Jade-786 was ruthless and sparing with words. She deployed her chassis directly.
Deep down, she made a silent vow:
Once she became Derek Su's Mecha Girl, she would make Stella truly experience what it meant to be cast aside and left in the cold.
On the other side, Stella also deployed her chassis, revealing a sleek, silver-bright streamlined body.
Judging by appearance alone, Jade-786 had already lost a round.
As the sound of Xavier Young's starting pistol rang out, Jade-786 shot forward with a thunderous roar.
She took the first corner beautifully, perfectly using the track width and the curve's length. On the gravel-covered dock surface, she even mixed in a hint of drifting. The difficulty of this turn wasn't very high, so it was hard to tell how solid her fundamentals really were. The second corner, however, was a hairpin. As her tires screeched, Jade-786 actually committed to a full drift.
Watching Jade-786's drifting line, Derek Su nodded quietly.
Her entry and exit point calculations were a mess, but since her speed was relatively low, she still managed to drift through safely.
Jade-786 had clearly put in serious effort for today's race.
As she charged through the curves, Jade-786 felt a surge of exhilaration.
"This is it!"
Perhaps stimulated by Stella's presence, her handling felt exceptionally sharp today. Every corner was better than usual.
If she maintained this pace to the end, what could Stella possibly use to compete with her?
For today's race, she had even gone to the Driving School in Jiangcheng City to pull Stella's cornering footage. Back then, Stella had taken a full two minutes to clear the consecutive bends. Before coming to Tianyuan City to find Derek Su and Stella, Jade-786 was already able to complete the driving school's consecutive C-shaped corner test in under a minute.
Stella was bound to lose today.
Seeing how fierce Jade-786 was, everyone couldn't help but cast worried looks toward the other participant—Stella.
At this moment, Stella had already started her chassis. Under her control, the engine trembled lightly. As the countdown reached ten seconds, the front window rolled down and several pieces of pineapple peel were tossed out.
"Oh~ looks like Stella isn't nervous at all~" Xavier Young said with a smile.
"Yeah, she's still eating pineapple," Lingwind said with an admiring expression. If she were in Stella's position right now, the pressure would be overwhelming.
Derek Su: "..."
Eating more pineapple was a good thing. The king of fruits—great for keeping the mind sharp.
But judging by how Stella was flooring the accelerator, was she planning a launch control start?
Derek Su narrowed his eyes. The first corner was less than fifty meters from the starting line. With Stella's Acceleration stat, a launch control start would give her a terrifying initial speed. Could she really handle it?
"Bang—"
The signal gun fired, and the roar of engines exploded, gripping everyone's hearts.
With a piece of pineapple clenched between her teeth, Stella's gaze was calm as she smoothly cleared the first corner.
The first corner was the easiest—wide road, gentle curvature. No braking was needed; as long as the entry point was calculated properly, it was a clean pass.
The second corner immediately ramped up the difficulty. Stella quietly felt the suspension support and the downforce transmitted through the rear wing.
"Jade-786, cornering isn't safer just because you're slower..." she murmured, glancing at the sluggish Jade-786 in the distance.
This corner had a very tight entry angle. In the past, when Derek Su faced corners like this, he would brake hard before entering to rapidly reduce speed. That required precise calculation of the braking point—brake too early and exit speed would drop sharply; brake too late and the chassis would lose control.
"If it were Master, the braking point would be… here!"
As she closed in on the corner, Stella's eyes lit up. Trusting her instincts, she chose her braking point.
Her speed wasn't slow. The airflow over the rear wing generated strong downforce, pressing all four tires firmly against the road. The rear swung out in a graceful arc. As she exited the corner, the front end showed only a slight angle error. With a quick adjustment, the entire chassis corrected itself instantly, ready for the next turn.
"Stella is amazing!" Lingwind's eyes sparkled as she watched the silver Mecha Girl slide freely through the curve.
As Derek Su's half-day apprentice, Lingwind knew exactly how much skill it took to pull that off.
She had thought Stella simply didn't like learning these techniques. It turned out Stella wasn't unwilling to learn—she already knew them.
