, then, thinking that the light was dim and she might not be able to see clearly, she replied, "I won't run anymore."

"Sure?"

"OK," the two answered in unison.

"It's okay, you can run away too."

Both of them shook their heads in unison and replied, "We're not running anymore." They thought to themselves, why run? With their mediocre skills, they can't outrun each other and would only get kicked for nothing. It's not worth it.

"Alright! We're not running anymore. Shouldn't we talk about how to resolve tonight's events?" An Moxue looked at the two of them, giving them the impression that if they didn't answer properly or if their answers weren't satisfactory, she would keep kicking them.

"How do you want to resolve this?" asked the one called Tiger.

"That's ridiculous. You broke into my house and got caught red-handed. Shouldn't you be the ones offering to compensate me?"

"Compensation, not reporting to the authorities?" Tiger asked blankly, as another person tugged at his sleeve.

"Oh! You can report it to the authorities if you want." An Moxue thought to herself, "These two are a bit dim-witted; they don't have the shrewdness of thieves at all."

"No, no, let's not report it to the authorities. What do you suggest we do?" Tiger said anxiously, while another tugged at his sleeve.

An Moxue looked at the two of them and asked, "Is it up to me? Are you two sure?"

"Sure."

"No."

Two voices rang out; Tiger said "yes," and the other person said "no."

"We can't agree! What should we do?" An Moxue said with a smile, but the two people who heard it felt a chill run down their spines.

The two exchanged a glance and whispered to each other. An Moxue couldn't hear what they were saying, but she could guess the gist of it. After a while, she asked, "Have you figured it out? You're disturbing my sleep in the middle of the night. I don't have much patience."

Another person spoke up, saying, "It's settled. As long as you don't report us to the authorities and don't let us do anything illegal, we'll accept any compensation, even if it's just a small amount."

Hearing him say that, An Moxue became even more certain that these two people weren't too bad, and perhaps she could give them a chance.

"Oh! No regrets? What if I made you two pay a huge sum of money?"

“As long as it’s not too much, we can pay it back. We don’t have much money, so if it’s too much, we might not be able to pay you back right away,” the other person said.

How much are you prepared to pay in compensation?

"Ten yuan."

"Hmph! Do you know how long you'll be sent to a labor camp if I report you to the police? Will your families be ostracized by the neighbors? If you have a job, you won't even be able to keep it. Ten yuan is like giving money to a beggar!"

"We failed to steal it," the man said, somewhat unconvinced.

"That's still stealing."

"Then how much do you want?" Tiger asked.

"Two hundred per person," An Moxue said without room for argument.

"impossible."

"no."

The two of them spoke at the same time again.

"How can you have no sense of responsibility as thieves at all? You've been caught, okay? Enough said, I think I'll just call the police tomorrow!"

Another man said, "It's not that we don't want the money, we just don't have any. I'm not afraid to tell you, but the reason we're stealing tonight is because our grandmother is sick and we need some money for her medical treatment. We simply don't have the money. Even if it's just ten yuan, we'll have to borrow it, and we might not even be able to." After the man finished speaking, he lowered his head, and his spirits immediately waned.

An Moxue looked at the two men without speaking. The one called Hu Zi said, "Girl, it's true, it's really my grandma who's sick. Now that we're destroying the Four Olds and cracking down on feudal superstitions, my grandma has been tormented by those Red Guards for years, and she's recently fallen ill again. My brother and I really have no choice. You'll probably know my grandma's name when I tell you. Many people call her Hu Xiangu, but her real name is Hu Jia Mei. She lives in Xiahe Village. And this is the first time we've ever done something like this."

When Hu Zi mentioned the Fox Fairy, An Moxue had indeed heard of her. These two didn't seem to be lying; habitual offenders weren't like them.

"It's fine if you don't have to pay that much, but you have to write me a confession. If I need anything in the future, you two have to help me. But don't worry, I won't let you do anything illegal."

"This..." Both of them hesitated. They couldn't come up with the money, since they were already broke. And if they wrote a confession, it would give the police leverage against them. They were in a dilemma.

"Think it over. You can choose to write a confession and agree to my conditions or be sent to a labor camp."

The two men exchanged a glance, and Tiger said, "You promise that after you write a confession, you won't make our affair public."

"I won't expose it unless you do something illegal again. Don't you even know who lives in this house?"

The two people shook their heads and said, "We don't know."

"Then you can ask around after today. Have you decided what to choose?"

"Sign a confession and agree to your conditions."

"Alright, come inside with me! You can write, right?"

"Yes." The two of them replied dejectedly.

Once inside, An Moxue lit a kerosene lamp, found paper and pen for the two men, and they wrote a confession, signed it, pressed their fingerprints on it, and handed it to An Moxue.

An Moxue took it and read it, and was surprised to find that both people's handwriting was quite good, so they must have read some books.

"Remember, you're not allowed to do anything illegal again. If I find out, I'll hand this confession over to the police. Don't doubt it, once you know who I am, you'll see if I can do it. Also, don't forget the conditions you promised me."

"Come on, tell me what this person who sent you to steal from me looks like, and what his features are."

"Of medium height, he looks very energetic."

"He has a very stable lower body, and his accent sounds a lot like yours."

"His nose is very straight, and there is a black mole the size of a grain of rice on the left side of his nose."

"Please describe in detail the age, face shape, eyebrows, eyes, lips, ears, neck, etc."

......

And so, with one question and two answers, An Moxue asked and drew at the same time. After more than an hour of effort, she managed to draw the man almost exactly like him.

The two were greatly surprised and both felt that An Moxue was no ordinary person.

Finally, An Moxue still gave a reminder, saying, "For your own good, I'm reminding you that you'd better keep what happened tonight and what you saw that man to yourselves, or you'll bring disaster upon yourselves, and you can't blame me for that."

The two men's expressions changed drastically, and they asked in unison, "What?"