The air conditioning in the showroom of Old Wild Motors on Guangdong Road hissed loudly. Haining kicked the glass door open and stormed in.
"Where's Ah Hai? Get Ah Hai out here right now!"
"Take it easy, man. Are you looking for a car? Keep it down, we have clients in the back," a salesman said, stepping forward, only to be shoved aside by Haining.
"Clients? I bought a $40,000 Prado here, and it turned out to be a ticking time bomb! Who the hell is Ah Hai? Get your ass out here!"
Ah Hai poked his head out of the back office. Seeing Haining's crazed expression, his face darkened. "Haining, this is a showroom. What the hell are you screaming about?"
"What am I screaming about?! I paid 230,000 for that Prado, and now Hengli Finance tells me it's a subprime lease-to-own rig! The paperwork is all fake! Between the cash and the loans, I'm on the hook for over half a million! You give me an explanation today, or I'll tear this shop down brick by brick!"
Ah Hai let out a cold snort. "Brother, let's get one thing straight. That car left my lot a month ago, but the buyer was Ah Cai, not you. Whatever side-deal he made with you is between 'brothers.' What does Old Wild Motors have to do with your mess?"
"The car came from here, so I'm coming for you! If you don't fix this, I'll park my body across your front gate every morning. Nobody sells a car in this town until I'm whole!" Haining looked like a man with nothing left to lose.
Ah Hai glanced at the crowd gathering outside. He lowered his voice, signaling a temporary truce. "Fine, fine. Let's talk in the lounge. Look, I'll give it to you straight: Ah Cai tried to get a loan through me first. His credit was so black it looked like charcoal. I rejected him flat. Where he found his financing or how he forged those titles? I have no idea. But making a scene in Beihai won't help you. Even if you take this to the Haijiao Police Station, that car still isn't legally yours."
Haining collapsed onto the sofa, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't light his cigarette. "Then what do I do? I gave Ah Cai 130,000 in cash. I signed an IOU for another 100,000. Now Hengli Finance is demanding 6,600 a month for sixty months... By the time I'm done, I'll have paid over 500,000! My whole life is gone!"
Ah Hai shook his head, doing the grim math in his head. "6,600 a month for five years—that's nearly 400k. Add the 130k you gave Ah Cai, and yeah, you're looking at half a mil. And here's the kicker: because it's a 'Lease-to-Own,' even after five years of payments, the title stays with their company. You're not just throwing money away; you're literally buying a car for someone else."
Haining was hollowed out. "So I just wait to die?"
Ah Hai narrowed his eyes and leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Look, Ah Cai really screwed you over. I'll give you one 'dirty' way out. Stop treating that Prado like a legal car. Treat it like a 'Mortgage Ghost.' Drive it as long as you can. But that rig has Hengli's trackers on it. They'll find you eventually."
"Then how do I stop them?"
"Strip it. I'll take you to a shop deep in the Dajiao district. The old master there specializes in 'sweeping' cars. Once it's clean, as long as you stay away from the high-tech traffic cams on Beibu Gulf Boulevard or Changqing Road, they won't find you."
Haining gritted his teeth. "Fine! Take me there!"
Two hours later, in a hidden garage deep in the outskirts of Dajiao.
The old mechanic pulled a pile of small black boxes from under the seats, inside the bumpers, and even from the ceiling lights. He tossed them on the floor like a heap of dead crabs.
"Sixteen of them in total. SIM cards from all over the country. This finance company is ruthless," the mechanic said, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Is it over, Ah Hai? Is it finally clean?" Haining looked at the pile of GPS trackers, finally feeling a moment of relief.
"It's clean. Now don't ever come looking for me again." Ah Hai slapped the dust off his hands and looked at the mechanic. "How much?"
"Eight hundred yuan," the mechanic held out his hand.
"I'm not paying! This car came from your lot; you cover the bill!" Haining's stubborn streak flared up again at the mention of money.
Ah Hai rolled his eyes so hard they nearly stuck. He pulled out 800 yuan and slapped it into the mechanic's palm. "Fine! I'll take the hit! Consider this money 'ghost money' I'm burning for the dead. Haining, from this moment on, whether you get caught or crash that rig, it has zero to do with Old Wild Motors. Now get lost!"
Haining started the Prado. The white beast, now stripped of its digital leash, let out a low roar. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Ah Hai's receding figure, then thought of the vanished Ah Cai.
In Beihai, a car without a tracker is like a man without a soul—doomed to wander the dark corners of the city where the light never reaches.