Chapter 54: Never Underestimate a Driving Instructor!

"You... don't scare me."

Listening to the roaring engine of the driving school car, Xia Qianyi felt a wave of panic. She raised a hand to grip her seatbelt while casting a nervous glance down at her feet, checking the passenger-side brake pedal...

"Don't drive too fast. I'm warning you, I have a secondary brake here, and if I get too scared, I'm going to slam on it."

"Heh~"

Gu Yin responded with utter disdain. His eyes shone with excitement, and without even sparing Xia Qianyi a glance, he said, "You'd better not touch that secondary brake while I'm driving. Doing so will ruin the car's balance at its absolute limit."

"You... you..." Xia Qianyi suddenly regretted letting Gu Yin help her shake off the paparazzi trailing them.

"Today, your instructor is going to give you a real lesson. Taking a lesson like this at a professional racing school would cost at least tens of thousands per session for one-on-one coaching." By this time, Gu Yin's inner chuunibyou had fully ignited. Slowing the car down slightly, he explained, "Launching a civilian front-wheel-drive car requires precise control of your left foot at the clutch's biting point to ensure optimal traction."

"Ah..." Xia Qianyi was already so terrified she reached up to grab the overhead handle.

"Prepare to witness my humble skills!"

With an expression of intense excitement, Gu Yin slammed his right foot down on the accelerator. Accompanied by a deep roar from the engine, both the vehicle's speed and the RPMs surged simultaneously. A professional manual-transmission driver would never waste time laboring through every single gear; Gu Yin was currently in second gear, and once he boosted the revs and speed, shifting directly into fourth gear was an absolute breeze!

And that was precisely what he intended to do!

"Click-clack!"

With the graceful flair of someone practicing Tai Chi, he yanked the gear lever straight from second gear into fourth, and naturally released his left foot holding down the clutch...

"Ah!" Xia Qianyi braced herself for the impending G-force.

However...

Along with a sputtering sound from the engine, the car bucked violently a few times, and then...

It stalled.

"..."

At that moment, a heavy, awkward silence filled the air.

At that moment, Xia Qianyi's tightly scrunched-up, delicate facial features didn't even have time to unfreeze.

In fact, due to the sudden stall, the paparazzi in the white sedan tailing them were probably completely dumbfounded. They slammed on their brakes, stopping right behind the driving school car with a series of question marks flashing across their faces. One of them, wearing a blue cap, even muttered:

"They couldn't have figured out we were following them, right? Are they getting out to confront us?"

"No way, no way..." The other guy, built like a tank and far more observant, shook his head and said, "The back end of their car squatted just now. It's obvious they just stalled."

That said, the two of them were still trembling with nervous anticipation.

Inside Gu Yin's car:

"...Why weren't you happens to be wearing that lousy camera right now?" Breaking the silence first, the female celebrity felt a cold sweat breaking out on her forehead. Why was it that whenever she made a fool of herself, it was being broadcasted live on *Reconciliation with Life*, yet Gu Yin managed to avoid it entirely?

Compared to her, he wasn't lagging behind at all!

If she was Zhuge Liang, he at least had to be Pang Tong, right?

"Ahem..."

Downshifting, pressing the clutch, and restarting the engine, Gu Yin's old face flushed red to an absurd degree. Fortunately, the dim streetlights provided some cover, or he really would have lost all his dignity...

"This car isn't very good," Gu Yin excused himself. "Driving school cars are generally set up for students, so the clutch is extra sensitive. It stalls very easily."

Xia Qianyi didn't let him off the hook so easily. The young woman crossed her arms over her chest and retorted bluntly, "You might as well blame it on the road being uneven."

At that moment, Xia Qianyi couldn't help wondering: when she had brought up his past identity as a "race car driver" earlier and asked if he had retired because his skills weren't up to par, had her words become a self-fulfilling prophecy?

This guy really seemed like his driving skills just weren't cutting it...

However, right as Xia Qianyi was thinking this...

