Chapter 118: Failing to Recognize Mount Tai

It had not been easy, but with Mo Shu’s prompting, the private car owner finally gave the full name of the beautiful Miss Lin.

Though the prompting had been painfully obvious, and both of them could tell that the driver knew far less about her than Mo Shu did, at least the result made things look a little better on the surface. It was certainly more harmonious than having the three of them travel in awkward silence while Miss Lin wore an icy expression the entire way.

Since the driver had managed to answer her name, he had plainly provided her with the perfect step down from an embarrassing situation. Miss Lin immediately seized the opportunity to smooth things over.

“Sir, please don’t take it to heart. We were only playing a little celebrity-recognition game just now. Nothing serious. We’d really appreciate it if you could take us to the Nanshan Museum.”

After Mo Shu had slapped her in the face twice for no reason in a single day, Miss Lin had no choice but to become a little wiser. The driver had only been trying to help. For her to refuse even to thank him, then keep pressing him and making things difficult, was not in keeping with her usual character. Besides, she was a young woman, and sometimes a girl’s mind could be just a tiny bit narrow.

“Of course. I’ll do my best not to let our great Mo feel the car’s speed is too slow to be enjoyable,” the private driver replied cleverly, nodding as he went along with her words.

The car had just begun moving when someone knocked on the window from outside. It turned out that Xiao Lian, the show’s follow PD, and one of the program’s cameramen wanted to get in as well.

“Sir, would you mind letting them in? They’re members of our production crew,” Mo Shu said hastily, patting the driver on the shoulder.

Although it was a five-seater, it was also only a compact sedan. Its limited interior space was instantly crammed full with five people.

The cameraman knelt backward on the front passenger seat, his lens fixed relentlessly on the two members of the Shadow Gods team.

Xiao Lian, Mo Shu, and Miss Lin squeezed into the back seat from left to right. The two women pressed against Mo Shu on either side, sandwiching him between them like the filling in a cookie.

Mo Shu could neither lean left nor right, and even his hands had nowhere to go. In the end, he could only press his palms together and tuck them between his thighs, as though he had suffered some enormous injustice.

After they had driven for a while, the driver noticed Mo Shu’s slightly awkward expression in the rearview mirror and could not resist teasing him.

“I’m telling you, Great Mo, if it were me, I wouldn’t be so reserved. This is an incredibly happy situation.”

“Heh. Why don’t we switch places?” Mo Shu gave a mocking snort.

Before the driver could answer, Miss Lin fired back, “Absolutely not! No way! You have no idea what Mo does behind the wheel on public roads. He drives at a tortoise’s pace!”

She had been eager to find someone to whom she could complain about everything she had endured alongside Mo Shu during the self-driving segment.

“Really? Great Mo drives like a tortoise? Miss Lin, you certainly know how to joke.” As a local Nanshan racing enthusiast, the driver had watched Mo Shu compete at the Nanshan International Circuit more than once. His speed there could practically be described as divine.

“You still don’t believe me? If you don’t, have Mo tell you himself.” Miss Lin jabbed Mo Shu with her shoulder, signaling him to tell the truth.

“Er... it’s true.” The better Mo Shu came to understand Miss Lin, the less he dared contradict her. “Although I’m fairly fast on the track, in the city I’m a traffic participant who strictly obeys the rules. I’ve always advocated that everyone drive lawfully.”

“Hahaha! The traffic police ought to recruit you as their public-relations ambassador, Great Mo,” the private driver said, bursting into laughter.

“Well? Do you believe me now, sir?” Miss Lin asked.

“I believe you, I believe you. But let me tell you, Miss Lin, our Great Mo isn’t merely fast on the track. He’s astonishingly fast!” The driver was clearly a genuine admirer of Mo Shu.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” Miss Lin asked curiously. She had been wanting to find someone who could give her more information about Mo Shu.

Was Mo Shu famous or not? She, Miss Lin, was apparently the very first person who knew nothing about him.

If he was not famous, then the reactions of Chief Director Xiao Yao and this driver were impossible to explain. Everything about them suggested that Mo Shu was someone extraordinary.

And people were always calling him “Great Mo.”

Great? Could an ordinary person earn such a title? Surely it was reserved for a master who had achieved remarkable success in some particular field.

The problem was that if Mo Shu really was such an accomplished figure, why had King Zhang never heard of him? Why did Sun Wan’er, Wang Liang, Wu Tianqi, and the other four sports stars seem equally unaware of what exactly made Mo Shu so impressive?

After Mo Shu’s astonishing feat of completing the game in first gear at eight thousand revolutions per minute, all those questions had only made Miss Lin more determined to find the answers. Now she had finally encountered a private driver who seemed to know Mo Shu inside out. It was a gift from heaven.

“Ahem...”

Seeing that Miss Lin had invited him to open the floodgates of conversation, the driver first cleared his throat.

Then, beginning with Mo Shu’s debut in the GTCC, he launched into a detailed account of how he had personally witnessed Mo Shu defeat Black Mirror on the track. With passionate enthusiasm, he recounted the spectacular achievement of Mo Shu helping the Stellar Racing Team win the GTCC championship in his very first year as a professional.

His language was vivid, his descriptions precise, and his storytelling so lifelike that the other four unanimously decided he was either a professional storyteller or a comedian.

But he was not finished. The driver continued at length, like the Yellow River bursting its banks and becoming impossible to contain. He moved on to Zhang Aimin and the Hengxing Group of those years, before extending the tale to the legendary story of how Mo Shu, Wang Yu, and the others had reluctantly abandoned the Stellar Racing Team, overcome obstacle after obstacle, and joined forces to establish the Deity Racing Team for their campaign on the ERC circuit.

In the driver’s telling, the story was a true roller coaster—full of twists and turns, thrilling and utterly gripping.

Miss Lin was practically dumbfounded. As a celebrity, however, she had received rigorous training in controlling her expressions. She could be stunned, but as long as she did not show it too openly, all was well.

Xiao Lian and the cameraman were another matter entirely. Their jaws nearly dropped to the floor.

As they listened to the driver’s account, the two of them could not help stealing glances at Mo Shu’s face.

They would never have believed that the driver who had won the GTCC championship and two consecutive ERC rounds was sitting quietly in the same car with them at that very moment.

The phrase “to possess eyes yet fail to recognize Mount Tai” had never been more perfectly embodied than by the many members of the production team who had witnessed Mo Shu’s performance that day.

Yet, when the driver reached the end of his story, he suddenly switched to gossiping with Mo Shu. With great interest, he asked, “Say, Great Mo, there’s a rumor going around the racing community that you’ve already secured four hundred million in sponsorship and are planning to hold a downhill car race at Yunding Peak here in Nanshan City. Is that true?”

Mo Shu merely smiled without answering. Whether the news could be revealed was something he would have to discuss with Wang Yu before making a decision.

As for how the driver had obtained such accurate information, it could only be explained rather feebly by saying that no wall in the world was entirely airtight.

But Miss Lin, Xiao Lian, and the cameraman had all heard one astonishing figure.

Four hundred million in sponsorship!

It was an astronomical sum, so thunderous and astounding that it could not help but jolt them fully awake.