DTTM 63

Chapter 63: Total Collapse

To flee or to stay?

Zong Yanlei was currently like an engine running at full load with its cooling system completely shut down; in a mode where he couldn’t hear anything and his reason was completely detached. In this emotion-driven situation, any slight deviation could lead to devastating consequences. At times like this, “avoidance” was the only correct choice; only after this raging machine cooled down could the valves of communication be reopened.

“Young Master, your words are so hurtful…”

At this moment, I feel like a tightrope walker in the gaping maw of a tiger. The thin steel cable beneath my feet could snap at any moment, plunging me into that abyss filled with fangs. Even if the cable miraculously held, the monstrous jaws seemed poised to snap close at any instant, crushing me into dust.

My brain and instincts were screaming red alerts, urging me to run. I grabbed Zong Yanlei’s arm, and as I did so, my mind raced, planning the best escape route.

“Calm down, I’ll prove it to you.” I patted his arm and gently coaxed him to loosen his grip.

Zong Yanlei’s lips, which had been pressing against my neck, finally parted slightly, and his damp, hot breath left my sensitive skin. The hand around my waist also loosened little by little. I didn’t dare turn around, and instead knelt on the bed, rummaging through the pile of my tattered clothes.

“Look,” I pulled out the black fountain pen with its cap missing and nib sharp, and turned to hand it to Zong Yanlei, “If you hadn’t come, I really would have used this against Chu Shengcheng. How could I possibly have obeyed him?”

Truth or falsehood aren’t always that important. What matter is the “narrative power.” Whoever speaks first sets the tone for the situation; whoever can steer the other’s anger, shame, or pity in the direction they want can turn the tide in the shortest amount of time.

Speaking the truth in the wrong context was like handing someone a knife handle; a lie, told in the right way, could become a life-saving rope.

The art of speaking lies entirely in how one speaks to extract the best results.

Zong Yanlei lowered his eyes and took the pen from my hand.

The red indicator lights of the race car starting grid flashed through my mind, and I counted down the seconds in my head. When the last red light went out, the moment I was waiting for had arrived.

With a burst of leg strength, I turned and charged straight for the door. However, the moment my feet touched the ground, before I could take the decisive second step, a brutal force slammed into me from behind, sending me crashing onto the thick carpet.

Even though the carpet was thick and fluffy, the impact still left me stunned for a moment.

In that brief moment, my wrists were lifted up, and then a cold, taut, and unshakeable sensation suddenly tightened around my wrists—it was Zong Yanlei’s belt.

If there was a worse situation than staying here and facing the emotionally unstable Zong Yanlei, it must be: facing the emotionally unstable Zong Yanlei after a failed escape attempt.

“Ha.” A cold, sarcastic laugh came from behind.

It’s over.

“I was wrong… I was really wrong!” I begged for mercy, but Zong Yanlei pressed down on my lower back and pinned me firmly to the ground.

When everything went off track, my brain felt like a computer whose logic had completely collapsed, with chaotic code and constant errors.

I even started thinking about some inexplicable things.

The exhaust pipe was located at the bottom of the vehicle, and behind it was the muffler, which was the “noise reduction module” on the exhaust pipe. It contained baffles and other materials to allow sound waves to cancel each other out or be absorbed.

I remembered that when the engine of a race car was being tuned, the mechanics would use a metal probe to check the combustion efficiency.

How did they do it? I rummaged through my jumbled memories to find the specific steps.

This was a very normal maintenance and modification in the racing world, but for some reason, it kept replaying in my mind and I couldn’t get it out of my head.

“Wait…” I braced my elbows on the carpet and tried to move my knees away, but Zong Yanlei pressed his palm down on my waist.

In the quiet room, the world collapsed into a few fixed sounds: the rustling of fabric, the misalignment of breathing, the echo of a heartbeat pounding… It was like a vehicle carrying a dangerous passenger, the brakes failed in the rainy night due to panic, and once it slipped and fell off a cliff, there was no possibility of “returning to its original track”.

