Dragon Clan: Thought So Far.

Under the tablecloth that had been dragged all the way to the ground, Ling gently stepped on the soles of Lu Mingfei's feet. He immediately fell silent and concentrated on the can of braised beef in his bowl.

"Your ambitions were obvious after you became the Deputy Minister of Defense. In politics, you were eventually rejected by your allies. Even in the business world, you are still a tyrant." Zero's tone was flat, but she sat there as if she was sitting on a throne. She clearly needed to look up to meet General Vatutin's eyes, but her posture was as if she was looking down at her disobedient subjects from the clouds.
"My family and I have enough wealth to create a financial storm, and you are our only ally in Moscow, my dear General Vatutin, how can I completely put my trust in you?" Zero said coldly.

Lu Mingfei felt that this was a bit too much. Even he could see how happy the old man was when he saw Ling. His eyes, which were cloudy due to old age, sparkled in the reflection of the snow.

The old man pursed his lips tightly, veins throbbing on his temples. He refilled the glass with ice cubes with vodka, then poured it into his mouth along with the ice cubes. The liquor flowed down his throat, and the ice cubes made a crackling sound between his teeth.

After a moment, General Vatutin smiled instead of getting angry, staring straight into Zero's eyes: "Back then, the Romanov family chose me as your ally and agent among so many fallen marshals, generals and nobles in Moscow. Wasn't it because of this that the Romanov family saw in me?"

He sneered: "I am an abandoned communist. Once people like us betray our class, we will degenerate more thoroughly. Money, women, and extravagant life, the Romanov family can use a lot of things to control me, right?"

Ling responded with a cold look. She said nothing, just waiting for General Vatutin's next words.

"If I were still the Red Army soldier who defended Leningrad many years ago and dedicated my whole heart to the country, why would you come to me?" General Vatutin leaned forward and said coldly, "I have always felt that there is a loftier soul hidden in your body. That soul has lived for many years and can see clearly the vanity of this world. But this time, Your Highness Romanova, you have misjudged me!"

"I am indeed no longer worthy of being called a Bolshevik, but I have never thought of betraying my country. Before being liquidated, I can invest hundreds or even thousands of innocent lives in the Delta Plan for experiments. After being liquidated, I can still use my remaining freedom and wealth to exchange for the eternal existence of the secrets of the empire." General Vatutin stood up and looked down at Zero coldly. His body was like a thick mountain, blocking the dining table and the window behind him. The shadow cast down could not hide the loneliness in the eyes of the princess. General Vatutin said, "If you come to visit me, there will always be a pot of stewed beef and borscht boiling on the fire, but if you insist on exploring the secrets of this country that have been taken to the grave, you can leave now. The information you hope to get from me does not actually exist, and even if it does, I can't tell you."

Ling stood up, grabbed Lu Mingfei's wrist and was about to leave.

Having said that, the cooperation between the Romanov family and General Vatutin came to an end.

Lu Mingfei could sense the princess's anger. She held his wrists so tightly, her legs pulsed so violently, and the hem of her coat fluttered like an Arctic poppy blooming in the wind.

Until they walked out of the wooden house and left the yard, General Vatutin never said a word to try to keep them, and Zero did not look back to linger. It was like two swordsmen who met on a narrow road and passed each other by. From then on, we had nothing to do with each other anymore.
-
The sound of the frozen solid ice being crushed echoed in Lu Mingfei's ears. Ling Xin turned the steering wheel, his eyes looking straight ahead, his thin lips tightly pursed, and he hasn't said a word since getting in the car.

Strangely enough, the wind in the suburbs of Moscow picked up after noon, and large flakes of snow fell from the withered and desolate branches. The silver Rolls-Royce had to turn on the wipers to sweep away the snow on the windshield.

The wooden house surrounded by unpeeled birch trees in the rearview mirror was getting farther and farther away, until it finally disappeared when Zero drove the Rolls-Royce to the end of the path.

Lu Mingfei sighed, and deafening gunshots suddenly came from the direction they left.

