Chapter 222: Uncle, I am the youngest in the family, so let me say the unpleasant things

"Hey, Mom, how are you and Dad doing in Hannan Province? Oh, it's going okay? That's good. I've already returned to Lincheng."

"Right, I just finished looking at our house's renovation, and there's something I need to tell you both. It's that the renovation here... the situation isn't quite right..."

As he spoke, Zhou Yi told Mother Zhou about the situation he had encountered, then said, "Mom, why don't you and Dad discuss how to handle this."

"As far as I'm concerned, this definitely can't just be let go. Subcontracting to someone else is fine, but the materials used should be roughly the same!"

"It was a two-hundred-thousand-yuan job, but it's been turned into a hundred-thousand-yuan one. The materials in between are completely different things."

"Okay, good. Let me know after you two have discussed it."

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yi felt quite helpless. One shouldn't look for relatives for this kind of thing, and even if one does, it should be someone close.

These distant relatives are actually no different from strangers, but there is still that layer of kinship, which makes it very disgusting.

Walking downstairs via the elevator, Zhou Yi prepared to stroll around the Small Residential District for a while, while waiting for his parents' reply.

To be honest, he had previously thought his parents' trip would run into problems, but he hadn't expected it to be passable.

At the very least, his mom just said it was okay.

Of course, Zhou Yi did not know that at this very moment, in Hannan Province, Father Zhou and Mother Zhou were discussing it on a tour bus.

"See? I told you not to look for your relatives. It really doesn't work. Can't we spend money and still find someone who can do the work?"

Father Zhou couldn't help but say this at the moment.

The tour bus was moving very slowly. Why was it moving slowly? Because it needed to drag out the time. The drivers of tour buses are veterans among veterans.

They can make a thirty-minute journey take twenty minutes, or they can make a thirty-minute journey take an hour.

Everything depends on the situation.

Upon hearing this, Mother Zhou sighed and said, "How could I have known he would be like this? He didn't say it was like this before."

Moreover, she hadn't even approached the other party directly; she hadn't known anything about them beforehand, only learning through one of her relatives that we had a relative who did home renovations.

I don't know why, but this is probably a common flaw of the older generation: no matter what happens, the first thing they think of is whether we have any connections.

Not just in official circles, but even in society, they think this way.

For renovations, one must find someone they know; those commercial renovation companies are all scams.

After calling around to friends and relatives, they found out there was a relative who did this, got the phone number, and contacted the person.

At the time, the person had spoken very well on the phone, saying it was no problem to find him, and even spoke from the heart, saying those renovation companies in society were all scams.

So that was fine. Thinking they were all relatives, letting him earn a bit was fine, and he surely wouldn't be as scammy as those companies in society.

This is probably another generation gap between young people and the older generation. Young people feel that for any job involving money, they should try not to find people they know.

Why? Because if they don't do it well, I can turn on them at any time. I can tear off the mask at any time; even arguing or going to court is fine.

Just as the two were wondering what to do, Zhou Yi's call came again.

"Hey Mom, how did your discussion go?"

Mother Zhou hesitated for a moment and said, "Xiao Yi, we definitely can't just let this go, but if we can avoid conflict, let's avoid it."

Hearing this, Zhou Yi felt relieved. Although his mother was a pushover, she could still distinguish right from wrong on such issues.

It's just that his mother was underestimating things. In this society today, everyone's eyes are red for the sake of making money!

With such a large profit margin, it's impossible for there not to be conflict no matter who is involved.

Looking at the situation in the room, he figured that if he had come back any later, it would have been finished.

They were definitely thinking of rushing the work to finish it early, and then that would be the end of it.

But they hadn't expected his parents to keep a watchful eye and have him come back to check.

"Alright Mom, then now you two..."

Before Zhou Yi could finish his sentence, he heard a rather rude female voice.

"Could our tourists please show some respect? I am in the middle of explaining things to everyone here, and you are there constantly making phone calls?"

What's going on? Who is this? Why does it sound like a tour guide's voice?

Mother Zhou looked up and discovered that the tour guide was staring at her, so she quickly hung up the phone.

The tour guide stared at the two for a while longer before continuing, "Alright, let's continue. Just now, I was telling everyone about the jade ware at our next attraction."

"The jade ware here has a long history and holds many, many legends..."

On the other side, Zhou Yi was stunned as he looked at the hung-up phone, then immediately sent a message over.

"Mom, what's going on? Who was talking just now? The tour guide?"

