Dragon Clan: Force me to be reborn and slay dragons

Chapter 248 I was careless, I didn't dodge, let's kiss again.

The mines on the mountain have long been abandoned. To commemorate this, the residents of Meijinji Town built a wooden temple at the mine's entrance, which gave rise to a custom—

If a family in town has a boy, they will hang a carp streamer on the rafters; if they have a girl, they will place a porcelain doll under the eaves.

Lu Mingfei put Erii down, and she curiously leaned over to examine each porcelain doll.

Having been exposed to the elements outdoors for years, many of the porcelain dolls have faded in color, and some have even chipped paint from bumps and knocks. At night, they look somewhat eerie, like ghost dolls.

However, once Lu Mingfei rekindled the fire to dispel the darkness, the terrifying atmosphere vanished.

Erii wasn't too fond of these dolls; they looked dirty, and she happened to be a bit of a germaphobe.

So he quickly looked away and gazed at the distant cliffs.

There is wind there, and there is sea.

She straightened up and reached out her hand to Lu Mingfei.

Amin took Ali's hand on a starry night.

No airplanes flew overhead, and no shooting stars streaked across the night sky; the utterly silent world seemed to be inhabited only by the young men and women.

The road ahead was no longer broken, and they no longer had to be pressed against each other. Hand in hand, they arrived at the edge of the cliff, where they could see an endless sea.

The moon had already set in the west, and the distant horizon where the sea met the sky was beginning to lighten with the pale light of dawn.

The dark, surging waves shimmered, like the moon shattered into pieces and scattered across the sea, as described in the textbook.

The endless sea is quiet, and the small towns scattered along the coastline at the foot of the mountains are also sleeping peacefully, as if they have been sealed by time.

Lu Mingfei jumped onto the boulder on the cliff, sat down cross-legged, and with a slight effort pulled Erii up with him, her buttocks resting on his lap.

"It's pitch black, I can't see anything, won't I be disappointed?" He looked at the girl so close to him, her rosy eyes reflecting the dark sky and sea, the quiet wind and moon, her eyelashes trembling slightly.

"I can see." Erii's slender waist was encircled by the boy's hand, as if he was afraid that the mountain wind was too strong and would blow the soft and boneless girl away.

She placed her left hand on Lu Mingfei's left hand, and gently tucked away the wind-blown strands of hair with her right hand, like a human infant who had just left the cradle and seen the outside world, staring intently at the vast world she had never experienced before.

“And…” She turned her gaze back to the boy who had never looked away from her, her lips and eyebrows curving into a bright arc:

"It will get light."

Lu Mingfei stared blankly at the smiling girl in his arms, his heart skipping a beat.

After a moment, he nodded gently and put his arm around her waist: "Would you like to listen to a song?"

Yesterday he prepared a long playlist, but it was never used, and Erii was forced to listen to the clapper music for such a long time.

The beautiful scenery and the wonderful music filled the girl with anticipation, but she noticed that the boy, who was so close to her, didn't take out his phone. Instead, he looked away from her and gazed at the pale dawn sky in the distance.

“I don’t know where to begin
Time passes silently

Those words welled up in my mind, but then vanished without a trace…

Lu Mingfei's clear voice, mixed with the sound of the tide, rang out leisurely in the evening breeze. His fingertips lightly tapped Erii's small hand, one tap after another, as if it were a musical instrument in rhythm.

Erii's eyes sparkled as she looked at the boy singing to her, feeling a sense of happiness as if she had become an anime heroine.

In my dream, when the boy named Chu Zihang proposed to the girl he liked, he seemed to be playing the piano and singing a song.

Although Sakura is currently limited by her environment and can only use her hands as a piano to play, does that mean...?

Suddenly, pink bubbles popped into her mind. Erii carefully rested her head on Lu Mingfei's shoulder, just like in anime and movies, her eyes fixed on his clean and clear jawline, his lips opening and closing, and his Adam's apple bobbing up and down.

The rain is almost over, in this twilight that belongs only to the two of us.
On that day, at that time, at that place
If I had never met you

We will always be strangers…

In their past life, their meeting stemmed from a chance encounter.

On that sunset evening, he was conducting the band on stage, playing a love song. She came from below the stage, her hands behind her back, looking over like a curious red-haired elf.

If Lu Mingfei hadn't stepped back from the stage and instead stayed on stage as part of the atmosphere team, perhaps he would have missed his chance at love.

