Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Except for one woman with long silver hair who looked exceptionally fresh and even somewhat out of place simply wearing a black coat and trousers.

The silk linings of the other people's black coats, especially those of Genjiro, Caesar, and Chu Zihang, shimmered with a dazzling luster under the light, adorned with patterns that exuded both ferocity and antiquity.

A blue-faced, fanged yaksha was tearing apart the body of a demon. A woman riding a ferocious mountain tiger, a long sword bound to her waist by a red ribbon, exuded both allure and deadly intent. This striking visual impact, coupled with their cold, scrutinizing gazes, created a suffocating sense of oppression.

Noda Hisashi was stunned!

He'd heard of these people—the family's enforcers! Shadow judges who only appeared in underworld legends and the stories of a select few high-ranking members, wielding the power of life and death! How could they be here? For this tiny toy store?

Behind the counter, Makoto Aso was filled with immense joy! She had previously been desperate and had asked a classmate who supposedly had connections to the yakuza for help. The classmate was hesitant, saying he didn't know anyone influential in Kabukicho, and finally only gave Makoto a phone number to "try calling."

My classmate said that there was an even more powerful family above the gang, and if that family were willing to intervene, things might change. It was the first time I'd ever heard of a helpline for the underworld. I nervously dialed it, and a girl with a sweet voice answered.

To get attention, Zhen boldly embellished the story, describing how brutal the thugs were. The girl on the other end of the phone focused on the rate adjustment, which Zhen didn't quite understand, only vaguely replying "yes, yes." The girl concluded by saying the matter was important and she would entrust it to the appropriate department, asking Zhen to wait for news. After that, there was no further contact.

Zhen had almost given up on this slim hope. How could the main family, which even gangsters respected, possibly have the time and energy to bother with the troubles of a small toy store?

"Are you sure you're not in the wrong place?" Lu Mingfei looked around, at the walls covered with cartoon posters, plush toys, and comic book shelves, then at the young thug in the center of the store who was holding a comic book and clearly stunned. He was a little confused. "Young Master, are you sure you're not in the wrong place? This doesn't look like a place with short skirts and thighs at all!"

Genji looked around the overly cozy shop. "This is indeed the place, but we rarely deal with toy stores."

He turned to Sakura beside him, lowered his voice, and said with a hint of accusation, "How could such a minor dispute be reported to the liaison department, and even involve darts? Those old guys are paid high consulting fees, and all they do every day is deal with cases like toy stores being intimidated by thugs?"

Sakura's face showed a hint of embarrassment. She recalled the process and explained in a low voice, "It's possible that the operator misunderstood when recording the information, or the person seeking help didn't describe it clearly, leading the operator to mistakenly believe that the protection fee rate for the entire street was going to be increased. They've been dealing with large-scale conflicts and turf wars for too long, and they're a bit overly sensitive. When they hear keywords like 'rate,' 'increase,' or 'threat,' they tend to overreact."

At that moment, Caesar strode over. He casually tossed his ornately decorated, menacing hunting knife, Dictator, onto the glass coffee table in front of Noda Hisashi with a loud clatter. The sound of metal striking glass was particularly jarring in the quiet shop.

Then, he pulled up a chair, sat down opposite Noda Hisashi with an air of superiority, leaned forward, and said in his Italian-accented English, which Noda Hisashi couldn't understand at all: "Kid, the young master of the main family personally came out of his way, speeding all the way here in a Ferrari, just for this little thing of yours. You're very lucky."

Sakura is the Japanese translation of Caesar.

Noda Hisashi was utterly shocked, his mouth agape, unable to utter a single word. He hadn't quite figured out why these six fiends had descended from the sky, but he could clearly see the murder weapon they had casually tossed onto the table. The black blade exuded power, and the back of the blade was covered in jagged serrations, gleaming coldly under the light, like the fangs of a ferocious beast.

Chapter 392 Things Have Gone Wrong

Noda Hisashi never expected things to escalate to this point! He was just acting impulsively and wanted to establish his authority, so he made a few threatening remarks. He didn't really insist on raising the protection fee by 15%.

