Chapter 154: The Young Man Who Chases The Wind [Part 2]
Mrs. Ventz did not have other jobs. All she did was take care of her renters, wash clothes etc, and make some handicraft to sell for some small change. After all, in a world ruled by high technology, handicrafts were just too cheap.
The product of a machine was more precise, more beautiful, less time consuming, low cost and highly efficient. However, the advantage of handicrafts lay on their creativity. As long as the creator had good notions and ideas, then there would be people who would purchase them. Although it could not be sold at an ideal price point, it could at least fill up some living necessities.
It wasn’t Udoze or Mrs. Vento, but the surrounding residents who told them this on their own accord. The people around them basically relied on rent payments for their livelihood, and when there were no flying car racing competitions they would spend the majority of their time chatting. Therefore, Cillin and Tang Qiuqiu who just came to reside in Udoze’s home became their best tell tale partner.
It was night time.
Tang Qiuqiu was laying on the bed and looked at the racing team’s description, “Brother Cillin, which racing team does Udoze belong to?”
“The uncle around the street corner last time said that he’s in ‘Storm’.”
“Storm, huh…” Tang Qiuqiu flipped through the materials, “Oh, they’re pretty good. They’re number four in the entire planet!”
“Alright, read less at night and sleep earlier.” Cillin knocked on Tang Qiuqiu’s head.
“Fine, I got it, just five more minutes, no, fifteen more minutes and I’ll sleep.”
Cillin shook his head while smiling. He looked towards the pitch back window outside. No one knew what he was thinking.
The gray cat had gone out to hunt for food again. For the past two days, this fellow had been living quite comfortably. Other than the fact that this was a place abundant with food resources, the main reason for its high spirits was because it had encountered a few high level pets that were trained well enough to talk in the city area. Although they had seen some talking high level pets that were raised by rich people at Ouroke, it did not think that it would run into high level pets here too. From this fact, one could see that this was a place where rich people came to amuse themselves.
Ever since it saw the few talking high level pets, the gray cat grew a lot more relaxed. From time to time it would speak on the road and enjoy the shower of attention of passerbys. At the same time, it was very pleased with itself because the GAL language spoken by those few talking high level pets had thick accent in them. Again, the gray cat was undergoing self enlightenment in this regard.
After Tang Qiuqiu had fallen asleep, Cillin turned off the rechargeable lamp. He closed his eyes and laid on the bed, but he had not fallen asleep.
It was midnight. The beating sounds at the courtyard started once more.
Udoze was sitting inside the driver’s cockpit and getting ready to leave. However, he heard a knocking sound turned his head. Then, he was so surprised that he nearly jumped on his feet. Cillin had stood beside the shabby old flying cat before he knew it, and was knocking on the car lid.
Cillin made a hand gesture and motioned for Udoze to open the car lid.
Although he was unwilling, Cillin was his renter after all. He was the supplier of his rent money, and judging from the past two days Cillin and Tang Qiuqiu were pretty good people. Therefore, Udoze ultimately opened the car lid and allowed Cillin to sit at the back seat.
“I can’t sleep and felt like going out for a spin. I know you’re practicing your driving skills, but you don’t mind me hitching a ride, do you?” Cillin did not look embarrassed in the least at all.
You’re in the car already, would you move even if I do mind?
“Sure. As long as you can take it!” Udoze gritted his teeth and said.
It was pitch black at night, and Udoze did not even turn on his car lights. However, he flew the shabby old car out of the courtyard with great familiarity and left Wind City Vento, entering the uninhabited area outside.
The shabby old car was as shaky as ever, not to mention that Udoze had purposely made the car shake so much that it could toss a person out of his car. However, Udoze noticed that the person behind his back continued to sit steadily on his seat despite not wearing a seat belt. His eyes were closed as if he had fallen asleep.
Udoze was surprised. Just what kind of weirdo was this guy?
Shaking his head, Udoze removed his attention from Cillin and officially entered his own practice time.
Sand dunes, rock ledges, narrow passages… the shabby old car was always able to smoothly pass through these places while shaking. Its speed wasn’t slow either. Of course, there was no way it could reach the flurry speed of a racing flying car. After all, this shabby all car was using a rechargeable battery.
