Chapter Fifty-Nine: Gravity

Several hundred meters away from the amusement park, Fu Lan spotted the motionless Ferris wheel.

For some reason, despite it not being an excessively severe accident, a strong sense of unease gripped him, and his gaze remained locked onto the massive structure.

Just as the car passed the park entrance and before it had even come to a complete stop, he jumped out from the door and said to Shi Ningyu, "You go on ahead."

Shi Ningyu watched his retreating figure, her eyelids drooping with a subtle expression.

Instead of continuing along the road as Fu Lan instructed, she made a U-turn and headed toward the parking lot opposite the amusement park.

Due to the Ferris wheel malfunction, the situation being more serious than anticipated, the amusement park had suspended admissions for safety reasons.

Staff members were actively turning away people who had yet to enter. Some left with reluctant sighs, while others stubbornly refused to budge, lingering near the ticket gates.

Anxious, Fu Lan pushed aggressively into the queue, drawing a chorus of complaints.

The ticket checker made a halting gesture toward him and said, "I'm sorry, sir, entry is temporarily suspended. You can give me your ticket to register, and it will remain valid for your next visit."

Fu Lan adjusted his crooked cap. "I don't have a ticket. But just let me in, I—"

A voice piped up angrily from nearby, "Hey, you don't have a ticket and you're still acting so righteous?"

"My son is trapped on that Ferris wheel, and I need to get over there right now." Fu Lan retorted with a cold glare.

The ticket checker looked troubled. "This... doesn't quite comply with the rules. Please wait a moment, I need to consult my supervisor."

A wave of irritation surged within Fu Lan. "I don't have time to waste on you!"

Arousing a totally uncharacteristic excitement, he pressed one hand against the sensor panel of the ticket turnstile, stepped onto the railing on the other side for leverage, and vaulted directly onto the barrier.

Then, stepping forward with a leap, he ignored the ticket checker's protests and dashed inward.

Several security guards hurried over, but caught off guard by the sudden move, they could only watch him escape.

Well, that vented his frustration, but it also meant more unnecessary trouble...

Pulling the brim of his cap down, Fu Lan sprinted toward the Ferris wheel pursued by the guards.

He ran against the tide of evacuating visitors, weaving through the crowd in an attempt to shake off his pursuers. Yet, with most people slowing down and constantly glancing back at the Ferris wheel, he remained far too conspicuous.

Moreover, his physical stamina could hardly match that of professional security guards, and with fresh guards continuously joining the interception along the way, he was on the verge of being caught.

Just then, a tremendous electrical crackle echoed from ahead.

The crowd erupted in gasps as a sudden flash of electric sparks briefly darkened the entire sky.

The security guards were momentarily distracted, but Fu Lan reacted instantly. From the appearance of the electrical discharge and the posture of the Ferris wheel, he deduced precisely what had transpired over there.

Such a potent lightning-attribute magic was virtually impossible for a civilian magical user to wield. And if it were magical police, they would not have waited until now to intervene.

The answer was therefore obvious.

What on earth is going on here? Fu Lan muttered helplessly to himself. Having one of me isn't enough; another one just had to pop up!

Still, this worked to his advantage—he could treat it as a complimentary shield...

Scanning his surroundings, he hardened his resolve, broke into a sprint, and plunged straight into a massive mascot sculpture made of clustered balloons.

By the time the onlookers regained their wits, the multi-meter-tall mascot had disintegrated, and thousands of balloons were swept into the air by a sudden gust of wind, resembling a scattered swarm of jellyfish.

The man who had just dived inside had vanished without a trace.

A white afterimage streaked across the sky at a velocity far exceeding mortal vision, fading into a grove of trees behind the Ferris wheel. Despite the astonishing speed of flight, it made no unnatural sound, and even the displaced wind was barely perceptible.

The transformed String Heart Stone landed lightly on a branch as if weightless, concealing her figure among the dense foliage. The entire process took mere seconds.

