Chapter 288: A Bit of Connections

Just like that, time began to slowly pass. What was confusing was that in the next half hour of waiting, the front desk staff who said he would help them find their luggage never reappeared.

Shortly after, a lobby manager named Bian Qiang came after hearing the news, saying he wanted to help them handle this matter.

After going around in circles, everyone finally understood what this Manager Bian was trying to express. His meaning was very simple – he did not acknowledge that the number of stored luggage was fifteen pieces, and instead insisted that they only stored thirteen pieces.

Because the claim ticket did not clearly state the number of luggage, only the storage fee amount was written.

“I’m really sorry for affecting everyone’s mood upon check-in, we can refund the storage fee, is that okay?”

Is that okay? Is that okay my ass.

The people of Room 208 all wanted to laugh. The value of the two luggage added up to nearly thirty thousand yuan. You refund three hundred yuan and act like nothing happened?

“Manager Bian, if we really only stored thirteen pieces of luggage, why would you refund us the money? Your words are a bit self-contradictory, aren’t they?”

Wei Lanlan directly found the key point and retorted with one sentence.

Manager Bian’s expression changed. He thought they all looked as young and foolishly pure as college students, but unexpectedly they didn’t fall for any traps at all, which truly caught him a bit off guard.

How would he know, working under a boss as crafty as Jiang Qin, traps like this were simply too low-level for them.

“Regardless of whether you agree or not to the refund, the fact is we only received thirteen pieces of luggage.”

Su Nai couldn’t help but furrow her brows, “Where is that service staff from earlier? He already confirmed it was fifteen pieces just now and even said he would help us look for them.”

“Sorry miss, we have over fifty service staff here. Do you know his name? I’ll immediately call him over to ask.”

“……”

Wei Lanlan was stunned upon hearing this and immediately understood. That service staff entering the employee passage the second time was actually going to hide, in order to pretend he wasn’t there, allowing the manager to flatly deny they stored fifteen pieces of luggage.

“That service staff is called Zhao Jiale.”

Jiang Qin, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly spoke, “Jia as in splendid, Le as in happy.”

The manager was instantly stunned, completely not expecting they could really say Zhao Jiale’s name. After being tongue-tied for a while, he opened his mouth, “Um…actually I’m also new here recently, I can’t recognize all the service staff. Do you know his employee ID? I’ll use the walkie-talkie to call for him.”

Jiang Qin laughed, “Who would remember a hotel front desk’s employee ID? Besides, being able to remember the ID means being able to find our luggage?”

“It should be possible, sir, but if you can’t remember the ID then it’ll be troublesome, because we have many temporary workers here for short-term part-time jobs during summer vacation.”

“Since you put it that way, I have no choice but to remember it. His employee ID is AC050031, call him.”

Lobby manager: “……”

After a while, Manager Bian spoke into the walkie-talkie for a bit, and that disappeared service staff finally reappeared, but he said he wasn’t the one who handled the luggage storage, he didn’t know anything.

Actually what he said was indeed the truth, because the hotel had morning and afternoon shifts. The service staff who helped store the luggage in the morning indeed wasn’t him.

“Since you don’t know how many pieces of luggage there are, what did you go looking for?”

The service staff named Zhao Jiale lowered his head, “I only took a walk around the storage room, I didn’t confirm it was fifteen pieces of luggage.”

Jiang Qin was getting annoyed to death, “Stop blabbering, check the surveillance footage, annoying as hell.”

“Our surveillance……”

“Your surveillance is broken?” Jiang Qin stood up and snatched the walkie-talkie from his hand, “Then call the police first before looking, you choose yourself.”

Manager Bian pursed his lips, “Please follow me this way guests, I’ll take you there.”

Thus, the people of Room 208 followed Manager Bian and moved to the surveillance room to view this morning’s surveillance footage. In the end, it was confirmed that there were indeed fifteen pieces of luggage.

Manager Bian’s expression was a bit unsightly. He didn’t expect it to be filmed so clearly. Jiang Qin also didn’t want to keep arguing and directly had Wei Lanlan call the police.

After the police arrived, the attitude of the manager surnamed Bian obviously got much better. He also admitted it was the hotel’s improper work and expressed they would definitely help them find the luggage, but as for when they could find it, they didn’t dare guarantee.

“We still have many things to take care of next, we don’t have time to wait for you to find it. Since the luggage was lost by your hotel, then first compensate according to the original price. When the luggage is found, we’ll refund the money back to you.”

Jiang Qin raised his finger, gesturing the number three, indicating the amount the hotel needed to compensate.

What he wanted definitely wasn’t this thirty thousand yuan, but he knew, if the money wasn’t pressed in hand, they would have a hard time seriously helping to find the luggage. By then, who knows how long they’d have to wait.

“Advance compensation? This is definitely not possible. We also haven’t inspected what exactly is inside your bags. It can’t be that you claim thirty thousand with your mouth and we really have to compensate thirty thousand, right?”

Manager Bian looked at the police officer sitting on the side, “We will actively cooperate with the police to search later on, but no hotel has the rule of advance compensation.”

Jiang Qin thought for a bit, “Manager Bian, do you hear what dialect I speak? If you can guess it right, I’ll go back and slowly wait.”

“It should be further north, right?”

