Car of the Year

To be precise... it could hardly even be called a press release. Not a single mainstream website or platform carried any news about it. At best, it was just a post on Moments. [AAA Haian Auto & Scrap Alchemical Materials Disposal - Little Ji (Taking orders nationwide, can fly anywhere)] The attached photo was a group shot of Ji Jue, Yan Jian, and a bunch of overworked college students in the final assembly workshop. Behind them sat an object draped from head to toe beneath sun-shading canvas. The caption read: *Our new vehicle is officially rolling out! Friends from all walks of life are welcome to place your orders.* Less than an hour later, he posted a follow-up comment below: *Thank you, thank you all for your support! We never expected sales to be this hot! Five-star reviews get cash back, dears~ (heart)* It looked like a damn joke! If not for the factory gates swinging open and massive transport trucks hauling out load after load of cargo, Yin Zhaoyang would have assumed Ji Jue had lost his mind. As it turned out, Ji Jue hadn't gone mad. Which meant it was now Yin Zhaoyang's turn to lose his. Three in the morning! Three damn o'clock in the morning! Yin Zhaoyang had barely closed his eyes to doze for a moment, and this dog bastard decided to ruin him right now instead of sleeping?! When the report first arrived, Yin Zhaoyang had been groggy with sleep, not processing it yet, wanting only to close his eyes and drift off again. But the instant his mind caught up, he bolted upright as though struck by an electric shock, his underwear instantly drenched in cold sweat. What the hell? What was going on?! What on earth had happened?! How long had it been? A full month hadn't even passed, and Haian Auto Works had already resumed production and rolled out a new product? It was like a fucking ghost story, goddammit! Right now, he wanted nothing more than to grab Ji Jue by the throat, haul him up, and scream: *How the hell did you pull this off?!* Utterly baffled and paralyzed with shock, Yin Zhaoyang didn't even dare to answer his phone. Yet it buzzed again and again until he finally scraped together his courage. "What happened?" Shang Tongwen's voice was frigid. "Just how do you do your job?" "I... I..." *I don't know either!* "Useless!" Before hanging up, Shang Tongwen dropped one final command: "Look into it." And so Yin Zhaoyang began his investigation. He checked from Yacheng to Chaocheng and on to Chuancheng, but to his utter disbelief, not a shred of information turned up. Dealership bosses across the board swore up and down that if so much as a single stray hair from Haian Auto Works had arrived, they would eat their own signboards. Across every sales channel on the open market, there wasn't a phantom of a trace. Yet raw materials were still pouring into Haian Auto Works truckload after truckload, and finished goods were rolling out in convoys... It was only when Yin Zhaoyang gave up his discreet inquiries and resorted to the clumsiest method—dispatching men to tail the trucks—that he finally discovered where that massive volume of cargo was going. Hefang, Sanzhishan, Xifang, Tianning, Shanmen, Yinjiang... Every single one was an out-of-city settlement in Haizhou, wilderness encampments numbering at most tens of thousands, or as few as five or six hundred souls. Unlike the secure, stable interior of the cities, these were villages and towns that lived like nomads to evade calamity beasts, migrating irregularly or simply scratching out an existence by mining mineral deposits and local resources. Dozens, even hundreds of vehicles dispersed into them like water sinking into desert sands, swallowed and digested in the blink of an eye. And the location with the single highest shipment volume among them... was Quancheng?! Quancheng, what the hell?! Quancheng had been a pile of ruins for decades! Were they selling their cars to ghosts?! Wait, no... The instant the realization struck, Yin Zhaoyang froze as if hit by lightning. Who said Quancheng was deserted? Right now, in the outlying wilderness, there probably wasn't a single settlement livelier than Quancheng. Cleansed of its pollution and corruption and returned to the mundane world, Quancheng was nothing more than an expanse of ruins to city folk... but to the scattered villages and encampments out in the wilderness, it was an inexhaustible treasure trove! *** At that very moment, in Quancheng. The afternoon sunlight was gentle. Engines roared incessantly, dust billowed in the distance, and amid the city's skeletal remains, a dilapidated building slowly crumbled to the ground. "Ah, what lovely weather." Up on a reinforced rooftop, Chen Yubo reclined on a folding chair, sipping iced sparkling water and enjoying the pleasant breeze. Down in the urban ruins, amid streets strewn with shattered bricks and broken tiles, tractors puttered without pause. People bustled back and forth, and traffic flowed thick. In just a few short months, scavengers from all across Haizhou had swarmed in to dig for treasure, scouring the rubble for anything of value. Where people gathered, a new settlement inevitably took shape. Plenty of lingering contaminated zones remained within Quancheng, but out on the open flats beyond the perimeter, a brand-new settlement had already sprung up from the dirt, thriving as it drew nourishment from the remnants of the past. In a lawless land so far removed from