Chapter 252: Impossible Bus Ride

What was Xiao Yu thinking?

Most people have ridden a public bus, right? So, a bus that drove all day without any bumps or jolts?

“Well then…” Xiao Yu’s smile grew even more curious as he looked at Shu Yuzhen. “How did you know the bus was moving the whole time?”

“I could hear the tires turning,” Shu Yuzhen answered honestly. “And the engine roaring.”

Xiao Yu almost laughed.

“Alright, here’s a fun question for you,” he said, still smiling. “Did you feel any inertia?”

“Inertia?” Shu Yuzhen blinked in confusion, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Hah!” Xiao Yu finally let out a laugh.

Does a bus like that sound possible?

Forget buses, can any vehicle do that? Even with the best suspension, what about turns? A bus driving for a whole day without a single turn? No matter how good the vehicle is, there should still be some swaying or shaking during turns, right?

And there’s another key point—inertia. Whether a vehicle is moving fast or slow, forward or backward, it has inertia.

When you’re in a car, your body moves with that inertia. Sudden brakes? You’re thrown forward. Sudden acceleration? You’re pulled back. Turns? Your body shifts with the curve.

So, is there any bus on Earth that can move without shaking, bumping, or creating inertia?

How did they pull that off?

***

In a specialized storage facility, the floor wasn’t concrete but lined with rows of metal rollers. A bus slowly rolled onto these metal cylinders. Xiao Yu made a gesture, and a worker shut off the switch that locked the rollers in place.

The bus started up, its tires spun and accelerated—but it remained in place.

What was going on?

The tires moved, and so did the metal rollers on the ground.

Anyone who’s had their car inspected might recognize this setup. It was just like a car inspection test, but here, the entire bus, both body and wheels, rested on these rollers.

As long as the speed stayed low, the bus could “drive” on these metal rollers, giving the sensation of movement.

If someone sat on this bus with their eyes covered, they’d feel like the bus was driving. They’d hear the tires spinning, even hear the engine roaring, yet the ride would be completely smooth—no bumps, no shaking, and no inertia.

Since the bus never actually moved, there was no inertia.

“So they never left the city?” Wang Dong asked.

His tone was cold. Now he understood why Xiao Yu had set up this experiment.

“Right.” Xiao Yu nodded. “They probably never left the city. That location must be somewhere here.”

“That can’t be,” Wang Dong was baffled, voicing his doubts. “Shu Yuzhen mentioned they were taken to a remote mountain area, somewhere very hot. There are no mountains like that in Z City.”

“Why does it have to be a mountain?” Xiao Yu shook his head. “Why couldn’t it be a building?”

“Uh…” Wang Dong stared at Xiao Yu, dumbfounded.

‘Is that even possible? When you say things like this, are you aiming to touch the moon? Ah, wait, no moon tonight. Never mind!’

“I once saw a movie,” Xiao Yu began, thinking back to something from his past life. “It was about this rich kid who did whatever he wanted. Finally, his dad had enough and teamed up with a psychiatrist to set up a scheme. They turned an abandoned village into a 19th-century town, staged a car accident, and when the rich kid woke up, he thought he’d time-traveled and become a slave. With a bunch of actors his dad had hired, the kid was convinced it was real.”

Wang Dong: (￣口￣)

‘Little brother, it’s just a movie. What are you getting at?’

“Sure, it’s fiction, but the idea could be applied to real life,” Xiao Yu said, smirking at Wang Dong’s bewildered face. “Imagine if we built a place like that. No, we only need to create something that feels like a mountain area. Could it be done?”

Wang Dong fell silent. Could it be done?

Absolutely.

Forget mountains, they could perfectly recreate ancient settings if needed. Ever heard of film sets? Movie studios? With enough money, you could recreate anything—mountains, ancient cities, even alien worlds.

With human creativity and financial backing, just about anything was possible.

“One last thing,” Wang Dong asked, his face serious. “We can recreate the mountain landscape, but what about the environment? How do you control the temperature?”

“Remember what Shu Yuzhen said in her confession,” Xiao Yu replied. “She mentioned that, for those two years, they were kept in a huge, warehouse-like space. They thought it was a mountain area because they’d hear birds and animal sounds every morning. They assumed it was somewhere hot and southern because they lived in that warehouse the whole time, and sometimes, they’d feel hot air blowing in from outside.”

Wang Dong took a deep breath, his mind racing.

Making people hear birds and animals? That was easy enough.

Hot air? Creating heat and blowing warm air into a warehouse? Also doable.

Thinking back to the bizarre bus ride Shu Yuzhen described, Wang Dong could almost picture it now.

Somewhere, there was a massive warehouse. They had shoved a group of people inside, played recordings of forest sounds every morning, and pumped in hot air to make it feel like they were in some southern mountain region.

‘Damn it,’ Wang Dong thought with irritation. 

He felt like his intelligence had just been toyed with. If Xiao Yu hadn’t considered this possibility, Wang Dong would have kept searching for the terrorists’ base somewhere down south. He could have spent ages hunting around without finding a thing.

Being played for a fool, that’s what it would’ve been.

Xiao Yu, too, was a bit amazed by the creativity of these people. It was like a battle of minds, a psychological game as much as a physical one. Back in his past life, he’d often heard about these kinds of manipulations—PUA tactics, and the like.

Sometimes, being a simple-minded person might not be so bad. But, Xiao Yu’s face broke into a cold smile.

‘If their base is here in Z City, I’m coming for you.’