Chapter 913: Damn Expensive Parking Fees
Finally, the endless jabbering came to an end.
The Village Chief sighed and shook his head. "It's no use. I talked to them, but they refuse to waive the fee."
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes also spoke up. "We know, you're paving a road for our whole village for free!"
"But! One thing is one thing."
"We didn't charge you parking fees for the past few days, including your first day here when you had just one car. We actually could have charged you then, but since you gave our elderly and children supplies, we didn't. But after all these days, we have to charge you now!"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes said sternly.
Zhang Xue was rendered speechless by these words.
Jiang Ran couldn't hold back anymore. "Seriously, where's your sense of shame?"
"We bought you all these things, and we're building a road for your village. I've never heard of still being charged parking fees! Especially in a godforsaken place like this, what kind of parking fee logic is that? Who taught you this?"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes remained silent, his gaze dark and gloomy.
Jiang Ran was about to say more.
But Zhang Xue pulled him back.
She sighed. "Fine, just tell us, how much is the parking fee?"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes said, "One car costs 100 yuan per day. You have 10 cars total, so that's 1,000! And with all your equipment taking up so much space, let's count it as two extra cars, just give us 1,200 yuan and we'll call it even!"
"What?! 1,200?!"
This time, forget Zhang Xue and Jiang Ran and the others.
Even Wang Qingzhao, the rich heiress, was shocked into speaking out.
Good heavens, even if you're asking for an outrageous price, there has to be a limit, right?!
To put it in perspective, that's over 4 yuan per hour.
Even many parking lots back in Nancheng City weren't this expensive.
And besides, Nancheng City was a real city. How could this poor mountain ditch compare to city prices?!
Especially, have they no shame?
They're even counting the road-building equipment against them...
"Impossible, don't even think about it. You're robbing us blind."
Gao Yang raised his camera and spoke out in anger.
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes said, "Oh, don't say that. We're just following the rules. Don't you city folks follow rules? Are you trying to break them?"
Gao Yang said coldly, "If you asked for less, like a few dozen yuan, we'd have just paid it. But 1,200? You're dreaming!"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes sneered.
The two sides were now at an impasse.
But soon, Gao Yang handed the camera to Zhao Yiwan and stepped forward.
"1,200 yuan, you're insisting on charging this parking fee, right?"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes squinted even harder.
Gao Yang said, "Then we won't park here. We'll move our cars. Is that okay?"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes replied, "Even if you don't park here anymore, you've already been parked here for a long time today. You still have to pay."
Gao Yang snorted coldly. "Fine, you're tough. But don't think we have no way to deal with you."
"That cement road is only a third done. We're not building it anymore!"
Gao Yang's voice was loud, loud enough for everyone present to hear, especially the Village Chief and the curious villagers who had gathered to watch the show.
Gao Yang thought this move would scare them, but Jiang Ran, standing not far behind him, looked around at the reactions of the villagers.
He immediately felt that things weren't that simple.
Sure enough.
At that moment, a middle-aged man appeared from who knows where, also a local villager, holding up a battered smartphone and pointing it at Zhang Xue, Gao Yang and the others. While filming, he shouted loudly:
"Oh my, look at this, everyone! This is a big influencer who came to our village. She originally promised to build us a cement road, but now, look what's happened! We poor, pitiful villagers don't know what we did to offend this big influencer, and now she won't build our road anymore!!!!"
Gao Yang was stunned. He turned and stared at the phone, moving forward to snatch it.
But the middle-aged man with slit-like eyes blocked him, sneering, "Don't worry, that's not a live stream. It's just recording a video."
Gao Yang's steps halted.
His expression looked like he'd just eaten something disgusting.
At this point.
Everyone could see it clearly. These villagers had them cornered.
Especially since, whether that phone was live streaming or recording.
The threat had worked.
Because if it was a video, they could release it in advance.
Regardless of whether the video was real or fake, those netizens wouldn't care. They would definitely jump out to follow the gossip, siding with the villagers' perspective, and condemn Zhang Xue and the others together.
Even if Zhang Xue later released a video revealing the truth that the villagers were trying to extort money, and that was why they stopped building the road.
Zhang Xue's reputation would already have been ruined in advance.
For an influencer, that was extremely damaging.
Not to mention influencers, even celebrities couldn't withstand this kind of smear attack.
For example, there was a male star who was at the peak of his fame back in the day.
He was destroyed exactly this way by the "Backstabbing Cult," and was directly erased from public existence.
Therefore, would Gao Yang dare to take such a risk casually?
What if Zhang Xue's influencer status got ruined?
That would really be a loss that outweighed any gain.
"1,200 yuan for parking is too ridiculous. We can pay parking fees, but we can't pay that much."
Seeing Gao Yang softening his stance, the Village Chief also came up with a smile to smooth things over, saying to the middle-aged man with slit-like eyes:
"Oh, come on, considering they've helped our village, charge them a little less!"
The middle-aged man with slit-like eyes chuckled. "Fine, after all, they are benefactors to our village, here for our village's poverty relief!"
After some negotiation.
In the end, Gao Yang paid a full 600 yuan in parking fees.
This whole affair was a costly lesson.
Especially since, after paying the parking fees, they still had to finish paving the cement road for them.
The day ended on a sour note.
Jiang Ran and the others were all in the white SUV now.
Gao Yang was driving down the mountain.
Inside the car, it was dead silent. Even Qin Chuan wasn't using his phone to gamble online, instead looking around everywhere.
At a loss.
Silence. Oppressive. Deadly quiet.
Nothing but silence.
Finally, Zhang Xue spoke with some sadness in her voice. "We came here to show kindness, even if it was for filming videos, at least we were helping them. But how could they treat us like this?"
𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶
Wang Qingzhao leaned back against her seat and said softly:
"Poor mountains and vicious waters breed cunning people. Didn't Jiang Ran say that earlier?"
Hearing this, Zhang Xue's face turned pale.
Because back then, she had said that despite the desolate, godforsaken place, the people here were pure and simple.
Yeah, they were really pure and simple. So pure and simple that they swindled her money.
Gao Yang's expression was also ugly.
Because back then, when it came to the villagers being pure and simple, he had even argued with Jiang Ran and Wang Qingzhao about it.
Now, this parking fee had directly slapped his face until it was swollen.
"We're stuck in a tough spot now. I have a feeling that if they can come up with something as outrageous as a parking fee, they might still stir up plenty more trouble before the road is fully paved."
Jiang Ran said while looking out the window.
Hearing this, the few people in the car all remained silent.
They all seemed to silently agree with those words.
After all, for a village up in the mountains like this to come up with the idea of charging parking fees.
The sheer absurdity of it... they certainly didn't have the brains for that.