Chapter 231

The prize guessing game was just a sudden idea of his, a little gift to reward his fans.

He had already prepared himself for a massive loss, since everyone in his livestream had witnessed how he climbed to where he is today; among ten viewers, at least half trusted him more than he trusted himself.

That's why he set the multiplier at 1.05, and also imposed a betting cap.

Otherwise, with all the hidden dragons and tigers in his livestream, he might truly be overwhelmed.

But the result was somewhat surprising—not too much, but too little: 7.5 million diamonds, converted to cash, amounted to just 750,000 yuan—barely a drop in the bucket.

"Boss Qin, that Shalu hit bullseye on both jumps, and only missed the last one by one centimeter—his skill is close to yours."

"Not just Shalu—Temu's Adru, the British Royal's Iliya, Cyberpunk's Edmund—these four will surely advance to the semifinals in Group Eight."

"The other competitors in the groups containing these top club athletes are truly screwed."

"Boss Qin can completely suppress all of them—awesome."

Watching Qin Yun livestreaming in the distance, Adru, Iliya, and Edmund gathered together.

"How's it going?" Adru asked, glancing at the two with a casual tone.

"Strong," Iliya said without hesitation.

Edmund's dark, glossy skin seemed to reflect the sunlight as he grinned: "When I get time, I'm going to take a photo with him—I'm a loyal fan of his livestream. Never expected Qin would be this strong in skydiving too."

The two gave him an odd look.

Edmund shrugged: "Why are you staring like that? Competing alongside my idol is already an honor."

"I remember your club had a feud with Changkong Club, leading to two members directly withdrawing," Adru said, clearly aware of something.

Edmund shrugged indifferently: "That was Quincy's business—what does it have to do with me? Besides, Qin clearly just joined this club temporarily—what possible stakes could there be?"

Adru and Iliya were speechless; they didn't dwell on the topic, turning instead to look elsewhere.

"Do you think Shalu might try to take down Qin?" Adru asked with interest.

Iliya shook his head: "Unlikely. Besides, he's no match for Qin—if he dares to lay a hand on Qin, he'll probably get killed."

"Who said anything about laying hands?" Adru frowned. "This is a skydiving competition, not a no-man's-land. I mean—could the Pharaoh possibly order Shalu to deliberately sabotage Qin's score? Remember, the Pharaoh has a history of this."

Iliya: "..."

"Actually possible," Edmund's eyes lit up, and he turned toward Qin Yun: "Wait for me a moment—I'll go warn Qin."

Soon, Edmund appeared beside Qin Yun.

"Qin!"

Qin Yun looked at him and smiled slightly: "Edmund."

"You know me?" Edmund was delighted.

"Of course," Qin Yun nodded. "Top expert from Cyberpunk."

Hearing the word "Cyberpunk," Nie Jun and the others nearby immediately looked uneasy—especially Fang Yichen and You Jundu, who had watched Sun Ang and Lu Hao fail to show up, and harbored zero goodwill toward Cyberpunk.

Edmund noticed their expressions and shrugged: "Quincy's business has nothing to do with me—don't look at me like that."

Then, ignoring them, he turned to Qin: "Qin, I'm here to warn you—be careful of Shalu. He might deliberately sabotage your score in the semifinals; the Pharaoh did something similar two years ago."

Before Qin Yun could respond, Zeng Luo frowned: "Aren't they afraid of being permanently disqualified?"

"It's not that easy to catch them—they can always claim it was an accident. After all, this is extreme sports—aren't mistakes allowed?"

Everyone realized he had a point.

Qin Yun thanked him: "Edmund, thanks for the warning—I appreciate it."

"Yeah, Qin, I'm your fan—I'm still hoping to see you do a precision jump into the Black Throat Abyss from ten thousand meters. Keep it up—don't get eliminated in the semifinals."

Watching Edmund's retreating back, Qin Yun turned his gaze toward several figures in the distance—the Pharaoh Club members.

Just from their expressions, he could tell each one radiated intense hostility toward him—so Edmund's warning wasn't baseless; it was genuinely possible.

But...

Qin Yun sneered. He wasn't afraid of their tricks—let's see who ends up dead.

As time passed, the five-day preliminary round concluded. The qualifiers for each group were finalized; Group Eight had no surprises—besides Qin Yun, it was Adru and the others.

In the other nine groups, nearly all qualifying spots were pre-claimed by top clubs.

Only fewer than four groups had ordinary clubs like Changkong luckily securing a single spot.

At the Pharaoh Club's hotel, the club didn't participate in any other events—all nine members competed solely in precision skydiving. They were spread across five groups, and five advanced to the semifinals.

The Pharaoh Club's coach was a fifty-year-old man named Talar, with a thick beard, a large belly, and glasses.

"I have a task for you."

Talar scanned the five qualifiers.

"Target the Chinese man."

The five qualifiers, who had been slouching, instantly sat up straight, their eyes sharpening; the others also leaned forward, staring at Talar.

"Talar, how do we target him?" Raul, the team captain, glared with malice—they had zero fondness for the Chinese man.

Talar adjusted his glasses: "The semifinals are divided into five groups, ten per group, top two from each advance. Unless you're incredibly unlucky and end up in a different group from him, whoever is in the same group as him gets this task."