As long as the shop owner is willing to humble himself, say a few kind words, and offer a way out, he'll go along with it. If the shop owner is really struggling, he's even considered extending the deadline until business improves so he can make up the difference.

How could this be? How could it have alarmed the main family's law enforcement? And six of them at once! Six! Among them was a blond, blue-eyed guy who looked like a foreign movie star! Could he be a top-tier foreign mercenary hired by the main family? Specializing in handling the most difficult and bloodiest missions?

A barrage of horrifying thoughts exploded in Noda Hisashi's mind. He couldn't understand a single word the foreign mercenary was saying, but he felt it was undoubtedly the most vicious and direct threat of death. His fingers, gripping "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" tightly, turned slightly white from the force, and his back was soaked with cold sweat.

At this moment, Frilian, standing a little further back, tilted her head slightly, her eyes calmly sweeping over the shop filled with childlike fun and colorful goods, then looked at the young thug in the white trench coat who was terrified, as well as the comic book and the menacing hunting knife on the table.

In this environment, her clean-cut demeanor, delicate features, and attire—all incongruous with the grim atmosphere of the surrounding gangsters and the shop's childlike style—made her look more like an innocent foreign tourist who had accidentally wandered into a strange place, slightly bewildered by everything. However, there was no fear in her eyes.

"Gentlemen, please have some tea," Aso Makoto said, carrying a somewhat old wooden tea tray with several steaming cups of barley tea. She walked over unsteadily, her voice barely audible. The scene before her startled her quite a bit.

"Oh dear, oh dear, I can't trouble you, let me do it!" Lu Mingfei darted forward, his face beaming, and eagerly took the tea tray in his broken, oddly accented Japanese.

He could still manage simple Japanese conversation, thanks to the booklet that Lu Mingze had given him before he left, which contained useful phrases such as "I'll help," "Excuse me," and "Thank you."

The girl in front of him, wearing braces and black-rimmed glasses, with her long hair neatly tied into a ponytail and only adorned with a simple coral red hair clip, and no other accessories, inexplicably gave Lu Mingfei the illusion of time flowing backward.

Chen Wenwen No. 2?

Sakura wore no accessories, but she deliberately concealed herself to avoid attracting attention.

She is the kind of girl who hasn't had the time, or perhaps doesn't have the energy, to adorn herself yet. Someday in the future, she may wear sparkling necklaces, rings, and watches, becoming radiant, but right now, she only carries the simple, clean scent of paper, tea, cotton, and wool vests, much like Chen Wenwen back then.

Lu Mingfei sighed inexplicably, lamenting his own old age, and thought of Chen Wenwen again. He wondered how she was doing now.

After Zhao Menghua's death, Chen Wenwen has been mentally unstable and we hope she will recover her health soon.

Lu Mingfei carried the tea tray to Noda Hisashi, slamming one of the teacups heavily onto the coffee table, splashing a few drops of tea. He straightened his back, tried to put on a stern face, and mimicked the tone of a Japanese translator in a war drama, shouting in Chinese, "You! What are you doing?!"

"The tea is for our own people, not for that guy," Yuan Zhisheng reminded him calmly from the side, looking at Lu Mingfei's sudden immersion in the role with some speechlessness.

"Oh, oh, oh! I knew it! Why was I being so polite with him!" Lu Mingfei suddenly realized, immediately took back the cup of tea that was meant for Noda Hisashi, placed it next to himself, glared angrily at Noda Hisashi, and continued to speak in Chinese, since Sakura was there to translate.

"At such a young age, you're already doing bad things! Running off to join the underworld! You think being a gangster is cool? Wearing this flashy white trench coat and carrying a broken baseball bat, you think you're so stylish? You're still suffering from chuunibyou, aren't you?!"

Seeing that the other party was just an eighteen-year-old, somewhat timid street thug, and with the young master of a top Japanese yakuza family sitting next to him for support, Lu Mingfei's courage immediately grew. In his mind, such a small fry could be crushed by his main family with a flick of their finger.

