Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 173

Cannot Compensate That Much Ah

Even though they were currently in a hostile situation, when Sun Miao heard that loud sound and saw the troublemaking man’s suddenly twisted face, Sun Miao couldn’t help but lean her upper body back a bit, while also slightly turning her face away.

——Bumping a toe or something, is really painful, okay!

And Sun Miao remembered, this guy should be wearing slippers… No, thinking of it this way, it’s even more painful.

The System was shouting in Sun Miao’s mind: 【I told you my curse is very effective! It took effect now! He’s going to have more bad luck! I’m going to keep cursing him!】

In any case, the System was helping her. Although Sun Miao didn’t know if the System’s contribution was really in there, what should be praised still had to be praised. She perfunctorily praised the System a bit in her mind, then heard the troublemaking man across from her cry out while enduring the severe pain.

It was hard to say if his suddenly raised voice contained any venting for the pain in his toe.

“What kind of joke are you making?! 80,000?! Are you crazy for money?!”

Sun Miao was very calm: “I am not joking. My equipment is worth that much money.” She was very calm. Su Ruixi’s phone vibrated. She picked it up and glanced at it, then said to the police officer: “My lawyer has the documents prepared. Let her come in to deliver them.”

“Okay.”

Before long, the lawyer brought in the organized documents. Su Ruixi’s assistant followed behind her. She winked at Sun Miao. Sun Miao was stunned for a moment, but still nodded lightly in acknowledgement.

While the Sun Miao couple were inside, the lawyer and assistant weren’t just sitting around; their professional skills were very solid. After Sun Miao sent all the electronic invoices to the assistant, the assistant went to print them, and the lawyer had a female police officer take her to the back to conduct a damage assessment¹.

It was also because the troublemaking man dawdled on his way over; otherwise, they would have had to chat² for a while longer before they could finish. It wouldn’t have been the case that just as the troublemaking man started to raise doubts, they already had the documents properly prepared.

The police officer looked at it. The damage assessment was done, the invoices were provided, and even accompanying photos were attached. He looked at the troublemaking man and pushed the documents toward him a bit. “Take a look. What the other party says is not a problem.”

The troublemaking man could no longer be bothered with the pain in his toes and immediately took the documents from the police officer. The more he looked, the more his eyes looked like they would split from their sockets³, and his entire expression became somewhat ferocious. After a long moment, he slammed the documents heavily on the table. “You deliberately framed me?! This must be a setup you made, otherwise how could you be so fast?!”

If it were an ordinary person, the speed definitely wouldn’t have been this fast. But Su Ruixi was standing right there. She has a dedicated assistant and lawyer; if necessary, she could even pull out a legal team to face off against the troublemaking man.

However, to deal with one troublemaking man, just the lawyer alone was enough.

Su Ruixi looked at him, her gaze like she was looking at a beam-jumping clown⁴.

This time, the troublemaking man couldn’t maintain his composure. “That thing just fell once, how could you possibly make me compensate for the full price? How much would it cost to repair it?! You’re deliberately extorting me! Yes, you’re extorting me! Maybe that thing was already broken to begin with, and you just wanted to frame⁵ me!”

“You need to have evidence for what you say and be responsible for it.” Only then did Su Ruixi speak, her tone neither salty nor bland. Her face was expressionless, her chin slightly raised as she sat upright in her chair. Just that simple sentence made cold sweat slide down the troublemaking man back.

That’s right, he had no evidence. Not a single piece of evidence could prove that the equipment was already broken before he flipped Sun Miao’s stall.

Besides, flipping the stall was something he did himself; Sun Miao didn’t make him do it. If he hadn’t flipped the stall, this wouldn’t have happened.

The troublemaking man was rebutted by that one sentence to the point of being speechless. After a long moment, he denied it again: “You don’t have any evidence either! It wasn’t me who did it! This has nothing to do with me! You don’t have any evidence either!”

On this point, Sun Miao and Su Ruixi didn’t even need to speak. The police officer interrupted him: “We do. An eyewitness came with them earlier and also submitted video evidence. If you need, I can play it for you.”

The police officer opened the laptop on the table, pulled up the video folder, and pointed at the video thumbnails inside for the troublemaking man to see.

At this moment, the troublemaking man was still hoping for a fluke: “But she used her hands too! And even took out a knife! For something like this, why should I be the only one to compensate? She should compensate me too! She hit me, and I’m still in a lot of pain!”

“In that case, since we’re going to watch the video, both sides can come over and watch it together.”

Seeing him like this, the police officer opened the video without hesitation.

The phone of Zhou Ling’s mom’s good little sister⁶ was quite high-end; the video it recorded was especially clear, and she had started recording very early on. So early that she had already turned on her phone and started recording when the troublemaking man first began to cut in line. Her original intention was to record it to show Zhou Ling’s mom, meaning: Oh my, look, that young lady from the little stall you brought me to is being bullied.

Unexpectedly, it ended up becoming key evidence.

“If you don’t accept this, we can also go to the Research Institute to retrieve the surveillance footage. The content recorded there should be even more comprehensive.”

The troublemaking man clenched his teeth, seemingly still wanting to put up a last-ditch struggle. He collapsed back into his chair and began to act shamelessly⁷: “Anyway, there’s no way I’m paying this eighty thousand.”

“Then you’re giving up on mediation⁸?” Su Ruixi asked directly. This was also their goal, and the troublemaking man fell into the trap as expected. “Yes! I give up!”

