Under the overpass, Ma Lu had been supporting himself against a bridge pillar and retching for about three minutes, but he still felt nauseous.
Every time he closed his eyes, he was back on the tricycle, speeding crazily, with the surrounding scenery retreating at a terrifyingly fast pace.
Many times, Ma Lu felt he would crash into a vehicle or a pedestrian in the next second, but at the last moment, the tricycle would always miraculously dodge the obstacles ahead with a strange posture and the smallest turning angle.
The most dangerous encounter was when Ma Lu brushed past a dump truck, its mud-splattered headlights almost smashing into his face—if he had been any slower, he would have had to start all over again.
Just before reaching this overpass, the tricycle had even kept pace with a distant high-speed train for a while, eventually leaving it behind.
They didn't stop until they reached a place with hardly any people.
While vomiting, Ma Lu said to Old Wang, "Blegh, your tricycle is really this powerful? Blegh... Why didn't you escape when we were being attacked before?"
"Because I was almost out of battery by then."
Old Wang, having pushed the tricycle so far without a trace of sweat on his face or any change to his bald head's hairstyle, paused before adding.
"And their attacks couldn't hurt me."
"Alright," Ma Lu wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, gasping, "Anyway, at least we weren't caught."
"The sand whiting burgers aren't sold out yet."
"How much ingredients do we have left?"
"52 servings."
"Let me think of a solution." Ma Lu took out his phone and sent a message to Shen Yue, asking her to check if the city enforcement officers were still around.
About 10 minutes later, Ma Lu received a reply saying the white cars and blue uniforms had all moved on and some of the bolder vendors had returned to their stalls.
After throwing up for a while, Ma Lu felt much better and was ready to go back, but upon opening his phone's navigation, he realized they were already outside the city.
Well, Old Wang had pushed the tricycle more than 40 kilometers away in just 7 minutes.
Although he could ask Old Wang to help push it back, Ma Lu no longer wanted to experience the acceleration that was more thrilling than Formula 1 racing.
"That's good, that's good. It's good that you weren't caught," he said.
"Right," Ma Lu added as he moved closer. "Old brother, you've been setting up your stall here for a while. Does the kind of thing that happened earlier happen often?"
"Actually, not too much," Squid Brother said. "Those city management officers draw salaries for their work, and they'd rather stay in the office and enjoy the air conditioning every day. But there's no helping it; if someone reports them, they have to take action."
"Report?"
"Yeah. Like if you set up your stall in front of someone's shop, affecting their business, or if you're too loud and disturb the peace, block the road, things like that. But around Aerospace University, these kinds of incidents rarely happen."
"Then why did city management come this time?" Ma Lu asked, knowing that street vendors like Squid Brother, who operated in the vicinity, usually had a good sense of what was going on.
Sure enough, after thinking for a moment, Squid Brother said, "When you think about it, it was about time."
"What time?"
"Health inspections. The higher-ups issue tasks, and during this time, the city management officers will be especially active. You need to be a bit more cautious."
"So, are they going to come again?"
"Most likely, they will. But as long as you're more alert than usual, keep an eye on your surroundings when you're free, and run a bit faster when they come, it shouldn't be a big problem," Squid Brother explained.
Actually, Squid Brother didn't really want to tell Ma Lu all this, as it was akin to sharing critical information with a competitor. Still, he also had to maintain his image as a warm-hearted big brother, and couldn't come up with any decent lies on the spot, so he just said what came to mind.
After saying this, he comforted himself that it was just to lull the enemy into a false sense of security, to lower their guard.
And, as expected, Ma Lu fell for it again. He thanked him once more, even bought a grilled squid from him, eating it on his way back to his stall.
As Squid Brother had described, the next two days saw two more surprise inspections.
However, Ma Lu no longer needed Old Wang's help. With the previous experience, he managed to handle it all by himself smoothly.
Once again utilizing the home court advantage, he offered sand dab burgers as a bounty and mobilized over eight hundred of his followers, along with their friends, to become his informants.
Under the lure of free food, the little white city management cars had barely approached the crossroads before the students studying in the library above spotted them and swiftly relayed the information to Ma Lu.
This led to Squid Brother and the others treating The Universe's Number One Snack Stall as their weathervane. When they saw Ma Lu start to pack up, all the street vendors on that street followed suit and retreated together.