She closed her eyes, her perception instantly blanketing everything within a radius of several thousand meters, immediately locking onto the magical girl inside the Ferris wheel cabin.

As well as Fu Linxing, who shared the same cabin...

Calmly pushing that fellow aside for the moment, she used divine telepathy to coordinate a strategy with the distant magical girl.

Then, waving her right hand, she whispered, "Gravity Deployment."

String Heart Stone opened her eyes, her violet pupils reflecting several rotating stellar orbits, and her wildly fluttering skirt instantly froze in place.

An invisible ripple spread outward, causing dust within a multi-thousand-meter radius to halt mid-air, though the people enveloped by the field remained completely unaware of any anomaly.

The magical girl on the Ferris wheel, however, experienced it differently.

She felt as though a colossal entity had swept across the sky, and in that fleeting instant, she seemed to be cowering beneath an entire inverted ocean.

Should she carelessly exhale even a breath of air, that immense weight would come crashing down, crushing her and the earth beneath her feet into dust!

The sensation vanished as quickly as it came, yet she was left utterly shaken by the overwhelming, morale-crushing aura, almost losing her focus and dropping her wand.

[What was that just now?] she asked via telepathy.

The other party did not reply, instead giving a calm command: [Once the Ferris wheel is straightened, weld the positions I indicate.]

How to indicate them? Before the girl could ask clearly, the Ferris wheel ceased its tilt and slowly straightened, emitting a spine-chilling sound of bending metal.

The electric sparks at the main axle had been sustained by the girl all along; now that the fractured parts were pieced back together, she quickly welded them.

But that was not the end.

To her profound shock, several steel beams that had snapped at one end were forcefully wrenched apart by an invisible giant hand, then re-secured to the load-bearing tower with a far more stable structural configuration.

Could magic accomplish this as well? Supporting the entire weight of a Ferris wheel and manipulating dozens of meters of steel beams as if playing with toys...

What terrifying power!

As she stared blankly at those steel beams, a sudden understanding dawned on her—this was the indicated position.

Waving her wand, lightning flashed simultaneously across several joints, swiftly completing the welds.

Although lacking rigorous calculation, intuition told her that those symmetrically dismantled steel beams would not compromise the Ferris wheel's balance. Furthermore, through their collaborative modification, they provided a degree of structural reinforcement.

Though called welding, the metal melted by the lightning magic fused back together without leaving any prominent weld marks, save for a slight discoloration.

Nevertheless, both magical girls knew this was merely a temporary fix, and the Ferris wheel was still far from out of danger.

[Cancel your transformation; I'm going to let the passengers down.] String Heart Stone crossed her arms over her chest, glaring with deadpan eyes as she used her will to set the Ferris wheel spinning once more.

To anyone watching, this would undoubtedly appear bizarre, but the near-collapse had entirely short-circuited the Ferris wheel's electrical system, and the makeshift supports likely wouldn't hold for long. Waiting for rescue workers to manually turn the wheel was far too slow, leaving this as the only viable option.

Besides, everything that had happened already bordered on the absurd; when one has too many debts, one no longer worries about the creditors.

[Wait, who are you?] the girl asked.

There was no response.

Reluctantly, she asked another question: [Will we meet again?]

[You don't look like a novice. Having hidden for so long, you should know what can be done and what cannot.]

Propelled by the unknown force, the Ferris wheel continued its rotation, patiently waiting for the trapped occupants of each cabin to disembark before moving to the next.

Following their initial astonishment, the firefighters quickly prioritized their tasks, pushed the bizarre anomaly to the back of their minds, and dedicated themselves to rescuing the victims.

Despite her telepathic inquiries receiving no further response, Tao Zizi had no choice but to cancel her transformation with a lingering sense of regret.

She looked up at the smoked and warped surveillance camera, then down at Fu Linxing, who had rolled off the seat onto the cabin floor, and lifted him up with a blank expression.