If Erii hadn't been shy and timid, keeping her distance from the crowd and observing from afar, perhaps he wouldn't have been able to accurately capture that red thread amidst the colorful hair.

Just as the song says, if he hadn't met her on that day, that night, by that river, they might have remained strangers forever.

Fortunately, he seized the opportunity and won over his brother-in-law with his shamelessness and persistent pursuit, successfully winning the heart of his beloved.

I like you more and more every day.

Love you more than now
I used everything I had to overcome the barriers of time and space to come to your side.

I want to turn into wings and protect you tightly
I want to become the wind and gently embrace you…

His singing doesn't rely on much technique; it's all about emotion.

What he sings is not just a song, but a promise, a cause and effect, and a predestined relationship from past lives.

The image of that loser in front of the TV, trying hard to hold back his tears, flashed through my mind again. He seemed to know this song too, and I also remember him learning to sing it by memorizing the pronunciation.

It's so simple and beautiful.

That's why it sounds so sincere when I sing it now.

The sea breeze carried the last echoes into the distance. Lu Mingfei looked down at Erii, their eyes met, there was no romantic atmosphere or sudden ambiguity, but they both saw their own reflections in each other's eyes.

"Sakura is amazing." Erii grasped the five fingers that were lightly tapping her palm, tightening her grip slightly, reluctant to let him go.

“Eri is fine too.” Lu Mingfei took her hand in return and rubbed his cheek against the strands of hair that were being blown by the wind on her forehead.

“I used to be good at nothing. I was bad at studying, bad at sports, and had no friends. The only thing I was good at was playing video games.”

Erii looked at him and squeezed his palm, mimicking his gesture: "All I know how to do is play video games."

“Yeah, you can become a really good person by playing games.” Lu Mingfei nodded. The thing he had heard most often since he was a child was what use playing games was except to harm people.

But this did not stop him from going down this path to the end and becoming the god of games who looked down on all living beings.

He had no intention of telling Erii about his past, that the past wasn't pleasant, and that he should just move forward and not look back.

"Does Erii want to see the outside world?"

"I do." Upon hearing this, the first image that came to Erii's mind was France, the place she and her brother had always dreamed of.

"Then I'll go with you to many, many places."

"it is good."

A simple promise, etched in their hearts, needs no pinky swearing.

As the darkness in the east began to fade, the faint sounds of people could be heard from the foot of the mountain. Fishermen who depend on the sea for their livelihood had already risen, preparing to begin a new day of fishing and sea life.

"Are there mermaids in the sea?" Erii looked up at Lu Mingfei. "There should be, but they might not be what you think." In Europe and America, mermaids are not the beautiful and wonderful ones in fairy tales, but monsters like sirens that lure ships at sea with their songs, drag the crew into the water to drown them, and then eat them.

Lu Mingfei thought that the legendary mermaid was probably the snake-like Deadpool he had encountered before, half-human and half-fish, covered in scales, ugly in appearance, and attacking people whenever it encountered them.

Just like the mermaids in Japanese mythology.

"Are there sea monsters there?" Erii asked again.

"Yes, it really exists." Lu Mingfei held Erii's hand, his tone very serious:

"There are giant nautiluses and Yamata no Orochi in the Pacific Ocean. In the future, monsters from outer space may also appear. Humans will need to pilot huge mechs to defeat them."

Do airships and moving castles really exist?

“Airships will take a long time to design, but mobile castles do exist, but they don’t walk on four legs, they walk on four wheels,” Lu Mingfei joked. “We call them motorhomes, only they’re not as big or as fully functional as Hal’s.”

Erii nodded, seemingly understanding but not quite, and continued to snuggle in his arms, asking questions:
"What about hell and heaven? Do they exist?"

"Only the dead know this. Once we catch Herzog, I'll send him to scout ahead, but he can only go to hell, not heaven."

Who is Herzog?

"Bad guy."

"Oh." Erii nodded. "Are A-laws and Celestial Being still at war?"

"A-laws has been disbanded. The Celestial Being organization has suffered heavy losses, but it continues to work hard to maintain world peace."

Is the Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon real?

"It's fake, that's a giant banana that Sorachi Ape imagined." Lu Mingfei lied without batting an eye.

When did the Kingdom of Britannia's enslavement of District 11 end?

"When Lelouch died, he was stabbed to death by that bastard Suzaku. The rule of the Kingdom of Britannia collapsed, and the enslaved nations regained their freedom."

Upon hearing this answer, Erii couldn't help but frown: "The Demon King is dead, what will happen to the witch?"

