I've Driven This Road Seven or Eight Times. Practice Makes Perfect

Boom, boom, boom.

The car tumbled off the cliff again. This time, the spot was slightly different, and the Weird Energy didn't unbuckle the seat belts. But they weren't lucky: the car rolled several times along the cliff face before landing hard on its roof at the bottom.

Squelch!

A sharp rock stabbed through the windshield, impaling Wang Bangzheng and grazing Xu Kai with its edge, leaving a deep, bloody gash. But Xu Kai wasn't dead yet; he was hanging on through sheer force of Weird Energy.

"Heh, Master Xu, is this what you call the laws of nature? This is all your fault. There wasn't even a Weird, and you still got distracted. Now you've driven us off a cliff, and I have to do it all over again."

It was Wang Hua speaking. The Weird Energy hadn't unbuckled her seat belt, and the back seat was in better shape than the front, so she hadn't died. She was only seriously injured. Her voice was full of complaints, and her eyes were filled with malice as she looked at the still-living Xu Kai.

The trip to the crematorium should have been nothing more than a game cutscene, yet it had somehow gone wrong. It had to be the driver's fault. This driver had to go! Wang Hua decided to kill him, then flag down another car and take the corpse away herself.

Wang Hua was a player with a control talent. Disguised as a ghost or a god, she would never arouse an NPC's suspicion, only fear. Flagging down a car would be a piece of cake. But the sight of Xu Kai annoyed her, especially now that he was injured and disfigured. He looked awful.

She got out of the car, picked a sharp rock off the ground, and smashed it against the windshield.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The windshield was already shattered but still held together. Under her blows, it broke into pieces that all fell into the cab.

Then Wang Hua brought the sharp rock down on Xu Kai's head.

Huh? Has this woman gone crazy?

Xu Kai hurriedly shielded his head with his left hand while struggling to undo his seat belt with his right in the crumpled cab. He moved from the front toward the back seat.

"Trying to run? Freeze!"

Seeing Xu Kai trying to escape, Wang Hua hastily fixed him with a glare and froze him in place.

Is this a player talent? The moment it hit him, Xu Kai understood why Wang Bangzheng was afraid. He couldn't move at all. Only his Weird Energy flowed slowly, resisting the player talent, but Xu Kai had very little left. It could only shorten the time he remained under her control.

"Heh, I'm a goddess! If I want you dead, you have to die! Remember this in your next life: don't upset a goddess!"

The sharp rock came down. Xu Kai felt a pain in his head, and cold liquid ran over his eyes, blurring his vision. Yet all he wanted to do was laugh.

This woman really thought she was a goddess. When she encountered a Weird, she had howled like an ape and couldn't even use her skill. All bluster and cowardice, bullying the weak and fearing the strong. She didn't even know she was about to die, yet she still had the mind to kill him.

Thump, thump, thump.

Sure enough, the familiar footsteps approached across the valley floor. Hearing them, Xu Kai's lips stretched into a smile as he stared at Wang Hua.

"You NPC can really take a beating. I've hit you so many times and you're still not dead. You even dare glare at me, and smile? Are you mocking me? You're asking for it!"

His expression made Wang Hua shrink back, but then she grew angry. She raised the rock, ready to bring it down hard. Instead, she saw the entire car flatten in an instant with a boom, becoming a blood-red sheet of paper.

"Ah! My rock! I hadn't even hit it with the rock yet. How did this happen?!"

What? What's going on? Wang Hua jumped in fright, her legs trembling. She definitely hadn't done this. There was a monster nearby! And a very, very terrifying big one at that!

Only then did she remember the footsteps she had just heard. They had stopped right behind her.

Gulp.

Wang Hua swallowed and slowly turned sideways. When she saw the terrifying sight behind her, she screamed:

"A Weird! It's a Weird! Talent, talent, work already!"

Wang Hua trembled all over, not daring to focus her eyes on the Weird. She even covered them instinctively.

It was a tall Weird, bluish-gray all over, with a grotesquely twisted right hand. That hand had already reached the top of Wang Hua's head, and it pressed down hard.

Squelch!

The valley floor was awash in blood. Once again, no one in the area survived!

On his twenty-seventh rewind, Xu Kai returned to the road again. In the rearview mirror, he saw that Wang Hua was still sound asleep.

After dying twice on the bend, he had basically figured Wang Hua out. She was a player who had been tricked into coming here and treated the place like a game. So her attitude toward NPCs like them depended entirely on her whims; she didn't take them seriously at all. Her talent let her immobilize people by staring at them, and enough Weird Energy could break the hold.

At that thought, he checked his Weird Energy value. It was one hundred. In other words, the mission reward from the previous save hadn't stacked. He couldn't exploit that bug.

Xu Kai didn't regret it. After dying twice, his memory was filled with agonizing pain. He needed a breather, so he would stop the car and recover.

Screech!

Xu Kai was driving slowly. As soon as the brake lights came on, the car stopped by the roadside.

"Wh-what's wrong?"

It was Wang Bangzheng speaking. Seeing Xu Kai stop, his voice trembled a little. Was the Weird in the back seat finally about to do something?

After speaking, he quietly looked up at the rearview mirror and glanced around. Only when he saw that Wang Hua hadn't moved did he breathe a sigh of relief.

"Nothing. We're about to die, so I'm preparing myself mentally."

"What? What? Pah, pah, pah! Don't say something so unlucky this late at night! Young man, how can someone in your line of work talk like that? If you're thinking of doing something stupid, don't drag us into it!"

