Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Fingel raised the beer in front of him, swirling the slightly bitter yellow liquid inside, as if it were the ceaseless river.

"Yesterday I'm dead, today I'm alive, and tomorrow I'm still being conceived. Yesterday, that deadbeat fell in love with girl A; today I'm having a passionate affair with girl B; and tomorrow, I'll see that Russian girl named Zero in your grade—she's got quite a figure and looks. Every day I'm a brand new version, and when I love each girl, I give my all. Every love is 100% pure, fresh from the distillation tower, still piping hot—true love. But I can't stop yesterday's self from dying on time, nor can I stop tomorrow's self from being reborn on time. So every love, in the instant it bursts forth—"

He raised his glass and spoke to the streetlight above him, his voice suddenly becoming incredibly gentle.

"—They are all eternal. It's just that eternity is a little shorter."

Lu Mingfei fell silent, unable to find a rebuttal.

Looking at Fingel's flushed face, I felt that the words coming out of this scumbag's mouth actually had a kind of self-consistency on the level of twisted logic and heresy, like a madman who used a whole page of mathematical formulas to deduce that God does not exist.

You vaguely know he's talking nonsense, but you just can't pinpoint the flaw in his reasoning.

"I think the only effect of your long-winded speech is to further confirm that you are a scumbag," Lu Mingfei said, clearly less confident than before.

Chapter 760 I Don't Want to Fall in Love with Anyone But Frillien (Part 2)

"No, no," Fingel shook his head like a rattle-drum, "You're refusing to admit that your future self and your present self are two different species. Tell me honestly, how many girls have you liked?"

This question was like a needle, piercing precisely into a region of Lu Mingfei's mind that he had been trying to avoid.

Lu Mingfei felt a pang in his heart as he thought of Chen Wenwen, the girl who walked under the sycamore trees at Shilan Middle School carrying books, the girl who would cover her mouth with the back of her hand when she laughed, the girl who always sat in the first row at literary society meetings and whose eyes shone like two stars when listening to others speak.

He had a crush on her for three years, from the autumn of his first year of junior high to the spring of his first year of senior high. Every day, he would wait for her avatar to light up on QQ, and under every seemingly casual topic, there were countless sentences he had never sent.

It wasn't until much later that he realized it wasn't love, or rather, it was just a tree he planted, watered, pruned, and longed to blossom on, a tree that would never bear fruit. But he was too ashamed to say that he had only ever loved one person.

"Two," he said. "Just two."

Fingel gave a cold laugh.

"If you've liked a second girl, what guarantees you won't like a third? The third is to the second what the second is to the first. If you pour water from one glass into another, can you tell which drop is from the first glass and which is from the second?"

He paused, then pointed his beer glass toward Lu Mingfei's nose.

"Love is something that happens in the present tense. Past love, we professional Casanovas all call it a memory."

Lu Mingfei's mind went completely blank.

Too many thoughts rushed out at the same moment, like a group of people trying to squeeze into a revolving door, and in the end they were all stuck at the entrance, and no one could get in.

He really couldn't prove that he wouldn't fall in love with another girl in the future, just like when he had a crush on Chen Wenwen back then, he had no idea that there was a silver-haired elf magician named Frilian in this world.

Frillie would draw glowing words in the air with her fingertips in the dead of night, flip through books expressionlessly when others were talking about boring topics, and snatch away freshly cooked beef with chopsticks at a speed that was impossible for the naked eye to follow within a fraction of a second.

He had never even heard of the name Frillian when he was in junior high school, so how could he have imagined that one day he would be lying on a round bed in a love hotel, with every spare thread in his mind running through her face?

Just like Rika Akana. That Rika Akana, whose smile could melt snow and who loved Kanji to the bone, after leaving Kanji, was she destined to sit on that train and cry forever?

impossible.

She will get off the train, walk into another city, and bump into another person on a sunny afternoon when the sun is so bright it's blinding.

That person might not be as cowardly as Kanji, but might laugh along when she laughs, or shout "I love you too" without hesitation when she says "I love you".

Rika will love someone else again, slowly letting the wounds Kanji left her heal and fall away, still smiling like the early summer sun. Her big backpack will still be filled with love and hope, only the recipients will be someone else.

Everyone has to move forward and find their own happiness. No one stays in the same place forever.

Rika Akana wouldn't, Kanji Nagao wouldn't, Satomi Sekiguchi wouldn't, and neither would Fingel, although he is most likely a purer kind of person, like a diode, who can only remain in the present moment of loving and being loved.

