Car Racing without Money

Chapter 2 - 1: The Elusive Mercedes

A middle-aged man in his forties, wearing a tank top and slippers, strolled leisurely into the shop and headed straight to the recliner. He lazily lay down, casting an amused glance at Chen Xiangbei in the service pit."No way, you’re even skimming off the wages of child labor. Do you believe I won’t report you?"

"You kid are already eighteen, stop pretending to be child labor. If you want your wages, fess up honestly."

"Fess up to what?"

Seeing Chen Xiangbei still stubbornly refuse to admit anything, Liang Chi’s face broke into a meaningful smile. He slowly took out a cigarette from his pocket, lit it, exhaled a puff of smoke, and said, "Last month, Old Ding flipped over at the top of Nanyun Mountain. He called the repair shop saying the pipeline ruptured and was leaking oil, asking us to rush over for repairs."

"I wasn’t there at the time, you were the one who took the call, and then you drove the old Santana from the shop over there. Am I right?"

Faced with Liang Chi’s inquiry, Chen Xiangbei opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, but ultimately didn’t say a word.

Liang Chi didn’t mind Chen Xiangbei’s reaction. With his legs crossed, he continued puffing on his cigarette and said, "The Nanyun Mountain road is 8.3 kilometers long. You went there, replaced a pipeline, and came back, all in less than half an hour."

"Afterward, I called Old Ding. He said it took about ten minutes to fix the car. Subtracting the time for preparation, that means you ran the entire Nanyun Mountain in about five minutes on average, including the uphill segments."

"You were driving at over 100 km/h on the mountain roads. Tell me yourself, was it the Santana from the shop or a Ferrari you were driving?"

No one knew better than Liang Chi about the performance of that 2004 Santana in the shop. With a 1.8L engine, 95 horsepower, even if you floored it, it’d just roar without moving much.

Chen Xiangbei drove such a beat-up car and finished in five minutes. Even professional drivers could only do so much!

Hearing Liang Chi’s story, Fatty Wang standing beside him was stunned, looking at Chen Xiangbei with an incredulous expression.

"Holy shit, I heard that the top driver from the Light Point Team, Qin Lianjie, ran Nanyun Mountain in a Civic Type-R, and even his fastest record was over five minutes. And Xiangbei drove a Santana and averaged only five minutes?"

To be honest, Fatty Wang felt Liang Chi’s words were a bit exaggerated, almost like he was bragging.

"Don’t believe it?"

is very developed, and you can find any racing news online."

Hearing this, Liang Chi chuckled and said, "You can find racing news online, but you can’t learn car skills there, can you?"

"Indeed, you can’t."

Chen Xiangbei nodded, then pointed at the wall clock and said, "It’s time for the race; I should go."

Saying that, Chen Xiangbei headed towards the Santana from the shop to drive it up to meet Wang Yidong.

"Wait, I have to pick someone up, the car’s in urgent use!"

Liang Chi said as he jogged ahead of Chen Xiangbei, swiftly getting into the driver’s seat of the Santana.

"Pick up who?"

"The number 38 masseuse who helped me this afternoon."

Seeing this, Chen Xiangbei shrugged helplessly, "So how am I supposed to get up the mountain?"

"Run up, young man. Consider it exercise."

With that, Liang Chi drove off, leaving Chen Xiangbei standing there watching as the car’s taillights disappeared.

What an old creep!

PS: New book released, all loyal readers, please collect and follow. Racing is indeed a niche topic and relies on your strong support.