Hate The Bright Moon Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The story has to start three months ago.

It was an ordinary day. He finished training, went to the Bar with his teammates for drinks, routinely chatted up a girl he met, and routinely took her home. However, it didn’t end routinely with them getting what they wanted and parting ways the next day.

It didn’t even wait until the next day. Qin Pingchuan, who had returned that night after attending a sponsor’s dinner, drove his motorcycle straight into his house while drunk in the middle of the night, dragged him out of bed, and beat him severely.

Only then did Chi Huang realize that the girl he had brought home the previous night was Qin Pingchuan’s fiancée.

He felt this couldn’t be blamed on him, as he didn’t know the girl at all, much less that she was someone’s fiancée. He hadn’t even insisted on sleeping with her; he was just drunk, and the girl was indeed beautiful and very proactive. But he wouldn’t do something as morally bankrupt as pushing the blame onto the girl, even though his own character wasn’t exactly stellar.

The trouble was, after Qin Pingchuan returned from detention at the Police Station, he left a single message for Jiang Chao: “If you want me to stay on the team, Chi Huang has to go.”

Jiang Chao had poached Qin Pingchuan from another team four years ago. At the time, Qin Pingchuan was still unknown. Jiang Chao was the one who spotted his potential, constantly persuaded him, and offered the best conditions their small team could afford back then, signing him to a five-year commercial contract.

Later, it proved Jiang Chao had good foresight. In the second year after signing Qin Pingchuan, he won two national championship titles. His impressive results attracted many sponsors, and their team finally transitioned from an obscure, amateur outfit to a legitimate operation.

Qin Pingchuan considered Jiang Chao his mentor. The team relied mainly on him to secure sponsorships, and he didn’t complain. If it hadn’t been for the incident involving Chi Huang, Qin Pingchuan would have been very willing to continue working under Jiang Chao.

After he threw that ultimatum at Jiang Chao, to everyone’s surprise, the person Jiang Chao chose to keep was Chi Huang. With the contract still valid, Jiang Chao proactively terminated the agreement with Qin Pingchuan, letting him leave. Along with him went the sponsors who favored Qin Pingchuan.

The team instantly plunged into a dual crisis of finances and talent. Chi Huang had practically become the team’s scapegoat.

Only he himself didn’t see it that way.

First, ignorance is bliss. Furthermore, whose fiancée the girl was had nothing to do with him; he had no obligation to protect someone else’s engagement.

Second, he hadn’t insisted that Jiang Chao keep him. He had even offered to leave the team himself; it was Jiang Chao who chose to terminate the contract with Qin Pingchuan.

Finally, he had done nothing wrong, yet here he was, plastered with makeup, enduring the direct glare of the lights, selling stockings in front of a camera for ten thousand yuan in sponsorship money all night long.

After it was over, his mind felt drained. He sat in the passenger seat, staring blankly. Jiang Chao got into the car and handed him a bottle of water: “You alright?”

“How could I be?” Chi Huang slowly turned his head, his eyelids drooping listlessly.

“Why not? Ten thousand yuan for five hours. Where else are you going to earn money this cost-effectively?”

Chi Huang was silent for a moment: “If you’re really short on cash, I’ll go back and sell my Ducati…”

Before he could finish, Jiang Chao slapped the back of his head: “What nonsense are you talking about? If you sell your bike, what will you race with?”

“I could just not race…”

Another slap landed before he could finish: “You must race. I’ve already registered you for the National Rally in August.” Chi Huang tried to argue, but Jiang Chao cut him off. “Not only must you race, you have to place. Whether we can secure sponsorships for the second half of the year depends entirely on your performance in August. Oh, and be on time for training tomorrow afternoon.”

Chi Huang’s brow twisted into a knot: “Old Jiang, are you serious?”

“Serious or not, this is how it is. The race is imminent; I can’t find a suitable rider on short notice.”

Chi Huang chuckled: “I just think it’s a bit risky to bet the team on me. Don’t blame me if everything goes south.”

Jiang Chao’s face darkened immediately: “I don’t give a damn how messy your private life is, but if you affect the team because of this kind of thing again, watch out, or I’ll castrate you.”

The training ground was a derelict road leading to an abandoned factory, about twenty kilometers long, starting from the highway exit. Due to years of neglect and constant abuse from reckless ‘ghost fire’ youths, it was long past being usable, full of potholes and badly damaged.

In Jiang Chao’s words, the August rally included a section of Gobi Desert, and they were struggling to find a suitable simulation track. This broken road was perfectly broken.

In truth, everyone knew the team was strapped for cash after Qin Pingchuan left. The good times were fleeting, and they were back to scraping by, just like in the beginning.

After two late spring rains, the mid-May sun began to turn scorching, brightly illuminating this wild area. Street racing was banned in the city, and renting a venue cost money, so this free, wild road in the suburbs became the preferred spot for small teams and amateur enthusiasts.

Jiang Chao used to be a regular here. Returning now, there weren’t many new faces, but plenty of old ones.

“Old friends” teased Jiang Chao when they saw him: “Why are you back, Old Jiang? We thought your Polaris Racing Team had taken off. Didn’t expect you to be back where you started after two years.”

“Back where we started? I’m here to see if there are any good new prospects, but it’s still just you old fogeys.” Jiang Chao waved them away. “Excuse me, make some room for our rider. We need to do some technical training.”

“You couldn’t even hold onto a good prospect like Qin Pingchuan, could you?” They were all in the same circle, and juicy gossip like this travels fast. “Did you hear? He just got married on May 1st. Chi Huang?”