Sakura dutifully filtered out the overly emotional and comical parts of Lu Mingfei's words and calmly relayed them to Noda Hisashi in Japanese.

"Your chuunibyou (middle school syndrome) isn't much less severe than his," Caesar commented from the side, shrugging his shoulders and deliberately pulling open the lapels of his suit jacket to reveal the ornate yet ferocious image of a demon devouring a monster on the lining. This outfit instantly gave him the air of a yakuza boss, making him feel extraordinary and that he was a big shot in the Japanese underworld.

He turned to Noda Hisashi, looking down at him with a cold gaze, and asked in English, which Sakura translated: "Name."

Yuan Zhisheng, watching from the side, wanted to facepalm and silently complained in his heart: You guys are basically suffering from chuunibyou, so please don't make fun of your second brother, okay?

Too lazy to deal with the trivial farce, he simply got up and strolled slowly along the store's shelves, his eyes sweeping over the plastic Luffy, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruhi Suzumiya figurines, as well as the Gundam model that was taller than a person in the corner.

With Sakura acting as the translator, he had nothing to worry about. Even if Caesar and Lu Mingfei talked nonsense, Sakura would translate it into formal language that conformed to underworld rules.

Noda Hisashi, a small-time thug who only takes care of protection money for a few small shops and is at the very bottom of the yakuza food chain, is not even worth the standard procedures for the main family. They just scare him a little to teach him a lesson, and that's it.

"East, Noda Hisashi, the future third-generation Noda group of Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, is currently working under the second-generation Noda Kozo." Noda Hisashi lowered his head, his voice growing softer and softer, his imposing presence completely gone.

"You talk like some kind of prestigious yakuza family in Shinjuku," Sakura interrupted him coldly, her tone filled with undisguised contempt. "According to the records, the Noda-gumi originally made a living by contracting to unclog the sewer pipes in Shinjuku. Later, the city built a new drainage system, and you lost your legitimate business, so you turned to collecting protection money on the streets, right? A gang of your size wouldn't even be on the main roster. You think you can just arbitrarily raise the protection fee rate?"

"This, this shop used to pay protection money to our group, but now that the owner has changed, they don't pay anymore." Noda Hisashi felt like he was being interrogated by the police, and he argued, "The increase in fees and stuff is just, just talk. Just follow the old rules. We're all men who follow the rules."

"I'm not a man," Sakura interrupted him again, her voice even colder. "Since when do toy stores have to collect protection money?"

"There's no difference," Noda Hisashi said in a barely audible voice, "They're both just selling things anyway."

"How old are you?" Chu Zihang, who had been observing silently, suddenly spoke up and asked in Chinese.

Sakura immediately translated.

"Born on May 4, 1994, I'm a Gemini, and my Chinese zodiac sign is Dog," Noda Hisashi recited a string of information as if by reflex, a habitual way he would strike up a conversation with a girl.

Chapter 393 Deterrence

"Hey! Is it really necessary to talk like you're here for a fortune telling?!" Lu Mingfei immediately jumped out, pointing at him and yelling, "Looking at your cowardly appearance, you don't seem like a lively and changeable Gemini at all. You're just a typical homebody and family-oriented Cancer!"

Sakura hesitated for a moment, but still translated Lu Mingfei's unreliable astrological attack.

"Up, your rising sign is Cancer, and your Venus is also in Cancer, so you're definitely a Gemini with Cancer-like traits." Noda Hisashi was stunned. He hadn't expected that even the head of the family was so knowledgeable about astrology. He was a member of the astrology club in middle school and thought that giving his age like this would make girls more interested. He was so nervous just now that he blurted it out without thinking.

"What do you mean, 'work'? You dare to talk back?! Are you disrespecting our cadres?!" Lu Mingfei, emboldened by the sake he had just drunk, pretended to be furious, slamming his hand on the coffee table, carefully avoiding his own teacup, and roared.

Sakura really didn't want this boring and childish conversation to continue. She turned to Asou Makoto, who was cowering by the counter, and said in a businesslike tone, "Ms. Asou Makoto? Did you complain to the main family's hotline that the Noda Group not only insisted on collecting protection money from the toy store, but also unilaterally claimed that it would increase the rate?"

