Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Inside were neat but slightly hurried handwriting, recording various locations, times, speculations, and a great deal of personal thoughts and doubts.

"This is Wan Boqian's investigation notes," Chu Zihang said, quickly browsing through them and extracting key information for everyone. "She and her partner Gao Mi were ordered to investigate anomalies in the Beijing subway system that might be related to the Nibelungen. Their investigation focused on several of the oldest and most rumored lines, especially Line 1 and the Loop Line."

Fingel picked up one of the laptops and tried to turn it on, only to find that it required a password.

"Tsk, the Executive Department's security measures are really something. Wait, watch me, Grandpa Fingel." He pulled out a small device from somewhere, connected it to the computer, and started typing rapidly with his fingers flying across the keyboard, a biscuit dangling from his mouth.

Lu Mingfei was somewhat restless. He picked up another notebook and looked at it from different angles, but his mind was elsewhere.

He hesitated for a moment, then took out his phone and opened a bookmarked webpage.

"Um, senior brother, Frilian, Fingel," Lu Mingfei said hesitantly, "I saw a post online a few days ago while I was browsing. It seemed a bit strange, and I don't know if it's useful."

"What post? A Beijing food guide?" Fingel asked, cracking the code without looking up.

"No," Lu Mingfei showed everyone his phone screen, "it's about haunted subways in Beijing."

The screen displayed a popular urban legends forum, with the post titled: [Warning: Enter at Night] The Strange Things I Encountered in the Beijing Subway Over the Years!

The poster vividly described various strange sights he encountered while taking the last bus late at night.

An empty carriage suddenly has a figure, a pale face flashes by in the tunnel, and the sound of a child crying that doesn't exist is heard.

The replies below were even more bizarre, embellished, and the whole post was full of sensationalism.

Fingel glanced at it and scoffed, "There are hundreds of these kinds of posts in every city, just trying to get clicks, right? I've even seen posts claiming to have seen Empress Dowager Cixi riding the subway on Line 2!"

"No, look at this reply!" Lu Mingfei quickly swiped the screen, pointing to a reply that was inconspicuous but extremely specific.

The reply read as follows:

"Enough with the nonsense. If you really want to know what's under the subway, try that 'Golden Pass' method. Apparently, you need a regular transportation card, and then, within a single day, you must enter each subway station on Line 1 and the Loop Line (Line 2) once—every single station! And you must swipe the same card each time! If you succeed, you'll see the card turn gold on the last swipe. Take this gold card and swipe it at any subway station, and it will take you to a hidden station. [Evil laugh] [Evil laugh] Dare to try?"

Several follow-up questions and jokes appeared below this reply:

"Have you tried it, OP?"

"That's bullshit! Running all the stops in one day? Even if you didn't eat, drink, or poop, you wouldn't have enough time!"

"Turn it gold? Gold plating? That's quite expensive!"

"A hidden site? Is it a route to Hogwarts?"

But the person who originally posted the method never replied again.

The living room fell silent; even Fingel stopped typing and frowned.

“Each station, within a day,” Chu Zihang pondered. “Line 1 plus the loop line has more than 50 stations in total. Even without considering transfer time, just appearing at each platform and swiping the card would theoretically take more than 15 hours. This is almost an impossible task, unless…”

“Unless there’s superhuman speed, or normal spatial distance is ignored,” Frilian continued, “this doesn’t sound like a joke, it sounds more like a ritual. A contract or rule with strict limitations for opening a passage.”

“Rules.” Lu Mingfei’s heart skipped a beat as he recalled Norma’s description of the Nibelungs, which often followed specific, distorted rules.

Just then, a soft "beep" sounded from Fingel's end.

"Done! Cracked! Let me see what's on Gao Mi's computer." He excitedly began browsing. "Oh? A lot of sonic and geological scan data, driving records, etc., and an encrypted diary folder. Give me three more seconds."

Soon, Fingel retrieved several diary entries.

Gao Mi's writing style is quite direct, recording a lot of dry data and work progress, but in the last few articles, a growing sense of unease and confusion is revealed between the lines.

“Bo Qian’s ‘Bloodline Cluster’ sensed an extremely strong but untraceable bloodline summoning response, right below the track, intermittent, like a heartbeat.”

"We tried to explore downwards using the 'snake,' but the feedback was extremely chaotic, and the spatial structure seemed unstable."

