Supersonic: Mechanical Resonance

From 2015 to 2025, the auto industry raced from internal combustion engines toward new energy vehicles, but on the track, internal combustion still ruled. Now that intelligent driver assistance has entered the picture, what happens when you bring it to the track?

The day he tucked his mathematics degree into his pocket, Liang Bo returned to Guangzhou. His father had left him an IOU for 370,000 yuan.

He didn’t gamble. He calculated the odds. He didn’t drive fast. He tuned cars. Then Old Yang plunked a worn baseball cap he’d worn for over twenty years onto Liang Bo’s head. "If you want to make money fast, there’s a way."

An underground tuning shop. Huafeng Mountain. Cars with no guardrails, where the bet was who would lift off the accelerator first. In the turns of Macau’s Guia Circuit, he heard the sound of that car for the first time.

He won. The money came, and so did the debts of gratitude. The higher the mountain, the narrower the road.

Then the lights came on: sirens, handcuffs, a sentence. Everyone said, "That kid is finished."

Years later, he returned to the track with something no one had ever seen: a system that could detect every moment of delay, but couldn’t predict the half-second when a person hesitated. The old hands said he’d meddled in things he shouldn’t have, while capital chased him to sign an agreement he couldn’t understand.

A mechanic who only knew how to calculate had worked his way onto the racing circuit. Now, facing a crowd of people willing to wager their lives, he had to win it all. What would he do?