Terrible news came from the racing world...
Due to severe weather, sudden widespread torrential rains triggered massive flash floods and mudslides across the Kunwu Plateau.
Many contestants were affected. Following Sky City, racers from three other teams—Echo, New Era, and Northern Frontier—went missing in succession, while several drivers were injured.
The resulting chain reaction sent the stock prices of the three teams' sponsoring automakers plummeting. They hit their daily limit down for two consecutive days, leaving countless stock analysts baffled, scratching their heads raw without figuring it out—damn it, it was just one lost race. Why were so many major investors fleeing like their lives depended on it? What were they after?
Did they really love racing that much?
Surely not, right?
Yet the spokespeople for all three companies remained silent for days. No press conferences, no interviews of any kind—the silence was downright unnerving. Whenever their executives entered or left the company, they wore grave, grief-stricken expressions, as if they had not lost a driver, but a horse.
At the Long Yuan relay station, reporters had already interviewed Ji Jue, driver for Coast Team—the favorite to win this race.
"Ah, what a pity. We were so close... so close to saving them..."
Before the cameras, the driver spoke so weakly he seemed barely able to breathe. As he mentioned the incident, his eyes gradually welled with tears and he choked up. "When we set out from Kunwu before, their faces and voices were still so vivid... Who would have thought that after this parting, we would be separated by life and death..."
He shed so many tears that the reporter wasted an entire pack of tissues.
The mutual respect among competitors, the sheer sincerity of their bond—it truly moved those who heard it to tears and broke the hearts