He, Lu Mingfei, would not either.

However, occasionally when I think back to how beautiful the moment we met was, a faint bittersweet feeling washes over me.

I look older in the mirror than I actually am, and my eyes seem to hold more information.

When he first entered high school, he only had two things on his mind: fear of the future and unrealistic fantasies about Chen Wenwen.

Later, the fear slowly wore off into a habit, the illusions shattered, and then I met Frilian.

Later, he experienced too many things that seventeen-year-old Lu Mingfei absolutely could not bear, and a thin, transparent shell appeared in his eyes. It was so thin that you couldn't notice it unless you looked closely, but the existence of that shell made him look at the world in a different way than before.

Lu Mingfei may not be this unlucky forever.

He is currently the only S-level student in the undergraduate department, and the principal values ​​him so much that he has personally praised him by name at several school-wide assemblies, saying that he is "one of the most promising students since the establishment of the college" and "young man, I have high hopes for you."

Of course, the principal was lounging on a deck chair on the lawn, sipping chilled mint liqueur when he said this, and his tone didn't sound particularly formal, but it was still the principal himself who said it.

Perhaps many, many years from now, the principal will pass away. Although, judging by the principal's lifespan, this assumption may take several hundred years to come to fruition.

That elegant little building covered in ivy became his office.

In the evening, he played mahjong in the attic with his highly respected alumni Caesar Gattuso, Chu Zihang, and Fingel. Outside the window, the autumn sun was setting over Chicago, and ginkgo leaves covered the entire lawn.

Caesar would impatiently bang on the table and urge, "Lu Mingfei, can you play your cards faster?" Chu Zihang would wait silently for his turn to draw a card, and Fingel would probably lose from start to finish and then deny the round, saying it didn't count.

A woman of refined elegance slowly ascended the attic, dressed in an exquisitely tailored black gown, her hair styled in an elegant high bun, two lustrous pearls dangling from her earlobes. She walked to the card table, leaned slightly forward, and whispered in his ear that dinner was ready, and they could continue playing after eating.

Principal Lu Mingfei grasped the hand of the elegant woman and said in a voice that was both weathered and gentle, "Wife, let me rub the ball a couple more times. My luck has just been on the rise lately."

Then Frilian pushed open the door and came in, her long white hair hanging down her shoulders. She was carrying a tray and said in that calm tone that had remained unchanged for a thousand years, "Mr. Lu Mingfei, dinner is ready," and so on.

The scene was so vivid, like a movie playing right in front of you, with every detail crystal clear.

Caesar's wrist twitched as he threw the cards; the faint vertical line between Chu Zihang's brows when he remained silent; the cunning darting of Fingel's eyes when he cheated; the warm light of the setting sun streaming into the attic; the crisp sound of mahjong tiles clashing together.

He could even recall the slight creak of the hinges when Frilian pushed open the wooden door.

That was a wonderful feeling.

But just thinking about the unfamiliar, elegant woman's face fills Lu Mingfei with fear.

Yes.

He was unwilling to admit that he would change. He was unwilling to admit that one day in the future, he would use the hand that once held Frilian's fingers to hold another woman's hand, use the voice that once called Frilian's name to call another person's name, and cut a piece of the heart that once belonged entirely to Frilian and give it to someone else.

He didn't want to fall in love with anyone but Frilian.

He didn't want certain things to become memories. Not memories like the scenery rushing past outside the train window when Rika Akana pressed her face against it and burst into tears, not memories like the "things that happened in the past tense" that Fingel talked about.

He didn't want to think back to tonight—the torrential rain, the hot pot, the sake, the quiet red-haired girl, and the silver-haired elf magician curled up on the sofa reading a book—and feel a gentle, bittersweet sadness welling up inside him, like recognizing an old photograph through frosted glass.

He wanted to hold onto all of these tightly and not let them slip away.

Lu Mingfei rolled over, burying his face in the indentation of the velvet pillow. The pillow still smelled faintly of laundry detergent; love hotels never skimped on such details. His voice became muffled when his face was buried in the pillow. He sighed softly and mumbled something only he could hear.

"Damn it, Fingel, you're wrong."

Chapter 761 Romantic Encounters with Two Beautiful Girls

The phone vibrated suddenly in his pocket, abruptly cutting off Lu Mingfei's increasingly wild and unrestrained thoughts.

He kept his face buried in the pillow, fumbling in his pocket for a while before finally pulling out his phone.

Lu Mingze sent another text message, full of rambling nonsense that smelled of a seaside vacation.