Gu Yin gave a soft chuckle. He started the engine, pulled up the handbrake, depressed the clutch fully, shifted into first gear, and then began pressing the accelerator...

"Vroom!"

As the engine roared, the RPMs rapidly climbed. When it hit 3,000 revolutions, the front of the car lifted slightly. In that exact instant, Gu Yin executed three actions in one seamless, fluid motion: releasing the handbrake, lifting the clutch, and flooring the gas pedal!

"Screeech..."

The shrill sound of rubber tires biting into the asphalt echoed endlessly. Before the road even had time to react, Gu Yin left it in a cloud of black smoke, executing a rocket launch as the vehicle shot forward instantly!

Repeating his earlier operation, he shifted from first to third, and third to fifth. In the span of just a few short seconds, he rocketed the speed straight into fifth gear!

Because the acceleration was so ferocious and the launch so sudden, Xia Qianyi—who had been harboring deep suspicions about him due to his previous blunder—didn't even have time to process it before a violent wave of G-force slammed into her...

"Aahh!"

The female celebrity's facial expression management completely collapsed. Her previously scrunched-up features were instantly smoothed out as if ironed by a rolling pin, spreading wide across her face—spanning an enormous area!

She was simply terrified!

The scenery outside the windshield blurred past at breakneck speed. In that moment, Xia Qianyi felt just like she had a while back when riding the Blue Fire Roller Coaster at Olelug. With the sudden rush of adrenaline, her heart rate skyrocketed, and her brain barely had time to process what was happening!

And it wasn't just Xia Qianyi...

Behind them.

The two paparazzi in the white sedan following them were completely bewildered too!

Wait, what kind of crazy situation is this?!

That white Jetta driving school car had just stalled with its rear end squatting a second ago; how the hell did it suddenly take off like a rocket?!

In the blink of an eye—just a few seconds where they lost sight of it—that car had already surged nearly a kilometer ahead, blazing past two sets of traffic lights!

Are you a five-second man, accelerating that fast?!

"Ch-Chase them!"

The heavy-set man slapped the guy in the blue cap and shouted:

"That bastard did it on purpose just now! He did it on purpose!"

It was blatantly obvious...

Just now, Gu Yin hadn't stalled by accident. He had deliberately stalled to let their guard down, stopping briefly before launching forward violently to catch them completely off guard.

"Holy shit, it's a red light!" The guy in the cap yelled, his mouth twitching as he accelerated desperately. "Don't tell me he accelerated right as the light was turning red?!"

There were no such coincidences in the world; there was no reason Gu Yin would slam on the gas and miraculously clear the intersection just as the light turned yellow...

By the time they realized it, the light had already turned red. How were they supposed to chase him now?!

"No cars, no cameras! Run it! Run the red light right now!" The heavy-set man picked up his camera and yelled, "I've been a paparazzi for so many years, am I really going to let some driving school instructor shake me off?"

Do you think you're Takumi Fujiwara taking the AE86 up Mount Akina?

"O-Okay." The guy in the cap immediately pressed down on the gas to give chase.

Inside Gu Yin's car:

"The world in the rearview mirror, a farewell drifting further away..."

"You turned toward the north, your profile still looks so fair..."

Humming a tune while street racing and occasionally glancing into the rearview mirror, Gu Yin shook his head helplessly and muttered to himself, "Figures they wouldn't be shaken off that easily."

Money is hard to make and shit is hard to eat; earning these thirty thousand yuan certainly wasn't going to be a walk in the park.

"You still have the mood to hum a song, aaah!" Xia Qianyi didn't even dare to open her eyes at this point. The young woman gripped the overhead handle above the car door for dear life and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Stop the car, I want to get out, aaah!"

"Too late," Gu Yin laughed heartily. "Didn't you just say my skills weren't up to par? Today, I'm going to let you experience what true skill looks like."

Those two jerks were sticking to them like dog-skin plaster and acting like they were addicted; tonight, Instructor Gu was going to teach them a proper lesson!

Never underestimate a driving school instructor!