# Chapter 92: The Crack
Qi Xia walked out of the lottery center with a check in his hand and headed straight for the taxi.
"Oh? That was fast, young man."
The driver was standing outside the car smoking. The sea-blue vehicle beside him looked out of place among the local mint-colored cars.
Qi Xia didn't reply. He pulled open the car door and sat down.
"Should we... go back now?" the driver asked.
"Yeah." Qi Xia nodded, but to be safe, this time he chose to sit in the back seat.
"Alright." The driver threw 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 hang around 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 last time, he had wasted half a day in Jinan going to the bank to withdraw money, and ended up returning home with a large bag of cash.
His original intention was to surprise Yu Nian'an, but this time, he had no choice but to skip all those formalities.
Now he had to get home as quickly as possible and take Yu Nian'an to an open, safe area.
With that thought, Qi Xia pulled out his phone to call Yu Nian'an, asking her to pack a few clothes in advance so they could stay outside for the next few days.
He opened his contacts and found the first entry—the one labeled "A"—and directly dialed the number.
This label was something Qi Xia had deliberately set for Yu Nian'an. Only the letter "A" could keep her contact at the very top of his address book.
After waiting for more than ten seconds, the other end still didn't pick up.
"What's going on..." Qi Xia was puzzled. In his memory, Yu Nian'an never strayed far from her phone. So why wasn't she answering now?
Qi Xia hung up and dialed again several times, but still no one answered. This naturally made him worried.
He checked the time on his phone. It was already 4 PM.
"Driver, if we can get back to Qingdao before 7:30, I'll give you an extra five hundred yuan for the fare," Qi Xia said, looking up at the driver.
"Really?" The driver glanced at Qi Xia through the rearview mirror, then looked at his watch.
Three and a half hours, three hundred and fifty kilometers.
Although it was a bit tight, it wasn't difficult for an experienced driver. As long as he maintained a steady 120 km/h on the highway, they should just make it by 7:30.
Opportunities to earn two thousand five hundred yuan in a single day were rare, and the driver clearly found it hard to believe.
"I'm not lying to you." Qi Xia nodded. "Be careful, and let's go."
The driver vaguely guessed something. Who would normally choose to take a taxi to another city?
Taxi fares were expensive, but the only advantage was that, unlike trains or high-speed rail, you didn't need to buy a ticket with a real name.
That meant the man in front of him had come to Jinan secretly, wanting no one to discover him. Taken together, he must have really won the lottery.
Only prizes over one 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'd heard that the odds of winning the lottery were even lower than getting struck by lightning. Life really wasn't fair. This young man, not that old, had such incredible luck, while he himself, middle-aged, was still doing manual labor.
Qi Xia, sitting in the back seat, watched the driver's complicated expression in the rearview mirror and couldn't help but curl the corner of his mouth.
Yeah, for an ordinary person, having a lottery winner sitting right behind them—who wouldn't start having wild thoughts?
"Too bad you're the type with the heart but not the guts," Qi Xia thought to himself.
The taxi driver in front of him was someone Qi Xia had "carefully selected" from among many drivers. Back then, several taxi drivers were waiting for fares outside the hotel. This burly driver cut in line, only to be scolded into submission by a skinny fellow driver.
At that moment, Qi Xia saw through him.
They all wanted to make money, and no one was better than the other, but this guy was such a coward.
Someone like that would never "kill for money."
The driver's expression flickered for a while, but in the end, he sighed and dutifully kept his eyes on the road.
Qi Xia leaned back in his seat and dialed Yu Nian'an's number again, but still no answer.
In this quiet environment, Qi Xia's thoughts drifted back to what had happened in "Zhongyan Land."
Everything there had felt so real, nothing like a dream.
He reached out and touched his left shoulder. There was no trace of injury now, but he clearly remembered everything that had happened.
He remembered Han Yimo, Qiao Jiajin, Tiantian, Officer Li, Zhang Shan, and Old Lyu all dying there. He himself had died too, yet now he was back to his old life.
If that was the case, would those people also have returned to their own lives...?
This whole thing was probably just some bizarre, twisted prank.
As the sky darkened, the lights on the highway guardrails gradually lit up.
Even though he had only been in that godforsaken place for three days, Qi Xia felt like it had been a long time since he'd seen lights at night.
The rapidly shifting reflections of the night lights behind him gave him an inexplicable sense of peace.
It seemed the driver really wanted to earn that five hundred yuan. As soon as they hit the highway, he kept the car at the maximum speed limit.
Like everyone else in the world, he was always hustling for his next meal.
Qi Xia silently decided that even if they ended up arriving late, he would still give the driver the five hundred yuan.
A few times, the driver tried to strike up a conversation, but he gradually realized this young man wasn't much of a talker. So he just turned on the car radio, trying to ease the awkward atmosphere.
"You are now listening to 89.7 Traffic Radio."
A slightly husky voice slowly came through. This seemed to be a channel that taxi drivers loved.
"It's now 7:00 PM Beijing time. Let's check out the messages from netizens on our online platform."
After saying this, the host paused noticeably. For nearly ten seconds, he didn't say another word—an absolute broadcasting blunder.
"Haha!" The driver chuckled gleefully. "Young man, look at this crap. Are these hosts these days all buying their positions with money?"
Qi Xia frowned slightly. He felt something wasn't right.
Live broadcast hosts usually had very strong mental fortitude. Even if most of the messages on the online platform were useless, they would pick out key information and report it immediately. So why hadn't he spoken for over ten seconds?
"The messages on our online platform are a bit strange..." the host said in an odd tone. "The platform has received dozens of messages in a row, all saying that 'above' the Qingyin Expressway, near the Qingdao entrance, a strange crack has appeared. We will contact the traffic police as soon as possible to confirm whether this crack comes from a sign or some other structure. Please be careful and avoid the area if you're passing through."