"The witch picked up the Demon King's corpse, resurrected him, and took him with her to travel the world. They even managed to get married in the meantime."

Lu Mingfei thought to himself how lucky he was to have watched the movie before he transmigrated; otherwise, tomorrow there would be a knife to Okouchi Ichiro's neck, forcing him to immediately restore Lelouch to life.

Upon hearing this, Erii let out a small sigh of relief and relaxed.

But thinking of the Demon King and Witch getting married and traveling the world, and of Lu Mingfei's words about liking, loving, protecting, and embracing her when he sang, she blinked.

So, Sakura really was confessing her feelings to me just now?

Or perhaps... a marriage proposal?
However, Sakura didn't explain things clearly like the boy named Chu Zihang in her dream; he was currently describing the world across the sea to her.

"The Middle East has oil, so it attracts US troops."

"Japan's otaku culture is prevalent because it has been a country with a history of 'secondary origins' since 1945."

"The Indians put a red dot between their eyebrows so that the British Empire can aim at them more easily."

"Americans always lose at pool because they like to play the black pieces first."

"Black people always leave a gift for their loved ones before they flee – their children."

"Why is Finger always complained about for disturbing the peace? Because he's dirt poor."

"The Chinese national football team can't qualify for the World Cup because they are too naive; they just play recklessly."

Lu Mingfei spoke eloquently, and Erii listened, nodding her head repeatedly.

"So this is what the outside world is like."

"Yeah, the real world is even more absurd than cartoons, full of hellish jokes. Would you be disappointed?" Lu Mingfei's introduction wasn't very serious, and by the end it almost turned into riddles.

"No, I'm not disappointed." Erii looked at the faint glow of dawn rising in the distance, her eyes shining brightly: "I like this world, this world is very interesting."

Her worldview is different from that of ordinary people, filled with all kinds of game and anime characters.

The medical staff on the ξ floor had been monitoring her and knew that her vital signs were very stable while she was watching cartoons, but they did not notice that a distorted and bizarre world was gradually taking shape in her mind.

Lu Mingfei wasn't in a hurry to correct her distorted worldview. The future was long, and he would take her to travel all over the world, to famous mountains and rivers.

The power of language is sometimes insufficient, and sometimes very sharp.

With just a few simple words, Lu Mingfei caused Erii's fantastical world, which she had spent years building, to collapse. He couldn't bear to see it crumble.

He preferred to fill the illusion in her world with bits and pieces of reality.

The two chatted aimlessly, one second discussing Chinese cuisine, the next jumping to how to get rich in Gotham, whether Ash is a half-blood, and what the relationship is between his mother and Professor Oak...

After an unknown amount of time, the pale light on the horizon completely faded, and a golden-red halo split the sea and sky, tinging everything with a light golden hue.

The black sea turned golden-red, shimmering in the sunlight.

The forest awakens from its slumber; a gentle breeze blows, and the water, without roots, reflects the colors of the rising sun, sliding down the leaves.

Voices gradually drifted through the town, and wisps of smoke could be seen rising from chimneys in the distance. The streets were soon bustling with people and vehicles.

The Ferris wheel in the distance casts its reflection, and on the distant train station, a slow yellow train lies quietly, with uniformed staff yawning in the sea breeze.

As the sun rose, the whole world was bathed in gold.

The sunlight felt warm on my skin, dispelling the chill that had accumulated overnight.

Its daybreak.

Erii's eyelashes trembled slightly, her crimson eyes like amber that could last for millions of years, as if she wanted to preserve this beautiful scene of the sea and sky merging into one, full of vitality, forever.

Lu Mingfei took out his new iPhone with a new screen, switched it to selfie mode, and adjusted the angle slightly to include the two of them, the town, the sea, and the rising sun in the frame.

"Eri, smile."

Lu Mingfei looked at the girl on the phone screen, whose eyes showed only a flicker of emotion, and gently patted her waist.

Such a beautiful scene wouldn't be complete without a beautiful woman's smile.
Erii looked at the perfect composition in the camera lens, then at the smiling boy, clenched her fists, and felt that she should respond.

So she leaned forward slightly and gently pressed her pink lips against the corner of the boy's lips.

Feeling the soft, warm touch on his cheek, Lu Mingfei's hand trembled, and he pressed the shutter.

"Crack!"

The boy with wide-eyed, bewildered eyes, the girl with a smile as if draped in a golden veil, and the stunning sunrise over the sea—all captured in this moment.

(End of this chapter)