Good morning, Xia Qianshen.

The room was very dark, the curtains providing excellent light-blocking, allowing only a thin sliver of light to seep through the gap between the curtains and the floor, indicating that it was daytime outside.

Xia Qianshen was struggling to crawl from the middle of the bed to the edge, a two-and-a-half-meter distance that, for someone with a hangover, could be described as arduous.

Finally, a pale, slender arm emerged from the down comforter, Xia Qianshen’s hands, pale from years of wearing racing gloves and lack of sun exposure, fumbled on the bedside table, trying to find his phone.

This is a tissue box, this is an alarm clock, this is a watch…

Suddenly, in the darkness, Xia Qianshen’s pupils contracted as he realized his little finger had accidentally hooked the watch strap.

“Damn.” His voice was hoarse from the alcohol. This watch was a Blancpain Air Command, which he had just bought not long ago.

However, there was no sound of the watch hitting the floor in a heart-breaking crash. Instead, it landed steadily in a palm.

Then, the innocent Blancpain was carefully placed back on the bedside table, and the person helped Xia Qianshen up. His arm was strong and steady, lifting Xia Qianshen as if adjusting a chair back.

He reached over, picked up one of the cushions from the messy bed, and placed it behind Xia Qianshen’s back.

Xia Qianshen had been drinking until the early hours of the morning, his brain still not fully awake, his throat feeling like it was on fire.

Under normal circumstances, he should have grabbed the alarm clock and hit this person on the head, then retrieved the baseball bat from under the bed to beat this intruder until they couldn’t even remember their own gender.

After helping Xia Qianshen sit up, the person walked around the bed to the window.

Swish—

The sudden sunlight felt like a divine judgment, making Xia Qianshen immediately raise his hand to shield his eyes and turn his head away. He felt even more like cursing.

The person then returned, bringing a cup of warm water, which he handed to Xia Qianshen.

Cursing would have to wait; Xia Qianshen grabbed the cup and gulped down the water.

The person stood up, standing in the sunlight. He had a very defined bone structure and a clear, sharp mouth, wearing a polite smile as he said, “Good morning, Xia Qianshen.”

“Good morning, who the hell are you?”

This person was wearing a black sweater that didn’t seem too thick. His shoulders were straight, his waist narrow, and his legs long, the jeans neither too tight nor too loose, fitting just right.

The floor heating in Xia Qianshen’s home was a comfortable 26 degrees, so this outfit was perfect.

“I’m Zhong Suo,” he introduced himself, “your new navigator.”

Xia Qianshen licked his lips, not responding, and drank the rest of the water. Zhong Suo then took the glass from his hand.

“The manager couldn’t reach you, so he gave me the code to the door lock,” Zhong Suo explained.

“I don’t need a navigator, please leave my home,” Xia Qianshen said, his eyes sharp and aggressive.

Zhong Suo anticipated it wouldn’t be easy, “I’ll make breakfast, we’ll leave in thirty minutes, and then we’ll do the route reconnaissance.”

Route reconnaissance is a crucial preparation for rally racing. The driver and navigator slowly drive the route to allow the navigator to make notes about the track.

This is essential because rally tracks are natural roads—like the Kumtag Desert, Dahuang Mountain, and the Maitas Baili Wind Area.

These tracks can be thousands of kilometers long with countless turns, and no one can memorize them all. The navigator must guide the driver flawlessly, which requires thorough reconnaissance.

Xia Qianshen still couldn’t find his phone.

It wasn’t on the bedside table or the bed. He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, where he saw his phone… submerged in a bathtub full of water.

He remembered. After stumbling home in the early hours, he had filled the bathtub. Then, sitting beside it, he used his phone to search: “Is it safe to take a bath when drunk?”

The search results said: “It’s best not to.”

Since he couldn’t bathe, Xia Qianshen sighed heavily and threw his phone into the water.

Sigh.

