Author: 颜凉雨 / Yan Liang Yu

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 40: Competition

Night had completely fallen, and amidst the lively beat, faint zombie howls were carried by the wind to the riverside under the night sky.

Xu Wang was suddenly startled and immediately released the trigger.

The lightning gun stopped emitting water, but the psychedelic flashing plastic colors on the gun body and the disco-like music wafting from the amplifier-like muzzle continued to burn everyone’s soul present.

Perhaps because of the delayed onset of the lightning effect—after pulling the trigger, it took a while for the colors and music to start—so when he released the trigger, the cessation of colors and music similarly had a delay.

About ten seconds later, the colorful lights and music finally disappeared together, and the lightning gun returned to its pure and noble bling bling state.

Suddenly, the ship moored on the shore emitted a sound like sliding hinges.

The companions inside the floating Beetle and the four friends inside the truck on the ground looked towards the ferry, only to see the side of the boat slowly lowering a long rectangular metal plank.

Like a castle on the edge of a cliff lowering its drawbridge for outsiders to enter, one end of the iron plank connected to the open ship cabin, while the other end reached the shore, creating a metal runway between the shore and the ship cabin. It was like an unspoken invitation for those wanting to board.

Xu Wang and his companions were momentarily taken aback, having never considered such a maneuver. If the metal plank had been lowered a bit earlier, they could have just floored it directly into the ship cabin. Why bother slowing down for a watchful stop by the shore, only to end up floating in midair by the [Drifting Hearse].

The four in the truck were prepared for this moment, or rather, they were waiting for this very moment.

“The plank is down. Hold tight. I’ll take you on a speed thrill!” Yue Shua, the buzzcut captain and driver, said as he gripped the steering wheel. He was no longer looking at the flashy Beetle and fixed his gaze on the interior of the ship at the end of the metal plank. “Anan, forget about them!”

As if granted amnesty, Fisherman Hat instantly focused and mentally prepared.

In the blink of an eye, the Beetle floating in the air gently landed back on the ground. Despite this, the five people inside the vehicle were jostled about as the vehicle touched down. The two front wheels of the car perfectly caught on the edge of the embankment. A bit more to the side, and the whole car would have tumbled into the river!

The moment the Beetle touched the ground, Yue Shuai, gripping the steering wheel inside the truck, immediately floored the clutch and called out to his teammate, who had just ended the [Drifting Hearse]. “Shift gears! Anan, shift!”

Tao Anan, fully back in action and without needing the captain’s call, shifted gears the moment he saw the clutch being pressed down. His movements were precise and practiced, clearly having coordinated with his captain many times before!

The truck started moving, and as it picked up speed, Yue Shuai pressed the clutch again, while Tao Anan continued to shift up.

In a fluid series of actions, with the captain handling the truck’s steering wheel, clutch, accelerator, and brakes and the teammate responsible for the manual gear shift, the truck was put into the highest gear and accelerated to top speed, heading straight for the metal plank laid out on the shore!

After shifting gears, Tao Anan completed his task. Still, the seamless cooperation couldn’t erase the absurdity in his mind, which he always thought was quite ridiculous. “Captain, can’t you shift gears yourself…”

“No,” Yue Shuai declared righteously. “Manual gear shifting must be closely coordinated between hands and feet.”

The honest Tao Anan was defeated.

With three people crammed into the front seat, Handsome Braid—or rather, Wei Tianhang—couldn’t take it anymore. “Brother, people coordinate their own hands and feet. No one uses their feet to match someone else’s hands!”

“I can’t do it. I can’t multitask,” Yue Shuai proclaimed. His aura was so imposing and straightforward that it was as if he was Pangu creating heaven and earth.

Wei Tianhang despaired. “Both Anan and I can drive shift even though we couldn’t pass our Subject 2* test. How the hell did you get your license?!”

*Driving test in China. There are four subjects a person must pass in order to obtain their license. Subject 2 is one of them. You can go to the link to find out what it entails to pass it.

