Chapter 42: The Unlucky Truck Driver

Half an hour later, the lawyer under Lawrence—who, like the others, still had no name—arrived at the nearby police station. The driver, the accountant, and Ou Xiaolu were sitting in silence, watching three police officers sip their coffee.

Across from Ou Xiaolu sat a heavyset man. Coincidentally, Ou Xiaolu recognized him—it was Cameron, the truck driver who had saved his life on his very first day in the country of the Amiliki Lighthouse. No wonder the oncoming red truck had seemed so familiar to Ou Xiaolu on the road; it had only been three days since Cameron had flattened a taxi, and now he was in another accident. Ou Xiaolu wondered if Cameron would ever drive a truck again.

Upon seeing the lawyer arrive, the officer in charge of the record raised his eyebrows and said to Ou Xiaolu and the others, “Now you can talk.”

“I suppose you’ve already reviewed the traffic camera footage. We were just passing by. Our car had already moved out of the truck’s blind spot when the accident happened behind us—you have no reason to involve us,” the driver said, having already prepared his statement in the past half hour.

“That’s not the point,” the officer said, slapping the table and picking up the remote control. The television began to play the surveillance footage.

When Ou Xiaolu’s car passed by the truck, he was seen poking his head out of the window, seemingly waving his hand toward the vehicles behind.

Immediately after, the wheel of the car behind burst. The vehicle skidded and crashed beneath the truck’s trailer, snapping the hitch. The heavy container slammed down, crushing not only the car but everything inside.

“You said you wanted to wait for your lawyer before speaking. Well, your lawyer is here. So explain to me—why did you stick your head out? If you can’t give me a good reason today, I’ll treat you as the perpetrator and arrest you,” the officer threatened.

Before he could finish, the lawyer interjected, “Officer, please mind your words. Otherwise, I’ll have to suspect you of abusing your authority and threatening my client.”

At this, Ou Xiaolu stopped the lawyer and stood up. “Let me explain. Please pause the footage at the moment I lean out of the window.”

The officer glared at Ou Xiaolu but did as he asked.

Ou Xiaolu pointed at himself on the screen. “See? I was holding my phone.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” the officer snorted.

“There’s poor signal on that stretch of road. I have a self-driving car—this one, actually.” As he spoke, Ou Xiaolu fast-forwarded the footage, which clearly showed an empty car following theirs. “I had business to attend to today, and they offered me a ride—a polite request I didn’t want to refuse. But I still needed a way back, so I activated the GPS and had my car follow behind us. Isn’t that reasonable?

“When we got to this road, my phone lost signal. My car might have lost track of us, so I leaned out to try to get a better signal. I’m sure you’ve all climbed around trying to get a bar or two before. As for why the tire blew just as I leaned out, I think it was just a coincidence. I’ve run into plenty of random mishaps like that before. Instead of blaming me, you should check whether their car was tampered with, or overloaded, or something similar.”

The officer seemed ready to retort, but the lawyer quickly added, “My client is absolutely right. You can’t blame everything on him—he was in the car ahead, with no connection to the accident behind.”

The officer knew that with people like Ou Xiaolu, who could afford a lawyer, even if something was found, it would turn into nothing. And as it stood, they hadn’t found any evidence of wrongdoing at all.

In the end, however unwilling, the officer had no choice but to let Ou Xiaolu and his party leave. Cameron, the truck driver, left with them as well—though unfortunately, the truck he had just reclaimed was impounded again.

After sending them out of the station, the officer still seemed dissatisfied. He turned to Ou Xiaolu and said, “Can you show me how you control your self-driving car?”

Ou Xiaolu knew the officer still doubted his story, but said nothing. He simply dialed a number, waved his phone, and his new car rolled smoothly to a stop in front of him.

Without a word from Ou Xiaolu, the car door swung open, just wide enough for him to get in.

Ou Xiaolu shot the officer a look, waved his hand again, and the car returned to its previous parking spot with a speed no ordinary driver could achieve.

Meanwhile, the accountant and lawyer had finished all the necessary paperwork. The driver had parked at the entrance, waiting for them. Despite the incident, Ou Xiaolu’s schedule remained unchanged—he still needed to visit Sun God Design Company to finalize the ranch’s construction plans.

Just as he was about to get in the car, Cameron hailed a cab. At that moment, something occurred to Ou Xiaolu. He walked over to the cab window and said to Cameron, “You’ve had a run of bad luck lately. I am a disciple of a master from the mysterious East—think of me as a kind of medium. If you’re willing to believe me, you can find me at the Shixi campus. I’m usually there.”

Cameron was speechless. As a long-haul driver, he believed in such things, but he certainly didn’t see Ou Xiaolu as the disciple of some Eastern mystic. In his experience, nothing good ever came from meeting Ou Xiaolu—the last time, and this time too. In just a few days, six people had died under his wheels. If this kept up, what would happen?

After Cameron left, the lawyer came over and asked, “Is there something wrong with him?”

“No, I just think he’s lucky—a potential friend,” Ou Xiaolu replied with a smile.

Indeed, the system had just given him a notification: of the five people who died in the car, only the driver was an ordinary person. Each of the others was worth at least five experience points, with one worth fifteen. Because Ou Xiaolu initiated the first strike, he received half the experience—the equivalent of fifteen points.

If Cameron were his friend, Ou Xiaolu could have teamed up with him before attacking and claimed all the experience for himself, rather than watching half of it slip away.