Chapter 108: Fast and Furious

"Watch out! There’s someone in front!"

The woman beside Lin Yu screamed, then turned her face away, not daring to look.

There was no need for her warning; Lin Yu had already spotted the figure ahead. However, he couldn't tell if the person was about to step forward, back away, or remain frozen in place. An ancient Indian text, the *Abhidharma*, states that a *ksana* is a single thought, twenty thoughts make a *lava*, and twenty *lavas* make a *tatksana*—a snap of the fingers.

Because the Ferrari was moving so fast, he had only about the duration of a finger-snap to make a decision. His only choices were to swerve left, stay the course, or swerve right. Swerving left meant heading directly toward the person’s front.

In that critical moment, Lin Yu steeled his nerves and shouted, "Then let's see who's faster!"

Simultaneously, he slammed the gear into sixth and floored the accelerator, pushing it so hard it felt like he might drive it straight through the floor. In an instant, the red Ferrari sprouted wings, as if hit with a blast of nitrous, surging to over 220 kilometers per hour. With the pedestrian ahead paralyzed by terror, Lin Yu swerved left, darting past the person with less than a meter to spare.

After the red Ferrari roared past, the young man who had been scared into collapsing on the ground muttered, "That wasn't driving too fast—that was flying too low!"

Watching streetlights, utility poles, and trees blur into a streak behind him, Lin Yu felt as if he were taking flight. He forgot his fear and remembered a line from *The Fast and the Furious*: "Shut off your brain, start the engine, hit the gas, and enjoy the thrill of high-speed driving!"

Amid the intense roar of the engine, he turned on the car's CD player. By sheer coincidence, the first track was *Race Wars* from *The Fast and the Furious* soundtrack. Fueled by the driving music, Lin Yu turned onto the coastal highway, knowing it was deserted at this hour.

After maintaining a speed of over 200 kilometers per hour for about a minute, Lin Yu checked his rearview mirror and saw that the black Mercedes was gone. Only then did he exhale, gradually slowing the car down to around 70 kilometers per hour.

As the speed dropped, Lin Yu realized his clothes were soaked through. He felt physically drained, as if he had collapsed, and mentally exhausted. The woman in the passenger seat was equally shell-shocked, staring blankly ahead, clearly rattled by the high-speed ordeal.

"Once I drive back to the city, you're getting out. After that, go wherever you want. I don’t care about your business, and I won’t ask. Since we managed to shake those people off and nothing happened, I’ll let it slide," Lin Yu said as he reached the coast and slowly turned the car around. Being dragged into this mess for no reason had left him in a foul mood.

"Don't talk yet, let me catch my breath," the young woman replied, holding her chest. She clearly hadn't recovered from the terror of the speed.

About four or five minutes later, as Lin Yu returned to the city center, the woman seemed to steady herself. Her dark eyes darted around, and she smiled. "Hi, I'm Xiao Qiangwei."

Lin Yu, focused on driving, gave a grunt of annoyance, barely acknowledging her. He thought to himself that she was nothing but trouble and needed to be ditched as soon as possible.

"You're very calm!" Xiao Qiangwei observed, watching him with a gleam of interest in her beautiful eyes.

With less than five minutes until he reached Qi Yue’s apartment building, Lin Yu couldn't be bothered to engage with the woman who had dragged him into this chaos.

"You really are calm!" Xiao Qiangwei persisted, eyeing him with curiosity.

Lin Yu didn't even glance at her, despite her striking looks.

"You are truly the calmest person I've ever met!" she tried again, refusing to give up.

"Yes," he replied with a single word.

"Can you say more than one word?" Xiao Qiangwei asked. Because of the sweat, her makeup was smudged, making her look quite disheveled.

"I can. I'm here. Good luck. Goodbye." Just then, he pulled up to the foot of the Fortune Center. Having reached his destination safely, Lin Yu finally offered a smile.

He hit the brakes, parked, opened the door, and stepped out, heading straight for the iconic ramp of the Fortune Center without looking back.

"Hey! Wait up!" Seeing Lin Yu just walk away, Xiao Qiangwei scrambled out of the car and hurried after him.

"Are you ever going to quit? I'm not Noah, and I'm not here to save the world. Stop pestering me, okay?" Lin Yu snapped, annoyed by her persistence.

"I—I didn't bring anything when I escaped. And this is my first time in this city. I was hoping you could lend me some money." Xiao Qiangwei looked at Lin Yu with a pitiful expression, tears welling in her eyes.

"You're impossible!" Seeing her disheveled state, Lin Yu’s sense of chivalry flickered slightly. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a little over a hundred yuan, and shoved it into her hand. "Take it. No need to pay me back."

"This? This is all? What am I supposed to do with this?" To his surprise, Xiao Qiangwei looked at the money as if he were tossing scraps to a beggar.

"What else do you expect?" Lin Yu was infuriated, feeling the urge to snap.

"Lend me ten thousand, and I'll let you go," Xiao Qiangwei said, wiping her tears and tugging at his sleeve with a pout.

"What? Ten thousand! Are you crazy..." Lin Yu retorted, speechless. He brushed her hand away and turned toward the elevator lobby.

"If you don't lend it to me, I'll scream that you're molesting me!" Xiao Qiangwei threatened, resorting to petty tactics.

"Scream all you want. Who would believe someone like you?" Lin Yu looked at her, now resembling a messy little kitten, and said with disdain.

"You... let me tell you something, you can say anything you want about me, but don't you dare say I'm not pretty!" Hearing that, Xiao Qiangwei ran over to a landscaped tree, picked up a river stone the size of a goose egg, and glared at him.

Seeing this unreasonable woman ready to throw a rock at him, Lin Yu warned, "Let me tell you, there’s a limit to a person's patience. Put that stone down right now, turn around, and disappear. The world is big—go anywhere else, just stop following me."

"I won't! I'm following you today. There's never been anything I, Xiao Qiangwei, wanted to do that I didn't accomplish!" Comparing their physical differences, she relented and put the stone back where she found it.

While she was turning to set the stone down, Lin Yu suddenly bolted like a cheetah, sprinting toward the stairwell with the speed of a hundred-meter dash.

*You can't outrun me!* he thought.

This time, he skipped the elevator and took the stairs, racing upward. Watching his back disappear into the stairwell, Xiao Qiangwei felt her last hope vanish, and tears pooled in her eyes once more.

Sitting on the steps outside the elevator lobby, she sighed sadly, "It seems I'm not that popular after all."