Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei Returns from Japan

"Hey, Lu Mingfei, our group is here."

Her shout silenced the previously noisy crowd. All eyes turned to Lu Mingfei, and then, without a word, to Liu Miaomiao.

The boys mostly wore expressions of gritted teeth, while the girls had expectant, gossipy, and affectionate smiles.

"Yi Ran, what are you doing!" Liu Miaomiao hid behind the girl, her face flushed, and angrily punched her.

The girl's name is Qiao Yiran. Lu Mingfei knows her; she is one of Liu Miaomiao's best friends and is a well-known figure in the junior high school of Shilan Middle School.

Not only is she sweet and lovely with a tall and graceful figure, but she is also the ace of the Shilan High School tennis team. At a young age, she has already won many city and provincial championships, and it is said that she plans to go professional in the future.

If she can stay at Shilan High School to study in high school, then the title of Shilan High School's three most beautiful girls may have to be changed to four most beautiful girls.

Unfortunately, despite Shilan Middle School's best efforts to retain him, Qiao Yiran High School resolutely applied to another key high school in the north of the city—Xunli Middle School, shattering the dreams of countless male students from Shilan Middle School.

Someone you used to see every day may never be seen again. Everyone disappears into the vast sea of ​​people. That's what graduation is all about.

"I didn't do anything. Lu Mingfei is in our group, I called him over." Qiao Yiran hugged Liu Miaomiao's arm and blinked innocently.

"If you're going to yell, then yell... why are you yelling so loudly?"

"I was just worried he wouldn't hear me," Qiao Yiran chuckled. "What, you don't welcome him over?"

"It's not..."

"Miaomiao, if you don't welcome Lu Mingfei, I'll tell him not to come."

Before Liu Miaomiao could even speak after Qiao Yiran finished speaking, she waved her hand at Lu Mingfei again, saying, "Go away, Miaomiao forbids you from coming over. Just stay there quietly."

"How could I have told him not to come!"

"So you want him to come over?"

"I, I..." Liu Miaomiao's ears were burning, and she didn't know how to answer Qiao Yiran's question, so she simply shook off her arm, turned around and threw a tantrum.

"Hmph, all you do is bully people!"

"No, no, she's just..." Qiao Yiran coaxed Liu Miaomiao by swaying her hand while giving Lu Mingfei a wink, signaling him to come over.

What a scary woman...

Lu Mingfei was drenched in sweat.

I had only heard that Qiao Yiran was very good at tennis and knew that she was one of Liu Miaomiao's close friends, but I had never had any interaction with her.

Seeing her today, I realized that she had completely mastered the piano princess of Shilan Middle School. It was like Wu Song fighting the tiger, Nuonuo subduing Susie, and the dragon girl seducing her senior brother.

Lu Mingfei knew that this kind of behavior was just a kind of teasing in middle school. Once there was some ambiguous rumor between a boy and a girl, the boys and girls in the class would spontaneously do things that looked like "helping out".

But this doesn't necessarily mean they truly approve of you; it's more like they're just joining in the commotion.

In Lu Mingfei's hometown dialect, this behavior is called "da o hou".

Before Lu Mingfei could decide whether he should go over, the class teacher in charge picked up the megaphone and told everyone to quickly line up in their groups for roll call.

Oh my god, teacher, don't yell "Oh ho" too!

Lu Mingfei gritted his teeth and slowly shuffled toward Liu Miaomiao, wisely placing himself at the very end of the line, about 2.5 meters away from Liu Miaomiao, with three people between him.

Estimated distance between the two people...

Actually, there's no need to count. With 25 students in a class, divided into 5 groups, you can easily tell whether everyone is present or not.

After confirming that everyone was accounted for, they chatted as they boarded the bus.

A faint conversation between Qiao Yiran and Liu Miaomiao could be heard from ahead.

"Miaomiao, didn't you bring any luggage?"

