Lu Mingfei felt like he was riding a rocket—and the rocket had launched! The acceleration pinned him against the seat, the wind pressure so strong that his eyes felt like they might pop out—worse than in Anjou’s Maserati.
Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang couldn’t help but shout, as did everyone else, expelling every bit of air from their lungs. Amidst the screams, Lu Mingfei could even hear Anjou and Xia Mi laughing—making it all the more nerve-wracking.
Light burst in as the roller coaster left the acceleration tunnel, reaching an astonishing 250 km/h. Ahead lay a vertical ascent track, almost perpendicular. Lu Mingfei felt like they would crash into it and be shattered to pieces. But the roller coaster began a vertical climb, twisting and turning. The blue sky and white clouds whirled around in Lu Mingfei’s vision, like a kaleidoscope.
It gave Lu Mingfei an unreal feeling—the shrieking wind, the spinning clouds, and the rushing sky. It was as if time was flying by him, the years swiftly passing, black hair turning gray in an instant. It made him want to sigh softly.
Someone indeed sighed softly.
“Brother, if you want to summon me, there’s still 9 seconds left. After that, there will be no one in the world who can save you,” Lu Mingze said.
Lu Mingfei was stunned for a moment, then he swung his foot and kicked the person next to him—not the pale-faced Chu Zihang, but Lu Mingze. This guy was wearing casual clothes, legs crossed, leisurely enjoying a snow ice cream drizzled with peach syrup, and sighed while staring at the sky with a plastic spoon in his mouth.
Any normal person trying to eat ice cream on a roller coaster going 250 km/h with 360-degree twists would be ridiculous. The centrifugal force alone would slap the ice cream and peach syrup all over his face.
But Lu Mingze was clearly not a normal person; he had stopped the entire roller coaster!
The whole amusement park suddenly turned gray, as if it were a frozen photograph. Only Lu Mingfei and Lu Mingze were still in color, and only the colored people could move. There had been no warning, not even the slightest deceleration—250 km/h to a dead stop in an instant. Lu Mingfei looked around, trembling. The roller coaster hung midair, suspended between heaven and earth, the towering track like the bones of a dead dragon.
“Don’t move recklessly; you’ll really fall,” Lu Mingze reminded him. He himself wasn’t even strapped in, sitting there comfortably eating his ice cream.
“Damn it! Can I make an appointment for next time? Maybe at a more appropriate time? I don’t want to deal with some devilish salesperson while I’m on a roller coaster!”
“The accident rate for roller coasters is about 1 in 250 million,” Lu Mingze said. “The risk is much smaller than flying.”
“I know that. I’m just screaming along with everyone else, you know, for the fun atmosphere!”
“But it’s not zero,” Lu Mingze said coldly.
Lu Mingfei was taken aback.
“That probability means that out of every 250 million roller coaster rides worldwide, there will be one accident. For those who encounter an accident, the death rate is 100%.”
Lu Mingfei felt a chill in his heart. “Don’t jinx it!”
Lu Mingze shrugged. “For statisticians, 1 in 250 million is just a probability, but for the passengers on a roller coaster, it’s as if fate is preordained. The passengers see group after group of tourists ride the roller coaster, scream, and return safely, so they believe they’ll be fine. But when they get on, the outcome suddenly changes.” Lu Mingze pointed into the distance. “The last ride was heading for heaven, this one for hell!”
Lu Mingfei followed Lu Mingze’s finger, looking far down the track, where cracks began to spread. The track was breaking apart! No, it wasn’t just breaking—the track was twisting. Imagine someone holding a snake by both ends of its spine and twisting it. If it continued like that, the track would become a massive pretzel!
It really was a curse—not just any jinx, but a devil’s curse! This ride was indeed bound for hell!
“S-save me!” Lu Mingfei shivered.
“Alright! A quarter of your life in exchange; it’s a done deal!” As Lu Mingze said this, he was no longer beside Lu Mingfei; he’d climbed up to the front row, leaning over Xia Mi, seriously smearing peach syrup on her face like an artist devotedly painting his masterpiece.
“Don’t expect me to do this for free this time. Is it easy for me to have a customer like you? When you flirt, I send flowers. When you shop, I pay the bills. When you wield a sword against dragons, I’m there serving you. I might as well bring you tea and water too.” Lu Mingze smiled at Lu Mingfei, his words sarcastic but his smile still pure and innocent, full of warm sunlight.
A small section of the steel track broke off, and the rest, supported only by the main beam, didn’t collapse. In the slow-motion flow of time, the broken track fell towards the ground with a beauty akin to doomsday.
Anjou suddenly moved, as if trying to break free from something. A flash of ferocity crossed Lu Mingze’s face, only to disappear in an instant.
“People who mess up my business are the worst,” he said, returning to his carefree expression. “I’ll leave this situation to him then.”
Lu Mingze vanished in an instant, as if an eraser had wiped away a pencil mark. A hand seemingly appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Lu Mingfei by the collar. “Xia Mi, Mingfei, Zihang!” Anjou’s deep voice called out.
The roller coaster slowly began to ascend again while the broken section of the track slowly fell. Lu Mingze’s disappearance hadn’t restored time to normal. Otherwise, no matter how vigorous Anjou was, he wouldn’t have dared to unlock the safety restraints and reach forward from the front row to grab them.
“It’s ‘Time Zero’!” Chu Zihang realized. Anjou’s Yanling ability happened to be extending time.
“What’s going on?” Xia Mi looked around in confusion.
Lu Mingfei felt a chill in his heart. Above Xia Mi’s lips, there were two small yellow mustaches drawn with peach syrup… Lu Mingze wasn’t supposed to leave any traces in reality, but whether it was the oil stick from before or the peach syrup mustache now, it seemed he had gained the ability to bridge the dream and reality.
Anjou pointed into the distance, and both Chu Zihang’s and Xia Mi’s expressions changed.
The sky was bright blue, white clouds drifted, and a white pigeon spread its wings, almost hovering in the air like a wax sculpture. However, half of the track was slowly falling.
“How much time do we have?” Chu Zihang asked.
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