Setting Up Stalls – Chapter 6

Asking for an Outrageous Price

Su Ruixi had a sour expression because her stomach condition was acting up again. She was still hungry…

Su Ruixi had a sour expression because her stomach condition was acting up again. She was still hungry, having barely eaten anything earlier, and now hunger was consuming her entire being. All she wanted now was some fried rice – the fried rice from Miao Miao’s Mobile Food Bar.

After eating the fried rice, she would still need to go get an IV drip.

She parked her car in the nearby parking lot, changed her shoes and walked over, only to witness this scene before her.

Oh, her mood got even worse.

Su Ruixi was a very level-headed person, not as impulsive as Sun Miao. She stood to the side, took out her phone to record for a while, and after saving the video, she called the police. Only after doing all this did Su Ruixi step forward.

And at the crucial moment, she directly interrupted the ridiculous man’s speech.

When the ridiculous man heard she had called the police, his aggressive demeanor diminished, but after thinking carefully, he felt he hadn’t really done anything wrong, so he tried to stand his ground again. However, Su Ruixi, as if she could predict the future, knew what he was going to say.

“Your harassment of this nurse has reached a level warranting police intervention, and you also attempted to hit someone earlier. These actions are enough to get you detained for several days for disturbing public order and harassment.”

At the mention of administrative detention, the man became even more panicked. He wanted to leave now, and Sun Miao, noticing this, immediately spoke up: “It’s useless to leave now. The nurse has your phone number and name, and there are surveillance cameras at the hospital entrance. You’ll be summoned for questioning anyway!”

While they were talking, the police car arrived shortly. Two officers stepped out, and the one in the lead glanced at the four of them, asking what had happened. The man felt somewhat guilty, but since there was no surveillance footage in his possession, he thought he could still argue his case.

However, Su Ruixi immediately shattered his delusions by taking out her phone and playing the video for everyone to hear. Though the content wasn’t entirely complete, it was enough to clarify the situation.

The police looked at both sides, and after recording their identification information, began mediating. At this point, the matter no longer concerned Sun Miao and Su Ruixi, nor did it matter what the young nurse thought. They had only stepped in because the nurse was being harassed.

Now that the two involved parties were being questioned by the police, Sun Miao and Su Ruixi, who had come to help, found themselves with nothing to do.

Sun Miao smiled at Su Ruixi: “You were really amazing! Thank you for helping us. I’m Sun Miao.”

Sun Miao was being a bit crafty here, deliberately introducing herself – normally, casual acquaintances wouldn’t need to exchange names. But since she had introduced herself, her crush would have to respond, right?

Su Ruixi was momentarily taken aback. Her expression remained neutral – she wasn’t naturally approachable by personality. But she didn’t dislike this small business owner. On the contrary, she appreciated both the delicious fried rice the owner made and her brave intervention earlier.

So she didn’t hesitate to tell Sun Miao her name.

“You’re welcome, Su Ruixi.”

The cold-type beauty was so cool, even saying her name in just a few words.

Su Ruixi was quite a nice name with good meaning – Rui symbolizing auspiciousness, and Xi representing parents’ hopes for their child’s success.

Unlike Sun Miao, who was an orphan with a casually given name. A passing fortune teller had said her destiny lacked the water element, so the orphanage gave her the name “Miao” [淼 | miǎo | character composed of three water radicals], hoping she would grow up safely.

A moment later, Su Ruixi’s stomach growled. Though her appearance and personality were cold and aloof, the gurgling stomach somewhat diminished this impression.

Standing right beside Su Ruixi, Sun Miao could hear the stomach growls clearly. She couldn’t help but smile, then thought about how irregular Su Ruixi’s eating habits must be. She must not have eaten much at lunch, otherwise she wouldn’t be hungry at this hour.

Su Ruixi’s cool demeanor was becoming hard to maintain. She subtly shifted to the side, hoping this small distance would be enough to prevent Sun Miao from hearing.

With her crush right beside her and such a perfect conversation topic, even though Sun Miao knew she shouldn’t be falling for a straight girl, she couldn’t help but start the conversation: “Are you hungry? Did you not eat enough at lunch? Would you like a bowl of fried rice?”

After saying this, Sun Miao felt awkward about her clumsy words. Listen to that, what kind of talk was that? It sounded like she was just trying to get business, hoping she would buy her fried rice.

But Su Ruixi nodded: “Mm, I didn’t eat much.”

In reality, it was practically the same as not eating at all, and it was already quite late – she hadn’t eaten a single grain of rice during lunch hour.

“That won’t do! As the saying goes, ‘Eat full at breakfast and well at lunch.’ If you don’t eat well at lunch, you’ll lack energy for the whole afternoon.”

After saying this, Sun Miao felt inadequate again – why did she sound like she was lecturing someone?