Captain Yue, tired of his teammates’ nagging, responded, “A C2 license* doesn’t even have a clutch, okay! Who knew I’d one day have to drive a manual truck!!!”

*This is a license for operating an automatic transmission light motor vehicle.

Wei Tianhang, who had yet to pass the C1 license* due to “parallel parking”: “……”

*This is a license for operating all light motor vehicles (including those of C2, C3, and C4).

Tao Anan, who had yet to pass the C1 license due to “reverse parking”: “……”

The refined student, Su Mingzhan, pulled out the captain’s license from the communal backpack, and indeed, it was marked C2.

When choosing a driver, they hadn’t looked carefully, blindly trusting the only team member who had a license on the team. So much for only believing in academic qualifications…

Wait? Just as Su Mingzhan was silently sighing, he was stunned. Where did the wind in the sealed truck cabin come from?

Time rewound to half a minute earlier.

That was when Captain Yue and teammate Tao had just coordinated the truck to maximum speed.

The teammates inside the Beetle, finally recovering from the landing shock, saw the truck charging toward the metal plank bridge leading to the boat.

“They’re boarding the boat!” Qian Ai exclaimed anxiously.

Xu Wang certainly knew, but there was no way to stop the truck that was madly rushing towards the ferry, some ten meters away, with just their bombs, sickle, and water gun. Even if they were to drive their Beetle across and crash into it now, it would be like throwing an egg against a rock—they would be tossed aside in a minute!

“Captain, they could have thrown us into the river and wiped us out, but they let us go without doing so. Should we still try to stop them?” Kuang Jinxin suddenly asked.

“Of course,” Xu Wang replied. He might not be good with numbers, but he clearly understood the complexity of grudges and grievances. “They started with using the [Drifting Hearse] on us, so us stopping them now is a justified counterattack. As for the fact they could have killed us but didn’t, that’s a different account. In the future, if we have the opportunity to utterly defeat them, we’ll also let them go and call it even.”

Having relieved his teammate of his mental burden, Xu Wang immediately wanted to ask, “Do you have a plan?” Because he knew that, with Kuang Jinxin’s temperament, if there wasn’t a trick up his sleeve, he wouldn’t ask such a question about whether they should take action.

However, before he could ask again, after listening to the guidance, Kuang Jinxin’s eyes were cleared of all hesitation. He firmly raised his arm!

At the same time, the speeding truck was suddenly enveloped in a thick white fog, as if a stage had suddenly sprayed ethereal dry ice!

To the four people inside the truck, it was an unexpectedly cool breeze.

After pressing his arm in the Beetle, Kuang Jinxin closed his eyes and concentrated. A few seconds later, the white fog that had surrounded and swallowed the truck disappeared as if by magic!

The three people + one NPC inside the Beetle stared at the distant truck… or rather, where the truck used to be, dumbfounded. This might indeed be a magic trick.

Under the bright moonlight, the heavy truck disappeared into thin air. The fisherman hat, the student, and the handsome braided person all fell to the ground together, exclaiming “ouch” and “fuck”.

The buzzcut driver was still speeding forward, seemingly unaware that the steering wheel in his hands and the clutch brake under his feet had changed. With a death-defying spirit, he continued to sprint forward on a brightly colored shared bicycle!

However, the metal plank that had been put down for a while, as if reaching its patience limit, suddenly began to retract again.

Yue Shuai, who still thought he was speeding with all his companions, was anxiously pedaling until it started to almost smoke. “No, no, no—”

The metal plank was slow to release but quick to retract, and in the end, showed no mercy. Yue Shuai clenched the handlebars and slammed on the brakes causing the bicycle tires to screech a brake line on the ground, finally stopping steadily at the edge of the riverbank.

All of this happened in a flash, so brief that it was only after the dust settled that they heard the belated reminder—

[Owl: Someone used [(Illusory) Calling a Deer a Horse] on you~~]

“Damn! I knew I shouldn’t have been soft-hearted!” Yue Shuai slapped the horn hard, regretting not throwing those guys into the river when he had the chance.