urban centers, there was no talking about morality or decency. If two strangers crossed paths and didn't immediately draw guns on each other, that already counted as a passionate love for peace. Under the lure of tremendous profit, competition, slaughter, and blood feuds sprouted naturally like bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Even though the ruins had already been picked over once by the Security Bureau and the Association, plenty of wealth and relics beneath the notice of the big shots still lingered within. If nothing else, scrap steel cable and raw copper fetched handsome sums when hauled in for recycling. Not to mention actual treasures like gold, silver, or antiques. Myths of overnight riches played out constantly before everyone's eyes. And naturally, a horde of energetic grassroots organizations, local cartels, and trading firms caught the scent and arrived at the first opportunity... Among them, the one that had staked out the earliest presence and seized the greatest advantage was, without question, the Wild Gathering of Yacheng. Chen Xingzhou was certainly not going to let an opportunity to expand his sphere of influence slip away. With prime meat on the table, he naturally prioritized his own brother's Yulou Trading. Under his elder brother's arrangements, Chen Yubo didn't even need to do anything. Just buying scrap on site and flipping it was enough to rake in money hand over fist. To say nothing of the numerous sidelines that branched off from it... "Boss! Boss! It's selling like crazy! Absolute madness!" A subordinate charged up from downstairs, his face flushed and his steps so hurried he nearly tripped over his own feet. "Where are the vehicles? Do we have any left? "The scavengers outside are lined up around the block demanding vehicles! Some are pulling out cold hard cash on the spot, not even haggling..." He continued, eyes alight with excitement: "The crew from Chaocheng couldn't sit still anymore. They hired people to come buy some too! You should have seen the look on Big Scar's face back then... With demand this massive, maybe we can negotiate a bigger kickback with the auto plant!" "Money, money, money. Annoying as hell. All day long it's nothing but money. Friends are doing each other a favor here—why bring up money?" Chen Yubo frowned in irritation and waved his hand dismissively. "Sell whatever we've got on hand. Just remember to get the Haian name out there, understood?" "Oh, and another thing—" He slapped his forehead. "Add another two hundred bucks a day for each guy from the security company. Ah, real professionals are something else! Let's see if those bastards from Chuancheng dare to pick a fight with me now!" Once his orders were given and he had soaked up enough sun, Chen Yubo hummed a tune, headed downstairs, and hopped into the pink motorized tricycle that had been gifted to him, driving off for a leisurely spin. Life was truly peaceful and sweet. As for the heavy lifting, that was someone else's job. Down in the great courtyard of Yulou Trading, amidst an uproar that rivaled a chaotic vegetable market, heads bobbed in a dense sea of people. Mountains of scrap metal lay piled in the corners, awaiting sorting and processing. Two long queues had formed. One was waiting to sell scrap, while the other... was actually there to buy vehicles. "Holy crap, are these shills hired by Second Brother?" Idling by the entrance, picking at his toenails, Lu Feng had never seen anything like this. He scratched his head in utter bewilderment. *Didn't that guy say he went off to build cars? How did he build them so fast? *And besides... does a motorized tricycle even count as a car?* During the first two days, those little three-wheelers had sat parked by the gates without anyone giving them a second glance. But the moment the first one was bought by some unlucky bastard whose engine had blown a cylinder, things took an abrupt turn. More and more people began showing up! A little motorized tricycle had the nerve to ask for fifty-one thousand. That was no small sum. If someone actually had that kind of cash to throw around, who the hell would come scavenge scrap in Quancheng? Yet once subsequent scavengers confirmed that the trikes bearing the string bean logo had been bought right here, their eyes lit up, each brighter than the last. Some had even come looking to buy wholesale. It got to the point where half of Yulou Trading's spacious courtyard was on the verge of turning into Haian Auto Works' direct retail outlet. "Old Six! Old Six!" Lu Feng frowned the moment he spotted someone cutting in line. "Where the hell did you wander off to? Keep order!" A burly, dark-skinned brute immediately came out brandishing a rubber baton, barking curses as he began restoring discipline. Up at the front of the queue, a new sign had been hung up. "What's this supposed to mean?" A scavenger who had already fished out half his cash yelled in fury, "You're not selling anymore?!" "Handling cash and making change on both ends makes bookkeeping a royal pain. The boss says no more cash. We're settling accounts on that side directly. If you want to buy, just trade scrap materials for it. You even get a discount." Hearing that, the scavengers froze for a second before erupting in wild delight. If there was one thing Quancheng didn't lack right now, it was scrap! Rounded down, how was this any different from giving them away