Doomsday Cruise

o go – have you ever played a mini 4WD? When the battery and the motor didn't work, they just fell out of the air.”

*迷你四驱车, mini 4WD, the mini wheels racing car toy

    Yue Yin nodded, and hurriedly prepared to start work.
After hitting the first note, he gave a surprised “Huh”.

    Jiang Yan just took the opportunity to rest for a while.
“Let's Swing the Oars” temporarily disappeared from the ears of the three of them, and the small stage moved forward by inertia.
And because the previous speed was very fast, even if it was coasting, it didn't slow down much, and it still maintained a speed of about 120 miles per hour.

    But according to Mo Xiaoyao's previous 20 seconds experience, there were only a few seconds left before a complete stop.

    Seeing that Yue Yin had started to play the drums, Jiang Yan was not in a hurry to start his performance.
He crossed his hands and slowly turned his wrists, moving his fingers that were stiff due to long and high-intensity playing.

    “What's wrong?” Jiang Yan stood up and approached Yue Yin.
He didn't see any clues.
The drum kit was still the same drum kit, but the drummer's expression changed a bit.

    Also the rhythm of hitting was different.

    “I've entered a song game here!” Music Yin's voice was full of ecstasy.
Wasn't it great? He had been wanting to change the song after playing “Let's Swing the Oars” on loop for a long time.

    “We can't see it here, you can describe it.” Jiang Yan was still very calm, and he circled around Yue Yin's drum, and soon found out that although he was the only one hitting, the small stage's speed was the same as when the two of them played together before.

    Yue Yin kept his hands and didn't even look at Jiang Yan.
His eyes were condensed about 15 cm above the drum set, as if there was an invisible screen there, constantly refreshing the notes and positions he wanted to hit.

    “It's just a song-playing game.” Yue Yin's drumsticks beat continuously on the drum kit, hitting a very emotional rhythm, “A cursor will come along the track, and the cursors on different tracks represent different drums.
After that, as long as you hit the beat accurately, people who don’t understand music can also play well.”

    Jiang Yan raised his eyebrows and seemed to understand.
He had seen something similar to the description on his little nephew’s mobile phone.
Without wasting any more time, the man slowly* walked back to his position, put his hands on the keys, and pressed a note at will.

*Original text is 施施然, shi shi ran=go slowly; be immensely proud.
This describes a person who walks slowly and calmly or complacently.

    Then, in front of him, appeared a light screen similar to what Yue Yin said.
Compared with his description that lacked logic and beauty, he still felt that this intuitive display was better.

    Trying to press the keys according to the colored note given by the light screen, Jiang Yan's eyes narrowed, and he immediately felt a completely different feeling than when he played before.
After the first few notes were missed because he was unfamiliar with the game, his movements became more and more proficient, his techniques became lighter and lighter, and the speed of the small stage took another step.

    Under the control of Mo Xiaoyao, the small stage successfully turned the last S-curve.
In front of it was a straight and smooth road with a length of 500 meters.
At the end of the road, it was the entrance of the big roundabout.

    Obviously, these 500 meters road was where they could speed up.

    “You two, find a place to fix yourselves, we're almost the entrance.” Among the three, only Mo Xiaoyao did get any light screen to play a song game.
She guessed that it was because she was the helmsman.
The light screen, speed, and road could not be completely synchronized.

    “There are two groups of people in front, all of them are not followed by monsters, and the speed is very fast.” Mo Xiaoyao took a few steps to the front of the railing, grabbed it tightly, and let the dark bass on her chest swayed back and forth, “I guess your light screen is related to monsters.
If you can't kill it or get rid of it, you can only keep it as it is, and you can't accelerate it.”

    “What you think is quite reasonable.” Jiang Yan agreed with this speculation, “My song here is nearing the end, and it can be finished before entering the track.
I estimated that it will depend on the current forward inertia and our gravitational acceleration.”

    Mo Xiaoyao nodded and didn't speak, the knuckles of her hand clutching the railing had turned white.
God knows, she had always stayed away from the entertainment of roller coasters.
When she was dragged by friends, she only acted as a luggage watcher below, and would never go up by herself.

    Who would have thought that for the first time in her life, she would risk her own life on a roller coaster?

    “End!” Yue Yin finished his song a second before the small stage was about to reach the entrance, then he dropped his drumsticks and quickly sat down facing the railing on the ground.

    Extending his arms to the railing in front of him, he inserted his hands into the horizontal railing in a pull-up position, and then held onto it tightly.
The two legs also protruded from the gap, hanging vertically below the small stage in mid-air.

    If Yue Yin was not at the back of the small stage, in the position he was now, it was okay to be a bulbous bow* on a ship.

*I honestly have no clue, because the original text is 八爪鱼船首像 and machine translation said it's a “octopus head bow” but that doesn't make sense.
The closest thing I can found is a bulb shape on the bow of a ship, known as bulbous bow.
I mean…
It kinda looks like an octopus head?

    Jiang Yan had fixed himself on a position a long time ago.
He went to the other side of the railing where no one was there, and looked forward with deep eyes.
He had already done everything he could, and so did his companions.
Destiny was now left to the small stage under their feet.

    Life, or death, was just a matter of ten seconds in the future.

    With a “click”, the small stage maintained the previous speed and inertia, entered the orbit of the big roundabout, and rushed to the top of the highest point along the established trajectory, shouldering the fate of the three people.

Bonus pic:

I personally never went on a roller coaster.
Look at that thing.
Why would anyone, any sane, normal humans, would want to go on that thing and challenge death? (Just kidding.
Go ride the roller coaster if you want to, you thrill-seekers.
But still, damn, that's heart-stopping.)