Xia Qianqian was concentrating on driving when the car suddenly jolted. She didn't know what it had hit, and it startled her immensely.
She wasn't afraid of anything else, but she feared she might have hit a person. She nervously looked at Liu Yifeng behind her, her expression on the verge of tears. "I... I think I hit someone?"
"Don't panic, I'll go down and take a look!" Liu Yifeng said as he opened the car door. He was about to bend down to see if there was anything under the wheels.
The jolt had been strong, and he suspected it might have been a living creature.
Just then, a woman ran over from the traffic light, crying, "My Mao Mao, my Mao Mao!"
Soon, she reached Liu Yifeng's car, collapsed on the ground, and looked at the lifeless Teddy bear, crying even more sadly. "My Mao Mao, what happened? Don't scare me."
Liu Yifeng immediately understood that the "Mao Mao" she mentioned was likely her pet, which Xia Qianqian had hit.
He also bent down and indeed saw a dog, a small Teddy, covered in blood.
Actually, Xia Qianqian had been driving quite slowly. If it had been a large dog, it wouldn't have been so severely injured. It was precisely because of its small size that a simple impact was fatal.
"Madam, please get up. We can discuss this calmly," Liu Yifeng said.
The woman, already heartbroken over her dog, was instantly enraged by Liu Yifeng's words. She stood up angrily, pointed at Liu Yifeng's nose, and cursed, "Discuss what? Your car hit and killed my dog! You pay me for Mao Mao!"
"We were driving normally. Your dog suddenly darted out. As its owner, you should have kept it on a leash when you brought it out..." Liu Yifeng hadn't noticed if the dog had suddenly darted out.
However, they were in the middle of the lane, driving normally, not on a crosswalk.
Therefore, it could only have been her dog that suddenly darted out, and Xia Qianqian hadn't noticed it, otherwise, she wouldn't have hit her dog.
"You... what do you mean by that? My dog was hit and killed by your car, and instead of apologizing, you're pointing fingers at me? Is your heart made of stone?
Do you know that Mao Mao is like my son?" the woman said, angered by Liu Yifeng's words.
At this moment, Xia Qianqian got out of the driver's seat and looked at the arguing woman. She walked to Liu Yifeng's side. "Yifeng, did we hit something?"
Seeing her get out of the car, the woman knew her Mao Mao had been hit and killed by her. She immediately pointed at Xia Qianqian's nose and yelled, "Are you f***ing blind? On such a wide road, you hit my Mao Mao! You pay me for Mao Mao!"
Xia Qianqian knew she was in the wrong. She lowered her head, looked at the deceased dog under the car's tire, and said softly, "Miss, I didn't do it on purpose. I'm very sorry for hitting your dog, but a dead dog cannot be revived. Tell me, how much compensation is appropriate, and I will pay you."
"Beep, beep, beep..." Since the accident occurred in the middle of the road, traffic soon began to back up.
The cars behind them were constantly honking their horns.
However, the woman had no intention of resolving the matter quickly. She said angrily, "Then if I drive and hit and kill you, and then pay your family, would your mother agree?"
"You..." Xia Qianqian was so angry she couldn't speak.
"Excuse me, you treat your dog like a person, but we don't. A dog is a dog, and it cannot be compared to a human.
If you consider it family, we have no objections, but please respect my friend and refrain from using such malicious language.
I admit that my car hit your dog, but that was because your dog did not obey traffic rules, so the responsibility does not lie entirely with us." Liu Yifeng stood in front of Xia Qianqian, giving her a sense of security.
Seeing Liu Yifeng stand up for her, Xia Qianqian was deeply touched.
The woman, however, was relentless. "Who says my dog didn't obey traffic rules? Clearly, your car was driving too fast, and my dog was on a leash."
"One thousand yuan. That's it. We'll call it even," Liu Yifeng said, tired of arguing with her.
"One thousand yuan? Are you trying to bribe a beggar? I paid more than a thousand yuan for Mao Mao when I bought him as a puppy, not to mention over a year of feeding, vet visits, and other expenses," the woman said with disdain at the offered compensation.
As Liu Yifeng was about to say something else, car owners from behind started poking their heads out of their windows, their tones unfriendly. "Hey, if you're going to argue, can you do it on the side of the road? We have things to do, we don't have time to waste here with you."
"Exactly. Such a minor traffic accident, and you can't settle it in half an hour?"
"Damn it, I have an urgent matter. If you don't move, believe it or not, I'll just drive into you?"
Faced with the barrage of comments from everyone, Liu Yifeng could only apologize and promise to resolve it immediately.
After speaking, he went to the driver's seat, preparing to move the car to the side. Seeing the woman's persistent attitude, he suspected it would take at least half an hour to resolve.
The woman, thinking he was trying to escape, immediately blocked the front of the car. "If you want to run away, you'll have to run over me first."
Liu Yifeng explained helplessly, "I'm not trying to run away. My car is obstructing traffic. I'm moving it to the side of the road so we can discuss this properly."
He had already taken the hangover-relief pills developed by Tongtong in the car, so he didn't have to worry about being stopped by traffic police.
The woman, upon hearing this, showed no intention of letting him move the car to the side. "I know what you're trying to do. You want to tamper with the evidence to push all the blame onto us. You're not going anywhere until this matter is resolved to my satisfaction."
She didn't care if she was causing a traffic jam. All she knew was that her Mao Mao shouldn't have died in vain.
This car was worth at least over a million yuan. She had to extort some money from them, otherwise, her Mao Mao would have died for nothing.
"I told you, I can only compensate you one thousand yuan. If you're not satisfied, you can call the traffic police, and they can determine who is at fault." Liu Yifeng, while wealthy, didn't have money that grew on trees.
Moreover, the fault wasn't entirely theirs. Offering a thousand yuan was out of humanitarian concern, not because he believed he was wrong.
"Dream on! I spent at least one hundred thousand yuan on this dog, and you're only offering a thousand? No way!" The woman spread her arms.
Liu Yifeng frowned. "Then how much do you want me to compensate you?"
If it weren't for the incessant honking from the cars behind, he could have continued to stall with this woman, seeing who could outlast whom.