Li Qian had a flash of inspiration and turned toward Zhou Rong, asking ingratiatingly, “Big brother, are you the car owner?”
Zhou Rong smiled and nodded composedly.
“What should I call you, big brother?”
“My surname is Zhou.” Zhou Rong answered quite reservedly.
“Brother Zhou, could we step aside and talk for a moment?”
Zhou Rong smiled calmly and followed her to the side. She said in a low voice, “Brother Zhou, I’m a novice and I’m so sorry for accidentally scraping your car. But don’t you think this store is too unscrupulous—”
“This store is my investment.”
“Ah, really… then that’s even better. Brother Zhou, since this store is your own, why don’t we just forget about it? I’m very poor. How about I treat you to a meal?”
“How many meals will you treat me to?” Zhou Rong looked at her with a smile.
“Ah… you, how many meals do you want me to treat you to?”
“Then treat me to ten meals.”
“Ten meals!”
Zhou Rong smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll pay the bill. How could I let a girl like you pay?”
“Really!”
Zhou Rong raised the corners of his mouth. “Of course. If you’re willing, let’s pinky swear!”
Du Cong had originally been worried that the customer test-driving and scraping the big boss’s car would inevitably result in the sales person riding in the passenger seat—him—being severely scolded by leadership. Now in just a few short minutes, in the blink of an eye, the big boss and the female customer had even done a pinky swear. What a pair of shameless people!
Sure enough, before long, Zhou Rong came over with a grand wave of his hand, instructing Du Cong to arrange for the car to be repainted. Then he cheerfully had someone book a restaurant and took Li Qian to eat.
Du Cong was fuming inside. The big boss took the culprit female driver to dinner, while the manager came over and gave him a severe scolding, as if he were the one who crashed the car. What kind of society is this!
He was helpless and could only dutifully go to the maintenance workshop to arrange for the big boss’s car to be repainted. After finishing all this, his phone rang. He picked it up and a strange smile floated across his face. He answered the phone and trotted outside to a secluded corner where no one was around.
“Another job?”
The caller was his old classmate who ran a wedding company. Calling it a wedding company, he was actually just a middleman who outsourced everything for weddings—including venue, props, wedding cars, photography and videography, masters of ceremonies and hosts—to others. Take wedding cars, for instance—if you rented from a car rental company, the price would be much more expensive. Later, learning that Du Cong worked at a four-S store, he contacted Du Cong to secretly borrow cars from the four-S store. Du Cong had been at this four-S store for less than three months but had already gotten familiar with everyone. Each time there was business, he would make the excuse of using a test-drive car, drive the car out, and lend it to his old classmate, earning extra income in the process. He had even borrowed out cars that customers had left at the store for maintenance several times.
This time his old classmate had encountered a difficult problem. He had previously signed a wedding contract stipulating that the entire wedding convoy would use Mercedes-Benzes, with the main wedding car being a Mercedes S600. But with the wedding date rapidly approaching, the owner of the reserved S600 had driven the car to another place and couldn’t return. He looked for car rental companies, but the wedding day was an auspicious date—the S-Class Mercedes from several rental companies were all booked, and there were no cars available even with premium pricing. He discussed with the client whether they could substitute another Mercedes, but the bride refused. If they changed cars, they would have to refund ten thousand yuan as compensation. So he found Du Cong.
Hearing that he needed to borrow an S-Class Mercedes, Du Cong was also in a difficult position. “Our store doesn’t have test-drive cars at this level.”
“See if other stores have any?”
“Even if other stores have cars at this level, it would be very difficult to get them transferred.”
“Try hard to think of something. It’s only twenty kilometers round trip total. I’ll give you two thousand this time!”
“Two thousand!” Du Cong drew in a breath. He could earn two thousand yuan for driving twenty kilometers! Money was the source of all motivation. Du Cong squinted and tried hard to think of a solution. Their store truly didn’t have S-Class test-drive cars, but there happened to be one in the maintenance workshop right now.
Big Boss Zhou’s Mercedes S600 would be here getting repainted for three days!