Having nightmares for half the night, the scenes in the tunnel were truly disgusting.
Woke up in the morning, feeling average. Yao Yao had recently become obsessed with coffee and, I don't know where she got it, had a small coffee maker on the table, sputtering away.
"Want a cup? To wake you up?" Yao Yao asked with a smile.
"Why aren't you wearing clothes? It's so cold!" I asked, concerned. Autumn in the Northeast was getting colder by the day, with a layer of white mist on the windowpane, enough to serve as curtains.
"I can regulate my own body temperature. Not hot, not cold, just comfortable." Yao Yao poured me half a cup of coffee, added a spoonful of sugar, blew on it, and brought it to my lips. "Here, drink it."
It felt like the "Da Lang, take your medicine" moment!
However, the coffee tasted really good, much better than the 1.5 yuan per packet of Nescafé instant.
After drinking half a cup of coffee and smoking a cigarette, plus a little service from Yao Yao to improve blood flow, I felt much better. Yao Yao, afraid I couldn't handle it, stopped at the right moment, dragged me to take a shower, and then went downstairs for breakfast.
Chen Lu was unusually not with the fox demon. Perhaps after days of fighting, she was also a bit exhausted. Hearing we were going to buy cars, she offered to come along, hoping to get some discounts.
After breakfast, we borrowed a commercial vehicle from the hotel, used for picking up guests, and drove to North Second Road. I hadn't been there before, but I heard Shengjing was a major city for cars. The summer headquarters of the famous international brand "Bie Mo Wo" was in Shengjing. Looking around, the proportion of BMWs was indeed high, as were many other luxury cars. It appeared to be a very wealthy city. However, Chen Lu told me that Northeasterners valued face, considering buying a car a top priority, even more so than buying a house or getting married. Many were impulse purchases driven by a desire to appear wealthier than they were, with a significant number buying on loan.
I didn't quite understand this. A car is just a means of transportation, right? Price and cost-effectiveness are completely inversely proportional; the more expensive it is, the more the premium, without exception.
First, we bought one for Zhao Nana. I was quite satisfied with her as an assistant manager, so I was generous and told her she could pick any car under 500,000 yuan. Zhao Nana wasn't that greedy and was quite focused. She chose a Corolla, of course, a new one. With all the paperwork finalized, it cost 150,000 yuan, already the top trim of that model.
Perhaps due to concentration, the automotive market here was exceptionally mature. After payment, the staff took Zhao Nana to handle other procedures. We continued browsing. After only visiting three stores, Zhao Nana returned, with a paper temporary license plate stuck to the windshield. All procedures were completed; we just had to wait another week for the official license plates.
We continued browsing the car market. I had eight million yuan, but I didn't want to be too extravagant. It was better to be low-key and practical.
I bought three cars.
A locally produced BMW 3 Series, 2.0t high-power version, a mid-size car. The space was average, but the horsepower was sufficient. If I encountered the same situation as last night, I wouldn't be able to slam the accelerator into the engine bay and still be unable to escape pursuers. This BMW was enough for daily use.
The second car was a Haval H9, a semi-pure off-road vehicle. It had a high chassis and good passability, responsible for transportation in the suburbs and mountainous areas. I originally wanted to buy a pure off-road vehicle, but most required manual operation, which I wasn't very good at. Bingbing could drive it, but I couldn't always take her with me. Plus, she was short. For a large car, she'd need a seat cushion to see the road ahead, which was troublesome.
The third car was a small passenger van similar to a Coaster. I couldn't even remember the Ford model name. I mainly liked its length; less than six meters, yet it had fifteen seats. The interior space was also quite large, enough for people and equipment, and the price wasn't expensive, just under 300,000 yuan, making it the cheapest of the three cars.
All the cars were registered under the name of Qipanshan Tourism and Resort Company. Chen Lu negotiated the price, and we got a discount of 100,000 yuan in total. The three cars cost approximately one million yuan.
After updating our transportation, the dealers directly delivered the cars to the resort area. It was nearing noon when Jin Xiaomei called, saying the Zi Wu Yuan Yang Yue had been completed and asked me and Yao Yao to come for inspection. This one was made of meteorite iron.
Just as we were about to leave, Jin Xiaomei called again: "Brother Cheng Feng, perhaps you shouldn't come later?"
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"People from Shabiya have arrived and also want to order weapons... I dare not speculate, but you and Shabiya are definitely not on the same side, right?"
"Who is the leader? Do you recognize them?" I asked.
"No, it's a young woman named Shen."
What a coincidence. I guessed that Shen Xingyue, after her defeat in the abandoned village last time, might have attributed her inability to beat Yao Yao to inferior weapons and therefore wanted to upgrade her team's equipment.
"How about we go and meet Shen Xingyue again?" I asked Yao Yao.
"Hmph, are you missing your little fiancée again?"