Dragon Clan: Force me to be reborn and slay dragons

Chapter 297 The Lost Girl

"Sakura, who was that just now?"

Erii looked back and saw that there was a lot of noise on the playground, but no one actually went near the chubby boy who was lying in a pool of water with carbamate as the main component.

"An annoying guy, don't worry about him." Lu Mingfei reached out and gently turned the girl's face back, feeling a delicate, cool touch on his fingertips.

His tone was flat; he felt disgusted by even glancing at such a person, and it would be a loss to taint Erii's pure heart.

Chu Zihang stood silently to the side, his black hair and shirt collar fluttering in the breeze.

As a former student council president, he actually knew of Lu Mingze's existence—that chubby boy who always swaggered around in the lower grades, and the subtle brotherly relationship between him and Lu Mingfei.

However, Chu Zihang had to juggle his studies, city basketball team training, math Olympiad competitions, and student council work, so he simply didn't have the energy to pay attention to these trivial matters.

“Senior, you’re quite familiar with the school leaders, so this time you can directly borrow the student lists from Shilan Middle School over the years under the name of Kassel College.” Lu Mingfei said with a mischievous smile, clearly enjoying having his former campus heartthrob run errands for him.

Although he's been in the spotlight for the past two days, Lu Mingfei is a bad student who hates dealing with teachers and leaders, so he simply handed over all the responsibilities to Chu Zihang.

Chu Zihang nodded slightly, his back as he turned and walked towards the administration building, his posture as upright as a pine tree.

He knew the building as well as his own living room, and found the principal's office with ease. After three well-timed knocks, he pushed the door open and entered.

With a "click," the door closed, and downstairs, Lu Mingfei was also strolling outside with Erii in his hand.

Outstanding alumni returning to their alma mater for a visit takes at least half an hour. Even though Chu Zihang had a cold demeanor, he couldn't refuse the principal's desire for advancement, and he didn't want to wait there foolishly.

The domain of the Word of Power: Ghost silently unfolded, reducing the presence of the two to the extreme. In the eyes of ordinary students, they were practically just two insignificant units with a collision volume.

"That's the junior high school, the place where I became famous." Lu Mingfei held Erii's hand and told her about his experiences in school.

Of course, this refers to the road god in the past life, not the road god in this life. The person in this world is characterized by being a coward, with a kind of imperfect beauty of "stepping on me is like stepping on cotton".

"Back in the day, I'd 'smack' a left front kick, 'smack' a right roundhouse kick, 'smack' a left jab, and beat those bastards so badly they couldn't even find their way back."

Erii listened to his artistically embellished story, her eyes shining: "Sakura is amazing."

"It's alright, nothing special." Lu Ming was glad that he was not a sociable person back then. He neither participated in the school sports meet to show off nor participated in any performances or competitions to show off in front of others. Otherwise, it would have been difficult to distort the truth.

After all, in this world, he was just a weakling at first, even worse than a girl at long-distance running.

Yes, although she was a girl who had trained in track and field.

"Actually, my campus life was quite boring. Besides playing games, I just read novels and comics. I was all alone."

Lu Mingfei squeezed the girl's hand and said with a smile, "If Erii had been there back then, perhaps my coming-of-age story wouldn't have been so monotonous and boring."

Erii looked at him, blinked, and said, "Sakura, aren't you going to university? I can go with you."

"We'll talk about that later." Before going to Japan, Lu Mingfei's life plan was to play games and speculate on cryptocurrencies, achieve financial freedom a few years ahead of schedule, and then travel the world together with Erii.

But now that I've seen the true face of the world, and I possess the power and secrets to influence the entire world, I really can't put everything down and travel around with the people I like.

Moreover, as someone who has been through it all, he deeply abhors the practice of setting flags (i.e., making promises or goals).

Shilan Middle School is very large, and Lu Mingfei remembers many places there that bear his mark, but due to the change in the world line, everything has vanished.

The original trio is now reduced to one with facial paralysis and one who is just a third wheel.

Erii was admiring the scenery on campus, but she was also observing Lu Mingfei. Seeing the regret and sadness in his eyes, she tightened her grip on his hand and whispered:
“From now on, Sakura and I will be together.”

"Hmm." Lu Mingfei smiled and noticed that Lu Mingze's homeroom teacher was making a phone call with a grim expression at the entrance of the school clinic not far away. His mood suddenly improved.

You say I'm hopeless, but your son isn't much better; he turned himself into a rotten mess.

I wandered around the campus again, but nothing new happened this time.

Not long after, Lu Mingfei received a message from Chu Zihang and met up with Erii.