for free?! They didn't even need to make phone calls. A single whistle could bring mountains of junk rolling in. Decommissioned cars, steel cables, and copper wire flooded in without end, dumped by the truckload into the yard, while one gleaming new tricycle after another drove off to triumphant cheers. Toward the end, even when there was no stock left, buyers preferred to hold onto their queue slips and wait rather than settle in cash. So much so that... by the time the men dispatched by Shang Tongwen reached the settlements surrounding Quancheng, they couldn't purchase a single vehicle. With no other choice, they had to pay extra, letting themselves be treated like "dumb suckers from the city" and coughing up over a hundred thousand just to buy a used unit that had already been driven for a week, all so they could report back. To save time, it was flown in directly, shipped overnight via an airship express line to the Echo Tech-Industry complex in Dongcheng. In an empty workshop beneath blazing spotlights, the assembled team of experts circled the little tricycle four, five, six, seven times before turning in unison toward Shang Tongwen: "This is a car?" Shang Tongwen's face was completely expressionless. He had nothing to say. At this moment, the only thing filling the cavernous workshop was a speechless embarrassment so thick it practically condensed into solid form. It was like a grand gala for the Car of the Year awards... *[Family Sedans Coast to Victory]* *[Pickups and Vans Deservedly Take the Prize]* *[Even Trucks Make Sense]* *[What the Hell Is a Tricycle?]* No matter how readily the boss paid them, the experts on the team couldn't help sweating profusely while a bizarre sense of absurdity washed over them at being dragged out in the middle of the night for something like this. Was this really necessary? They had rushed here at an ungodly hour thinking a formidable competitor or a breakthrough technological achievement had hit the market. Instead, they arrived only to see... a little three-wheeler. No matter how disappointing Echo might be, they couldn't possibly get squeezed out of the market by a contraption like this, could they? Beneath the harsh glare of the spotlights, every mud splatter and scratch on the tricycle seemed to gleam with pride. Never since rolling off the assembly line had it enjoyed such royal treatment. A chartered flight, an expert consultation—it had truly moved up in the world... You didn't even need experts. If you dragged Lu Feng over from his repair shop, he could deliver an instant, blistering critique: *Obvious trash at first glance.* It was practically the textbook definition of shoddy craftsmanship! Crude—unbearably crude! At best, an iron shell had been welded onto a frame to form a cabin. Apart from the structural pillars, the doors were nothing more than thin sheets of sheet metal that let out a pathetic tinny rattle when tapped. It didn't even have a coat of paint! All it had was a massive string bean logo etched onto the front, and a Haian Auto Works decal slapped onto its rear. And take a look down at that cobbled-together chassis, folks! It was a vivid embodiment of Haian Auto Works' traditional philosophy: *Better to lease than buy; never develop in-house.* Every process, design, and structural component relied entirely on preexisting, field-tested fabrication and engineering. There was not a shred of innovation to be found. It was an epic chimera, a Frankenstein dredged up from who-knew-which graveyard. On the entire vehicle, the most valuable part—aside from the surprisingly rare single-cast chassis frame—was probably that classic-model Pentium heavy phlogiston engine. An old specification, an obsolete model, an advanced variant imported from all the way across the Thousand Islands just to bypass trade blockades... The cheapest option within its class. Aside from hefty horsepower and being easy to repair, it had zero redeeming qualities. The engine noise was so deafening that driving it around was practically equivalent to blaring a horn. Fuel consumption was so astronomical that a filling station would want to relocate right next door to your house overnight. And the exhaust fumes were so thick that a child running behind the tailpipe would come out looking like they were caked in soot from head to toe. It was ten-thousand-percent intentional. It was the vehicular equivalent of tossing the newly issued environmental regulations onto the ground, stomping on them, and grinding a shoe into them twice for good measure to leave a crisp footprint. Unhappy? If you're unhappy, come and get me! *I'm a little three-wheeler!* What, were you going to get Midtown's Environmental Protection Bureau to enforce regulations out in the remote wildlands of Haizhou? The good old boys out there would be delighted to give you a hands-on lesson in local customs. Other than that, it had nothing at all. Aside from being crude, the entire trike was bare-bones to the extreme. Ventilated and heated seats? Keep dreaming. It was a three-wheeler; what the hell were you expecting? Even the audio system in this one had been tacked on aftermarket by the owner. Beyond the structural frame, there was not an ounce of technical sophistication to be found. And yet... "Huh?" The engineer lying on the ground inspecting the chassis directly froze for a second, then froze again, murmuring in disbelief. "It's so... uninhibited..."