Here in this area, solar energy and wind energy were the two main sources of energy. These two energies were converted into stored energy and kept inside the rechargeable battery, so that it could provide for electrical appliances such as rechargeable lamps, some household electric appliances, flying cars and so on.
A rechargeable battery was obviously incomparable to an energy block at all. However, energy blocks were considered a luxury goods in this place. Only the racing cars of racing teams would use energy blocks, and people of Udoze’s circumstances could not afford energy blocks at all. Therefore, he could only rely on rechargeable batteries to power his flying car.
Although it used rechargeable battery, the speed of Udoze’s worn out car was much faster than other flying cars that were powered by rechargeable battery. This was because he utilised the wind to his full advantage. He was calm and composed despite driving at an extremely challenging and dangerous place like this.
Udoze entire being seemed to have merged into one with the flying car. He did not need to rely too heavily on the airflow balancing meter, and he was able to deduce the next move just by relying on the miniscule effects of the airflow on the car’s body.
This person felt like he should be living in the wind since the moment he was born, free to fly anywhere.
Here in the uninhabited zone, the people carried a sense of foreboding towards the wind and kept away as far away as possible, but Udoze felt unusually close and dear to the wind instead. He could feel the power the wind brought him.
The wind seemed to be telling him: You can be faster, better; go faster, faster…
At this moment, Udoze forgot about Cillin at his back seat and became completely absorbed in himself, his flying car, and the world of the wind.
Whlie he was turning a corner, Udoze controlled the car’s body proficiently, utilising the airflow around the corner and the whistling wind to enable him to complete this turn with better perfection. However… he had not considered Cillin at the back seat.
An extra person meant an extra weight. It was an extra factor that was out of his control. Therefore, when he manipulated the car just like he used to hundreds and thousands of times before, he abruptly discovered his carelessness as a protruding rock on the mountain wall grew closer and closer.
However, Udoze’s reaction was very swift. With even greater hand speed he adjusted the control wheel, turned the steering, and slanted his body at a certain angle to match the car’s movements. The series of movements were completely in an extremely short amount of time, and the car practically went around the turn while touching the edge of the rock.
After going around the turn, Udoze did not continue to drive along the narrow tube. Instead, he drove the flying car out of the tube and landed behind a large rock mountain, popping out clasp nails to cling tightly onto the large rock mountain and prevented the flying car from being blown away by the wind.
After the flying car had come to a stop, Udoze lay on top of the steering and panted.
“Yo, you made a mistake.” Cillin opened his eyes and said.
“You shut up, if it wasn’t for you how would I have run into that kind of situation?!” Udoze roared out. His forehead was all sweat, and his back was seeping with cold sweat too. That turn just now was way too thrilling and had exceeded his expectations. Thankfully, it was still within his control, or the two of them would have died here today.
“You cannot put the blame of your own carelessness on another person. After all, you already knew that I was in the car beforehand, but you forgot about it at the time and fell into the habit of familiar controls and familiar mindset. This is undeniably your own fault.”
Udoze no longer said anything. He himself knew where his mistake lay. This was a lesson to be learned. He was too confident, so confident that he had overlooked a critical factor.
“Your control just now was pretty good though. At the very least, you did not panic. If your reaction time was 0.1 second slower, then we would have no choice but to enjoy an explosive contact with the rocks.”
Udoze suddenly noticed something. The man sitting at the back seat was too calm; so calm that he was like an observer.
“Are you a flying car racer as well?” Udoze said heavily.
In Wind City, there were a lot of taboos between racers. Competing athletes did not like to expose their control habits to another person. It would be very detrimental to him.
“No. I piloted more fighters than I drove flying cars.” Cillin said. In the Sixth Squad, fighter piloting was a mandatory course among combat personnel. What fight could they put up if they couldn’t even pilot a fighter?
Udoze’s eyes lit up when he heard about fighters. But it dimmed in the next instant.
“Do you want to pilot a fighter?” Cillin asked.
“I’ll be lying if I say I don’t want to. But that thought is too ephemeral.” Udoze buried his head between his arms and said unhappily, “Do you know what my job is?”
“I only know that you work in a racing team.”
“Hehe, work…” Udoze smiled self-deprecatingly, “Do you know? There is a kind of person called body double in a racing team.”