He turned his head suddenly, and lust and Ama Murasaki slipped into his palms at the same time.

But a trembling, slightly cold little hand pressed tightly against Lu Mingfei's thigh. Ling finally did not choose to turn the car around, but stepped on the accelerator to speed up and leave the military-controlled area.

The checkpoints and roadblocks along the way did not question the car too much, and they successfully entered the main road. The buildings on both sides were still bright and sleek, but lonely, like guards standing in the wilderness without anyone changing shifts. There were surprisingly few cars on the road, and everyone was in a hurry.

It is hard to say whether the people living in this country are better off or worse off after the old empire was dismembered.

After the last Bolshevik fell at Chernobyl, Muscovites could only measure the two eras by the traces of the Soviet past.

Those solemn cast iron street lamps that have been left over from the Great Purge, those bronze statues of leaders that can still be seen everywhere but are rarely maintained...

After the gunshot, Lu Mingfei's nerves remained tense. He silently entered a period of blood boiling. Every muscle fiber in his body had been adjusted to the best condition before entering the battle.

He didn't want to think about what happened to General Vatutin after they left. Zero just drove in silence until they entered the city, where there was more traffic and people around, and the tense atmosphere in the car finally eased.

They slowly stopped in front of a church with a golden onion-shaped roof. Across the street was an empty lot covered with leaves and surrounded by circles of rusty barbed wire. Faded Russian signs were hung on the barbed wire, reading "Land for Sale", "Private Land Off-limits" and "Former Site of the National Academy of Sciences Library".

Zero turned his head to look at the open space, then slowly sat down in the leather chair, his eyes as empty as a wild animal that had just woken up from hibernation.

"He was executed." Ling finally said after a moment. She looked at Lu Mingfei in astonishment, because the man suddenly unbuckled his seat belt, leaned over from the passenger seat, and hugged her gently.

"I'm sorry." Lu Mingfei said, "It's my fault."

Moscow was the base camp that General Vatutin had operated for many years. Lu Mingfei could not think of any other possibility in this land except the academy who could have issued an execution order against him.

But why didn't those people attack him and Ling? Perhaps it was because the execution was not carried out properly and the beheader lying in ambush there was not sure that he could keep Lu Mingfei.

"It has nothing to do with you." Ling said, "The political legacy left by General Vatutin has been completely consumed, and the wealth he earned from cooperating with the Romanov family for so many years has also been divided up. As early as the last time he escaped the assassination of the Executive Department and contacted me, he used his fingers to tap on the table to convey the Morse code to me, telling me in this way not to look for him again, because he knew that he had lost his value and would probably disappear from this world quietly soon."

Lu Mingfei nodded: "If we are angry, we can just go and kill those people."

Being able to divide up the political legacy and wealth left by General Vatutin within the territory of this country, one can imagine what kind of amazing power is hidden behind the execution of the former Deputy Minister of Defense.

General Vatutin said that the ultimate goal of the Delta Project was to create a super soldier who could defeat a hundred enemies at once, but he didn't know that the person closest to God in the world was sitting in front of him at the time.

Perhaps the Soviet Union at the time hoped to use those super soldiers to achieve outstanding results on a more secret battlefield. In the field of espionage, super soldiers could do better than ordinary people. They could even blow up the Pentagon single-handedly, or sneak into the political center of a small country and assassinate their leaders.

Herzog's closest creations, Yuan Zhisheng and Yuan Zhinu, were no match for Lu Mingfei. If he wanted to kill someone quietly, no one in the world would find any clues. With the powerful intelligence system under the little devil, it was not difficult to find the culprit who planned the death of General Vatutin.

Their status must be extremely high, and they have a significant say in this country, but Lu Mingfei doesn't care.

When faced with the choice between his own life and the lives of millions of people, he can decisively choose to die heroically, but when faced with the confused and sad eyes of his girl curled up like a deer, he can do something crazy.

"All you can find are chess pieces." Zero said.