"The task is simple," Talar's face twisted with ill intent. "After he opens his parachute, destroy his main canopy."

Everyone gasped—this was outright murder.

Raul had intended to teach the man a lesson, but hadn't expected such a method. True, skydivers have main and reserve parachutes—destroying the main one still allows safe landing via the reserve.

But there's also the risk the reserve fails to deploy—and then you die.

In other words, Talar wasn't just trying to prevent Qin from advancing—he wanted him dead.

"What? Scared?" Talar sneered coldly. "If you're scared, speak up now—I'll pretend I never said it."

"Not scared!" Shalu's shock slowly turned to excitement. "But you know—jumping from four thousand meters, catching up to him after he opens his parachute and destroying his main canopy—that's extremely difficult."

"True," Raul tapped the table, his expression grave. "In the preliminaries, he always opened his parachute at exactly six hundred meters. What if he does the same in the semifinals?"

"Impossible!"

Talal directly dismissed the possibility. "Four thousand meters altitude, twelve hundred meters is the absolute limit. There's no way he opened his parachute at six hundred."

Raul insisted, "But what if he did? You know perfectly well how crazy that Chinese guy is."

They had all watched Qin Yun's livestream video, and setting aside certain special factors, it was impossible not to admire him.

That death-defying mentality was practically that of a madman.

Talal furrowed his brow. "If he really does choose to open at six hundred meters, then forget what I said. However…"

His gaze darkened. "However, no matter what, the one in your group must stick right on his tail. If he doesn't open his chute, you absolutely cannot open yours either."

……

Fixed-point skydiving from four thousand meters is quite common in regular skydiving, but fixed-point skydiving has almost never appeared as a competition event. Red Bull is the first to turn this altitude into a formal competition; before this, the altitude for extreme skydiving was basically around two to three thousand meters.

Because this is no longer a normal altitude.

At this altitude, even during the day with the sun out, the temperature drops straight to minus ten-something degrees, not to mention wind speed, oxygen deprivation, and so on. Regular skydiving is already quite difficult; under these preconditions, having to complete a fixed-point landing makes the difficulty skyrocket.

"Qin Ye, I'm in Group Three, you're in Group Five."

Looking at the draw results on the big screen, Xia Weiwei let out a small sigh. If nothing unexpected happened, the semifinals would be her best result.

Qin Yun smiled. "Do your best, just play to your own ability, don't overthink it."

"Mm, I know."

Qin Yun looked at the two names before and after his own—one was Raul, the other was Saru, both athletes from the Pharaoh Club. Especially this Raul, who was a world-famous skydiver on the international stage.

In his group was another familiar name—TEMU's Edlu, also a top competitor.

Among the others, there was Royal's Jackman, and the Canadian Extreme Club's Kotter.

The remaining four were all obscure competitors; although they were also athletes from top clubs, their fame was far less.

Qin Yun swept a glance over them and paid no more attention, beginning his preparations.

The semifinals take the combined score of five jumps, which looks like it gives more room for error, but in reality every single jump is critical—one major mistake on any jump and it might be game over.

Currently, the official four-thousand-meter projected score only requires hitting the target to count as a pass.

And the four-thousand-meter target is no longer the two-thousand-meter one; although it still has ten rings, it's fifty times larger.

The original one ring was one centimeter; now one ring is fifty centimeters, so ten rings naturally became five meters. Even so, its electronic precision can still be accurate to a few hundredths, so there's no need to worry about any major error.

"The competition has begun!"

As a helicopter rapidly ascended, everyone's mood immediately filled with anticipation.

In Qin Yun's livestream, the camera cut to inside the helicopter at this moment.

All ten skydivers were now fully geared up, each with a helmet on their head, an oxygen tank plugged in, and even their clothing had grown considerably thicker.

Every person had wrapped themselves up tightly.

Unlike the preliminaries, there was a host in the helicopter this time.

The camera landed on the first skydiver, and the host's voice came through the screen.

"Jett, are you confident you can hit the target?"

Jett gave a thumbs-up, then leaped without hesitation—simple, crisp, very steady.

But the next moment, the wind swept through and the man flew off; his originally dashing posture was torn apart in the blink of an eye.

The host looked at the second person. "Okra, are you confident you can hit the target?"

Okra swallowed hard. Damn it, is the wind over France human-controlled? Why wasn't it this insane when I was training?

"I'll do my best to hit the target."

Okra finished speaking and immediately jumped as well. Sure enough, the gale swept past and his body instantly became uncontrollable. No matter how precise his stabilizing ability, in that moment it was easily dismantled by the force of nature, and he could only be tossed about helplessly in the air.

Qin Yun watched the scene and said to the livestream, "Group One's luck isn't great—there's an air current up above. I'm afraid hitting the target is going to be much harder for them."

Jett, the first jumper, tumbled helplessly for a while before finally managing to slowly bring his body under control. But when he looked at the target's position, he felt a bit of despair. He glanced at his altimeter: there were still three thousand meters to the ground, and he had drifted a full thousand-plus meters off the target. To correct a deviation of this magnitude, he would have to open his parachute at the highest possible altitude.

So at two thousand meters, Jett opened his parachute right away.