Xia Qianshen lived alone, and his home had an open-plan design, with the “bedroom” separated from the living and dining areas by a screen.

When he came out of the bathroom, he heard the sound of clinking from the semi-open kitchen, where Zhong Suo was making breakfast. He didn’t give Zhong Suo a good look, so he didn’t plan to borrow his phone. He figured he’d just go to the team headquarters later.

Zhong Suo made breakfast—fried eggs, bacon, crustless toast, and a glass of milk with ice cubes.

Drinking cold milk in the morning, does he have an iron stomach? Zhong Suo had asked the team manager yesterday.

The manager replied, “Yes, his head is also very tough. You’ll find out soon enough.”

Xia Qianshen took a quick shower, taking advantage of the warm heating and not fully drying his hair. He walked over, said thanks, and picked up the milk, drinking about half of it in three gulps.

Zhong Suo looked at him, wanting to say something but holding back.

Xia Qianshen poked the fried egg and cut it in half. Just as he was about to put half of it in his mouth, he suddenly paused, as if remembering something, and looked up, “Zhong Suo?”

Zhong Suo adopted a listening expression.

Clearly, this young man, who had been affected by alcohol, had finally realized what the name “Zhong Suo” represented.

He put the half egg back on the plate and laid down his chopsticks, taking a moment to gather his thoughts.

“Zhong Suo, the champion navigator of the Tour of Tibet Rally.” Xia Qianshen looked at the man across the table, “Why are you here?”

Zhong Suo answered without hesitation, “The team manager registered me with you for this year’s Tour of Tibet Rally yesterday afternoon. We are now officially registered with the Auto Federation.”

He then took out his phone, tapped a few times, and showed it to Xia Qianshen.

Xia Qianshen was very familiar with this interface. It was the website of the Auto Federation and the General Administration of Sport, where all professional teams were recorded, and where entries for various competitions were made.

Next to the “navigator” field for the driver “Xia Qianshen” of the Genius’s Pride team, it clearly read “Zhong Suo.”

“Damn!” Xia Qianshen stood up abruptly, snatched the phone, checked the URL, refreshed the page, returned to the homepage, and re-typed: “Genius’s Pride team.”

After a brief loading time, the same information appeared again.

“Why? I haven’t even verified it, this is an invalid registration!” Xia Qianshen said angrily.

Zhong Suo remained calm, showing no sign of displeasure at Xia Qianshen’s dissatisfaction and refusal. He explained, “The manager obtained authorization from the team sponsors to complete the registration on your behalf.”

Xia Qianshen sat back down, put down his chopsticks, and quickly sorted out his thoughts.

“I understand. The team believes that if I want to participate in the Tour of Tibet Rally, I need a champion navigator to guide me.” Xia Qianshen suddenly smiled, “Looking down on me? Do they think I need a Tour of Tibet champion to lean on? Did they fire Lao Peng?”

Zhong Suo shook his head, “Your navigator, Lao Peng, resigned voluntarily. His family doesn’t want him to continue in this dangerous job.”

Xia Qianshen’s expression clearly changed, and he didn’t say anything more. After a moment of silence, he picked up his chopsticks and continued eating breakfast.

Zhong Suo could see the anger in his chewing, his jaw muscles tensing and relaxing, even the veins on his temples standing out.

Just as the manager had said, Xia Qianshen was not easy to deal with.

Soon, Xia Qianshen finished breakfast, grabbed a jacket, and was about to leave. Zhong Suo followed him, and in the elevator, Xia Qianshen habitually pressed the button for the basement parking.

“It hasn’t been twelve hours since you drank, let me drive,” Zhong Suo said.

“I get carsick,” Xia Qianshen didn’t hand over the car keys but pressed the button for the ground floor, “I’ll take the subway.”

Zhong Suo looked at his watch, “Can you ride a motorcycle?”

“What kind of bike?” Xia Qianshen also checked the time.

