Chapter 92: The Crack
Qi Xia walked out of the lottery center with a check in hand and headed straight for the taxi.
"Oh? That was fast, young man."
The driver was standing outside the car smoking. His sea-blue vehicle stood out awkwardly among the local mint-colored ones.
Qi Xia didn't answer. He reached for the door and sat down in the back seat.
"So... we heading back now?" the driver asked.
"Mm." Qi Xia nodded. But to be safe this time, he chose to sit in the back.
"Got it." The driver tossed his cigarette butt to the ground, stamped it out, and got into the driver's seat. "By the way, young man, don't you want to play around in Jinan for a bit? I've got an old buddy here. If you're not in a hurry—"
"I'm in a hurry," Qi Xia said. "Let's go."
"Oh..." The driver nodded awkwardly.
Qi Xia recalled that the last time, he had wasted half a day in Jinan going to the bank to withdraw money, finally returning home with a large bag of cash.
He had planned to surprise Yu Nian'an, but this time, he had to skip all those formalities.
Now he had to get home as fast as possible and take Yu Nian'an to an open, safe place.
Thinking this, Qi Xia pulled out his phone to call Yu Nian'an and ask her to pack a few clothes in advance so they could stay outside for the next few days.
He opened his contacts, found the first entry—the one labeled "A"—and dialed directly.
This label was something Qi Xia had deliberately set for Yu Nian'an. Only the letter "A" could keep her number at the very top of his contact list.
After waiting for over ten seconds, there was still no answer on the other end.
"What's going on..." Qi Xia frowned. In his memory, Yu Nian'an never left her phone unattended. So why wasn't she answering now?
Qi Xia hung up and dialed several more times, but still no one picked up. This made him a little worried.
He glanced at the time on his phone. It was already four in the afternoon.
"Driver, if we can get back to Qingdao before seven-thirty, I'll give you an extra five hundred in fare," Qi Xia said, looking up at the driver.
"Really?" The driver glanced at Qi Xia in the rearview mirror, then checked his watch.
Three and a half hours. Three hundred and fifty kilometers.
It was a bit of a stretch, but for an experienced driver, it wasn't impossible. As long as he stayed at the maximum speed of one hundred twenty kilometers per hour on the expressway, he could probably make it just before seven-thirty.
Opportunities to earn two thousand five hundred yuan in a single day were rare. The driver clearly found it hard to believe.
"I'm not lying to you." Qi Xia nodded. "Drive safe. Let's go."
The driver vaguely guessed what was going on. Who would normally choose to take a taxi to another city?
Although taxis were expensive, their one advantage was that they didn't require real-name registration like trains or high-speed rail.
That meant the man in front of him had come to Jinan secretly, wanting to avoid being discovered by anyone. All things considered, he must have really won the lottery.
Only winnings over a million yuan required claiming at a provincial lottery center. The actual prize might even be more than a million.
Thinking this, the driver shook his head helplessly.
He had heard that the odds of winning the lottery were lower than being struck by lightning. It really was unfair—some people had all the luck. The young man before him wasn't even that old, yet he was blessed with such good fortune, while he himself had reached middle age and was still doing manual labor.
Qi Xia, sitting in the back seat, caught a glimpse of the driver's complicated expression in the rearview mirror and couldn't help but curl the corner of his mouth.
Yeah. For the average person, having a lottery winner sitting right behind them was enough to make anyone start thinking wild thoughts.
"It's a pity you'll always be someone with the heart but not the guts," Qi Xia muttered inwardly.
The taxi driver before him was someone Qi Xia had "carefully selected" from among many drivers. Back when several taxi drivers were waiting for fares outside the hotel, this burly driver had cut in line, only to be scolded by a lean, scrawny fellow driver until he begged for mercy.
At that moment, Qi Xia had seen right through him.
Everyone wanted to make money; no one was better than anyone else. Yet he was so timid.
Someone like that would never "rob and kill for money."
The driver's expression shifted between uncertain and conflicted for a while, but in the end, he just sighed and obediently kept his eyes on the road.
Qi Xia leaned back in his seat and dialed Yu Nian'an's number again. Still no answer.
In this quiet environment, Qi Xia's mind drifted back to what had happened in the "Land of the End."
Everything had felt so real. It was nothing like a dream.
He reached up and touched his left shoulder. There was no trace of an injury now, yet he clearly remembered everything that had happened.
He remembered Han Yimo, Qiao Jiajin, Tiantian, Officer Li, Zhang Shan, and Old Lü all dying there. He himself had died too, yet here he was, back in his previous life.
If that was the case, could those people have also returned to their own lives...?
Maybe all of this was just some bizarre prank.
As the sky grew darker, the lights along the expressway guardrails began to glow softly.
Even though he had only been in that godforsaken place for three days, Qi Xia felt like he hadn't seen lights at night for a very long time.
The night lights rapidly shifting backward in his field of vision brought him an inexplicable sense of peace.
It seemed the driver really wanted to earn that extra five hundred. As soon as they hit the expressway, he stayed at the maximum speed limit.
He was just like everyone else in the world—always running around for his next meal.
Qi Xia silently resolved that even if they ran late, he would still give the driver the five hundred yuan.
The driver tried to strike up a conversation with Qi Xia a few times, but gradually realized that this young man wasn't much of a talker. So he just turned on the car radio to ease the awkwardness.
"You're listening to 89.7 Traffic Radio."
A slightly magnetic voice drifted out. It seemed to be a channel favored by taxi drivers.
"It's now seven o'clock Beijing time. Let's check the messages from our online platform listeners."
After the host said this, there was a noticeable pause. For nearly ten seconds, no next sentence came—definitely a live broadcast mishap.
"Haha!" The driver chuckled with a hint of schadenfreude. "Young man, look at this nonsense. Are these anchors paying for their positions nowadays?"
Qi Xia frowned slightly, sensing that something was off.
Live broadcast hosts usually had very strong mental fortitude. Even if most of the online platform comments were useless, they would still pick out key information and broadcast it right away. So why had the host gone silent for over ten seconds?
"The messages on our online platform are a bit strange..." the host said in an odd tone. "We've received dozens of messages in a row, all saying that a strange crack has appeared 'above' the Qingdao exit of the Qingyin Expressway. We'll contact the traffic police as soon as possible to confirm whether this crack is from a sign or some other structure. Please be careful and avoid it if you're passing by."