Tree branches scraped against the car body, and after crashing into a sturdy tree, the car finally stopped its downward trajectory. As the driver of this out-of-control vehicle, my body temperature rose rapidly after such an accident, and my face felt as hot as if it were about to explode.

…

That is too rough! I only have this one car. What will I use if it’s damaged?

I immediately propped myself up to stop him: “No, no… wait…”

He seemed not to hear it. Not only the exhaust pipes and mufflers, but in an instant, the entire car body and its frame began to groan.

My whole body stiffened, and for a few seconds, I was just too stunned, letting Zong Yanlei do whatever he wanted.

How is that even possible?

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and a thin layer of sweat quickly covered my body. Like a desperate driver, I closed my eyes. But Zong Yanlei made no further move.

He even began to retreat.

“I’m giving you a chance,” Zong Yanlei’s voice echoed softly, like a bewitching siren in the deep sea. “If you want to escape, do it now.”

I opened my eyes and looked at him, my breath trembling. He was kneeling there, looking down on me. His eyes, which appeared particularly dim in the backlight, seemed to hold a thunderous storm brewing beneath dark clouds, exuding a terrifying aura.

The words spoken by this dangerous passenger and his appearance at that moment were completely contradictory.

The attempt to escape had already failed once. If I left now, the meaning would be completely different, it would be a complete rupture.

I was afraid that if I stepped out of this door, I would be completely blocked by him. I would be blacklisted, kicked out of the Sun God team, and even if I wanted to talk to him, I’ll be pushed ten feet away by bodyguards.

Trouble.

This is troublesome.

Does it have to be this time and place?

However, I lowered my gaze. Although it looked gruesome, based on my experience from the previous two times, the repairs shouldn’t take too long.

I closed my eyes, braced myself on the ground, and slowly got up, like a driver crawling out of a wrecked car after a rollover, my whole body trembled with the shock of surviving a disaster.

Zong Yanlei remained in that position, like a mountain that refused to move.

“It’s not that I don’t want to…” I sighed, using both my hands and mouth to undo the belt on my wrist. “Couldn’t you be a little gentler?”

Zong Yanlei suddenly looked up, and a crack appeared in the thick black cloud in his eyes, allowing a glimmer of light to return to his dim eyes.

I twisted my wrist, pulled him up from the floor, and pushed him to sit against the headboard…

…

Zong Yanlei reached out and grabbed my waist, wanting to lean in and kiss me, but I pushed him back.

“Don’t move, I’ll do it.”

I took the initiative.

“When we were kids… in health class, the teacher should have taught us…” I patiently explained to Zong Yanlei. My heart rate gradually increased, the heat rose up my spine, my reason was being pulled, but I had to hold on to the last bit of clarity.

“The first time, if you’re too rough, it will make the other person dislike you…” I said, emphasizing the words and gradually pressing the brakes deeper.

“Would you hate me?” Zong Yanlei’s brain didn’t seem to be working properly right now; when he said something, I could only hear the most jarring syllables.

“Of course…no…”

I leaned down and kissed him, pressing the word “no” into his breath in a more direct way, then quickly pulled away. I smiled and whispered, “How could I hate you? I love you the most, young master.”

Zong Yanlei’s pupils suddenly contracted, as if he had been struck in the soul by this not-so-clever love confession, and he was completely stunned on the spot.

“Jiang Man…” He tilted his head back and murmured my name, then suddenly hugged me tightly as if he wanted to meld me into his body.

“…Jiang Man…” Soon, he took the initiative, whether it was his tongue or other parts of his body.

Below the cliff, the wind whistled through the trees. The sound of weight piling on weight, accelerating, heavy breathing, broken yet sticky sounds… like a torrential downpour hitting a car window, like tires running at high speed over puddles, like an out-of-control engine roaring at its limit.

“You’re mine.” Zong Yanlei licked away the dried blood on my neck like a wild beast, then opened his mouth and bit down. His possessive growl rang in my ear, as if he wanted to devour me whole: “You can only be mine…”

I dug my fingers into his hair, clutched it tightly, and then released it. In that instant, I suddenly felt that I might really be going crazy.

Surprisingly, I found the feeling of being pulled deeper into a dangerously intimate relationship comfortable.