But Su Ruixi didn’t mind, she just nodded: “Mm, I’ll have an order of fried rice in a bit.”

“Great, the same as usual – no spice and to-go, right?”

“Yes.”

The atmosphere between them was quite nice, at least in Sun Miao’s eyes. Although Su Ruixi didn’t say much and maintained a neutral expression, they could still exchange a few words back and forth, which made Sun Miao happy.

Her happiness was that simple – earning a few extra yuan a day and getting to exchange a few words with her crush was enough for her.

Unfortunately, her happiness didn’t last long.

Because there’s always some clueless fool who does things without reading the room, like that ridiculous man.

The ridiculous man started shouting again, his voice so loud that both Sun Miao and Su Ruixi turned to look. At first, Sun Miao didn’t realize he was talking about her, but as she listened, something felt wrong, and the police were looking this way too. The young nurse became particularly agitated and shouted: “If you have an issue, take it up with me! Why are you causing trouble for others?!”

“I don’t care, she hit me, she needs to explain herself?!”

The police officer, unable to deal with his noise, asked his unoccupied colleague to call Sun Miao over. He could only shout towards Sun Miao: “Uh… boss, come over here, this man has something with you.”

Sun Miao’s expression at that moment was like pointing back at herself, looking confused – her reaction was exactly like that classic meme of “Huh? Me?”

To be honest, her current appearance matched that internet meme perfectly. A simple white T-shirt, hair in a ponytail, plus that plain expression – it was like a one-to-one replica. [LP: Idk which Chinese classic meme it is lol]

After receiving confirmation, Sun Miao walked over. Su Ruixi also sensed something was wrong, and although the police hadn’t called her, she moved closer to that direction as well.

After both of them walked over, the ridiculous man raised his hand to show them the back of it: “Look here, see? This is where she hit me! I’m going to take a photo as evidence, this is proof that she hit me!”

When Sun Miao had swatted his hand, she had used quite a bit of force, so even after all this time, it was still slightly red, but that was all.

If left alone, that reddened area would probably be completely gone in no time.

This behavior nearly made the young nurse explode with anger. Her words came through gritted teeth: “Xu Ding! Are you even human?! Look at your hand – in a little while, there won’t be any mark at all! If you hadn’t tried to grab me, the boss wouldn’t have had to swat your hand away!”

“I don’t care, she hit me.”

The police officer was actually disgusted by his behavior too. As a man, he felt Xu Ding was being particularly embarrassing. Was he even a man? Getting hit once by a woman and now acting like it’s life or death – shameful.

But due to procedure, he had to say to Sun Miao: “He’s claiming you hit him, so I need to record your identification information. Do you have your ID card? If not, you can just tell me your ID number.”

Sun Miao glanced at the one called Xu Ding, and with no choice, she took out her ID card and handed it to the police officer. The officer opened the app on his phone, scanned her number, and returned it to her. Then he began his official duty, placing his hand near the camera on his left chest, and spoke to Sun Miao and Xu Ding.

“This mediation today is being recorded with both audio and video. Now let me ask about the situation – he says you hit him, did this happen?”

Sun Miao shook her head: “I didn’t hit him. When he reached out to grab me and the nurse, I just brushed his hand away.”

Xu Ding jumped up when he heard her words: “You did hit me! Officer, look, my hand is still red.” The police officer glanced at him, took a photo of the mark on his hand, then asked: “So what do you want now? Do you want her to apologize or what?”

The police officer was actually somewhat biased towards Sun Miao, as Xu Ding was clearly being unreasonable, so he deliberately avoided mentioning the word “compensation.” He definitely didn’t want to escalate the situation – ideally, they would just apologize to each other and be done with it.

Who knew Xu Ding would be so persistent: “I want compensation! Five hundred yuan!”

The young nurse’s eyes widened: “Are you crazy?!”

Xu Ding waved his hand dismissively: “Stay out of this, it has nothing to do with you anymore. We’ve settled our matter, don’t butt in.”

He looked at Sun Miao again, his eyes clearly showing schadenfreude: This is what you get for playing hero, now I’m going to make trouble for you!

They had all seen Su Ruixi’s video earlier, but it only showed the latter part – the footage of Sun Miao swatting away Xu Ding’s hand wasn’t there because she had arrived a bit late. That’s why Xu Ding could act so righteous now and make such an outrageous demand.

Of course, Sun Miao couldn’t possibly pay this money. She was already so poor that she was completely broke and her home had leaks everywhere, and now she should compensate this ridiculous man? On what grounds? Her money didn’t grow on trees.

Su Ruixi stood beside her, and although she had good manners, she was quite skilled at confrontation: “I think you’ve gone mad, mad with greed. Your head’s not right – I may not have recorded it, but this is the hospital entrance.”

---

---