"The weather was unbelievably nice. I was lying on the beach in Rio de Janeiro admiring the beauties when a wave crashed in and washed away all my colorful swimsuits! How's life in Japan, bro?"

The whole thing is written in a casual, rambling tone, and even ends with a wavy tilde.

Lu Mingfei could almost picture Lu Mingze typing those words in his mind: legs crossed, sunk in a white beach chair, sunglasses covering half his face perched on his nose.

"You're asking me? Don't you know what good things you've done?" Lu Mingfei was seething with anger and had nowhere to vent it.

He flipped his phone over and started tapping the screen with his thumb, each tap producing a crisp click. He was already quick at replying to texts, but he was even faster when he was angry.

Lu Mingze reacted almost instantly.

"I bet you're enjoying a romantic evening with some beautiful girls right now, brother!"

The phrase "flowers in bloom, moonlit night" perfectly struck the nerve that made Lu Mingfei most want to flip the table.

He was currently enjoying a perfect romantic setting – warm red lighting, a large round velvet bed, the lingering aroma of hot pot still drifting in the air, and two stunningly beautiful girls, one lying on the coffee table and the other nestled on the sofa.

However, an additional clause to this scenario is that the entire city of Tokyo could be wiped off the map at any time by forces completely beyond his control.

This isn't some romantic evening outing; it's like sitting on a volcano and having hot pot, with the beautiful woman beneath your feet like a molten lava ball ready to erupt at any moment.

“Yes! I’m serving this beauty with trepidation! I’m afraid that if she gets upset, she might tear Tokyo apart! I can’t afford to be a weapon of mass destruction like that!” Lu Mingfei exclaimed, adding four exclamation marks.

"For the sake of the well-being of all mankind, even if I can't bear it, I have to grit my teeth and bear it!" The reply from the other side was light and indifferent, like a spectator sitting in the VIP seats sipping champagne and watching a gladiator performance, shouting "Go for it!" to the slave with a short sword in the center of the arena.

"What does this have to do with human well-being?" Lu Mingfei retorted.

This time, Lu Mingze did not reply immediately.

The "typing is happening" message on the screen flashed for five seconds.

"To unlock the secret of the White King, we need to gather several keys. But all the other keys are in the hands of our opponents, and only the key of the beautiful woman is in your hands."

Lu Mingfei's gaze lingered on the text message for several seconds, his brows furrowing deeper and deeper.

key.

It's a key again.

Lu Mingze had previously said that Erii was a key, a key that could lead to God. Now he said there were other keys, and all those keys were with their opponents.

Lu Mingfei knew without asking who his opponents were: the Fierce Ghosts, the King Generals, and those forces lurking in the shadows, drooling over the White King's legacy.

“But even with just this one key, we still can’t solve this mystery, right? It’s like your security door has three locks, but you only have one key. Even if you break it, you still can’t open the door.” He re-translated Lu Mingze’s metaphor in his own way.

"But if you think about it another way, as long as you have this key, no one else can solve this mystery. Your opponent also wants to collect all the keys and bring out the god that has been sleeping for who knows how many years from the bottom of the sea."

Lu Mingze's words sent a chill down Lu Mingfei's spine.

He had no way to refute it.

Since they can't solve the mystery, they can at least block their opponent's path as well.

With Erii by their side, the demons couldn't touch her. Without her, they couldn't complete the puzzle. And without the puzzle complete, the White King would continue sleeping soundly in some ruin beneath the Japan Trench. It was an extremely passive strategy: not striving to win, but only seeking to avoid defeat. But often, not losing is winning.

"The problem is that this key is a living, breathing person! Not some little gadget I can put in my pocket and carry around with me on a keychain! And this key itself has the power to turn Tokyo into ruins!"

“You underestimate the head of the Uesugi family. With her abilities, she could easily take down not only Tokyo, but also the four prefectures of Chiba, Yamanashi, Saitama, and Kanagawa. You haven’t seen the head of the Uesugi family when she is truly angry.”

Lu Mingze's reply came quickly, as if he wasn't praising a dangerous being with world-destroying power, but rather an outstanding junior whom his family had personally nurtured.

Lu Mingfei rolled his eyes at the screen.

"Don't try to scare me with that! I'm already tied to this nuclear bomb. Do you think I'll be any more scared if you tell me it's not a regular atomic bomb but a new type of hydrogen bomb? Ridiculous!"

After typing this, he felt a surge of tragic heroism, a sense of "what's the use of trying" rising within him.