Volume 3 Chapter 75 Unreasonable request
It was a nice meal.
In order to show how sorry he was, Mercado had taken Erica to the newly opened high cla.s.s restaurant outside the Falling Rain Valley. He acted as much of a gentleman as he thought while also relying on the common interest of Magic Cars to create a good atmosphere.
Adding in the fact that Mercado was a charming person, Erica was very happy during the meal and they had a good discussion.
When this lunch was over, Mercado used the excuse of discussing Magic Cars again in the future to obtain Erica’s agreement in coming to look for her in the future.
After walking Erica back to the Falling Rain Valley for work, Mercado watched as she left and he couldn’t help revealing a proud smile.
He never thought that through this incident, he would meet a rare beauty like Erica. He really was lucky.
But thinking about the Magic Car, Mercado put aside all the other thoughts and left the Falling Rain Valley. He took the medium sized Magic Pa.s.senger Car outside the Falling Rain Valley that had just arrived back to Banta City.
When he took the public transport horse carriage, it would take at least four hours to travel the distance of sixty kilometers between the Falling Rain Valley and Banta City.
Now that they were using the medium sized Magic Pa.s.senger Car, a trip only took a little bit over two hours. Because it saved them half the time, it was quickly welcomed by everyone.
In the beginning, the Fersen Carriage Company only used a single medium Magic Pa.s.senger Car per line as a test because it was too new, so some people might not accept it at first.
But once they experienced riding it, everyone found that compared to horse carriages, this Magic Car was much more comfortable and more importantly, was much faster than horse carriages.
So after a test trial of half a month, countless people requested the Fersen Carriage Company to replace all horse carriages with Magic Cars.
There were many people who said that if the Fersen Carriage Company continued using horse carriages, they wouldn’t ride them.
So for the public transportation lines of the Fersen Carriage Company, there were more and more Magic Cars taking replacing horse carriages.
But because of the production limits of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Fersen Carriage Company couldn’t replace all their horse carriages with Magic Cars. There were still a mix of horse carriages and Magic Cars on most of the transport lines.
Of course, for the line connecting Banta City and the Falling Rain Valley, it was immediately completely changed to Magic Cars.
Two hours later, Mercado jumped out of the medium sized Magic Pa.s.senger Car and headed to the recently completed Fersen Carriage Company headquarters outside Banta City.
This headquarters was just completed last month. The main reason was that the Banta City public transport system was becoming more developed, so the Fersen Carriage Company had more and more horse carriages and Magic Cars to manage. If they remained in Banta City, it would be too small and would be hard to rebuild.
This was the trend in the current Banta City.
With the development of Banta City, the small city was becoming more and more crowded. It caused many of the companies and even some of the normal citizens to begin moving out of Banta City.
Moreover, two years ago when Count Sean was the City Lord, there was the concept of suburbs already. Now that roads had been laid outside Banta City, with the work put in by the Amrit Chamber of Commerce, the suburbs had been developing well outside Banta City.
If one was to compare it, the cities outside the city were much better. Not only was it more s.p.a.cious, there were even more facilities, like the street lamps on the streets.
Moreover, now that that fellow Count Stagg who stopped Banta City’s development had left and it had surprisingly changed to her highness Seveni taking over as the City Lord, Banta City’s liveliness instantly exploded. In the month that her highness Seveni took over, the suburbs seemed to be changing each day and compared to last year, it was completely different.
The Fersen Carriage Company new headquarters was in the most lively suburbs, being just two kilometers away from Banta City’s west gate. The land it occupied was wide, being equal to a fifth of the area of Banta City.
When Mercado entered the headquarters, he went to the central office. After he showed his identification, he was quickly brought to the chairman’s office to see chairman Pompeii.
“Come, Mercado, please sit.” Seeing Mercado come in, chairman Pompei pointed at the spot in front of him with a smile, signaling for him to sit down.
From chairman Pompeii’s casual actions, one could tell that this wasn’t Mercado’s first time meeting him.
Mercado gave a slight bow before sitting in front of chairman Pompeii. He took out the purchase contract for the medium sized Magic Pa.s.senger Car from his chest and handed it over.
“Oh? You already bought it?” Chairman Pompeii roughly swept it over and said with a sigh, “It seems like chairman Xu really is showing preference to you. He clearly hasn’t completed the orders for our company and the other companies, but he already sold one to you?”
Mercado quickly said with a smile, “Chairman Xu is a generous person, he knows that I am buying a Magic Car to rent out, so he is supporting me. It was chairman Xu who recommended me to come see you, chairman Pompeii.”