He vaguely felt that this so-called Pure Play Tour didn't seem to be what he had imagined.

Soon, Mother Zhou's message came back.

"It's the tour guide. She wants to introduce us to the jade ware at the next attraction; she's probably going to take us to buy things again."

"Wait, Mom, wasn't it supposed to be a Pure Play Tour? How did it become a shopping tour?"

"Sigh, I don't know. Since we arrived, we've already changed three groups of people, and this is the third tour guide..."

Zhou Yi kept asking, and only then did he clarify what the "okay" in Mother Zhou's mouth actually meant.

Not only were there many self-funded excursions added to the entire travel route, but there was no shortage of shopping either.

Indeed, compared to those low-price tours, there was less shopping, and it wasn't forced, but the tour group's time was fixed.

That is to say, shopping was fixed within these two hours; if you didn't go to buy, you could only wait on the tour bus.

And those self-funded items, while they said it wasn't forced, if you didn't buy them, you had to separate from the tour group and enter by yourself; they used a different entrance.

And you had to find the tour group yourself after you were done.

Does that sound familiar? It's exactly the same as when we were kids and the school would order newspapers or workbooks.

Yes, they never forced you; you could choose not to order, but the teacher would use them to assign homework and teach from them, so they'd ask you: are you ordering or not!

Of course, this kind of thing basically doesn't exist anymore.

But here in the tour group, the tricks they play are the deepest.

"Mom, you still think this is okay? We paid for a Pure Play Tour. Forget it, don't make a scene for now, just focus on collecting some information."

"Just collect a little information about the shopping and the self-funded items and such. They are treating us like fools again!"

After finishing his chat with his mother, Zhou Yi began to carefully think about the previous contract. He could be certain that the contract stipulated a Pure Play Tour, with no self-funded items or shopping included.

That person named Zhou Xiaoxiao spoke very nicely, but as soon as they landed, everything changed. And heaven knows how many times it had been subcontracted.

Renovating a house gets subcontracted on one side, and booking a tour group gets subcontracted on the other; that's just how things are played these days.

The system shouldn't be blamed for this; it seems that booking a tour and being taken shopping is already a common phenomenon.

Even if you tell them you booked a Pure Play Tour, once you go, they will take you shopping regardless.

The tourism department in Hannan Province seems to be making an effort, but unfortunately, it seems that those below continue to do as they please.

Things must be handled one by one. Let his parents continue their trip for now; it's been five days out of seven, they will be back soon, and he can settle the score then.

And what he needs to do now is talk to that Uncle Tian.

He dialed the number quickly.

On the other end, inside a mahjong parlor, Tian Xiao's phone rang while he was playing. He picked it up casually: "Hello, who is this?"

Zhou Yi hadn't called him before, but they had chatted before the renovation, so Zhou Yi spoke up quickly:

"Is this Uncle Tian? It's Zhou Yi."

Zhou Yi? Tian Xiao was stunned for a moment, but immediately said: "Little Yi, what's wrong? What do you need? The renovation should be almost done, it will be finished in these next few days."

As he spoke, he stood up and walked outside, signaling for someone to take his place.

"Oh, I just wanted to talk to you about the renovation. I'm at my house door right now, why don't you come over?"

"Ah? You're back in Lincheng? When did you get back? Didn't your parents say you were too busy to spare any time lately?"

Tian Xiao was already a bit anxious. When did this Zhou Yi get back? How come he didn't know anything about it?

The key was that he had only spoken to Zhou Yi's parents today, and his old sister had said that her son was very busy, so busy he couldn't even find time to come home.

How did he get to Lincheng so fast!

"Uncle, since you aren't coming, let's stop wasting words. I've already talked to the renovation workers inside."

"Right now, my parents are still in Hannan Province, so I'll be the one to say the unpleasant things. Do you think what you're doing is acceptable?"

"A two-hundred-thousand job, you took it and then subcontracted it for one hundred thousand. You're making a clean profit of one hundred thousand without doing a thing, right?"

"What did we say before? The materials couldn't be poor, even if the renovation was simple. And what happened? One hundred thousand?"

Tian Xiao steadied his emotions and said: "Little Zhou, it's not what you heard. The water in the renovation industry is very deep; you can't grasp it."

"Those renovation workers are just talking nonsense. They see you don't understand, so they deliberately give you a low price, and then raise it once you're halfway through."

Zhou Yi smiled upon hearing this: "Uncle, let's not say these useless things at this point. Even if I don't understand, I know that there is a one-hundred-thousand difference between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand."