The faces of the Polaris riders, lined up in a row, were all grim. Chi Huang, adjusting his riding suit, said casually, “I heard. So what?”

“So what? You’re a walking disaster, kid. If you walk the night road too often, you’re bound to run into a ghost. If Old Jiang wasn’t protecting you…”

Jiang Chao placed a helmet with a mounted action camera on Chi Huang’s head: “Stop the damn nonsense. Get ready. Watch my signal.”

As he raised and lowered his hand, the roar of engines instantly echoed across the sky. The road surface vibrated, yellow dust flew up, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of rubber tires grinding against gravel.

The riders shot out. Jiang Chao jumped into the pickup truck, had Da Lin drive, and leaned out the window to film them with a camera. The team couldn’t afford a professional photographer, so Jiang Chao had to handle everything himself outside of races.

Whether it was the riders’ first-person view or his third-person perspective, these videos were their real-time data. They would be edited that night and used for the review meeting the next day.

Jiang Chao betting the future of Polaris entirely on Chi Huang was not a desperate, foolish move.

The kid was only twenty-five, right at his physical peak. He had been with their team since he was a teenager, and despite his lackadaisical attitude, his technique was increasingly mature. He also had experience participating in various major competitions. The flip side of his indifference to everything was his excellent psychological resilience. Plus, he was handsome—tall, long-legged, with a striking face. If he could stand out, his future commercial value would be immeasurable.

In Jiang Chao’s eyes, Chi Huang already possessed all the qualities of a professional rider and the potential to contend for a championship. It just depended on what he wanted.

But after knowing him for so many years, Jiang Chao had never heard what he wanted, leading him to suspect the kid had no thoughts at all, and certainly no plans for the future. Jiang Chao tried to think and plan for him, but he wouldn’t listen, just drifting through life, like a toad that only jumps when poked.

Even when called to train, he was sluggish and distracted, often falling behind A-Chao and Jian Zai, the new recruits who had only recently joined the team.

Jiang Chao couldn’t help but pull out his megaphone and curse: “Chi Huang, are you taking a stroll in a mobility scooter? Overtake them, damn it!” Still unsatisfied, he continued yelling, “Jian Zai, stop looking in your rearview mirror! Don’t worry about whether he’ll pass you; look ahead.”

As they approached the first S-curve on the bumpy road, Jiang Chao clearly saw Chi Huang’s posture change through the camera lens. His entire demeanor shifted dramatically from before.

He lowered his body, shifted his center of gravity, and pressed his knee toward the throttle while others slowed down for the turn.

The motorcycle let out a taut hum. The body sliced into the first corner almost scraping the ground. To counteract the powerful centrifugal force, Chi Huang’s elbow and knee touched the asphalt, the tires scraping black marks against the gravel.

He smoothly drifted through the first corner, immediately followed by the second, with no time to adjust. But using the momentum from the previous turn, he straightened up and leaned in the opposite direction. The motorcycle was like a toy in his hands, instantly flipping from the extreme right side to the extreme left.

The entire process was incredibly dangerous yet unbelievably smooth. By the time he exited the S-curve, he had left his teammates hundreds of meters behind. He accelerated the rest of the way. By the time the others reached the factory finish line, he had already taken off his helmet and was leisurely chugging half a bottle of water.

Jiang Chao first scolded him for his laziness—which Chi Huang clearly let go in one ear and out the other—then told the other riders: “Look at how Chi Huang passes you all at the apex of the turn. You have this perfect technique right in front of you; hurry up and learn something.”

The twenty-something young men showed some youthful resentment, but Chi Huang’s technique was indeed the best among them, second only to Qin Pingchuan, and his cornering technique even surpassed Qin Pingchuan’s.

The entire afternoon was spent practicing repeatedly on this road. Jiang Chao mainly coached and corrected the other young riders—his newly scouted prospects. As for Chi Huang, he had coached him for too many years; there wasn’t much new advice to give. But bringing him here to sharpen his focus and prepare for the race was necessary. Still, when Chi Huang wasn’t looking, Jiang Chao told him not to push himself too hard during practice to avoid injuries that could be counterproductive.

Chi Huang agreed verbally, but his showmanship remained reckless.

He couldn’t help it. It was only in those brief moments that he could feel his heart beating, allowing him to experience what it meant to be alive.

The fundamental reason he rode motorcycles wasn’t to go pro, wasn’t to win championships, and wasn’t even because he liked it. It was simply because he had inadvertently experienced a moment of being filled with the force of life, and he had been unable to extricate himself ever since. Because other than that, his life was simply too boring.

Night fell, and the air was tinged orange-gray by the twilight. Jiang Chao said one last run, and then they would pack up and head back.

The strong young men, exhausted from the practice, finally showed some energy upon hearing this, eager to run the final lap.

The twenty-plus kilometers took only a few minutes. The engines roared in unison and quickly entered the factory area. Those who arrived first started celebrating by circling the empty space in front of the factory.

Chi Huang, having already slacked off, had climbed into Jiang Chao’s pickup truck and arrived at the finish line last along with the vehicle.

As everyone packed up their gear and discussed where to eat and drink later, a string of fireworks suddenly shot up from the roof of the abandoned factory building. Several loud bangs attracted everyone’s attention.

After the brief fireworks display, they could clearly see a person standing on the dilapidated rooftop.

Everyone was confused. The person suddenly raised a megaphone.

The amplified voice echoed throughout the entire factory area, sounding heartbreakingly distorted: “Chi Huang, you scumbag! Remember this: if I jump from here today, it is all because of you!”