The bicycle bell rang out a crisp “ding, ding, ding” under his frustration. A bicycle… bell?

Finally coming to his senses, Yue Shuai looked down under the moonlight at the handlebars—the bell, the wheels, the frame.

“Captain—” Still sitting where they fell, the three teammates finally found the chance to wake their overly invested captain. Yue Shuai, annoyed, replied, “I know. It’s just an illusion. So what if they turned the truck into a bicycle? When the plank bridge is lowered again, I’ll still speed away…”

“That’s not the point!” Wei Tianhang interrupted him at the top of his voice, his little braids almost exploding. “Behind you—”

Behind?

Yue Shuai instinctively looked back.

A female zombie was sitting on the rear seat, her bulging red eyes “affectionately” gazing at him.

At that moment, the distance between him and the zombie was only 0.01 cm.

Time seemed to stop.

The world was left with just one man, one zombie, one bicycle, and one bright moon.

Yue Shuai had never told anyone, but his dream was to ride a bicycle, carrying his beloved girl, and enjoy the night breeze on a riverside path.

Now it had all come true.

But, oh God, is there some misunderstanding about “girl”? “Female zombie” does not count!

“Urgh—” The zombie in the backseat couldn’t hold back anymore and, with a howl, lunged at Yue Shuai’s face as he looked back!

Yue Shuai propped himself up on the handlebars and leaped up, jumping two meters away! The driverless bicycle carrying the female zombie crashed down with a “clang”, toppling over.

Yue Shuai pulled out a rolling pin-sized iron rod from his waist and swung hard. It turned into an iron mace several times thicker than a baseball bat!

The zombie, following the bicycle’s fall, got up incredibly quickly and lunged at him again!

Yue Shuai swung the mace with all his might!

With a pitiful howl, the zombie flew off into the riverbank like a baseball hit in a home run, splashing into the water with a “plop”!

At the same time, Su Mingzhan, Wei Tianhang, and Tao Anan had also gotten up, each pulling out their weapons, standing back to the riverbank, vigilantly covering the other three directions.

The metal plank couldn’t be lowered for the time being, and the zombies, attracted by the previous disco noise, were getting louder and closer!

“They’re saving us.”

In the midst of high alert, the three suddenly heard their captain utter this non sequitur.

“They must have seen it. The zombies were on the truck.” Captain Yue didn’t mind his confused teammates and continued, “If we had gotten on the ship just like that, the zombies would have come along. The truck was so crowded; we would surely come down to rest in the cabin, and then, being in a dark, enclosed space with zombies, unprepared, the consequences would be unimaginable.”

The three teammates looked at each other, slightly behind the captain’s pace. “Why would they save us?”

“Repaying a favor!” Yue Shuai looked towards the pink Beetle with a sharp gaze. “We didn’t throw them into the river, so they are returning the favor!”

Three teammates: “…”

The captain always liked to interpret opponents with the greatest kindness—what to do? Urgent, waiting online! — [Collection of Questions from Captain Yue’s team members on Baidu Knows]

Inside the Beetle.

Qian Ai’s face was almost pressed against the glass, looking at the four people standing by the river without any means of transport, puzzled. “The horde of zombies is about to arrive. Why aren’t they trying to get on the ship? What are they standing there for?”

Wu Sheng had already figured it out. “That metal plank is the only way onto the ship. Now that it’s been pulled up, they have to brace themselves for battle.”

“But even if they fight off this wave of zombies, they still can’t get on the ship,” Qian Ai said.

“If I’m not mistaken,” Wu Sheng said, “that metal plank should lower again. They’re waiting for that moment.”

Qian Ai: “What about us?”

Xu Wang: “Pray that the car shell is thick enough.”

“Bang—”

The vanguard of the zombies arriving first split into two groups, the male ones lunged at the four people standing by the shore, while the others were all females heading straight for the pink Beetle.

The most flexible among them had already jumped onto the roof of the car.

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The author has something to say:

Captain Yue, who grew up watching hot-blooded comics, has always believed in love and justice (╰_╯)

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