“Yes, yes,” Zhen answered softly, her head bowed low. “The manager said that the store has just opened and is still operating at a loss, needing money for inventory and working capital. Moreover, the profits the toy store makes are not enough to pay protection money. If they can’t drive the gang away, they might as well close the store down. I, I just started working here and don’t want to lose this job. So I took the liberty of making that call for help.”

“Well, such a small matter isn’t unnecessarily unnecessarily negotiable,” Noda Hisashi interjected weakly.

Sakura's eyes sharpened, and with a slight flick of her wrist, a gleaming short sword slid out of her sleeve as if by magic. She gripped it in her other hand, and the cold blade instantly pressed against the back of Noda Hisashi's neck, pressing down slightly.

Noda Hisashi's body suddenly stiffened, and he held his breath.

“Once our family members arrive, there’s no room for negotiation.” Sakura’s voice was as cold as ice, carrying a chilling killing intent. “I think you haven’t realized how serious your mistake is. The protection fee rate in this street, even in the entire Kabukicho, and even most of Shinjuku Ward, is fixed and unchanging, decided by a meeting of the leaders of the various qualified major gangs. Your Noda-gumi doesn’t even have the right to sit in on such a meeting! In this street, no one dares to mention the words ‘increase the rate.’ Anyone who has mentioned it is dead.”

Her gaze swept over Asou Makoto, whose face was deathly pale: "Our main family will never allow such things to affect the prosperity and stability of the entire street or even the whole area. Therefore, we usually take the strictest measures against any behavior that breaks the rules without authorization. In other words, this matter can be a big deal or a small deal."

Aso Makoto swayed slightly, almost unable to stand. She never expected that a call for help would lead to such a terrible outcome.

As Sakura spoke, the aura emanating from her was cold and black, like dried, congealed blood. The short sword pressed tightly against Noda Hisashi's neck would draw blood with just a little more force. Her initial thought was merely to scare away this thug who harassed her every day, at most giving him a scolding.

"Please, please don't do this!" Shin bowed deeply, his voice trembling with tears. "Mr. Noda hasn't done anything at all these days he's been in the store! He just flips through comic books, and he's been very polite to me! I... I never expected this. This gentleman really hasn't done anything! Please don't kill him!"

Sakura glanced at her coldly, her eyes devoid of any emotion. She had long expected this to happen. Giving this little girl, who had dared to exaggerate and misuse the family hotline, a scare would be a small lesson for her.

“Miss Zhen pleads for you, but,” Sakura moved the dagger away from Noda Hisashi’s neck, but instead of putting it away, she tossed it with a soft clang onto the glass coffee table in front of him, next to Caesar’s Dicket, “things can’t just end like this. Considering your young age, cutting off a finger will suffice. As for Miss Zhen, exaggerating the facts and misleading the main family on the phone will also be punished accordingly.”

"You'd cut off your finger for that?!" Caesar exclaimed, not expecting Sakura to be so ruthless. "By that standard, Lu Mingfei should have committed seppuku eight hundred times over, given all the things he's done!"

"What?! You want me to cut off my finger?" Lu Mingfei was completely dumbfounded.

"Download pirated comics and play pirated games," Caesar said matter-of-factly.

"I'm innocent! I'm still a student."

Sakura tilted her head slightly and explained quickly in a low voice, in Chinese that only the Caesar Group members beside her could hear: "If we don't teach these street thugs a lesson, they won't learn to respect our gang. Some of them might climb up to gang leaders someday, and then they'll have no regrets. While they're still young, scaring them a little, making them respect us, and preventing them from abusing violence is actually for their own good. It's like how everyone's parents teach them when they're young that doing bad things will get them arrested and locked up by the police."

Lu Mingfei looked at Ying's profile in surprise, only then realizing that beneath the girl's sharp exterior lay a gentleness that was almost like a teacher.