"Little Zhou, this really isn't about the one hundred thousand. You call me uncle, would I cheat you? And the difference in those materials really isn't that big."

Tian Xiao tried hard to explain: "Don't look at the boards on the market, one is eighty and another is several hundred; actually, the difference really isn't that big..."

It was that familiar script again. If the difference wasn't big, how could there be such a price gap? You get what you pay for; everyone knows that.

"Uncle, don't say any more. Right now, I don't care about anything else. You finish the renovation according to the two-hundred-thousand standard, and I won't pursue this matter."

Hearing this, Tian Xiao couldn't help but lose his composure.

"Little Zhou, your words are a bit unpleasant. What do you mean you won't pursue it? I haven't done anything, and besides, there really is no difference."

"No difference? Uncle, if you're like this, I'm going to call a professional third-party testing Company to inspect it. Would you say your behavior counts as deceiving the consumer?"

Tian Xiao had originally thought that Zhou Yi, a junior, could be easily manipulated, but he hadn't expected the other party to have such a sharp tongue!

And in his words, there wasn't the slightest bit of respect for him as an elder.

"Little Zhou, we are relatives, is there a need to do this?"

"Since you've done this, have you ever treated our family as relatives? Don't say useless things, either refund the money or redo the work."

"As for being relatives, that goes without saying. I will spread your glorious deeds to all our relatives; it's nothing more than spending a little money."

Impressive, this is truly impressive!

Tian Xiao felt he couldn't handle it anymore.

"By the way, Uncle, don't call my parents either. They don't know about this. If you call them, I will directly find a third-party company to test it and then file a Lawsuit."

"Return One Compensate Three, just think about how much you'll have to pay then."

Whether the Return One Compensate Three rule actually applies, Zhou Mouren certainly doesn't know; he heard all of this from Lawyer Fang.

He was just bringing it out to scare people right now.

Sure enough, Tian Xiao on the other end became anxious after hearing this. He didn't know if Zhou Yi would actually file a Lawsuit, but he asked himself that if he were in this position, he definitely would!

Why? Return One Compensate Three—that's a lot of money!

Uncle Tian on the other end didn't say the classic line, "Go ahead and sue me wherever you want," and Zhou Yi didn't find that surprising.

Why people like Xu Yufeng said that before was mainly because the amount involved was too small, making people feel it wasn't worth suing.

But with this amount now, he didn't dare to gamble.

"Fine, fine, fine, Zhou Yi, I'll finish it according to the two-hundred-thousand standard, okay? You've already made so much money, what's wrong with letting me make some!"

Tian Xiao said, feeling very dissatisfied.

Although he had backed down, he just felt uncomfortable.

Look at other people's relatives; they always look after those around them to help them make money. Yet here, even though you are so rich and even donated an Elevator, you won't even pull out a single hair!

"Stop right there, Uncle. Me having money is my business. I never said I wouldn't let you make money, but you are cheating my family while making money—is that right?"

After bickering for a few more sentences, Zhou Yi hung up the phone. It wasn't too much trouble after all.

After such a reprimand, he believed this distant relative would pay attention. If it still didn't work by then, he would do what he had to do.

As a relative, he had given all the chances he could.

Sigh, when he donated the Elevator before, his parents had said that one shouldn't flaunt their wealth. Now that the relatives all knew that their family's Zhou Yi was rich, they were all trying to get close in every way possible.

Some people even develop this kind of mentality: look, your family is so rich, and my family is so poor, you should just give some to my family.

It's speechless; Zhou Yi made up his mind that in the future, he would absolutely not look for relatives for this kind of business involving money!

Forget it, let the matter in Lincheng be as it is; it's better to talk to Fang Dazhuang first and see what should be done about the tour group.

A so-called Pure Play Tour that cost over nine thousand, nearly ten thousand yuan, didn't include any shopping items and was all-inclusive, but after arriving, it was all shopping and self-funded items; it was purely a scam.

This matter shouldn't be blamed on Zhou Xinran; the contract she looked at had no problems, but it feels like this has become an unspoken rule.

That's fine, I, Zhou Mouren, just like to go against these unspoken rules!

……

PS: Based on everyone's feedback, I changed fifty or sixty thousand to one hundred thousand.

There is more today! Lao Jiu has been wilted for two days, but starting today, I must stand tall and resume normal updates.

Thanks to demons and the two big brothers for the tips, thank you.

(End of this chapter)