Chapter Thirty: Racing a QQ Against a Ferrari?
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“Fifty-three!”
Upon hearing this, the old man declared loudly.
The livestream chat instantly exploded.
“Only fifty-three? His hair is completely white!”
“Forget fifty-three—even if he said sixty-three, I’d still think he was understating his age!”
“Old man, should I believe you, or should I believe that I’m the First Emperor of Qin?”
Tan Ping turned his gaze toward the little red car. After looking at it for a moment, he said, “It’s about to give up the ghost!”
The old man immediately bristled. “Who are you saying is about to give up the ghost? Young man, watch your mouth! I’m only sixty-nine! And you’re saying I’m about to die?”
“What? Didn’t you just say you were fifty-three?”
The cameraman, Lin Shigong, instantly seized on the contradiction.
The viewers in the livestream chat also began firing off comments.
“Brilliant! He let it slip!”
“I knew he was more than fifty-three! He looks even older than my sixty-five-year-old grandfather!”
The old man seemed to realize that he had misspoken and immediately changed his story. “You made me so angry that I got confused and misspoke! Young comrade, you have to explain clearly why you said I’m about to die!”
“Hahaha! Didn’t he just call Officer Tan ‘young man’? Now that he’s been caught, he’s switched to ‘young comrade’!”
The viewers burst into laughter.
Tan Ping pointed at the old man’s car. “I said your car is about to give up the ghost!”
“My car? This is a Q7!”
The old man pointed at the two large white characters stuck to the front of the vehicle.
“Holy crap! Unless I’m mistaken, isn’t that an QQ?”
One viewer posted in the chat.
“Even if the Jade Emperor himself came, this would still be an QQ! I worked at the factory that made QQs. Even if it were reduced to ashes, I’d recognize it!”
Tan Ping was thunderstruck by the old man’s claim that the car was a Q7. He looked at him suspiciously. “Isn’t this an QQ? You stuck that badge on yourself, didn’t you?”
“It’s a seventh-hand QQ. Why can’t I call it a Q7?”
Leaning back against the seat, the old man wore an expression of complete righteousness.
The viewers promptly posted more comments.
“Brilliant! You call that a Q7?”
“Mercedes-Benz: How much did Audi pay you for that advertisement? I’ll offer twice as much!”
At that moment, Tan Ping pointed at the red QQ. “Take a good look, old man. Your car is leaking oil all over the underside!”
The old man immediately got out and bent down to inspect it.
Sure enough, there was a pool of oil on the road.
The moment he saw it, the old man flew into a rage and began cursing. “Those bastards! I spent over thirty thousand on this thing, and it started leaking oil after only a few days! What a bunch of crooks!”
“Old man, were you cheated? You paid over thirty thousand for this car?”
Tan Ping could not help asking.
The livestream chat erupted once more.
“That old man was definitely ripped off!”
“Exactly! Even a brand-new one of these only costs a little over thirty thousand. A used one wouldn’t even be worth ten thousand!”
“They took him for a complete fool!”
The old man hurriedly explained, “No! My son bought the car for five thousand! If I’d spent over thirty thousand on this piece of junk, wouldn’t that make me an idiot?”
“Then how did you spend over thirty thousand?”
The cameraman, Lin Shigong, could not help asking.
“Repairs cost me more than twenty thousand!”
The old man explained.
“What? Five thousand to buy it, and twenty-five thousand to repair it? With that kind of money, why didn’t you just buy a new car?”
Tan Ping was beginning to lose all understanding of the old man’s thought process.
The old man, however, was extremely pleased with his beloved vehicle. “Don’t let its shabby appearance fool you. This car is something else! I’ve even raced a Ferrari in it!”
The viewers were stunned.
“Brilliant! As expected of you, old man—racing a Ferrari in an QQ!”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but driving that car, you probably couldn’t even see the Ferrari’s taillights!”
Tan Ping did not believe him either. “Old man, are you sure you didn’t mistake it for something else?”
“How could I have mistaken it? It was early in the morning, and there was a heavy fog. Everything was gray, and I couldn’t see the road at all. I didn’t want to turn on my headlights, either. Then I happened to spot a car ahead of me, so I followed it…”
The old man smiled as he spoke.
The viewers finally understood.
“So that’s how he raced a Ferrari! It was foggy!”
“In weather like that, who except someone with a death wish would dare speed up?”
“This was probably the peak of that seventh-hand QQ’s career—racing a Ferrari and not falling behind!”
“You can beat it countless times, but lose just once and you’ll be nailed to the pillar of shame!”
The old man continued, “We kept going, and then—bang!—I crashed right into it!”
“What? You rear-ended a Ferrari?”
Tan Ping was startled.
The viewers understood as well.
“Now I see why the car cost five thousand but the repairs cost twenty-five thousand. He crashed into someone else’s car!”
“Wait, that doesn’t make sense! Ferraris are incredibly expensive! If this old man rear-ended one, wouldn’t he have had to pay until he was bankrupt?”
“Exactly! Even repainting it would cost more than twenty-five thousand!”
On camera, the old man began reenacting the scene. “I was furious. I got out and pounded on the Ferrari’s window. Then a handsome young fellow got out, looking like a movie star. But I didn’t care whether he was famous or not. I went straight up to him and said, ‘You stopped your car—why didn’t you tell me?’”
“That Ferrari must have made it all the way home! You followed him into his garage!”
Lin Shigong spoke from the side.
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“No! The light had turned red! Red means stop, green means go! The young fellow was just about to answer me when he realized I was absolutely livid. My blood pressure had shot up, and suddenly I collapsed right there!”
The old man shook his head.
“Right. The fellow driving the Ferrari must have been terrified!”
Tan Ping immediately understood.
“Was he ever! His face turned white with fright. He immediately knelt down, pressed the spot beneath my nose, and begged me not to die. Then he quickly called an ambulance and sent me to the hospital. He left fifty thousand behind and disappeared before I even regained consciousness!”
The old man nodded.
The livestream chat instantly filled the screen.
“Three seconds of sympathy for the Ferrari owner. He got rear-ended and still had to pay the medical bills!”
“What could he do? The person responsible was an old man!”
“Exactly! If the old man had simply kicked the bucket right there, that Ferrari driver would probably have been shaken down for even more money!”
After listening to the old man finish his story, Tan Ping took out a stick and pointed it at him.
“What are you doing? Are you going to hit me? The police are assaulting people!”
The old man was startled and immediately shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Calm down! I’m not hitting you. I’m testing your alcohol level. I suspect you were driving under the influence! Come on—blow into this!”
Tan Ping spoke with a stern expression.
“I’ll blow!”
The old man put his mouth to the breathalyzer and began blowing.
Soon, the breathalyzer began emitting a series of warning beeps.
“It went off! So he really had been drinking! I was wondering why the old man seemed a little out of it!”
The viewers cried out in surprise.
“But the old man’s acting was incredible! If Officer Tan hadn’t made him take the breath test, I never would have known he was drunk!”
“Take him away! Take him away!”
Just as the viewers thought the matter was over, the old man calmly said, “Comrade, your gadget is broken!”
“What? You think my breathalyzer is faulty?”
Tan Ping looked at the old man.
“That’s right! If you don’t believe me, let my grandson blow into it!”
The old man pointed toward the back seat of the car.
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