Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

Then there's Natalie Portman in "Black Swan," wearing a pure black ballet-style dress with layers of black tulle on the skirt. When she stands in front of the dressing mirror, the lines of her profile are made as sharp as a blade by the black collar.

Finally, there's Emma Watson from Harry Potter, wearing a plaid scarf and a dark blue knitted cardigan, holding a thick hardcover book that a shop assistant handed her as a prop.

Frillie glanced at the book's cover and wrote two words in the air: "Fake."

The book is indeed fake; it was hastily made and filled with blank paper.

Frillie herself was not spared either, and was enthusiastically surrounded by another group of shop assistants.

They brought out a whole rack of clothes with completely different styles, in more subdued colors, with sharper cuts, and fabrics that emphasized texture rather than embellishment.

The sales assistants clearly caught Frillie's "don't bother me with pink lace" vibe in a very short time and recommended Ann Demeulemeester's black stand-up collar shirt, Jil Sander's cream-white cashmere cardigan, and Yohji Yamamoto's wide-leg black trousers.

Frillie picked up a black stand-up collar shirt hanger with her fingertips, examined the fabric against the light, and nodded expressionlessly.

She spent much less time in the fitting room than Erii. When she came out, she was wearing a dark gray asymmetrical long vest with a white turtleneck sweater underneath. Her long silver hair was draped over her shoulders, and she looked like a mysterious designer who had just walked out of the backstage of Berlin Fashion Week but refused to reveal her name.

She glanced at herself in the mirror, brushed the stray hairs from her forehead behind her ear, then turned to Lu Mingfei and wrote two words in the air: "Not bad."

Lu Mingfei nodded. The shop assistant next to him quickly jotted down the instructions on the tablet.

The shop assistants even egged Erii on to try on high heels.

She had only ever worn clogs and white tabi socks used by shrine maidens before, and had never touched shoes with heels as thin as nails.

Two shop assistants helped her put on a pair of silver-gray strappy high heels, the uppers of which were studded with tiny crystal fragments that sparkled brilliantly under the lights.

She carefully stood up, holding onto the shop assistant's arm. Her knees were trembling slightly at first. She suddenly rose nearly ten centimeters in height, and the sudden increase in her field of vision left her momentarily at a loss for what to do.

Erii tentatively took two steps on the runway. Her first step was unsteady, like a fawn just learning to walk, but she steadied herself on the second. Her body control was far beyond that of ordinary people, and her balance was corrected in just a few seconds. On the third step, she let go of the shop assistant's hand, walked to the end of the runway alone, and then turned around, her white skirt fluttering gently with the movement.

All the shop assistants applauded in unison, the applause bouncing back and forth in the empty store, sincere and without any perfunctory element.

The manager stood beside Lu Mingfei and commented in a tone full of professional pride: "With such a perfect figure, she must be wearing a standard size. All the clothes in our store are like custom-made for her when she wears them."

When the shop assistants held up a fitting mirror that was as tall as a person in front of her, Erii's eyes lit up with a fawn-like surprise.

She bumped into a complete stranger in the mirror. The person was wearing a white off-the-shoulder dress, tied at the waist with a thin silver-gray ribbon. The hem of the dress reached just to the knees, and she wore matching high-heeled sandals. Her hair wasn't her natural dark red; her lips were covered with a light pink, the jelly-like lip gloss she'd had applied at the beauty salon; her cheeks were slightly flushed, whether from blush or genuine joy was hard to tell.

Erii tilted her head, and the person in the mirror tilted their head too; she lifted her skirt, and the person in the mirror lifted their skirt too. Then she confirmed that the person was indeed herself.

This was the second time Lu Mingfei had clearly recognized the emotion of "joy" in her eyes.

The first time was on that deep red seabed, watching Lu Mingfei clumsily paddling, looking like a dog thrown into a swimming pool that couldn't swim. She laughed for no reason. The laugh was directed at no one; it was simply a spontaneous feeling that something was funny.

But this time, her joy had an object: herself.

This was probably the first time in Erii's life that she realized she was beautiful.

In that building that imprisoned her for twenty years, no one ever told her how beautiful she was. When the doctors and nurses who surrounded her looked at her face, their minds were probably only filled with the waveforms on the monitors and the fluctuating indicators on the blood test reports.

She was never allowed to look in the mirror for long, or perhaps she had a mirror but never realized that the face in it, in another world, was enough to make an entire street turn around and look at her a second time.

Chapter 773 Trying on Clothes (Part 2)

The girl's innate love of beauty shone through Erii's eyes, like a river frozen for an entire winter finally cracking open with the first rays of spring sunshine.

