Chapter 915: Punctured Tires
"Zhang Xue, this is all your fault!"
Zhang Xue was stunned: "My... my fault?!"
Everyone else was dumbfounded too.
Gao Yang gritted his teeth: "Back when we said we were going to shoot this type of video and pick a village, didn't I say we should choose a poor, backward village in Jiangnan Province?"
"You? You insisted on picking one in another province, and now look what happened - we got treated like fat pigs to be slaughtered!"
Zhang Xue's snow-white face instantly flushed red, as red as a ripe apple.
Zhang Xue got angry too: "Yeah, I did say to pick a village in another province, but when we finally settled on this village, didn't you agree too?"
Gao Yang: "I only agreed because of you! And when they ripped us off twice here, I held back from burning bridges, all for your sake!"
Zhang Xue was momentarily speechless.
Zhao Yiwan didn't dare speak up for Zhang Xue.
Because both Zhang Xue and Gao Yang were technically her bosses.
Qin Chuan certainly wasn't going to say anything either.
Jiang Ran didn't know what to say.
After all, they were a couple, and he was an outsider...
Even Wang Qingzhao, unusually, didn't speak up for Zhang Xue.
Zhang Xue's eyes were red-rimmed, like she was about to cry.
Gao Yang ignored her, angrily starting the car.
When they returned to the hotel that day, the mood was still sour.
The next day.
The group came back to the Small Mountain Village in the morning. After all, they needed to film the progress of the cement road construction.
There was no way around it.
But this time, they planned to get the footage done and then get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
Of course, they knew deep down that it wouldn't help.
Because if the villagers came up with another way to extort money from them, even if they weren't there, they'd make things difficult for the construction crew, get them to stop work, and then have the crew call them.
But not being there was still better than being there.
Around 10 AM.
Jiang Ran and Wang Qingzhao were following the main group with Zhang Xue and Gao Yang.
Feeling a bit thirsty, Jiang Ran asked if anyone wanted water.
He went to the car to get some.
When he reached the village entrance, their cars and the construction crew's vehicles were still neatly parked on the mountain road.
He headed toward the road.
But then, he stopped in his tracks.
Because he saw a boy around ten years old hurry away from beside Zhang Xue and Gao Yang's white SUV, then take off running.
Jiang Ran narrowed his eyes.
He didn't know what the boy had done, but he had a bad feeling about it.
He rushed over to the white SUV.
A quick look showed that the doors and windows were all securely locked.
There was no sign of theft as he'd feared.
"Hmm... maybe the kid didn't do anything, or maybe he found he couldn't get into the car and slunk off?"
Jiang Ran was still too kind-hearted.
Because at that moment, he looked down, glanced around, and discovered what the boy had actually done.
That little bastard had punctured several holes in their car tires.
On the black tires, there were clearly visible knife cuts, and the tires had gone completely flat.
Like a limp, powerless man.
"Damn! Can you people be any more despicable?!"
He spun around, trying to spot the boy.
Where had he run off to?
But in that brief delay, the kid was already long gone.
Jiang Ran was furious and chased after the direction the boy had fled.
...
"Boy, how did it go?"
In a small courtyard with earthen walls, a gaunt middle-aged man in worn-out clothes looked at the ten-year-old boy who came running back, panting heavily.
A cheap cigarette dangled from his mouth as he puffed smoke.
"Done!"
The boy said excitedly.
The gaunt middle-aged man smiled smugly: "Good, boy! I'll add a chicken leg to your dinner tonight!"
Hearing he'd get a chicken leg for dinner, the boy jumped three feet in the air with joy.
But soon, the boy's excitement deflated.
"What's wrong, boy?"
The boy said: "I just remembered something. When I punctured their tires, I think one of them might have seen me. But I'm not sure if he noticed."
The gaunt middle-aged man's smoking paused: "You idiot! You can't even handle something this simple!"
"No chicken leg tonight!!!"
The boy heard he'd lost the chicken leg and instantly wilted.
Just then, a middle-aged woman walked out of the house and said with a smile: "It's alright, boy. If your dad won't give you a chicken leg, I will tonight."
"Thanks, Mom!"
The boy cheered happily.
The gaunt middle-aged man said with some displeasure: "You spoil him too much."
"And you - aren't you going to get inside and do your homework?"
The boy scurried back into the earthen house and disappeared.
Only the gaunt middle-aged man and the middle-aged woman remained in the courtyard.
Then the middle-aged woman asked: "Hey, dear, why do you think the Village Chief and the others want us to puncture their tires?"
The gaunt middle-aged man sneered coldly: "It's because the Village Chief's son works as an auto mechanic. They puncture the tires, so they can squeeze another round of money out of them!"
The middle-aged woman got excited: "So if we help them with this, do we get a cut?"
The gaunt middle-aged man nodded: "Definitely. They said they'd give me 200 after it's done."
The middle-aged woman couldn't help but grin: "That's great. You don't know how envious I was a few days ago when I saw them collecting parking fees and water and electricity fees from those people."
The gaunt middle-aged man sighed: "I was envious too, but what can we do? We're not the Village Chief and his people."
"Still, that influencer is a real fat pig! With that much money, she deserves to be squeezed dry!"
The gaunt middle-aged man's eyes gleamed.
At that moment, the gaunt middle-aged man was sitting in the courtyard. He finished his cigarette and was about to stand up when he looked up at his earthen wall.
He was shocked to find someone's head peeking over the wall, staring at them.
And besides the head, there were also a pair of hands, holding a phone.
The phone's camera was pointed right at them.
The gaunt middle-aged man's heart was pounding.
He recognized the head - it belonged to one of the influencer's group.
And with the phone aimed at them, it probably meant everything they'd just said had been recorded.
"What do I do?"
The gaunt middle-aged man's eyes darted around.
He quickly turned his head away, pretending not to see the person spying from the wall.
He stood up and said to his wife, the middle-aged woman: "Hey, wait here a moment. I'm going to grab something."
The middle-aged woman was confused: "What something?"
The gaunt middle-aged man: "Something the Village Chief asked me to get, to put on their cars. This is something the boy can't handle. I need to do it myself."
With that, the gaunt middle-aged man went inside.
Of course, the person on the wall was Jiang Ran.
He'd gotten lucky and happened to catch the boy coming back to report.
Thinking fast, he'd whipped out his phone and started recording.
Even though the boy had clearly been back for several minutes by the time he started filming, he'd still captured plenty of solid evidence.
Of course, what he wanted even more was to film whatever that gaunt middle-aged man was going to retrieve from the house.