A Team of Deadweights

"Boys and girls, come play at Horror Amusement Park ♬"

"Whenever the music starts, you know the party has begun ♩"

"Bump, bump, let's ride the Bumper Cars. Watch out for those rumbling cars."

"Ring Toss, Ring Toss, let's toss rings around rabbits. Be nice to Mr. Rabbit, okay?"

With the park's theme song playing, Chen Feng and Meng Chengcheng arrived at the Bumper Cars.

As they walked, Chen Feng caught a strange smell. "Do you smell that?"

Meng Chengcheng sniffed. "Gasoline?"

Chen Feng wasn't convinced. "More like something's burning."

Just then, a group of visitors squeezed in front of Chen Feng.

"Excuse us. Coming through."

Cutting in line?

Chen Feng looked them over. There were three of them: a greasy man with a potbelly, a middle-aged woman carrying a handbag and talking on her phone, and a little boy with untied shoelaces who was humming a cheerful tune. A typical family of three.

The little boy urged, "Mom! Hurry up! I want to go to the Haunted House after this."

The middle-aged woman nodded. "I know. Don't run off! Honey, is my phone broken? Why don't I have a signal?"

Chen Feng couldn't help tapping the potbellied man on the shoulder. "Hey, man. There are plenty of people waiting behind us. Why are you cutting in line?"

The man turned around, showing no shame whatsoever. "So what if we cut in?"

Chen Feng froze.

What the fuck? You skip the line and think you're in the right?

The middle-aged woman chimed in. "Exactly. You're an adult. Can't you let a child go first?"

Like husband, like wife.

Chen Feng's temper flared instantly. "Fuck your—"

Before he could finish the insult, Meng Chengcheng grabbed his hand. "Forget it. Don't get angry. We've got plenty of time anyway."

"That's more like it."

The man warned Meng Chengcheng, "Keep your boyfriend in line. If he keeps running his mouth, he's going to get beaten up."

After the argument ended, Chen Feng asked in disbelief, "Chengcheng, you can fucking put up with that? Are you a turtle or something?"

Meng Chengcheng leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Think about it. People die on these rides. If the whole family's in such a hurry to go together, why not let them?"

Her breath brushed his ear, warm and fragrant, sending a tingling shiver through him.

Chen Feng felt much better at once. "Now you're talking."

The owner of the Bumper Cars was a man engulfed in flames. He looked as though he had just escaped an exploding car wreck.

There were still five rules:

[1. Five people play at a time. Each player may choose one white bumper car to drive.]

[2. Once the game begins, five black ghost cars will appear.]

[3. Teamwork is essential when dealing with ghost cars.]

[4. A white bumper car will explode if it is hit multiple times in a short period. Extremely dangerous!!!]

[5. Players still inside a bumper car when the game ends will receive one Game Coin.]

The Bumper Cars occupied an enclosed area surrounded by a fence.

The arena was fairly spacious, around eight hundred square meters by Chen Feng's estimate—roughly the size of two regulation basketball courts.

Chen Feng could see bumper cars numbered one through five lined up at the entrance. Each was white, with a long seat wide enough for two, a rubber steering wheel, and a square pedal on either side of the floor.

If he had to guess, one was the accelerator and the other the brake.

Chen Feng looked at Meng Chengcheng. Though their captain was gone, he still asked her as usual, "Chengcheng, what do you think?"

"Me?"

Meng Chengcheng looked up, secretly disdainful.

Keep pretending. Go on.

You obviously know everything, but you still have to ask me. What a pointless performance.

But to avoid making Chen Feng suspicious, she gave him an honest analysis. "I noticed a few things. Look, rule one says each of us should choose one car, but these bumper cars clearly seat two people."

"Considering rule four says the cars can explode, maybe a player whose car explodes can climb into someone else's and still complete the game."

"And rule one tells us to choose white bumper cars, but rule five only says we have to be in a bumper car when the game ends. Based on what happened in Hide-and-Seek, maybe the black ghost cars can be driven too."

Chen Feng nodded in approval. "Good point! Keep going."

You're not done with this?

Irritated, Meng Chengcheng said:

"Did you notice that, of the five rules, the one with three exclamation marks usually points to a way to die?"

"On the surface, the way to clear this game seems to be keeping the black cars from destroying our white cars and lasting until the end."