“We may have found an entrance, but we need a key, a key that conforms to specific rules.”

"Is that legend true? Does it require branding?"

The last diary entry was extremely short, consisting of only one sentence: "We've decided to give it a try. Wish us luck."

The date was the very day they disappeared.

Fingel quickly hacked into Wan Boqian's computer and found the link to the City Legends forum in her browser history, as well as the direct access record to the post about the "Golden Pass"!

All the clues seem to be connected!

Wan Boqian's Word of Power is "Bloodline Kelp," which allows her to sense the presence of powerful bloodlines. She sensed the call from the King of the Earth and Mountains or his retinue in the underground Nibelungen.

Gao Mi's Word of Power is "Snake," but her attempts to investigate revealed an anomaly in the space.

Combining survey data and online rumors, they deduced a possible way to enter the Nibelungen, the seemingly absurd rule of "browsing all the stations in one day"!

And they tried it!

“So, they didn’t simply get lost,” Lu Mingfei said. “Did they intentionally perform this ritual? And succeed? Enter that hidden site, but couldn’t get out?”

“It seems so.” Chu Zihang closed Wan Boqian’s notebook. “This ‘rule’ is very likely the key to entering that specific Nibelungen. And once inside, we will probably have to follow another set of even more dangerous and bizarre rules.”

"They scoured every single site in one day," Fingel said, stroking his chin. "Is this even humanly possible? How did those two manage that? Even if they didn't eat, drink, or sleep, they couldn't do it even if they ran their legs off!"

“What if,” Frillian began slowly, posing a hypothetical scenario, “then what if they didn’t complete the ritual in a real subway station? What if the ritual itself, once it began, had already partially drawn them into the rules of that distorted space, causing the distance between stations to be shortened or distorted?”

“We must report this discovery to Professor Schneider immediately,” Chu Zihang said, standing up and picking up his phone.

"What happens after the report?" Lu Mingfei asked. "Will the academy send someone to test this rule?"

Chu Zihang paused for a moment, looked at Lu Mingfei, and then glanced at Fingel and Frilian.

“I’m afraid so,” he said in a deep voice. “This is the clearest clue at the moment. We need someone to repeat this ritual and find that entrance.”

The room was completely silent.

Imagine navigating through more than fifty subway stations in a single day, performing that bizarre and dangerous card-swiping ritual, ultimately leading to an unknown and terrifying place that has devoured two outstanding specialists.

It felt like deliberately jumping into an abyss with its mouth wide open.

Lu Mingfei looked at the reply on his phone about the "Golden Pass," and the sinister smiley faces silently mocked their fear.

The gates of Nibelungen had opened a crack to them, behind which lay unfathomable darkness.

Chapter 151 Mingfei, Save Zhao Menghua

Early in the morning, the street corner near the hotel came alive with people hurrying to work and students laughing and playing with their backpacks.

The air is filled with the aroma of breakfast: the crispy fragrance of fried dough sticks, the rich aroma of soy milk, and the enticing aroma of batter and eggs being mixed and grilled on a griddle, a quintessential northern street food.

Lu Mingfei and Frilian walked side by side on the sidewalk, their destination the always-popular jianbing (Chinese crepe) stand.

This is a habit they've developed over the past few days; Frilian has developed a fondness for this street food that combines batter, eggs, crispy crackers, and sauce.

"Uncle, the usual order, two pancakes, two eggs each, one with extra cilantro, and one without scallions," Lu Mingfei called out familiarly to the stall owner.

"Alright!" The uncle, wearing an apron and sporting a kind smile, deftly scooped up a spoonful of batter, flicked his wrist, and spread a perfect circle on the scalding hot griddle. "Young man, you brought your girlfriend to eat pancakes again? Your foreign girlfriend is really pretty, she never gets tired of our Chinese flavor!"

Lu Mingfei's face flushed, and he quickly waved his hands, "No, no, no, Uncle, don't talk nonsense, we're just classmates! We went on a business trip together!"

He glanced furtively at Frillie, who quietly watched the uncle skillfully crack the eggs, brush on the sauce, and sprinkle the scallions, completely ignoring his teasing, or rather, not caring at all.

Lu Mingfei breathed a sigh of relief, but also felt a strange sense of loss.

Just as the uncle handed the first pancake to Frillie, a slightly anxious yet timid female voice rang out from the side: "Excuse me, are you Lu Mingfei?"

