You take the passenger seat, I'll drive

The wind sweeping through the tower heralds a rising storm in the mountains.

Thunder and lightning flashed within the dark clouds, the wind grew stronger, and a torrential downpour could fall at any moment.

The streetlights flickered erratically.

Seeing this, Su Yang shouted, "Everyone, pick up the pace a bit, or we'll end up soaked like drowned rats."

"Okay." The girls quickened their steps to keep up.

They soon crossed the last street and reached the open-air parking lot where they had parked earlier.

At this moment, the lights in the parking lot flickered continuously, creating an apocalyptic atmosphere with the thunder and lightning. Everyone hurried into the lot to find the cars.

Once inside, the two vehicles started up and sped off.

However, there were quite a few cars on the road, many heading home.

The speed couldn't pick up for a while.

Inside the car, Meng Qianyu asked, "Su Yang, is the typhoon coming tonight?"

"It shouldn't be that unlucky. The weather bureau predicted it would arrive in three days. At the earliest, it won't make landfall until tomorrow evening."

"But I feel like the typhoon is coming right now."

"No, at worst it will just be a heavy rain for now."

After getting in the car, Chiba pulled out her phone to check the weather and stayed quiet.

After looking for a while, she spoke up, "Everyone, I just checked the weather map. It seems the typhoon has made landfall ahead of schedule. The weather bureau has already issued a warning."

"What?"

Hearing this, everyone turned to look at Chiba.

"No way. What app did you see that on?" Meng Qianyu asked quickly.

"I just downloaded a weather forecast app from our country."

"Let me take a look. Is this reliable?" Su Yang said, taking the phone Chiba handed him and looking down.

On the phone, the weather map showed a white spiral storm system approaching the southeastern part of their island country, with the approximate landfall point near Shizugawa Prefecture.

Their current location happened to be in the southeastern part of the island.

"Damn, is this for real? Wasn't it supposed to land in three days?"

Chiba said apologetically, "That's what my boss told me earlier. He said the weather bureau announced it would be three days. I also checked the news on the way here, and that's what it said."

"Damn... this is way too unreliable."

"I'm really sorry, everyone..." Chiba bowed her head, her face full of guilt.

Su Yang turned and patted her on the shoulder, saying, "Why are you apologizing? It's not your fault. You can only blame the weather bureau for inaccurate reports."

"By the way, Chiba, I see on your app that the current warning level is Level 3. What does that mean?"

Chiba took back the phone, looked at it, and said, "Our country's typhoon warning system has five levels in total. A Level 3 red warning generally means the public needs to take this typhoon seriously and prepare countermeasures in advance."

"What about Level 4 and Level 5?"

"A Level 4 is a purple warning. If that level is issued, it means the typhoon's intensity will be quite high, potentially causing extreme damage to many areas."

"Damn? Level 4 is already that fierce? Then Level 5..."

"Level 5 rarely appears; it's the highest level. If a Level 5 warning is issued, ordinary houses probably wouldn't hold up. I can't even imagine how powerful that would be."

"Damn, right now it's Level 3, so it shouldn't be a big problem, right?"

Chiba nodded: "Level 3 warnings are the most common."

"Alright then, let's get moving."

Su Yang turned to the driver named Watanabe Akemi and said, "Watanabe, how long until we get on the expressway?"

Watanabe checked the navigation and said, "About fifteen more minutes to reach the expressway."

"Good. Then speed up a bit once we're on it. Let's get back to Tokyo as soon as possible."

"Got it."

The two vans, one behind the other, crawled through a brief traffic jam before quickly leaving the main urban area of Yamazato Prefecture.

Soon after leaving the city center, the number of cars on the road gradually decreased.

The two vans quickly drove onto the expressway heading toward Tokyo.

However, just a few minutes after getting on the expressway, raindrops began to pound down loudly—the heavy rain had arrived.

"It's raining," Watanabe said.

"It's okay, this rain isn't too heavy. Just drive steady. We should make it back to Tokyo in about two hours. I don't believe the typhoon can make landfall in two hours."

Watanabe Akemi nodded, keeping both hands on the steering wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead as she drove attentively.

There weren't many cars on the expressway. Occasionally, a few vehicles sped by in the opposite lanes.

On their side of the three-lane road, they had only seen four or five cars in the past ten minutes.