Thinking about it, as Derek Su's primary Mecha Girl, how could she not have learned some of his techniques?
"Brother Derek Su, looks like your Mecha Girl trains really hard in private," Xavier Young said with admiration. A Mecha Girl who was talented, diligent, and well-mannered was the most likable type. If only Stella didn't keep feeding pineapple to Lumina—lately, every time he sat inside Lumina's deployed chassis, he could smell a faint hint of pineapple.
But Derek Su himself was completely dumbfounded.
What happened to the dumb Mecha Girl?
He swore he had never given Stella special instruction like he did with Lingwind.
It wasn't favoritism. He just figured that since Stella was always the primary, and he was the one driving her anyway, there was no need for her to train solo like Lingwind.
Then he recalled how Stella always called herself a genius Mecha Girl...
Could she actually be one?!
...
While Jade-786 was still basking in her self-satisfaction, the roar of an engine suddenly began closing in from behind.
At first, Jade-786 didn't pay much attention. This track had many hairpin sections. Sometimes, even if Stella appeared close in straight-line distance, she could already be far behind on the actual track layout. But soon, something felt wrong. If Stella were on a parallel section of track, Jade-786 should have been able to see her. Yet as the engine noise grew louder, she still hadn't seen Stella for quite some time.
On impulse, Jade-786 glanced at her rearview mirror.
A chill instantly washed from her head to her feet.
At some point, Stella had already latched onto her tail—and was still closing in!
That meant Stella's cornering speed was far faster than hers.
"How is that possible?" Jade-786 clenched her teeth. Was this really the same XC-99 that crashed from start to finish in its debut race?
She watched as Stella flawlessly cleared a hairpin turn. Although her speed wasn't as fast as when Derek Su was driving, it was still faster than Jade-786.
In the blink of an eye, Stella was already pulling up alongside her.
"Jade-786, I admit you're hardworking, strong, and rich!"
Stella stared straight ahead at the road, not even glancing at Jade-786, yet her voice reached Jade-786's ears clearly.
"But none of that matters. Today, I'll tell you this—Master is a one-of-a-kind treasure!"
Ahead lay a U-shaped turn. Stella flicked the control lever, and the chassis spun a full 180 degrees, facing Jade-786 head-on from a distance.
Screech!
The tires ground violently against the road, sparks flying. Amid the thick black smoke, Jade-786 saw flames blazing in Stella's eyes.
She saw Stella lift her head proudly and heard her enunciate every word:
"You abandoned him once. From now on, you'll regret it for the rest of your life!"
The chassis sliced sideways into the middle of the U-turn. Stella gradually rotated the body back in rhythm with the tires regaining grip, straightening perfectly at the moment she exited the corner.
The J-turn.
Derek Su had only performed it once, yet Stella had already replicated it.
Even though the corner she faced wasn't as difficult as the one Derek Su had tackled before.
Even though her speed wasn't as fast as when Derek Su was driving.
It didn't stop her from radiating the brilliance of a true genius.
...
"Holy shit!"
In the stands, Derek Su froze the instant he saw the J-turn.
Everyone around him wore expressions of envy and admiration.
"No wonder he's Derek Su—he can even teach something this high-level!"
"Exactly! Stella looks like she'd be hard to teach. Su must be incredibly patient~"
Inside Derek Su's head, ten thousand furious thoughts galloped past like wild horses.
He really hadn't taught Stella this move.
He'd only demonstrated it once!
This technique even had a particularly flashy nickname—"Death Kiss."
Its danger level was extremely high. One small mistake and the car could lose control, or even crash directly into another vehicle.
Without question, pulling this move out was enough to shatter Jade-786's heart into pieces.
But Derek Su had underestimated just how determined Jade-786 was to become his Mecha Girl.
Trailing behind Stella, Jade-786's rear wing suddenly lifted. Four futuristic exhaust ports popped out from the rear hood—two facing backward, two angled to the sides.
As a black-market boss, Xavier Young knew exactly what this was.
He frowned, gripping the railing tightly as he muttered,
"This is… an illegal modification?!"
...
(40 Chapters Ahead)
p@treon com / GhostParser