“Holy sh*t, we’ve been waiting for you for nearly an hour!” Zhao Wu relentlessly gnashed into his chewing gum and looked at Zhang Jing through his fox eyes.
Zhang Jing didn’t display any outwardly reaction. Instead, he dispassionately said, “Got off work late.”
“Haha, the people who work are just so different from us, ya know?” Zhao Wu turned his head in address to everyone around the table, commenting through gritted teeth, “Look at how accomplished they are. Even after work, they still have time to participate in races as a pastime.”
“Wu, jealous?” A bald person shouted from the opposite end of the table. “If you’re jealous, then why don’t you also find some work to do?”
Zhao Wu spat out his tough, flavorless gum by the trash can and continued, “Nah. I can find you a job instead. You pretend to be a duck, and they cut off pieces of your flesh as meat. You wanna go?”
“Damn,” the bald person sneered. “B*tch, give me that job right now. If they pay me adequately, I’ll let them do that—as long as they’re willing to eat my meat.”
Zhao Wu motioned at the girl sitting next to them and said, “Wait for me.”
She rested her palms on his cheeks and smiled fawningly.
Zhang Jing adjusted his helmet and inclined backwards to align his front wheel with the white line. The surrounding sounds were drowned out by the intensity of his focus; his eyes only fixed on the pitch dark asphalt road in front of him. This road had no street lamps for guidance, and today was a chilly, overcast day. Not even the moon provided a source of light.
The headlights from the nearby canted motorcycles illuminated the mottled road surface. Sometimes, the darkness and motley following the light appeared more desolate than darkness itself.
The millisecond the whistle sounded, Zhang Jing immediately accelerated, just like a bullet rushing out of a pistol. The gust of wind running against his body gave him the illusion that he was traveling through time and space, and that he was disrupting the space-time continuum by tearing a hole in front of him to plunge into.
They were racing on an abandoned highway. Since construction on that location was difficult, the road was coarse and unfinished. As a result, accidents occurred rather often. The government instead opted to build a new highway elsewhere, and this road ended up abandoned. A few years later, the median strip was removed, and new obstacles were affixed here on out—thus, this road became a racing track.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Zhang Jing was fairly acquainted with this road. He occasionally competed here regardless of the prize being a mere few thousand yuan, at most ten thousand. Moreover, for unsanctioned races like this, rules were nonexistent: no matter which methods you use, winning is the only result that counts.
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He just loved the feeling when racing.
Sometimes, he thought, If I was born in the historical period, I would definitely try to master qinggong and eventually fly.
Behind him, an adjacent motorcycle advanced too intimately close, intimate to the point where the tips of their wheels could touch anytime. Zhang Jing tilted to the right, and the person behind quickly followed. Zhang Jing coldly snorted, “Dumb*ss.”
Zhang Jing suddenly slowed down, and the motorcyclist hesitated due to this abrupt change in speed. If he continued following Zhang Jing at a similar tempo, they definitely would’ve collided into each other. Thus, he hurriedly slowed down and tilted to his left side for extra precaution. However, Zhang Jing also furthered down left to tease him. To stay safe, the motorcyclist scooched more into his left, flustered.
If Zhang Jing continued moving left, that person would’ve lost his balance—Zhang Jing, however, just didn’t bother to. Instead, Zhang Jing aggressively pointed a middle finger at him and speedily progressed towards the finish line.
In that race, Zhang Jing placed second.
First place was Zhao Wu. Out of all the participants, he was one of the better racers. To be more accurate, he was the type to keep his cards up his sleeve, so he usually wins first place. Zhang Jing would more or less avoid him, not out of fear, but because risking his life for a few thousand yuan was pointless.
Second place had a three thousand yuan reward; who knows who would even sponsor a trivial event like this—especially since the audience, if any, could barely see anyone in such a pitch dark race track. The sponsor was probably another fool who thought this race had a massive audience to disseminate their product, akin to the ones on television.