The reason they proposed a compensation amount that the troublemaking man would find difficult to accept, and then let him be the first to give up, was very simple: if only their side gave up, the police would try to persuade them. But if both sides reached a consensus and both gave up, then the matter would directly proceed to the next stage.

Originally, this matter should have dragged on for a long time, but with both sides’ fast knife cutting the tangled hemp⁹ and the police’s proactive handling, it was pushed directly into the subsequent process. The troublemaking man was temporarily detained for destroying another person’s property. Subsequently, the lawyer will file a civil lawsuit on their behalf to pursue the compensation payment.

Sun Miao was somewhat clueless about these matters, but luckily the lawyer Su Ruixi had hired was there, so it didn’t require Sun Miao to run around handling things.

The two of them left the police station first, leaving the assistant and lawyer to continue the follow-up.

After they left, the matter was still not over. Sun Miao still wanted to teach that contractor a bit more of a lesson. She told Su Ruixi her thoughts, and Su Ruixi was of course supportive, but the most urgent task was to get something to eat first.

After so much time had passed, it was already mealtime. Sun Miao had prepared lunch for Su Ruixi in advance, but Su Ruixi still took Sun Miao out to eat.

“What do you want to eat?”

Facing Su Ruixi’s question, Sun Miao answered: “I’m fine with anything.”

Su Ruixi was driving the car and waiting at a traffic light. After getting the answer, her fingers tapped lightly on the side of the steering wheel as she seemed to be thinking. After the green light came on, she drove off: “Then let’s have hotpot. I know a pretty good private kitchen hotpot¹⁰ place. You like spicy food, and I don’t, so we’ll order a mandarin duck pot¹¹.”

“Okay.”

Today was a rest day, so there were quite a few people. While still in the car, Su Ruixi directly called the private kitchen hotpot place and asked them to save a table for them. By the time the two arrived, a server was already waiting for them.

This was a private garden hotpot restaurant, the kind where the cost starts at two or three thousand per person, and the decor was absolutely top-tier. The spot where they sat was next to a floor-to-ceiling window, and outside were layers upon layers of flowers. It truly lived up to the name of garden hotpot, as if they were sitting right in a garden.

For hotpot, the most important thing when eating out is the freshness of the ingredients. Whether it suits one’s appetite specifically still depends on the dipping sauce¹² one mixes for oneself.

Sun Miao mixed Su Ruixi’s portion of the dipping sauce for her. Sun Miao understood her tastes even better than Su Ruixi herself did.

Sun Miao was very happy eating this hotpot meal, and Su Ruixi also found it delicious. Su Ruixi even remarked with feeling: “Next time we eat out, let’s find a place like this, where you can mix your own seasonings.”

“Then isn’t that the same as eating at home?” Sun Miao smilingly replied. Su Ruixi hummed in agreement. “It’s still a bit different. Coming out feels like a date.” She rarely said such sweet nothings, and when she did, her cheeks were a little red. It might also have been from the steam of the hotpot.

But no matter what, Susu-jie was just——cute.

After this meal was finished, the two returned home, and Sun Miao’s mood had already improved considerably. She said hello to Su Ruixi, sat down in the living room, and began her plan of action——first, to make a phone call. She called the Lemon Tea Boss to ask about the recent stall-setting situation over at the Education Park.

“It’s still the same. My business has always been like that, not many people come to buy. When you were setting up your stall here before, I sold a bit more. As soon as you left, I basically have no business. Plus, haven’t I been drawing manhua recently? I don’t have time to set up the stall either. But when I go grocery shopping, I sometimes run into the Fried Skewer Boss and we’ll chat a bit.”

As she spoke, she started to feel indignant on behalf of the Fried Skewer Boss¹³: “His spot really is a bit bad, it can’t compare to the most central locations. It’s only because his food is delicious that his customer traffic is still okay. There are too many stalls here. A few more came recently, and they don’t even follow the rules or go get their licenses and whatnot.”

Sun Miao and the Lemon Tea Boss chatted for a long time and got a rough understanding of the situation over there. Sun Miao also understood that while the customer traffic at the Education Park was high, there were also many stalls, and the homogenization¹⁴ was especially serious. Previously, when Sun Miao had her stall selling changfen, there were already several other changfen stalls over there.

With things being like this, one couldn’t actually get a share of that many customers.

This situation was exactly as she had guessed, so she said directly: “I’ve found an oasis. It’s an area where you can set up stalls, the customer traffic is huge, and the customers earn a lot, so they’re also relatively free with their money. I was selling Yangyu potato cake for 15 each and they sold out very quickly.”

“What do you sell that doesn’t sell out fast…” the Lemon Tea Boss muttered under her breath, then asked: “What, you’re sharing such a good spot with us?”

When she said this, Sun Miao knew the other party definitely hadn’t seen the group chat. So she recounted everything that had happened in the morning. After the other party, sharing a common hatred for the enemy, cursed the troublemaking man a few times, she then said: “But that place really is good. Many of the stall owners here have licenses, and since we all came from the same place, everyone is quite united. Worst comes to worst, just let him flip the stall. Earning two thousand yuan for no reason at all¹⁵, isn’t that just like picking up money?”

The Lemon Tea Boss was even a little eager to try. “Can I go set up a stall too? I don’t ask for much, compensating me one thousand would be enough.”

“……”

Her lemons… can’t be compensated for that much ah.

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