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?"
Liang Chi asked Fatty Wang.
"Well, just a bit..."
Fatty Wang expressed his opinion as tactfully as possible.
"If you don't believe it, let Xiangbei run a round at Nanyun Mountain tonight. He can even vent some of your anger for you."
"Good idea!"
Upon hearing that Chen Xiangbei could help vent his anger, Wang Yidong immediately agreed.
Regarding their banter, Chen Xiangbei gave a helpless smile and said, "Wait, shouldn't you at least ask for my opinion?"
"And Uncle Liang, you just estimated the time via a phone call and concluded I just need five minutes to run Nanyun Mountain?"
Facing Chen Xiangbei's retort, Liang Chi stubbed out his cigarette and pointed at his own eyes, saying, "I wouldn't mistake a person."
"That confident?"
"If you win, this week's part-time wage doubles."
"Deal."
Hearing Chen Xiangbei agree so readily, Fatty Wang widened his eyes and said, "You're really money-eyed, are we not brothers for all these years? I could barely persuade you in the past, and now, you compromise for a week's part-time wage?"
"Well then, I won't do it."
"No, Brother Bei, I spoke out of turn."
Fatty Wang demonstrated what it meant to bend with circumstances, quickly lowering his head in surrender.
Chen Xiangbei ignored Fatty Wang and instead looked at Liang Chi, saying, "Uncle Liang, I've agreed to run a round. You'll have to prepare a car for me, right? Unless you really want me to drive the Santana from the shop."
"What, you don't like the Santana? Then drive Wang Yidong's Corolla."
"Uncle Liang, are you kidding me?"
"I'm supposed to prepare a car for you just for a friendly race? I think you're the one joking."
Liang Chi disdainfully sneered at Chen Xiangbei and then got up to head towards the bathhouse across the street. Rumor had it there was a new girl, number 38, who was great at massage, and he had been itching to try it out for a while.
"Damn, what an old pervert!"
Unable to suppress it, Chen Xiangbei flipped a middle finger at Liang Chi's back.
"Xiangbei, seriously, which car are you driving?"
"The Corolla."
"Why?"
Fatty Wang asked in confusion; hadn't this guy just said a Corolla was no match for an AMG?
"The AE86 is just a rear-drive Corolla. Although Xu Yali doesn't deserve you to be a simp for her, surely there's some pride at stake."
"As long as the Corolla is fast enough, even a Benz won't see its taillights!"
Hearing this from Chen Xiangbei, Wang Yidong suddenly felt a sense of comfort. Now that was a true brother.
"When do we head over?"
"Uncle Liang probably won't be back for a while. There are still two cars waiting for maintenance in the shop. You head over to Nanyun Mountain in the Corolla, and I'll meet you there."
"Alright, ten tonight, I'll be waiting at Nanyun Mountain!"
After setting the time, Wang Yidong hurriedly ran towards home. He needed to make sure his old man wouldn't take the car out that night.
...
Time ticked by, and when Chen Xiangbei lowered the hood of the last car, he glanced at the wall clock, which pointed exactly to nine-thirty.
He tidied up the tools in the shop and washed the residual oil off his hands, getting ready to head to Nanyun Mountain to meet up with Fatty Wang before closing the shop.
However, as he passed by Liang Chi's room, he saw the formula race car model on the desk through the window and paused, staring at it quietly.
"Kid, you recognize this car model, don't you?"
Liang Chi's voice suddenly came, revealing that he had been standing behind Chen Xiangbei without his knowing.
"Uncle Liang, people can scare people to death, can't you not appear so suddenly?"
"Pfft, such a timid soul wants to race cars."
Liang Chi gestured a small finger contemptuously at Chen Xiangbei, then leaned his arms on the windowsill with a meaningful expression, "I know you came here for a part-time job after seeing this car."
"Uncle Liang, this CFR2000 formula is still in the testing phase. You already had a design model that early?"
Since the conversation was open, Chen Xiangbei asked what was on his mind.
Indeed, it was after seeing this CFR2000 model that he chose to work part-time at Liang Chi's repair shop.
Because this car had competed with the Geely AGF car for the title of China's first formula car.
But with the collapse of its manufacturer, Huasi Sports, the CFR2000's debut at the 2008 East Sea F1 International Racing Circuit became its swan song, disappearing completely from history.
Because the CFR2000 only had internal test runs and formally appeared just once, few people even knew of this formula car, let alone had access to its design model in advance.
From the first glance of this car model, Chen Xiangbei knew that Liang Chi was not simple.
"A person my age having some connections isn't that unusual. But you, so young, how did you recognize it?"
"Uncle Liang, it's a different era now. The internet 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.