But because the rain was gradually getting heavier, Watanabe didn't dare drive too fast—losing traction on the wet road would be dangerous.

At 8:30 PM, the two black vans were about a hundred meters apart, maintaining a steady speed of 90 kilometers per hour.

At this pace, they definitely wouldn't make it to Tokyo in two hours.

As long as the rain didn't keep intensifying and the typhoon didn't land early, getting back safely was the priority.

So Su Yang didn't urge Watanabe. He kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

The entire expressway was now pitch black. The wipers on their car were already at the highest setting, barely able to help them see the road.

The current rain wasn't as heavy as the storm Su Yang and the others had encountered on their road trip to western Sichuan—that one had been during the day, and the rain was so thick they couldn't even see the road.

Now, they could barely make out the road, but the wind seemed to be picking up. Even inside the car, aside from the rain, they could hear the howling wind outside.

After driving for another twenty minutes, they thought the rain would stabilize at a moderate-to-heavy level, and everyone's slightly anxious hearts began to ease.

But just then—

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!

The rain intensified all at once, as if God had dumped a huge basin of bathwater onto the earth, splashing noisily against the roof of the car.

Suddenly, the windshield was completely covered by rainwater. No matter how hard the wipers worked, they couldn't clear the view ahead.

Watanabe quickly stepped on the brakes.

Because of the continuous heavy rain, there was already standing water on the road. The sudden braking caused the car to wobble uncontrollably.

"Ahh!" Several girls in the back screamed.

Su Yang was sitting in the passenger seat to prevent such accidents. He quickly leaned over and helped steady the steering wheel.

"Pump the brakes! Don't stomp all at once!"

With Su Yang's help, the car gradually stabilized. They turned on the hazard lights, along with the front and rear fog lights, and pulled over onto the emergency lane.

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!!

The wind howled; the rain poured down in torrents!

This whole sequence happened in less than ten seconds.

Now, the sound of wind and rain outside the window was like the roar of wild beasts. The trees and vegetation on the mountain slopes on either side of the expressway rustled loudly in the wind. Many branches were snapped off and blown onto the highway.

Because the current stretch of road was straight, Su Yang could vaguely see, through the windshield, another car stopped on the emergency lane further ahead, its hazard lights also flashing.

Due to the heavy rain, it had already reached the level of a torrential downpour, and the windshield wipers were useless. No matter how fast they moved, they couldn't clear the water continuously crashing against the glass.

“Oh man, that just scared the hell out of me,” said the girls in the back seat, finally catching their breath, still trembling with fear.

Pan Ning noticed that the situation seemed off. She looked over at Chiba and asked, “Chiba, take another look at that weather forecast app of yours. Has the typhoon made landfall yet?”

“Let me check, let me check,” Chiba replied, swallowing nervously as she quickly pulled out her phone.

After more than ten seconds, her expression turned grim. “It’s starting to make landfall… and…”

“And what?” Su Yang asked urgently.

“The warning level has been upgraded to Level Four…”

“What the hell? Are we really that unlucky?”

Upon hearing Chiba’s words, everyone in the car except for Su Yang felt their hearts tighten suddenly. Even Zhuang Mengli, who usually feared nothing, felt a twinge of unease. The power of nature was something no human could withstand.

Although Zhuang Mengli lived in the coastal city of Modu, it was at a relatively high latitude, far from the main regions where typhoons form. As a result, typhoons were rare there.

Even if a typhoon did occur in the nearby area, it wouldn’t directly hit the city like it did in this island nation. Most of the time, it was just the outer bands that brought some heavy rain.

So, none of them had really experienced a typhoon before, and their anxiety was to be expected.

To make matters worse, they were on a highway now. Outside the window, everything was pitch-black, like a scene from the apocalypse, overwhelmingly oppressive.

The atmosphere grew tense for a moment.

Su Yang quickly racked his brain for a plan.

After a few seconds, he turned to Watanabe and asked, “Watanabe, what’s the nearest city from here?”

Although Watanabe was also panicked, she was from this island nation and had gone through countless typhoons growing up. Right now, she was still relatively level-headed.

She looked at her phone, scrolled for a moment, and said, “The nearest city to us now is Dayue City.”

“Then change the navigation—we’re heading to Dayue City.”

“But we can barely see the road right now, it’ll be extremely dangerous to drive.”

“You take the passenger seat. I’ll drive!”

......