It was almost ten o’clock. The mechanics at the team garage started work at 9:30, and while drivers didn’t have a fixed start time, Xia Qianshen rarely arrived after 9:30.

“A dirt bike,” Zhong Suo said.

The elevator arrived at the ground floor, the door opened, and neither of them moved. They then descended to the basement.

Zhong Suo only had one helmet, so Xia Qianshen went to his car to get a spare helmet.

The car was a Porsche Taycan.

Zhong Suo glanced at it, didn’t say anything, and then looked again, confirming it was a Taycan.

“This car isn’t mine!” Xia Qianshen quickly distanced himself from the Porsche, “This car is my mom’s. The Koenigsegg on your left is mine. Even if I break my legs and have to use a wheelchair, it can’t be electric; it has to be fuel-powered, not even a hybrid.”

Zhong Suo looked over, a black and gold Koenigsegg Agera, 5.0-liter V8 engine, twin-turbocharged, a thousand horsepower, a land predator.

“It suits you well,” Zhong Suo said.

This was a fair assessment, after all, this was Xia Qianshen, the man who had taken a 300 mph turn at the Nürburgring, the king of the northern route of the Sichuan-Tibet Rally at 5,000 meters altitude, a route so treacherous it was said only birds could pass.

His audacity and flamboyance were such that among all the supercars in the world, the Koenigsegg was perhaps the only one that matched him.

“Oh, thank you,” Xia Qianshen hadn’t expected such a comment.

It was far more pleasant to hear than the usual “Wow, what a cool car, you must be rich” type of flattery, and he almost wanted to say, “Young man, you have good taste.”

But the immediate task was to go to the team headquarters and have Zhong Suo removed. He didn’t want a champion navigator for the Tour of Tibet Rally.

The engine roar of the dirt bike was a white noise that calmed Xia Qianshen. He patted Zhong Suo on the shoulder, “Don’t go to the garage, go to the headquarters.”

Zhong Suo sighed inside his helmet.

Twenty minutes later, the motorcycle stopped outside the GP headquarters.

Xia Qianshen, holding his helmet, brushed his face past the security gate, and Zhong Suo followed him into the building. When they reached the elevator, Xia Qianshen finally turned to look at him.

They were about the same height, but Xia Qianshen realized he was slightly shorter by about three or four centimeters.

He was even more annoyed.

Ding—the elevator door opened.

The GP headquarters office corridor had tall green plants. Xia Qianshen walked straight to a closed office door without looking around.

Knock.

Zhong Suo was playing with a leaf.

Knock again.

Zhong Suo was testing how far the window could open.

Finally, the door opened.

The person who opened it was familiar to Zhong Suo, the deputy general manager of GP, surnamed Zhou.

Seeing Xia Qianshen, Zhou smiled in mock surprise, “Oh, Qianshen, what brings you here in person? Couldn’t you just call?”

“My phone is waterlogged,” Xia Qianshen said, then coldly gestured toward Zhong Suo, “I don’t want him. The registration is invalid. Remove him from my information and find someone else.”

Zhou’s expression suggested he was about to say something like, “It’s the holidays, the kids are young, come in and have some food first—” a series of words to smooth things over.

Sure enough, “Ah, Qianshen, you don’t know, after you finished the Sichuan-Tibet rally, the company’s stock price soared! We can’t afford any mistakes at the Tour of Tibet Rally. You are our…”

“I know he’s a Tour of Tibet champion, very impressive, but I, Xia Qianshen, don’t need to lean on anyone for the Tour of Tibet Rally. I can handle the Kunlun Sky Road just like I handled the northern route of the Sichuan-Tibet Rally.”

“Mr. Zhou, unless Zhong Suo is removed from my information, I’ll go drive a black cab, work as a ride-hail driver, or be a chauffeur. I won’t race in a single competition.”

Leaving these words, Xia Qianshen didn’t even enter Zhou’s office, grabbed his helmet, and turned to leave, entering the elevator and closing the door behind him.