Chapter 3: 3

During the one week I spent in the hospital, I tried to sort out my memories. There was one thing I was sure of after going through everything I could remember about the accident – I had no idea how the Peugeot driver ended up dying.

The doctor told me that when the brain suffers severe trauma, the memories that the person doesn’t want to face or remember would be lost very easily.

If that were the case, what terrible things happened after the accident? How could it have been so terrible that it not only knocked me out but also made me lose that part of my memory?

Thankfully, the rest of my memory was intact, including my own name, address, my job and even the fact that I had bought my car from this particular car dealership where the salesgirl kept bragging to me about how their cars were super safe. I remembered every single word she had said about the car’s safety standards.

Just thinking about this car made me really angry. I had merely knocked into the car in front of me. The car was more or less okay, but I got a concussion and temporary memory loss. How could such a car be considered safe?

And so, the first thing I did after I got discharged was to give that car dealership a call to complain. The customer service officer immediately lowered her voice to ask me about my complaint when she heard that I wanted to lodge a complaint about the quality of the car.

I started to recount the accident to her briefly, but before I could finish, she cut me off abruptly to ask how much my car cost.

The moment she asked me this question, I actually felt a little embarrassed and reported the price in a less demanding voice, “$75,000 (around US$11,800). Insurance, tax and admin fees all in.”

The customer service officer became even bolder after hearing this price and raised her voice, “That’s how much your car costs and you think it’s a Hummer?!”

She was essentially implying that at $75,000, it was already not bad that my car had all four wheels and could even be driven. Safety standards and all that were considered a bonus for cars at this price.

I refused to give up and continued to argue, “But that’s not what the salesgirl said when I bought the car…”

She cut me off again, “She must have introduced to you a $200,000 car with the latest technology and safety features, but did you buy it? No! Instead, you bought a low end car that didn’t even cost 80 grand.”

I was at a loss for words. I knew that buying such a cheap car would definitely come with its disadvantages, but I continued to soldier on with my words, “At the very least, it should come with an airbag, right?”

Honestly speaking, if she said the car didn’t come with an airbag, I was just going to accept it. But she actually said the car did come with an airbag, and said so very confidently.

I gripped the phone hard and retorted immediately, “It didn’t have one!”

The other side must have spent too many years selling cars and didn’t even bat an eyelid while lying, “That’s impossible!”

“What do you mean by that’s impossible?!”

We started arguing over the phone but the argument got nowhere, so I finally snapped at her, “The car is with the North District Traffic Police Department, so if you don’t believe me, you can go over and take a look at the car yourself!”

But the customer service officer insisted on going by the book and told me very seriously that they didn’t provide such personal services for free.

I started throwing a fit immediately and the other party quickly pacified me by saying that if I was willing to bear the cost of their trip to and from the police station, their dealership would find time to send someone to inspect my car.

The next day, I met up with the representative from the dealership outside the police station at noon. Inspector Ji proceeded to lead us to where my beloved car that I hadn’t seen in days was parked. When I saw how my hood was dented out of shape and my headlights were smashed, I suddenly felt like I could empathize with my car.

Inspector Ji rubbed it in, “If the airbag worked, you wouldn’t have suffered such a severe injury.”

The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I huffed angrily and snapped, “Even a bicycle is safer than this car!”

That representative was a real stoic one and didn’t seem convinced at all. He quietly got into the driver’s seat to check the airbag, then got out again to look at the damage to the front of the car.

I snorted and said, “Don’t you dare claim that the impact wasn’t hard enough to trigger the airbag. It was enough to make my head bleed!”

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Inspector Ji was a genius at knowing when to play along, so he immediately supported me by saying, “I’ve dealt with a number of traffic accidents now. Judging from the impact of this collision, it doesn’t seem normal for an airbag to fail.”

The representative wasn’t able to refute that and nodded in acknowledgment. “The impact was great enough.”

I seized the chance to win this case. “The impact was hard enough but the airbag didn’t inflate!”

“You’re right.”

“See? I told you the car has a problem!” I concluded confidently.

Inspector Ji was about to add fuel to the fire and chime in with me when the representative insisted that the car didn’t have a problem.

I stared blankly at him and he went on, “Didn’t you read the car manual?”

The car manual? To be honest, I hadn’t read it at all.

He seemed to be able to read my mind and said quietly, “You didn’t read it, did you? No wonder. Go back and read it first, then think about whether you want to complain or not later.”

These words really confused me. “What’s in the car manual?”

“It’s written very clearly in the manual that an airbag can only be used once. After it has been inflated before, you have to get a new one from the dealership.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“Are you really not getting it or are you just pretending not to get it? You crashed your car before this and used the airbag, but didn’t get a new one when you repaired the car.”

I flew into a rage and yelled angrily, “That’s nonsense! I’ve only had this car for three months and I haven’t even sent it for servicing before! What’s this about a car repair?!”

The representative didn’t panic and merely smiled. “Come with me.” He led us to the front of the car and pointed to one section, “Look at this part. There’s a very obvious difference in color between the paint on this part of the car and the rest of the car. You can see that the paint in front is darker, while the rest of the car is a lot shinier.”

When I looked at the areas he was pointing to, I realized that he was right. I was still puzzled when the representative went on, “It means that the front of this car had been repainted before, but it wasn’t done by the official repair shop for this particular model.”

He cleared his throat and made a final conclusion, “Actually, when I was checking for the airbag inside the car earlier, I already suspected that the airbag had been used before and removed. I was even more sure of my guess when I saw the inconsistency in the paint of the car. Before this accident, you had crashed this car pretty badly. After that, you sent it to a private car workshop to get it fixed and they did a good job of it, except that they forgot to install a new airbag for you. That’s why you ended up getting hurt this time.”

I didn’t know how to respond at all. Inspector Ji could tell that I was speechless and immediately switched sides. “I was just thinking that it’s impossible for such a well-known brand to produce cars with safety issues. This young man here has analyzed everything so logically. Did you hurt your head and lose some of your memories? Could you have forgotten about this prior accident?”

But that’s impossible, I thought. I had no memory of ever being involved in an accident, and even if I had, I would have gone to the official car repair shop since I was covered by insurance. I wouldn’t have gone to a private workshop.

I insisted on standing my ground and said, “You must be finding excuses because something’s gone wrong and you refuse to take responsibility for it! Or the car you sold me back then wasn’t a new one but a refurbished one! I…I’m going to sue your company!”

The representative didn’t look the least threatened and just grinned at me. “We’re an official retailer for this brand, so I hope you’ll remember that. Well, since there’s nothing more for me to do here, I should get back to the office.”

He stretched his hand towards me for money.

I didn’t have a choice since I had already agreed to cover his transport expenses. I was furious, but I still pulled my wallet out of my pocket very reluctantly and fished a $100 bill out.

But just when I pulled that bill out, a piece of paper fell out from my wallet. I looked down and realized it was a name card, complete with an address and phone number.

I squatted down curiously to pick up the name card. When I turned it over, what I saw was a string of words that seemed to have come at a very bad timing.

Dafei Car Workshop welcomes both old and new customers!

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