Lu Mingfei was taken aback and looked in the direction of the sound.

A girl in a plain dress, pale-faced and with red and swollen eyes, stood not far away, looking at him timidly.

The girl looked haggard, as if she hadn't slept well for a long time, and was clutching a cell phone tightly in her hand.

"Chen Wenwen?" Lu Mingfei recognized the person. She was his high school classmate, the president of the literary club, and the girl he had a crush on who later became Zhao Menghua's girlfriend.

Later, Chen Wenwen was dumped by Zhao Menghua.

How did she end up here? And in this state?

"It really is you, Mingfei!" Chen Wenwen exclaimed as if she had grasped a lifeline. She quickly stepped forward, her eyes instantly reddening again. "I heard you came to Beijing. I asked around a lot of people before I finally found this hotel area. I..."

She was incoherent, emotional, and looked like she was about to cry.

"Don't panic, tell me slowly, what happened?" Lu Mingfei was a little flustered and quickly handed over a tissue.

Frillie also stopped eating the pancake and quietly looked at Chen Wenwen, noticing the intense anxiety and fear emanating from the other woman.

"Yes, it's Zhao Menghua," Chen Wenwen sniffled, her voice choked with emotion. "He...he's missing! He was on the subway!"

"Missing?" Lu Mingfei's heart skipped a beat.

"Yes!" Chen Wenwen nodded vigorously, and tears finally fell.

“Just a week ago! He said he went out to dinner with friends that night, and later his friends said he left very early, saying he was going to take the subway home. But he never came back! We couldn't get through to him on the phone! We called the police, and the police checked the surveillance footage. They only saw him enter the subway station, and then, he disappeared! The surveillance footage never showed him coming out again!”

"It's like he just vanished into thin air! The police have been investigating for a long time, but they haven't found a single clue! Everyone says it's possible he got lost because there were too many people around, or that he deliberately avoided the surveillance cameras. But I know that's not it! Something must have happened to Zhao Menghua!"

Lu Mingfei and Frilian exchanged a glance, both seeing seriousness in each other's eyes.

"Was there anything unusual about him before he disappeared?" Frillian asked. "Or did he mention anything strange about the subway to anyone?"

Chen Wenwen paused for a moment before trying to recall, "It seems so. Liu Miaomiao said he seemed a bit restless those few days, that he kept having nightmares, dreaming that he was lost in the subway and couldn't find his way out. He also mentioned once that he seemed to have found a very strange subway card, golden and shiny, but later said he couldn't find it, maybe it was just a dream."

A golden subway card!

This matches the legendary "golden pass" circulating online!

"Anything else?" Lu Mingfei hurriedly asked, "Every detail could be very important!"

Chen Wenwen was startled by his urgency and shrank back, but still tried to think: "It seems like that's all. Oh right! The night before he disappeared, he inexplicably asked Liu Miaomiao if it would be really stupid to visit every subway station in Beijing in one day."

Everything is connected!

Zhao Menghua may have inadvertently come into contact with that "golden pass" that served as a key, or rather, that had been corrupted by the power of the Nibelungs.

Perhaps he did find it, or perhaps he was simply affected by its power and developed hallucinations and obsessions.

Then, whether unconsciously or under duress, he attempted to complete the ritual of visiting all the stations in one day.

The last place he was seen, the transfer passage, was very likely the end point of the ceremony, or rather, the entrance.

His disappearance wasn't a simple one; like Wan Boqian and Gao Mi, he was dragged into the Nibelungen, the land and mountain king hidden beneath the Beijing subway.

"Lu Mingfei, do you know something?" Chen Wenwen looked at Lu Mingfei's suddenly changed expression and seemed to grasp a glimmer of hope. She grabbed his arm urgently. "Please, if you know anything, you must tell me! Please, please help him, okay? I know, I know he was sometimes quite unreasonable before, but he..."

Looking at Chen Wenwen's tear-streaked face, filled with despair and hope, Lu Mingfei felt incredibly conflicted.

Zhao Menghua, the guy who once embarrassed and basked in the glory of the literary society, may now be trapped in an unimaginable predicament.

He took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady: "Chen Wenwen, don't panic. This matter might be much more complicated than a typical missing persons case. We're also investigating similar cases. I promise you, we'll do our best to investigate and let you know as soon as we have any news, okay?"