Chapter 3

Vincent stared at the words on the screen, then looked down at the disability certificate on the ground.

The arrogance froze on her face.

The people who'd been cursing the loudest just now shut their mouths.

The woman with plastic bags shrank back, muttering: "So he's mute? But then how does the voice match..."

But Mario kicked the disability certificate on the ground away.

"Vincent, don't let him fool you!"

He pointed at my nose and cursed: "Fake certificates only cost fifty bucks nowadays! He got this thing specifically to avoid fraud charges!"

"Have you ever seen a real mute person walk around with text-to-speech enabled on their phone?"

"He's obviously got a guilty conscience!"

Vincent's expression darkened again.

"Right, I almost fell for your trick!"

She grabbed my hair and forced my head up. "Fake certificate fraud—that's another charge! Even if you were a corpse today, you'd still have to cough up that money!"

The pulling made my scalp go numb. I endured the pain and typed quickly on my phone with one hand.

I held the screen up to her face again.

[Did your brain get caught in a door?]

[Go check the number on the disability certificate.]

[Can't even tell a real certificate from a fake one—no wonder you got scammed out of five million.]

Vincent read the words on the screen and started shaking with rage.

"You're asking for it!" She raised her fist to strike.

"Stop! What's going on here!"

Sharp police sirens stopped at the supermarket entrance. Two officers pushed through the crowd and strode in.

Vincent's fist froze mid-air.

Mario immediately put on a pitiful expression and rushed up to grab the officer's arm.

"Officers, you came just in time! This man is an online scammer who swindled us out of five million!"

"He's even trying to use a fake certificate and pretend to be mute to escape charges. Arrest him quickly!"

The officer glanced at the disability certificate on the ground, picked it up, and looked through it.

He turned to look at me: "Are you Johnson?"

I nodded, pointed at my throat, and shook my head.

Then I typed a line on my phone and handed it to the officer.

[I have congenital vocal cord damage. The city hospital has all my medical records. This certificate is genuine.]

The officer verified the photo on the certificate and the anti-counterfeit stamp.

"The certificate is real." The officer turned to Vincent. "You claim he committed fraud. What evidence do you have?"

Vincent panicked and pulled out her phone to show the game interface.

"Officer, it's this game account! He used voice chat in the game every day to seduce me and tricked me into buying him a house and car."

"Just now at the supermarket checkout, that voice was exactly the same as in the game!"

The officer took the phone and glanced at it.

"Voice similarity alone can't prove guilt." The officer said, "Do you have any other evidence?"

Vincent's face turned ashen.

Mario suddenly shouted from the side: "Check the IP! Officer, you can see the login IP in the game!"

The officer opened the account details page.

"Last login was ten minutes ago, IP address shows..." The officer paused, looked up at the surroundings. "Right near this supermarket."

Vincent instantly perked up.

"You hear that! Ten minutes ago he was at this supermarket!"

"You still dare say it wasn't you!"

Mario took advantage of my distraction and suddenly lunged forward, snatching the phone from my hands.

"Give it back!" I silently screamed, trying to grab it back.

Mario kicked me to the ground.

"Officer, check his phone!"

He forcibly unlocked the screen with my fingerprint and rapidly swiped across the home screen.

Suddenly, he stopped and held up the phone screen with a sharp, piercing laugh.

"Found it! This game right here!"

The officer took the phone. On the screen, an app called "Star Voyage" was running in the background.

Opening it, the account was logged in.

And the game ID was exactly the same as the scammer account on Vincent's phone.