"My family has already shipped my luggage over there in advance."

……

Lu Mingfei sighed, "Capitalist daughters have it so easy. They don't even have to carry their own luggage. Unlike me, I have to bring back some soy sauce for my aunt when I go to the capital."

There weren't many people in the class, and there were plenty of empty seats on the bus.

Without waiting for any arrangements, Lu Mingfei sat directly in the last row of the bus by the window.

"Lu Mingfei, what were you doing over there?" Qiao Yiran asked.

“I’d like a window seat,” Lu Mingfei replied.

"There are window seats up front too."

"No need, no need, I'm used to sitting in the last row."

After saying that, he put his hat on and pretended to be asleep.

Qiao Yiran glared at Lu Mingfei, her eyes filled with disappointment and frustration. She thought to herself, "Even though I'm actively trying to help him, he won't take it. I can't understand why my beautiful and wealthy best friend, Liu Miaomiao, would like this kind of guy."

Just a heads-up, the original characters are only used to advance the plot and won't have much screen time in later chapters. The important characters are still from the original Dragon Raja novel, so please be rational when shipping them.

Chapter 25 Business Class? Economy Class?

Lu Mingfei, of course, had no idea that Qiao Yiran was feeling sorry for him and angry at his lack of ambition. He looked at the scenery flashing by outside the window and silently prayed that the trip would go smoothly.

In his past life, his journeys never went smoothly whenever he encountered such long-distance travel.

When he first went to Kassel College for his freshman year, he encountered a delay on the CC100 express train and was fined $500 by Chicago customs for bringing a pirated PS2 disc. He was so miserable that he had to share a Coke with Finger.

During his sophomore summer vacation, he and Chu Zihang flew all the way to the Gocca train station with secret documents, only to encounter a strike by railway workers, forcing them to stay in a hotel with their senior with facial paralysis for a week.

During their junior year summer vacation, this time they weren't going to Chicago; instead, they were flying to Japan. The journey was relatively smooth until, just before landing, the plane went out of control, almost landing Lu Mingfei and his friends in jail. Fortunately, the plane eventually made an emergency landing in the sea, saving the trio's lives.

It wasn't until he watched an anime called "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" and saw a character named Joseph Joestar who crashed his plane four times, earning him the nickname "Vehicle Killer," that Lu Mingfei actually felt a sense of camaraderie, like two heroes admiring each other.

He longed to make friends with him and become sworn brothers, but alas, a chasm of a dimensional barrier separated them, preventing the brothers from meeting.

This was obviously a joke, but it's true that Lu Mingfei has a phobia of long-distance travel.

In 2006, Dongpu International Airport was relatively simple in terms of decoration and facilities, and the surrounding area was desolate, which was far from the prosperous and advanced appearance that Lu Mingfei remembered.

This landmark multi-modal airport, built in 1999, has been in use for less than seven years. The airport's second runway is still under renovation and is said to be officially put into use next year.

Following the instructions of the airport staff, Lu Mingfei went to the manual check-in counter with his class to check in his luggage. After selecting his seat, he prepared to print his boarding pass.

"Lu Mingfei, which seat are you sitting in?" Just as Lu Mingfei finished printing his boarding pass, Qiao Yiran suddenly appeared out from behind him.

"What do you want to do?" Lu Mingfei took a step back warily, clutching his boarding pass to his chest as if afraid of being molested.

He seriously suspected that this little girl was up to some crazy idea again.

For example, choosing a seat next to Liu Miaomiao.

"Tch, don't flatter yourself, okay?" Qiao Yiran made a face at Lu Mingfei, her nose wrinkling up. "Miao Miao checked in a long time ago. She paid for her own upgrade to business class, which is nothing compared to us economy class passengers. I'm just here to check if you secretly chose seats next to Miao Miao."

Lu Mingfei looked at Liu Miaomiao not far away and saw that she already had her boarding pass in her hand and was chatting and laughing with the girl next to her.