Perhaps, during the daytime, a few people would tentatively show up. At night, though? Definitely not.
After Zhang Jing received the money, he left with no delay—Doggo was still waiting for him to eat soup noodles.
Before Zhang Jing returned home, he took a detour to buy an assortment of snacks and beer, as well as a couple ample-sized containers of ice cream. Even though riding a motorcycle gave him the image of allure and athletic vitality, carrying many overflowing plastic bags ruined the image. With tons of packaged food clutching onto the left handlebar, he looked like he was riding a chunkier bicycle, on his way to buy groceries.
When he opened the door, what greeted him was Doggo squatting on a chair, playing video games. Zhang Jing tossed a bag of chips to him and asked, “Want ice cream?”
Doggo vigorously nodded, “Yes!”
Zhang Jing set one box on the table and stuffed the rest into the refrigerator.
Doggo didn’t have any utensils, yet he was still in a hurry to eat it. His entire face inched towards the ice cream, gnawing at the freezing, flat surface—to this, his entire nose was smudged with ice cream.
“Woah! So- so luxurious.” Doggo was on call with Lincoln and others while gaming, so he bragged, “My Jingjing bought ice cream f- for me, the one with four kilograms. I can distinguish its taste immediately! My Jingjing bought so many boxes for me! Oh no, the enemy Master Yi is… killing our nexus!”
Lincoln aggressively pounded his keyboard to criticize his teammates. The clacking of his keys reverberated through the laptop’s speaker, and when it eerily ceased, he finally responded, “You’ve been living quite a comfortable life, I see? Is there more room to shove me into? I’ve also been pretty lonely.”
Zhang Jing happened to walk in the room when Lincoln asked that. “Yeah, there is.”
The unwilling Doggo quickly denied, “No, no, no. We’re good. Don’t come and disturb us.”
Zhang Jing, mouth open and on the verge to respond, sensed a vibration from his phone. He crooked his neck downwards, looking at the screen—it’s an unknown caller. Out of curiosity, he picked up and unthinkingly greeted, “Hello, this is Zhang Jing.”
A silent two seconds later, a voice entered his ear. “It’s me.”
Zhang Jing instantaneously froze in place.
After quite a while, Zhang Jing responded, voice tense, “… May I help you?”
Using his signature low-pitched voice, he said, “It’s nothing. When are you free? Let’s eat a meal together.”
Zhang Jing swiftly moved into an unoccupied room. “I believe I expressed myself clearly that day.”
The voice on the other end of the call remained calm, “What did you say?”
“…”
He lowered his voice and called out, “Baby Jing.”
Zhang Jing felt as if he just relived a moment from a few years ago. Back then, he hated that term of endearment—“Baby Jing.” It’s so old-fashioned.
Zhang Jing slowly closed his eyes. “That day, I said: I wish I had never met you before.”
The call continued, yet no one spoke a word. Only the sounds of their breathing bounced between the two phones, the frequencies staggering one after another. The hand grasping the phone paled, while his eyelashes trembled.
“Then…”
The voice coming out of Zhang Jing’s phone intonated with the utmost determination, “Then, let’s get to know each other again…”
“… Hello, my name is Ji Dongxun.”
Every time I read this it’s like I’m experiencing someone else’s breakup over and over again. I don’t know why I’m tormenting myself but it’s a good kind of torture, perhaps knowing they’d get back together. I’m always looking forward for updates even with how painful this is 😂
Thank you for your consistent updates. 💕
I agree, it’s really a “good kind of torture”!! Thank you for consistently reading my translations as well! 💕
Ahhhh!! Now this just made me happy. This seems like the TikTok I watched where couples would ask their partner what they would do if they broke up and the other would just introduce themselves again HAHAHHAAHA. Despite the pain, the end made me genuinely smile.
Thank you translator for translating this amazing gem🥰
Oooh! I’ve seen that type of TikTok too LOLL. Thank you for reading too! 💕