Shilan Middle School's teaching staff and facilities meet the standards of a private elite academy, and all student records are entered into the system. However, when Lu Mingfei asked Su Enxi for help, he could not find the person he was looking for in Shilan Middle School's database, so he had to settle for paper documents instead.

At first, he suspected that Xia Mi had never appeared at Shilan Middle School, but Chu Zihang's memory seemed to have been tampered with, and it was still impossible to detect it with scientific means.

This is worth discussing.

When Chu Zihang arrived at the administration building, he was chatting with a teacher in charge of student files. When Lu Mingfei and Erii appeared out of thin air after dispelling the Word of Power, the teacher was so frightened that he almost knocked over his thermos.

Although she was a little curious about how the school's notorious loser suddenly found a girlfriend, when she met Lu Mingfei's gaze, the gossip fire burning in her heart seemed to be extinguished by a bucket of water, and she had no desire to ask any questions.

The files of graduated students will not remain at the school, but some things will not be destroyed.

For example, medical examination reports, grade rankings, lists of outstanding students, lists of participants in the school sports meet, lists of performers for the school anniversary gala, etc.

Lu Mingfei didn't believe that the guy who erased him from Chu Zihang's memory could also erase all the traces he left behind!

You can delete electronic records, but to completely erase evidence that someone ever existed? You'd have to burn the entire school down.

Finger said that Xia Mi was a student at Peking University High School and a freshman in the preparatory class of Kassel College, and based on this, he deduced that she should be in the same grade as Lu Mingfei or the chubby Lu Mingze.

However, Lu Mingfei was still very decisive and did not hesitate at all to ask Chu Zihang to collect the information of all the students in his year.

Not only during high school, but also during junior high school.

"They should all be here," the teacher said, bringing out about a dozen boxes filled with paper documents and dusting himself off.

This place contains not only information on Chu Zihang's classmates over the past six years, but also information on many school events; basically, everything you can find is here.

"Thank you, thank you for your trouble." Chu Zihang said his thanks, and then he and Lu Mingfei began searching together.

Seeing this, Erii volunteered to drag over a box to help find the girl named Natsumi.

She was in charge of school events and club activities.

"Zihang, what are you looking for?" The teacher finally couldn't resist his curiosity. Seeing two prominent figures from Shilan Middle School and a pretty foreign girl squatting on the ground turning over and over, his dormant gossip spirit was reignited.

Before Chu Zihang could answer, Lu Mingfei looked up at him and said, "Teacher, it's a bit hot. Could you please turn on the air conditioner?"

Could you also help us find photos of school events from previous years? They'll be useful.

His words seemed to have some kind of magic power. After the teacher nodded in agreement, he stopped paying attention to their plans, turned around, found the air conditioner remote control, turned it on, and then hurriedly went to another room of honor to retrieve the photo collection and album that Lu Ming insisted on.

Seeing this, Chu Zihang glanced at Lu Mingfei. "A little trick," Lu Mingfei blinked, revealing an innocent smile, "much easier than explaining."

The three men's fingertips moved quickly through the yellowed pages, their excellent dynamic vision allowing them to easily read ten or even twenty lines at a glance.

Xia Mi's short name should have stood out among many three-character names, but as Lu Mingfei reviewed more and more information, his brows furrowed more and more.

"Damn it..." he muttered to himself, tossing yet another class roster back into the box.

They had already gone through nearly half of the information, but hadn't found even a trace of Xia Mi—this was beyond the scope of ordinary information deletion.

But even the most elaborate disguise will leave flaws.

“Our class is missing a third of its materials,” Chu Zihang suddenly said, his voice lower than usual.

The class logbook in his hand was noticeably thinner than those of other classes, and the binding showed signs of having been disassembled and reassembled.

Erii also made a discovery. The girl's slender fingers stopped on a deliberately scrambled page of the school magazine, some of the page numbers were obviously out of order, as if someone had hurriedly stuffed the scattered papers back together.

Even more suspiciously, several places that should have been supplemented with pictures are now blank, leaving cropped marks around the edges of the photos.

The school magazine features the activities of various clubs within Sze Lan Secondary School, but photos of the dance club have been cut.

Through the square gap, you can see the next page, where the literature club members, dressed in white dresses, smile at the camera, while in the corner, there's a random intruder whose back view alone exudes a sense of slacker.

The matter is clear: someone has indeed erased all traces of their existence.

However, the methods used were too simple and crude.

"Little brat, she's quite good at hiding." The thought of a stunningly beautiful girl sneaking into the archives room for several days in a row late at night, using a flashlight to erase her traces, made Lu Mingfei feel inexplicably amused, and he couldn't help but laugh out loud.