As Lu Mingfei watched her smugly pinch the hem of her skirt, twirling in front of the dressing mirror, the hem of her skirt blooming and closing in the air like a white flower, something in his heart suddenly felt relieved.

It felt really strange. He was the one who theoretically needed to be protected, and she could wipe the entire shopping mall off the map with a flick of her wrist. Yet, as he watched her turn left and right in front of the mirror, he felt a surge of relief.

It's like seeing a rare animal in a zoo, which has been kept in captivity for many years, step into the outdoor exhibit for the first time, tentatively step on the grass, and then start to trot.

Erii is gradually becoming more like an ordinary girl. Perhaps she is still far from it, and perhaps she will never understand what an ordinary girl should be like. But at least for now, she is standing in front of the dressing mirror, happy about a new dress. In Lu Mingfei's eyes, this alone is already a remarkable progress.

If his wallet cooperated, Lu Mingfei wouldn't mind carrying all the clothes she picked out back for her.

This investment is far more worthwhile than any other. Keeping this humanoid weapon girl mentally stable is more practically meaningful than donating money to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to reinforce earthquake-resistant fortifications.

The problem was that Lu Mingfei only had about 700,000 yen in his pocket, which was less than 10,000 US dollars. Even in a store of this level, he still felt short of money. He squeezed the stack of bills in his pocket again and again, secretly going through the budget in his mind, thinking about which ones he could cut and which ones he had to keep.

The manager was a man in his fifties, wearing gold-rimmed reading glasses, who looked like an old-fashioned person who had spent his whole life in the Ginza department store.

The manager, sensing Lu Mingfei's embarrassment from his furrowed brows and the way he kept reaching for his pockets, smiled and handed him a printed shopping list.

Lu Mingfei glanced down and noticed that most of the clothes he had just nodded at, from the Chanel little black dress to the white off-the-shoulder dress, were marked with eye-catching discount prices. With the addition of various gift certificates and anniversary offers that he couldn't understand, the final total amount was only a mere 680,000 yen.

Underwear, stockings, and all miscellaneous accessories are included as complimentary items and are not charged separately.

He paused for two seconds, then counted out the stack of banknotes and handed them to the manager. The feeling was like finally buying a full set of max-level gear with the gold coins he'd saved up in the starting village for half a month in a game. It was definitely exhilarating, but at the same time, he had a vague feeling that there might be a bug in the economic system's stats.

After paying the full amount, Lu Mingfei received more than a dozen cardboard boxes of different sizes, each printed with a different brand logo and tied with ribbons in an exquisite and presentable manner.

The manager personally carried it to the door for him, then took out an envelope from his pocket and handed it to him. Inside were three VIP discount coupons for Disneyland, with a gold-stamped silhouette of Cinderella Castle and the words "Sakura Festival Limited Edition" printed on the cover.

The manager explained that Disneyland was holding this event these past two days, and with this voucher, one could directly use the VIP lane, avoiding the ordeal of queuing for two or three hours at a time.

Lu Mingfei felt that his life had become so smooth that it made him vaguely uneasy. He wanted to get a haircut and it happened to be a store anniversary sale, he wanted to buy clothes and it happened to be on sale, he wanted to go out and he found VIP coupons. Every step he took was as if someone had laid out a red carpet for him, and he only needed to lift his foot and step on it.

But he didn't have time to think about it for long, because at almost the same moment, a taxi happened to stop in front of the shopping center.

Its timing for pulling over was too precise. Lu Mingfei and his group had just stepped out of the automatic door when the car slid to the side of the road. The passenger window rolled down, and the driver leaned out, saying in a surprised tone, "Oh dear, I was just about to hand over my shift around here. Which way are you going? I can give you a ride if it's on my way."

Frillie glanced at the taxi, then at Lu Mingfei, and wrote a single word in the air: "巧" (qiǎo, meaning clever or skillful).

Lu Mingfei nodded, but didn't think too deeply about it. At this critical juncture, he was filled with gratitude for the kindness of the entire world, feeling that Tokyo today must have been blessed by some passing angel.

The three of them stuffed all the shopping bags, big and small, into the trunk of the taxi and then squeezed into the back seat.

Erii sat in the middle, with Lu Mingfei and Frilian each on one side.

She pointed to the Tokyo scenery slowly flowing outside the car window—skyscrapers, sunlight, and the Rainbow Bridge faintly visible at the horizon—then poked Lu Mingfei's arm and pointed to a sticker on the back of the passenger seat.

It was a mouse, holding up a white-gloved hand as if waving to them. She pressed her fingertips to the tip of the mouse's nose, then to her own, and then smiled.

The driver glanced at the odd combination of the three people in the back seat in the rearview mirror, and a knowing smile appeared on his lips.