Chairman Pompeii nodded, “Un, if it wasn’t for Xu Yi’s introduction letter, I wouldn’t see you.” He looked at Mercado after saying this and said with a laugh, “Actually to be honest, the thing you want to do is considered compet.i.tion for our company, so I shouldn’t see you at all.”
Mercado revealed a flattering smile, “Chairman Pompeii and chairman Xu are both generous, you couldn’t care about stealing a bit of food from a small person like me.”
“Stop flattering me, I know I can’t compare to chairman Xu.” Chairman Pompeii shook his head before looking at the contract in his hand and returning it to Mercado. He continued by saying, “To be honest, since chairman Xu has placed such importance on you and said that this taxi industry has great prospects, I believe that this industry will be very promising. Since it’s like this, according to my approach from before, I will definitely grab this industry in my hands. How could I let you take it from me?”
Mercado revealed an awkward smile and didn’t dare say anything.
He could act freely in front of Erica, but in front of an important person like chairman Pompeii, he was actually a bit nervous.
There was no other way. Although he had some money, even being able to afford a Magic Car that cost over eight hundred gold coins, compared to someone important like chairman Pompeii who controlled the Fersen Carriage Company, the difference was just too big.
Thinking of this, he suddenly remembered that when he talked to chairman Xu, he didn’t feel this nervous.
It was like chairman Xu had a natural aura that made people feel relaxed in front of him, while also trusting him.
Is this…..the aura of a truly important person?
Chairman Pompeii naturally didn’t know that his words created all these thoughts in Mercado’s mind. He looked at Mercado’s flattering and respectful smile before giving a satisfied nod.
“But I have discussed this matter with chairman Xu and he always stressed that I should give others room to develop. I agree with this idea, so I’ll give you a chance to cooperate with our company. So you have to remember, although this chance was something that you fought hard to earn, you can’t forget chairman Xu’s help.”
Mercado quickly nodded, “Definitely, definitely. I won’t forget chairman Xu’s help. Of course, in my mind, chairman Pompeii is helping me the most. I will definitely follow your instructions in the future, I will do whatever you want me to do.”
Chairman Pompeii waved his hand, “No need to be that exaggerated. Since I’m letting you do this, just do it properly. Come, take a look at this contract first. If you don’t have any problems, you can sign it.”
Mercado took the contract and carefully looked it over. He confirmed that the terms written were what he discussed with chairman Pompeii.
Although there were a few slight deviations, it wouldn’t have much influence and there were a few deviations that benefited him.
After he finished reading the contract, Mercado had a bit of grat.i.tude on his face as he nodded to chairman Pompeii, “There’s no problem.”
“Good, then sign it.” Chairman Pompeii said.
Mercado took a pen from chairman Pompeii and when he was about to sign his name, he suddenly thought of something. He opened the contract and seriously read over a line before hesitating a bit to point it out to chairman Pompeii.
“This……Chairman Pompeii, this Magic Car is my personal property, there’s no need for your company to conduct an examination each year, right? You didn’t mention this when we discussed this last time.”
Chairman Pompeii looked over this line and casually said, “Oh, this isn’t my idea, it was raised by chairman Xu when we discussed this matter last time. The reason for this is to create a standard. Taking care of your personal Magic Car is thinking for our Banta City and it won’t affect you that much.”
Mercado knit his brows, “Isn’t this…..a bit unnecessary? This is the Magic Car that I bought, people can just find me to rent it, it shouldn’t be related to others, right? Why do I need to conduct an examination each year and see if it meets standards?”
Chairman Pompeii shook his head and said with a bitter smile, “Don’t ask me, I don’t why chairman Xu was this serious in his request of this. But you shouldn’t think of going against this, even our Fersen Carriage Company has to follow these rules, so you can’t go against it.”
“Haven’t you protested this to chairman Xu?” Mercado asked with a bit of disbelief.
Chairman Pompeii knit his brows as he looked at Mercado, saying in a slightly discontent voice, “I don’t think that much like you. Chairman Xu said that it was a consideration for the safety of the industry, it’s considering the long term development of the industry. I believe in his judgement, so I won’t refute it. As for you…..If you’re not willing to accept it, I don’t mind if you don’t sign this contract.”
Mercado was surprised, never thinking that chairman Pompeii would be this firm about this. After thinking about it, he didn’t say anything else as he signed his name on the contract.
However, even after he finished signing this contract with chairman Pompeii and walked out of the Fersen Carriage Company, he still couldn’t think it through.
Why would chairman Xu raise such an unreasonable request? The stranger thing was that chairman Pompeii was such an important person, why would he accept this kind of request?