The old policeman with a trough nose was tapping the window glass with his fingers outside the car, holding a ticket book in his arms. He must be the traffic police here. Ling stuffed a large-denomination bill through the gap, and the old policeman immediately smiled and turned around and left. Before leaving, he took off his hat to greet the two distinguished guests in the car.

"General Vatutin was once the leader of one of the two most powerful violent organizations in the world. He was the Deputy Minister of Defense of the Soviet government. He knew so many secrets that even the Kassel Academy would be surprised." Zero said, "After his value was squeezed dry, everyone in the world wanted to die with him. No one could save him. I couldn't do it, the Romanov family couldn't do it, and you couldn't do it either."

Politics is really the most dangerous thing in this world. If you obtain treasures that you cannot grasp through political means, they will eventually be taken away by political means.

"I originally planned to see him for the last time, but he did leave me some things. General Vatutin never betrayed the alliance between us until his death." Ling placed a small envelope in Lu Mingfei's hand. There were crumbs of dry black tea leaves stuck in the gap of the envelope.

Lu Mingfei's pupils shrank slightly.

General Vatutin put this thing in his tea can. When Lu Mingfei was chatting with him alone, Ling went to make tea for them. I guess he hid it on his body at that time.

The wooden house was full of surveillance cameras, and only in this way could the information that General Vatutin wanted to convey be delivered to Zero quietly.

So the so-called quarrel just now was just a tacit cooperation between General Vatutin and Zero? But they had not even communicated with each other before this.

Below the stamp on the envelope was written in Russian: "Personally from Renata."

Lu Mingfei looked at Ling.

"General Vatutin helped us a lot. Without him, there would be no Romanov business in Russia. He even helped me get my last name back." Ling said softly, with no emotion to show. "Before I got the last name Romanova back, my name was Renata Yevgenia Chicherina. My father worked in the National Academy of Sciences Library, which was also my home when I was a child, just across the vacant lot."

Her Royal Highness the Princess lowered her chin towards Nunu across the street.

Lu Mingfei looked over and saw snow-covered, barren land. There were only a few old buildings from the Soviet era nearby, but no one lived there. The glass in the windows had long been broken and was dark, like the eyes of a monster.

"Then it was burned in a fire, leaving nothing behind." Ling said, "Take it apart and have a look?"

"Okay." Lu Mingfei nodded.

He actually thought that General Vatutin must be a very courageous man, embracing death so calmly.

Most people will feel fear and panic when they foresee their own death. Even Lu Mingfei felt a huge sense of powerlessness when he faced the threat of death for the first time.

But the old man embraced death as if he were hugging an old friend.

He witnessed the passing of that glorious and idealistic era. Perhaps with the death of the last Bolshevik, General Vatutin's heart had already died?

After the envelope was opened, the contents fell out: a piece of paper, a one-inch photo and two red-covered special passes for the military restricted area.

There was a coordinate written on the note. Lu Mingfei handed it to Ling, "The coordinates of Black Swan Port." Ling took a look and whispered.

Lu Mingfei nodded, memorized the string of numbers firmly in his mind, then took out a cigarette lighter from his pocket, lit the note with a faint blue flame, and watched the ashes slowly wither in his palm.

"Now that we have the coordinates, do we still need to look for Bunin?"

"Siberia is his territory, and only he has the means to send you there," Zero said.

Lu Mingfei nodded and put away the military restricted area pass. With this pass, they can travel freely in Russia. It should be the last political influence left by General Vatutin.

The last photo shows an old man who looks like a giant bear lifting the girl with deep eyes and placing her on his shoulders in the snow.

Lu Mingfei's heart moved slightly and he looked at Ling beside him.

The girl in the photo looks much younger, like a child.

"Maybe it was taken when I was a child, when I was still living in the National Academy of Sciences." Zero said coldly.

This photo appears here because General Vatutin is passing a message to Zero that the old man who was then the Deputy Minister of Defense already knew her before she was sent to Black Swan Port. (End of this chapter)