Does modern society want to completely erase its existence?

Unless you're invisible or a ninja.

Especially in places like Sze Lan Secondary School, where there are few students, many activities, and strict management, every student's life from enrollment to graduation is clearly recorded.

Lu Mingfei even felt a little sorry for Xia Mi, who had to stay up all night to "destroy the evidence." He imagined that she must have regretted choosing such a troublesome identity to disguise herself when she was tearing up the photos and cursing in the early hours of the morning.

Principal, it's truly a great blessing that you're only bald and not losing your head.

About half an hour later, the three were still engrossed in searching when the teacher who was helping them pushed open the door and entered, carrying a stack of photo albums and picture books.

"Whew—it's all here." After putting it down, he sat down in a chair, panting heavily, regretting that he wasn't a PE teacher but an office worker enjoying air conditioning.

But then I thought, being a PE teacher would mean getting sick all the time, and people would be nagging me about it all the time. Even if I wasn't sick, I'd have to walk around a bit to make sure the virus wasn't out of control. So I decided against it.

Chu Zihang took the photo album and quickly flipped through the pages with his slender fingers.

As a prominent figure throughout his six years at Shilan High School, his image appears in almost every yearbook: the moment he sprints at the school sports meet, his upright posture during a speech contest, his expressionless peace sign after winning the basketball championship...

But gradually, Chu Zihang slowed down the speed at which he turned the pages.

His gaze lingered on a basketball team photo, where a dozen boys in team uniforms surrounded a trophy, while he, standing in the center, faced the camera, but his gaze was subtly drawn to the edge of the photo.

Even more strangely, several teammates around them also looked in the same direction, as if some dazzling being was standing there.

One of them was subtly poking himself with his elbow, as if reminding him or mocking him.

As Chu Zihang continued flipping through the pages, his fingertip stopped on a photo of a solo performance at the Spring Festival Gala.

In the predominantly black and white image, the boy is dressed in a well-tailored black suit, his slender fingers resting on the cello strings, his eyes lowered, his posture elegant.

This should have been a tranquil artistic scene, but Chu Zihang's gaze was fixed on his slightly furrowed brows.

That wasn't the expression of someone immersed in music.

The person in the photo is clearly suppressing something.

His lowered gaze didn't seem focused; rather, it seemed like he was deliberately avoiding a certain direction from the audience.

The slight furrow in his brow wasn't a sign of engagement, but rather a hint of helplessness at being disturbed.

Who was interfering with him?

Was it the enthusiastic gaze of the onlookers, or a mischievous girl waving a glow stick trying to attract his attention?

"hiss--"

The sudden stinging sensation made Chu Zihang instinctively press his forehead, as if something buried deep in the earth was breaking through the soil. However, the fertile soil that sealed his memories was as if some golden vampire was carrying a road roller and pressing it flat with "Muda Muda Muda Muda," and then pouring concrete on top to reinforce it.

He forced himself to endure the headache and continued flipping through the photos, trying to speed up the process of his memories breaking free.

This is a photo collection of the junior high school choir competition. My fingertip hovers over one of the pages, which shows his class.

Standing in the center, he remained expressionless, as if owed 3.5 million yuan, while a blurry figure with a ponytail could be seen at the edge of the photo. The girl stood in the far corner of the group, not tall, but her radiant smile seemed to transcend time.

Strangely, her face seemed to be deliberately blurred by some force, with only the upturned corners of her mouth visible, like the afterimage of an old-fashioned camera accidentally shaken.

This discovery cheered him up, and the stinging pain seemed to subside.

The girl is almost nowhere to be found in the high school photos; her existence can only be inferred from the unnatural direction of the gaze of the people in the paintings.

However, a few "slip-ins" can still be captured in the junior high school footage.

For example, a snapshot from a junior high school sports meet shows him preparing to receive the baton in the 4x100m relay final. At the edge of the crowd, a blurry figure with a ponytail is making a face at the camera.

Although his face was mostly obscured by his raised arm, his lively posture and the charming way he stuck out his tongue still contrasted sharply with the excited and nervous classmates around him, like a koi fish leaping from a pool of paper to bring good luck.

"Hey, we have to win!"

A hallucinatory girl's voice suddenly rang in his ears, causing Chu Zihang's pupils to contract sharply. His slender fingers gripped the edge of the photo album tightly, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force.

A drop of cold sweat trickled down Chu Zihang's jawline, leaving a small water stain on the photo.

The girl he lost, the only bright smile that appeared in his youthful memories, finally surfaced from the distorted river of memories.

(End of this chapter)