Kissing felt good, being bitten felt good, even his fingertips rubbing my body felt good. Everything felt good, but something seemed wrong… the engine, the gearbox, the sensors—where had it gone wrong?

The repairs were still ongoing; the engine was idling, the heat was soaring, and the car body became scorching hot.

As a navigator who frequently pushes the boundaries, I’ve always been absolutely wary of “losing control.” On the GTC track, even a millisecond of inattention can mean a fatal crash. However, at this moment, this wariness was being slowly eroded by a more primal force.

The feeling was akin to driving blindly through a deserted area in the dead of night, with no road signs, no navigation, only the roar of the engine in my ears. Suddenly, everything exploded. Whether it was a meteorite or a specially designed explosive device planted in the chassis, whatever the reason, it exploded. With the rhythm of the explosion, the air carried away the excess heat, allowing reason to return amidst the ruins.

Zong Yanlei stopped, quietly hugged me, kissed my neck, and occasionally gently bit my chin.

I enjoyed this intimacy. I tilted my head back slightly and lazily let him lick and bite me.

If Zong Yanlei wanted to kill me now, I probably wouldn’t have the strength to resist. No wonder politicians liked to use honey traps.

“Are you done?” Zong Yanlei changed his position and laid me down on the bed.

“Hmm…” My muddled mind cleared up a bit, but I still felt that I wasn’t out of danger yet.

“It’s my turn this time.”

I immediately became alert. Wait a minute, what happened to the ten minutes? Why wasn’t the engine off yet?

“Wait…wait!” I rolled over, trying to avoid falling into chaos again. “I’ve already…”

Once overloaded, both the engine and I might really break down. I had a feeling that my body and even my mind would completely collapse from the inside out.

“What?”

My body was dragged back. Zong Yanlei’s voice carried a long-forgotten, malicious edge born of absolute control: “You said ‘yes’.”

Damn it.

In an instant, everything went black before my eyes.

…

My vision was fragmented by the spotlights on the ceiling, and the warm yellow halos of light swayed on my retina, making me dizzy.

Sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyelids, sparkling a stinging pain. I blinked, and the liquid, mixed with the secretions from my tear ducts, coalesced into a large tear that slid down my cheek.

Zong Yanlei’s breathing fell beside my ear, halting abruptly before he leaned in. He licked from my cheek all the way to the corner of my eye, scooping away that salty liquid.

“Why are you crying?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

My muddled mind still had the capacity to register the absurdity. It was hard to imagine that this man had been working non-stop for half a month, then drove for more than ten hours on dangerous mountain roads to reach the Wo Province for the competition, and hadn’t slept for a whole day and night.

How could he maintain such abundant energy even when physically exhausted to the limit?

“Don’t …don’t you feel uncomfortable?” I leaned in and kissed him gently while urging him, “…Let’s finish this quickly…”

Sweat gathered into an invisible tide, spreading in this confined, scorching space, even the air was suffocating. My vision rippled like viewing the world through boiling water. My reason was forced into a corner, unable to even say the complete words, “Let me go.”

The air was thick and sticky; inhaling it felt like breathing in a hot fog, and exhaling it felt like burning your throat.

It’s so hot.

It’s so hot.

Why is it so hot?

It wasn’t not the kind that was stuck to the surface of the skin, but rather it burned from within my blood, like someone sticking a fuse into a vein and lighting it, sending it up with each heartbeat to the limbs. Each pulse pushed the fire upwards, burning until my chest felt tight, my throat dry, and even swallowing felt like drinking a mouthful of scalding iron.

“No.” Zong Yanlei lowered his head, gently biting the old bite mark on my shoulder, rejecting my request without any politeness. “I like seeing you trapped in desire, unable to control yourself… no longer lying, no longer calm and collected… completely under my control…”

I realized that what this young master wanted to see was me struggling in chaos, losing control, and no longer being able to speak so fluently as usual.

***

Author’s Note

This is a revised version. Several hundred words have been deleted, and the added text at the end may seem a bit verbose in order to make up for the word count. Please forgive me.