HDRDTH -Chapter 57 Life-or-Death Speed!

Backstage storage room.

“Damn it to hell!”

Wang Dafu kicked the thick wooden doorframe so hard that flakes of wall plaster rained down.

In the center of the room sat a massive leather war drum borrowed from the Xi’an Qin Opera Troupe. Three vicious cuts had been slashed into its surface, like a gaping mouth. The edges of the wounds still showed traces of corrosive liquid.

Nearby, a suona mouthpiece had been completely sealed shut with industrial-strength adhesive. A logistics teacher kept stabbing at it with a screwdriver, only to produce harsh, scraping “krrk krrk” sounds.

The airflow—completely destroyed.

Su Xi stood there in a daze, her fingernails digging deep into her palm until blood seeped out. She bit her lip hard. Her eyes instantly turned red, tears spinning wildly inside them but refusing to fall. Yet the light in those clear eyes had completely shattered.

“It’s over…” Principal Shen Zhinian’s face was ashen. Cold sweat dripped down in large beads. “The host has already started announcing the program! Officials from the provincial department are sitting in the front row watching! If we go dark here—”

Before he could finish, the sound of leather shoes echoed down the corridor.

Liu Jianguo walked leisurely to the doorway with his hands behind his back. He glanced inside, then took out a white handkerchief and covered his nose in disgust.

“Oh my, how did it get so badly damaged?” Liu Jianguo said exaggeratedly, his eyes full of satisfaction. “Listen to the noise outside—the audience is getting impatient, aren’t they? This kind of junk fit for rural funerals and weddings was never meant for a grand stage. Looks like even heaven doesn’t want it to go on stage.”

He slowly adjusted his bow tie.

“Mr. Yu, shall I graciously let my team step in and save the show? Of course, there’s a condition—Su Xi must sing the song I prepared. And she must publicly admit on stage that your so-called ‘grassroots mentor’ misled her.”

A killing blow to the heart.

Su Xi suddenly lifted her head. The tears finally broke free.

Make her publicly deny everything Uncle Yu had done for her over the past few days? She would rather die on this stage today!

A dead end.

Even if they could get new instruments now, there wasn’t nearly enough time.

Everyone’s gaze turned toward the silent man standing in the corner.

Yu Xian hadn’t spoken the entire time. He walked to the broken drum, crouched down, and ran his fingers over the clean knife cuts. Then he tapped the sealed copper pipes twice with his knuckles.

Finally, he stood up and ripped off the inconvenient mask on his face.

“Old Shen.”

Yu Xian’s voice carried no warmth at all.

“I’m here!” Shen Zhinian straightened instinctively.

“Right now. Immediately. Take Su Xi and get to the stage!” Yu Xian pointed at the ground with the toe of his flip-flop. “Grab the microphone and stall for at least five minutes! Tell stories, do stand-up—whatever it takes. Just don’t let the stage go silent for five minutes!”

Shen Zhinian looked into Yu Xian’s terrifyingly calm eyes and, for no reason at all, felt a surge of confidence. He gritted his teeth, grabbed the still-shaking Su Xi, and rushed out without looking back.

Yu Xian turned his head. His gaze swept over the logistics teacher and Wang Dafu like a blade.

“Logistics! Twenty thick steel wires used for tying rebar. The thickest ones!”

“Dafu! Across the supermarket! Buy all the rubber sealing rings for pressure cookers, and all matching metal pressure valves! Bring them all back!”

Liu Jianguo at the doorway let out a cold laugh.

Pressure cooker seals? Metal valves? Rebar steel wire? Utter nonsense!

Yu Xian ignored him. He rolled up his hoodie sleeves and calmly grabbed a heavy-duty pair of pliers from the toolbox.

“Run. I want everything here within five minutes.”

He looked down at the ruined instruments.

“Instruments break—that’s their fate. But in my hands, even a pile of scrap metal today will roar like thunder and sing like a dragon.”

……

Front stage, under the spotlight.

Shen Zhinian gripped the microphone, his palms soaked in sweat.

“Everyone… before the performance of ‘Map of Rivers and Mountains,’ we’d like to share the story behind this piece…”

Boos immediately erupted from the audience.

Liu Jianguo stood in the shadows at the side of the stage with his arms crossed, a cold smile on his face. Completely out of tricks now.

Just as the boos grew louder—

Su Xi raised the microphone. Her voice trembled with tears, yet was unexpectedly loud.

“The person who wrote this song… is my Uncle Yu.”

“He’s a very strange, very lazy man. Always wearing a gray hoodie, and forever stepping around in a pair of ten-yuan plastic flip-flops!”

The front row officials exchanged glances. He sounded like a drifter.

Su Xi wiped her face and continued shouting:

“He doesn’t even read sheet music. He just runs around all day with a broken fishing rod! Other people catch carp or grass carp—but with that broken rod of his, he can pull a military submarine out of the sea! He can even reel up underwater mines from rivers!”

The moment she finished—

BANG!

A dull thud!

Lin Yaodong slammed his golden nanmu walking stick into the ground and stood up straight, his thin body rigid with anger.

“Nonsense beyond belief!”

He grabbed the microphone. His voice echoed through the entire venue:

“This is a provincial-level key school’s arts stage, not a street storytelling stall! Using absurd lies like ‘fishing submarines’ and ‘pulling up mines’ to amuse the crowd is an insult—to music, and to art itself!”

Zhang Jieke seized the moment, standing up with a flick of his fringe and a mocking grin.