"Don't slander me, I'm innocent." Lu Mingfei showed Qiao Yiran his boarding pass.

Qiao Yiran's eyes quickly scanned Lu Mingfei's boarding pass, then a satisfied smile appeared on her face. She hummed a little tune and swayed her head as she checked in, leaving Lu Mingfei standing there completely bewildered.

……

The plane landed on time. The sky was clear and cloudless. The weather was fine for the next few days as well; the person in charge of choosing the travel dates had checked the weather forecast for the next ten days or so.

Lu Mingfei, holding his boarding pass, queued up and boarded the plane, taking his reserved seat.

He chose a seat A at the back of the cabin, by the window, from which he could see the busy airport ground staff on the tarmac.

After the plane takes off, the people on the ground will gradually shrink, from tiny insects to smaller than ants, until the plane flies into the clouds and their figures completely disappear.

A series of heavy footsteps sounded ahead, and a burly figure gradually approached Lu Mingfei. Lu Mingfei looked up and saw a bald, strong white man stop in his row.

The burly man, wearing sunglasses and holding a boarding pass, glanced at the seat numbers on the wall. His gaze behind the sunglasses was authoritative and imposing.

This guy... he wouldn't happen to be sitting right next to me, would he? Lu Mingfei's heart skipped a beat.

The bald, muscular white man stuffed his bag into the overhead luggage rack directly above Lu Mingfei, then plopped down in seat C, which was closest to the aisle.

Thank goodness, thank goodness. Lu Mingfei sighed inwardly.

Not long after the burly man sat down, Lu Mingfei caught a glimpse of a lithe figure slowly walking towards the rear half of the cabin.

As luck would have it, the figure also stopped in Lu Mingfei's row.

Lu Mingfei turned his head toward the aisle.

Their gazes met those of Liu Miaomiao, who was holding her boarding pass, in mid-air.

Then suddenly, he saw Liu Miaomiao's pretty face turn red, and she hurriedly looked away.

A sense of foreboding suddenly rose in Lu Mingfei's heart.

"Weren't you supposed to be in business class? Why are you in economy?"

Liu Miaomiao lowered her head and remained silent.

"You..." Lu Mingfei was taken aback, "You're not sitting here, are you? Row B, XX?"

"When we were boarding, Yiran told me that she suddenly felt a little unwell and wanted to switch seats with me so she could sit in the business class in front and rest for a while, so I switched with her."

A faint blush spread across Liu Miaomiao's cheeks as she looked around nervously. "I didn't expect you to be sitting here too."

Oh my god, it happened when I was looking at my boarding pass!

Lu Mingfei couldn't help but lower his head and cover his face, thinking that he had planned everything, but he never expected that Qiao Yiran would reserve a seat next to him first and then switch seats with Liu Miaomiao.

“She definitely did it on purpose.” Lu Mingfei rubbed his forehead. “Why don’t you… sit back down?”

Liu Miaomiao bit her lip and hesitated for a moment.

"It's okay, I'll sit here. I feel like she's really not feeling well."

Lu Mingfei couldn't help but think to himself, "Liu Miaomiao, you're such a good person. No wonder Zhao Menghua scummed you." But she was really just pretending to be uncomfortable, trying to set us up.

Wait, doesn't using the word "matchmaking" here sound a bit too ambiguous?

Although Liu Miaomiao said she would just sit there, she stood in the aisle for a long time without coming in. Lu Mingfei initially thought that Liu Miaomiao was still hesitating about whether to sit with him.

But when she glanced to the side, she saw Liu Miaomiao holding her boarding pass, looking timidly at the bald, burly man sitting in seat C, as if she wanted to say something but hesitated.

Then she immediately realized that Liu Miaomiao was intimidated by the aura of the bald, burly man, Wu Ke.

"Why don't you sit inside, Liu Miaomiao? I'll sit in the middle."