144 Hellish

"So you mean, if someone were to inform Lin Guiying of this, then she would be able to retrieve it from this arcade?" Lin Guiying's eyes shone, looking at the guy in front of her with anticipation.

"Huh, if Lin Guiying were to come here... of course she'd be able to get it back. Well, I think she knows already, she always interacts with her fans online!"

Hearing this, Lin Guiying was embarrassed. This guy so proudly proclaimed that the idol in question was very active and always talked with her fans online, yet here she was not knowing a single thing about this whole fiasco.

"Another question, have you seen a person? Male student, about this tall, and very very handsome." Lin Guiying asked the stranger expectantly.

"Oh, I have seen him. Very handsome, right? He's over there, in the middle of everything." The guy pointed towards the center of the crowd, which was roughly where the DDR machine was.

"Erm, thanks then." Without anything else to ask him on, Lin Guiying smiled at the guy before walking away.

That one smile made the stranger widen his eyes. 'That grin... it's so eerily similar to Goddess Lin's...'

.....

Zhou Lei raised his eyebrow.

"White Flower OST, left last Saturday. Right behind the machine.

Lin Hanying's bag full of White Flower merchandise, left last Saturday. Right behind the machine...

Hmmm..."

Even though Zhou Lei thought that it was a mere coincidence, he couldn't help but be amazed at the coincidence that happened.

"Could it be... that Lin Hanying is Lin Guiying in disguise all along?!" Zhou Lei speculated. However, once their respective faces came into mind... "Goddess Lin is too beautiful, Ying can't even compare. I'm sorry, Ying."

He spun around and glanced at the massive crowd of people around him. "People, calm down! I have perfectly contained the site where she dropped her items."

On the floor, a plastic sheet covered a specific tile, one that had a slight crack on it. The fanatics all looked at the tile with worship evident in their eyes.

"We can now visit this place every time we feel distant from our Goddess. I hereby declare this day, Lost Lin Day!"

Hearing the words "Lost Lin Day", the crowd went silent. After a few seconds, one of the people clapped his hands, the sound echoing through the silence. Another set of clapping hands followed, and then another, then another...

Soon enough, everyone in the arcade was clapping, some even whistling and some cheering the name "Goddess Lin! Goddess Lin!"

Zhou Lei watched the scene unfold before him, a tear dripping down his cheek. 'This... this is what I call a perfect scene.'

As he scanned the crowd, he caught a side glance of the DDR machine. '...Wait. I was supposed to perfect Despaghetti.

What time is it?'

He searched for the digital clock hanging on the ceiling, and looked at the time.

'...I have about 2 and a quarter hours left. That means I should finish this right now!'

Right now, Zhou Lei's mind went blank as he jumped on the machine. He landed without any noise, the arrows under his feet flashing different colors.

He quickly grabbed a quarter from his pocket and threw it into the air. Using his other hand, he grabbed it with a swipe as it fell down. Then, he put it closer to his mouth and blowed a very small breath on it.

'This should be enough preparation...'

Zhou Lei sucked in the air from the surroundings, then exhaled all of it. He closed his eyes, preparing himself mentally for the challenge that he was about to face.

He inserted the coin into the slot, and the screen of the machine automatically went into the level picker.

Zhou Lei scrolled through the levels until he got onto the hardest one: Despaghetti.

Shaking both his hands and his head and jogging his feet a few times, Zhou Lei slapped himself on both cheeks.

"I... choose... you!"

.....

Lin Guiying walked over to the crowd. As the volume of people over there was high, she had a hard time squeezing in between them to get through. "Excuse me... I'm sorry... Can you let me pass? Thanks..."

Her body swayed left and right as she zigzagged towards the center. Suddenly, the crowd, which was relatively quiet, got rowdy and started clapping altogether.

"You're kidding me... how am I supposed to get through?"

While shaking her head, the crowd started chanting a set of words, making her feel awkward but happy. "Goddess Lin! Goddess Lin!"

Lin Guiying had a grin on her face as she had her head down. She made her way through the crowd while everyone was still distracted by all the fuss.

As she was arriving at the center of everything, the blaring music of the Dance Dance Revolution machine came out of nowhere. Her familiarity with the sound made her guess what happened. 'Zhou Lei... is already attempting!'

Meanwhile, the sounds of the machine startled the majority of the crowd, who then turned their heads towards the machine. They saw the handsome young man who led them earlier as fanatics on the machine. The familiar young man with closed eyes looked unusually serious, even more than when he named the day, "Lost Lin Day". The crowd got quieter and quieter as seconds passed by.

As they wondered what the young man was about to do, a tune that everyone knew sounded from the machine, as if to inform them about the upcoming event. At that time, the crowd was already placated and silent, anticipation evident from their observing eyes.

Teng~

Zhou Lei opened his eyes, and he suddenly jumped into the air. As he fell down, he stepped on the left and the right arrow using both his feet! Those arrows on the screen lit up, eliminating the ascending arrows which were threatening to decrease his score...

The first note. Only the first note had come out, and yet Zhou Lei could feel the tension burning through him. There were already two simultaneous arrows from just the first note...

The crowd watched as Zhou Lei stepped on the two arrows, and they felt an amount of both respect and fear towards him. The impact of his landing made sure of that.

Tri-

'Left arrow and right arrow!'

tri-

'Up and down!'

tri-

'Upper-left corner!'

teng-teng-teng-teng~

'Bottom-right, upper-right, center, left and up and right and down!!!'

Hearing those successive notes, the onlookers heard a stepping sound that was only a split-second-- no, there wasn't even a difference in time between the two. The young man... had stepped on those arrows exactly the same time as the notes rang out of the machine!

Treng~ treng~ trengg~~

'Bottom-left, center, and upper-right; upper-left, center, and bottom-right; left, center, and right!'

The time in which these notes should be stepped on was only a fraction of a second. A normal human wouldn't be able to comprehend the information quick enough to react and step on them. Even if they were, they wouldn't particularly be nimble enough for their feet to go the way their body told them to.

Even within the Dance Dance Revolution community, only a handful of people had actually completed this set of notes without either being too late or breaking their leg, among other incidents. And this handful of people, they were at the tippy-top of the community, one which Zhou Lei was not even familiar with.

Yet, Zhou Lei had accomplished it. Lin Guiying arrived just in time to watch the graceful movements exhibited by her friend, ones which even she, as someone who took intensive dancing lessons, wouldn't be able to do.

Her eyes were glued to Zhou Lei, and so were the rest of the crowd who were planning to leave a few seconds ago.

These hellish set of notes at the very start of the song cemented its legacy as the hardest song on Dance Dance Revolution. However, it was, by no means, the hardest part of the song.

Knowing this, Zhou Lei didn't dare get complacent because he perfected the first hard part of the song.