Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Unknown

Noon. The sunlight was harsh, the sun scorching, and a ferocious wind swept yellow sand and heat across the land in waves, assaulting the parched earth. Amidst the sands stood a dilapidated, long-abandoned town; at its entrance, a statue, now eroded beyond recognition by wind and sand, bore no resemblance to its original form. The whole town resembled a sketch in an artist’s notebook, devoid of any hint of life.

At the center stood an ancient clock tower, more than ten meters tall. Its massive face was rusted, pieces having fallen away; the double doors hung half open. Sunlight spilled through the gaps where the clock face once was, illuminating a dust-laden, cramped room. Aside from a workbench left behind from old repairs, there was nothing else.

Jin Ling lay fully clothed beside the gap in the clock face, the slanting sunlight casting warmth upon her face and dispelling the damp chill lingering atop the tower. She glanced at the tactical watch stripped from the uniformed man’s wrist—time was still early, but the temperature was soaring. The northwesterly wind raged at force six or seven, making it unfit for anyone to venture outside.

Bored, she lay for a while, sensing faint tremors beneath her. Jin Ling frowned and rose, approaching the door to the clock face. She gently widened the gap, picked up the M99 semi-automatic sniper rifle she’d claimed, mounted the scope to her shoulder, and peered toward the northwest of town.

Soon enough, the cause of the tremors appeared in her sights. In the northwest, several vehicles raced across the sands, their distances constantly shifting as they sped. Their rear wheels churned up clouds of yellow sand; from afar, it seemed as if gigantic pangolins were burrowing beneath the earth, raising dust in their wake as they charged toward the town.

Leading the pack was a battered, rusted vehicle, its original form obscured. Most of its paint had peeled off, revealing a dull gray undercoat, and its bumper and doors were streaked with rust-red. Despite looking older than Jin Ling herself, the car surged ahead with unmatched power, leaving two flashy sports cars far behind and continuing to widen the gap.

No need to guess—the handiwork of a master was hidden beneath that ragged shell. The roar it produced when the accelerator was floored proved that, beneath its cracked hood, beat the heart of a supercharged engine.

“So fast…” Jin Ling furrowed her brows, struggling to keep the speeding wreck within her scope’s crosshairs. Her finger hovered over the trigger, testing several times, but she lacked the confidence for a long-distance shot.

She had been waiting here two days and a night, at first believing she’d missed the road race. But now, as the cars appeared, her anxious heart eased. These past days, Jin Ling had tried to contact Zheng Nanfang, following Meng Chang’s advice to avoid the range of the domed fishery’s Hive, but to little avail. She could only deduce that Zheng Nanfang remained under Hive’s influence.

The road race had begun; the lead convoy entered Jin Ling’s sights, yet Zheng Nanfang remained silent and unreachable. Jin Ling began to doubt if he’d even entered the race as promised—or perhaps he'd already met with misfortune at the fishery.

The lone, battered car drew closer, its engine’s roar growing louder. Jin Ling shook off her thoughts, drew a deep breath, set the gun to her shoulder again, and slowly moved the barrel, taking aim at the speeding vehicle.

A flash—“Bang!”

The muzzle flared, and a thunderclap shattered the silence above the desolate town, echoing skyward. The battered car remained unscathed, slowing only momentarily for reasons unrelated to Jin Ling’s shot. She sighed; inside the car, a man in a floral shirt broke out in cold sweat.

A sniper rifle was not for the untrained. Even hitting a stationary target took sweat and blood; shooting a car in motion was harder still.

The floral-shirted man didn’t know that an amateur sniper crouched atop the clock tower ahead, but he could distinguish gunfire from other sounds. The abrupt shot triggered his instinctive brake—so sudden, he had no idea where the bullet had come from.

Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw his pursuers accelerate. The gunshot was a warning—the threats on the road weren’t limited to other competitors; dangers lurked throughout this wasteland.

Jin Ling rubbed her aching shoulder, battered by the rifle’s recoil, then focused, targeting a larger racing car.

Another thunderclap—“Bang!”