Ever since learning that the Snake Clan was a yakuza organization, Lu Mingfei had always held Sakura in awe. A woman who had been immersed in the yakuza and received rigorous ninja training, she always wore an inconspicuous black suit, covering herself up completely, like a mysterious and dangerous black poisonous flower.

But these words came out like those of a calm yet somewhat helpless older sister, which inexplicably reminded him of Nuonuo. The two were practically identical; it was truly strange.

Thinking about it, perhaps behind the seemingly strict or even cruel family rules of the Snake Clan, there is also a twisted, gentle side that is for your own good?

"So good!" Lu Mingfei couldn't help but exclaim, almost wanting to applaud her.

A hint of embarrassment flashed across Sakura's face. She quickly changed the subject, saying in a low voice in Chinese, "Please don't look like you're watching a show, be serious."

Upon hearing this, Caesar's group immediately became serious. Caesar reverted to his cold and arrogant smile, cracking his knuckles softly. Chu Zihang's eyes grew even sharper and more vacant, as if he truly regarded human life as worthless. Even Frilline, who had been quietly standing at a distance, seemingly out of place, slightly lost the detached indifference on her face.

Aso truly regretted it, utterly regretted it. Compared to these real yakuza, who seemed to have stepped out of a painting of hell, Noda Hisashi was like a high school student just hanging around on the streets! She had let the wolves into her house!

What terrified her even more than Caesar and Chu Zihang was Lu Mingfei. Although she couldn't understand what this family member was saying, his complex gaze and expression, which were sometimes whimsical, sometimes incoherent, and sometimes fierce, made him seem like a neurotic and unpredictable wild beast!

Noda Hisashi's attention was completely drawn to the short sword in front of him. He stared intently at the blade, which gleamed with a cold, bluish-green light, his breathing becoming heavy. This was a real murder weapon, meant to take a life, not some toy tossed around by a street thug!

The deep, smooth blood groove design is intended to allow for rapid bleeding after piercing the body, quickly rendering the enemy unable to resist. The slightly upward curve of the blade tip is designed to prevent it from getting stuck in bones during cutting.

This was the first time Noda Hisashi had faced a weapon so closely, one designed solely for killing. He could smell the cold, bloody aura emanating from it. He suddenly realized how naive and ridiculous he had been. No wonder the senior members of the Kabukicho family were reluctant to mention their senior members so easily.

If the men of Kabukicho are proud and belligerent beasts, then the executives of the main family are ruthless grim reapers who walk in the shadows and hold the power of life and death!

Chapter 394 A real man

Sakura watched as large beads of cold sweat rolled down Noda Hisashi's forehead, while Asou Makoto slumped weakly into a chair beside him, clutching an empty tea tray and trembling. She felt her intimidation had been achieved and prepared to back down. After all, they were just two eighteen-year-old children.

however.

"This has nothing to do with Miss Ma! It's all my fault!" Noda Hisashi shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice echoing in the quiet toy store. "It's my fault! I shouldn't have demanded protection money! I did say the rate would increase! Miss Ma was just repeating what I said verbatim! I'm willing to cut off my finger!"

There are more experts? The officers at headquarters were astonished.

Whether it was Caesar playing the berserk mercenary, Chu Zihang playing the ruthless swordsman, or the madman Lu Mingfei, they all looked at Sakura. Lu Mingfei blinked, not expecting this hoodlum to actually have some backbone.

Noda Hisashi suddenly knelt down with a thud. His movements were somewhat flustered but unusually resolute as he pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and tightly wrapped it around the little finger of his left hand. Then, he took a deep breath and slowly, tremblingly, reached out and grasped the cold dagger on the coffee table.

Noda Hisashi, the future third head of the Noda-gumi in Kabukicho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, is only eighteen years old and actually intends to use a part of his own body to apologize to the main family! His brows are filled with what he thinks is a firm resolve and real pain; his eyebrows are furrowed, his eyes twitch, and his lips are pressed white.

“Miss Sakura, things are a bit troublesome,” Lu Mingfei said quietly to Sakura in Chinese. “Think of a way, this guy really wants to cut off his finger.”