“Fuck, you know I’m not local, trying to drag things out, right? Then every time we call to ask, you’ll say you’re in the middle of looking?” Jiang Qin directly slammed the table.

Manager Bian: “……”

The police officer sitting on the couch spoke up at this time, “Sir, don’t be anxious first, we will also actively investigate and help you find the luggage as quickly as possible.”

“There is extremely important information in our computers, it must be found today. This is the hotel’s responsibility, the consequences shouldn’t be borne by us.”

“But finding things also requires time, currently it also can’t be determined if it was stolen or misplaced somewhere.”

In any case, after negotiating for an afternoon, the hotel refused to compensate in advance, and Jiang Qin also refused to agree no matter what, because he knew, as soon as they left Shanghai, the hotel would have all sorts of ways to shirk responsibility.

If it was taken by an internal employee, then even if the police were more formidable, they might not be able to find it. He had seen too many cases like this, the main approach was to make a big deal into a small one, a small one into nothing. In the end, the only one to suffer would be yourself.

But this time, absolutely not, because that was Su Nai’s computer.

You should know, the entire upgrade of Zhihu all relied on Su Nai and his project team. If this computer couldn’t be found for two or three months, or was completely lost, much of the previous work would be in vain.

Seeing the negotiation going nowhere, Manager Bian also had no choice and could only call the general manager over.

This hotel’s general manager had the surname Qiu, his attitude was very unyielding. He first expressed willingness to cooperate with the search, but then expressed it was impossible to compensate in advance.

“We will definitely help look for the luggage, but advance compensation is impossible. Plus, we also didn’t open and inspect what was inside at the time, even more so can’t confirm the value of the items. Guests, please don’t cause an unreasonable disturbance first, calmly wait for the result.”

This one phrase “unreasonable disturbance” infuriated the people of Room 208, “What do you mean unreasonable disturbance? We paid the storage fee!”

Manager Qiu’s expression didn’t change, “Sorry for my slip of the tongue, but the reasoning is still the same. If the luggage is found later on, we will notify you all at the first moment. Let’s leave it at this for today.”

His tone was both soft and hard, as if he was utterly indifferent, his manner carried quite high.

Jiang Qin laughed to himself, thinking what bullshit are you pulling, really taking us for dumb college students, even fucking playing good cop bad cop.

But outsiders really had no way. One, no connections; two, no time to wait. They simply couldn’t afford to haggle, no matter how furious they were in their hearts, in the end they still had no choice but to compromise.

Thus, the two sides stood off against each other, neither willing to give in, until suddenly in the solidified air, a soft gentle tone transmitted, only then was the conversation abruptly interrupted.

“Hello, Auntie.”

“I, I came to Shanghai to play, but I didn’t intentionally not tell you oh. Also, my luggage is lost.”

“……”

Feng Nanshu said the hotel’s name, and seeing everyone turn to look at her, she hugged Jiang Qin’s arm, her expression growing more and more aloof, but her voice got smaller and smaller.

Seeing this, the police officers, managers, general manager, and observing staff in the lobby all couldn’t help but glance at this little girl, but no one paid it any mind, simply taking it as a small interlude before continuing the silence.

Since it couldn’t be negotiated, then continue the stalemate. Some people were tourists, some were locals, it was obvious at a glance who could wait it out and who couldn’t.

Advance compensation was impossible. Even if the luggage really couldn’t be found, they would only compensate ten times the storage fee.

Fifteen pieces of luggage, storage fee three hundred. Then the storage fee for those two pieces of luggage was 40. Even if compensated tenfold it would only be 400. Add on the 300 storage fee, together it would be no more than 700.

As for thirty thousand? Don’t even think about it.

Manager Qiu had managed the hotel on behalf of the boss for many years, handling all sorts of tricky situations. He knew many guests would be especially furious when feeling dissatisfied, but in the end, fury was still powerless, they could only compromise.

He was extremely confident.

But next, the development of this matter greatly exceeded the expectations of everyone present.

About half an hour later, three police cars suddenly drove up to the hotel. The leader was a middle-aged man in plain clothes with several police officers following behind him. The group walked over with steady steps.

Seeing this scene, the two police officers responsible for mediating the dispute immediately stood up and saluted.

“Captain Chen, why have you come?”

“Didn’t you say luggage was lost? Tell me about the situation first, what exactly happened?”

“?”

The police officers were confused, thinking they hadn’t reported the situation yet, how did the captain find out so quickly?

That expressionless Manager Qiu also couldn’t help but sit up straight, his eyes revealing a hint of surprise, also seeming a bit puzzled.

But before the two police officers could speak, another roaring engine sound came from the hotel entrance. Following that, three black sedans steadily stopped, and three men in suits and leather shoes ran into the brightly lit lobby out of breath, also gathering towards this side.

Upon seeing these three people, Manager Qiu immediately stood up, and not for any other reason, because the people who came were their hotel’s big boss and two shareholders.

But since he started working at this hotel, he seemed to have never seen such an anxious expression on the boss’s face.

“Boss, President Zhang, President Sun, why have you three come?”

“Where’s the luggage?” The hotel owner glared at him with a gloomy expression.

Manager Qiu was taken aback for a moment. “Wh-what luggage?”

“The luggage the Feng family lost in our hotel! After such a big incident, you’re sitting here all comfortably. Why the hell aren’t you out looking for the luggage?!”

“…”