Her chosen vehicle sped by untouched, but the silver-gray Zephyr behind it was not so lucky. Its windshield shattered; the driver’s shoulder burst in a spray of blood as the 12.7mm armor-piercing round tore through and gouged a gaping hole, his arm lost in an instant.

A guttural scream rang out; the car veered wildly, snaking across the dirt road in a cloud of dust. Luckily, the co-driver reacted swiftly, risking sniper fire to seize the wheel and stomp the brake, averting disaster.

Two shots, one victim.

The other drivers panicked, unsure what monsters haunted this desolate town. Determined not to share Zephyr’s fate, they floored their accelerators, speeding away from the town’s edge without daring to stop.

The lead convoy vanished into the sand, leaving only the stranded Zephyr by the roadside, pitiful and helpless.

The damage from the armor-piercing round was far worse than the co-driver realized. Besides the windshield and his companion’s arm, the round had punched through the chassis, snapping some unknown axle, and during the emergency brake, had ruptured the fuel tank.

No surprise—the Zephyr was out.

The co-driver was a burly, muscular man with dark skin and piercing eyes, his hair neat and clean, a stark contrast to the eccentric racers. He knew they’d been sniped, and with no cover in the open yellow earth, defense was meaningless. With this understanding, the co-driver relaxed, forgoing weapons, stepping boldly from the car, flipping a middle finger toward the town, then tending to his unconscious companion.

Jin Ling observed through her scope, regretful but powerless. According to Meng Chang, finding Zheng Nanfang in the road race required either telepathic contact or competing herself. Zheng Nanfang was missing, telepathy lost long ago; Jin Ling needed to find him and evade the laboratory’s pursuit. Weighing her options, entering the race was the safest route—it allowed her to hide and search for him.

Jin Ling’s plan was to force a car to stop and seize an invitation, but she had no wish to kill needlessly. No matter her innate fierceness, she'd spent long enough in the Upper City, far from blood and violence. Unfortunately, her poor marksmanship sent a bullet astray, and Zephyr’s crew suffered.

Still, Jin Ling was not indecisive; knowing she’d wounded them, she realized negotiation was futile. Better to eliminate any chance of retaliation than risk being killed herself.

She aimed, scoped, squeezed the trigger.

“Bang!”

The burly man took a bullet to the leg and collapsed beside the one-armed driver in a pool of blood. Jin Ling slung her rifle, descended the clock tower’s rope ladder, started her black SUV, and parked beside Zephyr.

Zephyr’s sleek lines dwarfed the SUV; Jin Ling couldn’t help but admire its design, climbing inside to retrieve the invitation.

The hapless drivers lay in blood-soaked sand, watching this short-haired, wasp-waisted, long-legged woman complete her task in silence, emitting a sigh of despair.

Jin Ling paused, gazing at them with a hint of pity. She placed the medical kit before the burly man, but after a moment’s hesitation, could find nothing to say.

“It’s useless,” the man glanced at the kit and smiled bitterly. “You haven’t injected the virus. Even with the invitation, you’re not an official entrant.”

Jin Ling looked back, bewildered. “Virus?”

He paused, then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. Our race is over—thanks to you.”

Jin Ling hesitated, wanting to say, “I didn’t mean to,” but the words felt too cruel. Better to keep silent.

“Either kill us, or go. Get out of my sight.” Dragging his injured leg, the man cradled the unconscious driver, hoisting him into the passenger seat, then climbed into the driver’s side, leaving a long streak of blood on the ground.

Jin Ling retreated, casting an apologetic glance at him, then composed herself and climbed into the SUV.

The burly man started Zephyr again, carrying the two defeated men onward. Jin Ling noted the wet trail behind the car, heavy with the scent of gasoline.

Zephyr gave a final roar, accelerating in a blink, flying hundreds of meters ahead. The chassis struck gravel, sparks ignited the wet trail, and with a thunderous blast, the car exploded into fragments.

A deformed wheel rim fell from the sky, rolling to Jin Ling’s SUV and striking the bumper with a clang before coming to rest—completing the two men’s last act of defiance.