"There are five black cars. In bumper cars, if several cars gang up on you, you can easily get hit several times in quick succession. So players need to cover one another to prevent that. Maybe that's what the rule means by teamwork."

"This game favors people who know each other."

Chen Feng nodded repeatedly at her analysis.

Soon, the first group of visitors crossed the fence and entered the arena.

The game began. Electronic dance music suddenly filled the arena, and a black curtain descended around it.

"They won't let us watch?"

Chen Feng strained to listen.

The bass and drums were so loud that he could only faintly hear the visitors screaming, cars colliding, and the occasional explosion.

No one knew what was happening inside.

When the black curtain rose, the five white bumper cars were still there, waiting for new visitors. The players who had gone in were nowhere to be seen.

They were all wiped out?

At the sight, the people at the front of the line went pale and fled one after another.

With the line cleared, the family of three and Chen Feng's group were next.

"I want number one!"

The boy rushed into the arena and quickly claimed the first white car.

The middle-aged woman had begun to sense something was wrong. "Honey, where did those visitors go?"

The man brushed it off. "The line's so crowded. They probably left through the back."

The woman still looked uneasy. "Then why did everyone ahead of us run away?"

"They probably had something urgent to do."

The man reassured her. "Sweetheart, you're just tired. What could happen on bumper cars?"

Meanwhile, Chen Feng and Meng Chengcheng chose cars four and five.

With his hands on the steering wheel, Chen Feng felt as though he had overlooked something important.

Why do I feel uneasy?

Just then, the owner waved his hand, and the black curtain descended again.

Colored neon lights lit up the arena. As electronic dance music played, five black bumper cars appeared, marked with the numbers one through five.

They really were ghost cars.

Where their license plates should have been, they had two rows of protruding white teeth.

Where their headlights should have been, they had a pair of crimson eyes.

It was hard to imagine a car having a face at all. These cars had no wheels beneath them, only four thick legs covered in skin the color of raw meat at a butcher's stall.

They looked fucking disgusting.

Chen Feng turned the wheel, preparing to get away from them. But as soon as the music started, the ghost cars lunged at the five visitors like bears drawn to honey.

The middle-aged woman screamed, "Monsters!"

The man laughed. "Look at you, scared of nothing. They're not monsters. They've just got mechanical legs."

With that, he drove his bumper car straight at ghost car number one. Bang! Its eyes rolled back from the impact, and it remained stunned for a long time.

"See? Nothing to be afraid of."

The man pressed on, ramming ghost car number two and stunning it as well. This time, though, his own car let out a siren-like wail.

He had read the rules and knew he couldn't keep ramming things in quick succession. He led the ghost cars around for a while, and after a short time, the wailing stopped.

So that's how it works.

Chen Feng had more or less figured it out.

The ghost cars would keep chasing players throughout the game, but a collision could stop them for a while.

Repeated collisions, however, would trigger a warning from the bumper car. Once that happened, it couldn't take another hit, or it would explode as the rule described.

Isn't that a little too easy?

Chen Feng smiled. As long as everyone worked together and each person kept one ghost car occupied, clearing this game would be a breeze. How had the first group managed to get wiped out?

Just then came a dull thud.

Chen Feng lurched forward, feeling a hard jolt against his lower back.

He had been hit.

Was it a ghost car? When did it get behind me?

Chen Feng turned and saw a white car and a young face wearing a wicked grin.

It was the little boy. He stuck out his tongue at Chen Feng, taunting him.

Chen Feng couldn't help snapping, "What's wrong with you? Get lost!"

The man nearby heard him and immediately shouted, "Watch your mouth! What's your problem? Can't you take a joke?"

Fuck!

Chen Feng finally knew why he had felt uneasy.

Newcomers.

This family was new to the amusement park! They didn't realize it was dangerous, so they would keep ramming other people as if they were playing normal bumper cars.

Forget working together.

He would be lucky if they didn't sabotage everyone.

"Hey, man, those monsters are real—"

"What monsters?"

"Forget it."

Chen Feng knew the man wouldn't believe anything about monsters right now, so he tried a different approach. "Fine, you win. Can we team up against the ghost cars first?"

But the man didn't care. He drove straight into Chen Feng. "What business is it of yours how we play?"

Chen Feng heard his car begin to beep in warning.

His blood pressure shot up.

"What a fun game. It told me how many ghosts there were, but not how many pigs."