“Little girl, even lies need a draft, right? A broken fishing rod solving major cases? What is this, a sci-fi movie? If you have no instruments just say so—don’t waste everyone’s time with a script that insults intelligence.”

The two of them worked in tandem, pushing Su Xi to the edge of the fire.

Her fingers turned pale as she gripped the microphone, her eyes burning red.

But before the school leadership could intervene—

The burly men in the back rows, holding folding stools, suddenly exploded in outrage.

“Shut your damn mouth!”

A bald, muscular man stomped on the back of a seat, snapping a carbon-fiber fishing rod in half in his hands. He pointed at Zhang Jieke and cursed loudly:

“You pop-singer wannabe know jack shit! Master Yu’s what we call scientific probability resonance! The entire Jiangcheng fishing community witnessed that metaphysical miracle! Who the hell are you, some greasy-haired pretty boy, to judge it?”

Zhang Jieke’s expression darkened as he was about to retort—when suddenly, several men wearing thick glasses stood up from the front row.

One middle-aged man held a vernier caliper, speaking coldly like he was delivering an academic report:

“I am the R&D director of a top domestic lure equipment laboratory. The stress curve and weaving process of Mr. Yu’s titanium alloy fishing rod are a cross-era miracle in physics! The dynamic force data of him pulling against a submarine underwater—we still cannot simulate it to this day. And you, a mere sound-editing performer, what right do you have to question the perfect fusion of materials science and biomechanics?”

The entire hall erupted in shock.

Zhang Jieke was completely stunned by the flood of technical jargon.

Lin Yaodong trembled with rage. “Absurd! A bunch of lunatics! Security! Remove them immediately!”

“I want to see who dares!”

A deep, authoritative voice rang out from the stands.

Several cold-faced men strode into the aisle. The leader slammed a credential onto a seat.

“Provincial Criminal Investigation Team! Mr. Yu Xian assisted us in solving a thirty-year cold case a week ago. He is officially certified as an ‘Honorary Citizen of Jiangcheng’! If you continue to defame a person who has made major contributions without any evidence, we have the authority to detain you for investigation immediately!”

BOOM!

The officials from the Provincial Education Department in the front row shot up in shock.

Fishing enthusiasts, tech experts, criminal investigators… all these different groups suddenly stood united. An overwhelming pressure crushed down, pinning Lin Yaodong and Zhang Jieke in their seats.

Zhang Jieke dropped his microphone in fear. Lin Yaodong slumped back into his chair, pale as death.

At the same moment, just behind the wall backstage—

BANG!

Wang Dafu burst through the door, carrying a massive bundle of muddy steel wires, rubber rings hanging around his neck, along with several copper mechanical parts.

“Dad! I got everything! The front’s barely holding!”

Yu Xian grabbed the steel wire. With one foot, he stepped onto the broken drum edge, the wooden base groaning under the force. He rolled his sleeves up past his elbows.

Under the dim light, his forearm muscles were exposed—coiled, dense, and brutal. They were forged from life-and-death battles in deep waters, wrestling hundred-jin giant carp and ocean predators.

“Damn it… forcing me to do manual labor.”

He cursed under his breath and clamped the heavy-duty pliers onto the 8mm steel wire.

His legs sank into a horse stance. His spine arched like a drawn bow. All his strength converged into his right arm.

ZZZT—!

Sparks exploded.

A steel wire that normally required machinery to bend was forcibly twisted into a sharp angle under his raw fishing-strength grip.

Without hesitation, he used the bent wire like a giant needle and stabbed into the torn drum skin.

PCHHT!

The thick leather was pierced.

Once. Twice. Three times.

Each pull made the veins on his arms bulge violently. Sweat dripped from his forehead onto the drum surface.

He was stitching the broken drum with brute physical force—like repairing a torn fishing net after a monster strike.

“Not tight enough!”

He grabbed several pressure cooker sealing rings and wedged them into the gaps. The steel wire tightened violently, crushing the rubber rings flat. They sealed every opening perfectly, using elastic tension to push the collapsed drum skin back outward.

The once ruined drum was now covered in jagged steel stitches and black rubber patches—like a grotesque yet indestructible scar, radiating raw industrial violence.

Without stopping, Yu Xian turned and grabbed the suona whose mouthpiece had been completely sealed with glue.

His eyes sharpened. With a swing of the heavy pliers—

CLANG!

He smashed off the blocked brass mouthpiece.

From the pile of pressure cooker parts, he pulled out a heavy copper pressure valve. Its hollow center made it perfect as a replacement mouthpiece.

“Dafu! Lighter!”

He took the windproof lighter, heated the suona’s broken edge until it softened, then aligned the copper valve.

BANG! BANG!

Two brutal hammer-like strikes with the flat side of the pliers drove it into the metal pipe.

Seamless fit.

A traditional ancient instrument had been forcibly fitted with a modern pressure cooker valve—absurd, bizarre, yet carrying an indescribable ferocity.

Front stage, Su Xi looked at the people defending Uncle Yu and felt her chaotic heart finally settle.

Five minutes. Not a second off.

Liu Jianguo stood in the shadows, arms crossed, waiting for her to collapse on stage.

Just then—

Behind the heavy stage curtain—

BOOM——!!!

A dull, violent explosion of sound erupted without warning, carrying the primitive roar of ancient wilderness.

Then—

A hoarse, piercing horn-like sound tore through the night sky, erupting from the pressure valve instrument.

It wasn’t amplified.

The entire wooden floor of the hall trembled violently. Dust fell from the ceiling onto the front-row officials’ heads.

Thousands of voices in the hall—

Stopped instantly.

Silence.

Dead silence.