Wang Bangzheng was instantly upset. What kind of people did the crematorium hire? This was so unprofessional! The young man still had him in the car, yet he was so eager to die!

"Uncle Wang, I'm not looking to die. Whatever you see in a moment, just don't scream and affect my driving."

"Hah, young man, where are the manners you showed at the start? Would I, Wang Bangzheng, do that? You're too young. What storms haven't I weathered? I've eaten more salt than you've traveled roads!"

Xu Kai didn't explain. He took a deep breath, plugged his ears, and drove toward the deadly bend.

Xu Kai had already found a way through the deadly bend, and it had to do with his Death Rewind. His Death Rewind returned everything except his memories to the moment of the save. All Xu Kai could do was practice, memorizing the succession of sharp turns by rote, then relying on memory to make it through.

The method was simple. He didn't need to fight the Stone Statue Weird, and Wang Hua wouldn't go crazy. It just cost a few lives. Xu Kai really didn't want to bring Wang Hua along, but his role-playing mission wasn't over. He couldn't refuse her a ride without a legitimate reason.

With a hiss, the moment they reached the bend, Weird Energy spread across the windshield like a great sheet of cloth.

"Ahh! The road-blocking Weird! The road-blocking Weird is here!"

As expected, Wang Bangzheng, who had eaten more salt than Xu Kai had traveled roads, began screaming, waking Wang Hua in the back seat. A grand symphony began.

"Ah! A Weird! Help! Talent, work already, talent!"

"Ah! Road-blocking Weird, can you eat them instead? I'm innocent!"

The two of them screamed one after another, but Xu Kai had no time to pay attention. He controlled his Weird Energy and wrestled with the steering wheel, navigating the bends by instinct and memory. The car shuddered slightly, its speed changing faster and faster. Several times, it nearly hit the guardrail, but Xu Kai dodged every time. In the end, he miraculously made it through.

There was no secret to it, only practice. Xu Kai had died ten times on that stretch. Although he had gotten through by luck once before, he died on the second attempt because he wasn't familiar enough with it. By the tenth time, he was so numb that he could navigate the bends on instinct alone.

The Weird Energy stood there unwillingly, now left far behind and visible only in the rearview mirror.

But the danger wasn't over. Another inhumanly sharp turn appeared immediately afterward. Xu Kai had already adjusted his direction, however, and scraped past the edge with difficulty. Finally, they returned to a straight road.

He had died ten times on this stretch too. That was twenty rewinds in total, bringing him to his forty-seventh. Xu Kai realized that his rewinds couldn't find the right route in one try, but each death brought him closer to the right direction in some form, like a regression curve. The price was that he had to endure the memories of every rewind.

But Xu Kai was used to it now. This little bit of pain was nothing.

Xu Kai felt that the people still alive on Blue Star were much stronger than he was.

The hardships of life were harder to endure than this, and what was more, they still lived on with optimism.

What he was going through was nothing but a drizzle.

Gulp.

In the car, Wang Bangzheng swallowed to moisten his parched throat, then took a deep breath to expel the fear and panic in his heart. A thousand words came together in one sentence:

"Brother Xu, your driving is fucking incredible!"

"I've driven this road seven or eight times. Practice makes perfect, that's all. As long as you two don't make a racket, I can handle it even better."

"Ahem, well, I didn't make any noise that bothered you."

Wang Bangzheng didn't blush or bat an eye. He was good at keeping up appearances, and no matter how awkward things got, his expression never changed.

"Wow! Master Xu, are you an SSR-level super-rare character? You're handsome and great at driving. That cutscene was awesome! I'm going to sponsor the game!"

"Miss Wang, please stop saying such strange things. Taking you to the crematorium is my 'duty.'"

Xu Kai's emotions stirred when he said the word "duty," but unfortunately, the other two were still celebrating their narrow escape and didn't notice. Wang Hua's friendly overture meant nothing to Xu Kai. He only felt that this despicable player didn't deserve to live.

Every time Xu Kai fell off the cliff, as long as Wang Hua survived, the crazy woman would attack him. Every time, Xu Kai had to experience having his head smashed open with a rock and being flattened into a sheet of paper by the Stone Statue Weird.

He had been angry, but later discovered that anger only affected his movements. Only by pursuing rationality could he free himself from it.

In the later rewinds, the moment Xu Kai fell off the cliff, he was calm and practiced enough to undo his seat belt in advance, take off his clothes to cover Wang Hua's face, and easily turn the tables and kill her.

Xu Kai still remembered Wang Hua's surprise and disbelief: surprise that her player talent had been countered so easily, and that before she could act on her murderous intent, Xu Kai had killed her in the back seat.

Xu Kai had seen it all. He knew just how vile this player was.

Unfortunately, killing Wang Hua was of little use. A Stone Statue Weird was still hiding at the bottom of the valley. The Stone Statue Weird was extremely punctual, walking up beside the car at the appointed time. With a mere raise of his hand, icy, crimson Weird Energy covered everything: the car, the corpses, and the people still alive were all flattened into sheets of paper. Xu Kai's feeble resistance was like a mosquito and wasn't taken seriously at all.

And this was only the road there. The crematorium was the Stone Statue Weird's home ground.

Xu Kai came back to himself. Before he knew it, the car had traveled a long way. A building appeared at the end of the road ahead, drawing closer and closer. At last, Xu Kai stepped on the brake and brought the car to a stop.

They had arrived at the crematorium.