Three Years Without Finishing a Race, Now I’m Rebuilding a Racing Empire

Bayanbulak, at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, 2,300 meters above sea level.

Here lies the most dangerous stage of China's rally championship: Harsala Gorge. Twenty years ago, a driver named Lu Zhenhai plunged off a cliff at Turn 17. The race officials' report blamed “brake failure.” In his route notes, he had left behind a single line: “Something is wrong with this turn. Be careful.”

No one believed him.

Twenty years later, his son Lu Ming drives an old Subaru pieced together from parts at a scrapyard. He has entered the race for three years running, and retired every time. Everyone in town says the Lu family is cursed when it comes to racing. Creditors chase him for money, rivals mock his heap of scrap, and race officials can't even remember his name.

This year is his last chance.

He finds a co-driver who hasn't been in a rally car for three years: Jiang Wan. Her fiance also died on that same turn, and she blames herself for the accident. Two people scarred by the same track return to Turn 17 at Harsala Gorge, carrying a handwritten route book sealed away for twenty years, forgotten tuning specifications, and an old car with less than half the horsepower of their rivals' vehicles.

They aren't trying to prove they can win.

They want to prove that turn should never take another driver's life.

Note: I do not use AI for any of my work. I scored 611 on the national college entrance exam, including 122 in Chinese, so I have no need for AI. This is entirely original work. I hope you'll support it.