He skillfully shifted gears and started the taxi smoothly into the traffic of Minami-Aoyama. Then, in the confident tone of a seasoned Tokyoite who had driven a taxi for thirty years, he looked in the rearview mirror and said to the three people, "Ladies and gentlemen, the weather at Tokyo Disneyland is perfect today. Have a great time."

He paused, and his gaze met Lu Mingfei's in the rearview mirror.

"You two are the most beautiful couple I've ever driven in my life, no, the most beautiful couple out of three, plus the coolest beauty. That silver-haired lady, you look like you stepped out of an old movie," the driver added.

Erii didn't understand the subtle embellishments in that sentence. She looked down and examined the cartoon illustrations on the Disney VIP ticket over and over again.

Frillie completely ignored the driver's comments.

Only Lu Mingfei blushed all the way to the roots of his ears, and when he saw his face in the rearview mirror, it was a face that seemed to say, "I don't know how to explain this, so I might as well not explain it at all."

-----------------

Mai Shude held the photos and flipped through them one by one.

Her fingertips lingered on each sheet long enough that Kenji Takemiya, who was standing next to her, turned his head slightly to try and see the expression on her face.

A woman like Mai Shutoku, who can capture everyone's attention every time she appears, has been labeled as "naturally alluring" since childhood. As she grows up, she can make her target fall head over heels with just a glance in various missions. But at this moment, I can't help but sigh from the bottom of my heart. Erii is standing at the most youthful and dazzling age of a girl.

Chapter 774 Perhaps it's because of the unknown dream.

Erii's youth is not something that can be built up layer by layer with skincare products and cosmetic procedures, nor can it be faked by lighting and filters. Rather, it is a pure youth that shines from the very marrow of her bones, a youth that was accidentally and completely preserved during her twenty years of imprisonment, and that has never been tainted by any superfluous eyes.

The original luster was completely suppressed by the oppressive red and white shrine maiden outfit. The heavy scarlet hakama and wide sleeves swallowed up her body lines completely. Her face was bare and unadorned, and her long hair was simply left to fall loose, making her look like a porcelain doll hidden deep in a wooden box.

It is beautiful, but no one has ever seen it.

But once fashion elevates her, Erii's skin glows like a freshly peeled lychee, and her eyes shine like maple leaves washed by rain. The way she tilts her head slightly in front of the dressing mirror makes her look like a princess who has been locked in a tower by a witch for eighteen years and is finally walking down the spiral staircase for the first time.

One of the photos shows Erii learning to walk while wearing those silver-gray strappy high heels.

She was as clumsy as a newly hatched duckling, her knees slightly bent, her hands nervously spread out to the sides to maintain her balance, each step she took felt like walking on thin ice, as if she were walking on a lake surface that had just frozen over in early winter, not on a marble floor.

The shop assistant followed closely behind her, his hands hovering a few centimeters behind her waist, ready to grab her at any moment.

But the curve of her taut calves was breathtakingly beautiful—slender ankles, long Achilles tendons, and calf muscles that bulged slightly from tension, creating a smooth and elegant curve under the warm light.

Her toddler-like expression exuded a natural cuteness, both focused and earnest, like a little girl striving to complete some important ritual. Her lips were slightly pursed, her brows were slightly furrowed, but her eyes were full of light.

Mai Shude gathered the photos together, tapped them in her palm, and then casually tossed them toward Kenji Takemiya.

The photo flipped halfway through the air before being caught steadily by Kenji Takemiya.

She turned around, crossed her arms, and looked out the window.

The sun was shining brightly in Shinjuku Ward. The torrential rain that had lasted for several days had finally stopped, and the sky was washed clean like a piece of clear blue glass, with a few white clouds hanging lazily in the distance.

But what Mai looked at seemed to be a different story.

"Let me see, let me see," Su Enxi snatched the stack of photos from Kenji Takemiya's hand and held them up to her eyes.

Her approach to flipping through photos was completely opposite to that of Mai Shude. Instead of slowly savoring each one, she flipped through them rapidly, like flipping through a deck of cards, her mouth never stopping its commentary. "Oh, this one's good. This Burberry trench coat really suits her. I got the same one in London last year, though it was camel-colored. Oh, this one's good too. This one in the white off-the-shoulder dress—those legs, that waist, those shoulders. Although she wasn't exactly an ugly duckling to begin with, she's truly transformed into a swan. The experts do have some talent."

She scrolled through the entire stack of photos from beginning to end, then went back to look at them a second time. This time, her gaze lingered on a close-up of a white off-the-shoulder dress for a long time before she looked up and said, "I want all the clothes she bought too. Exactly the same. Make me a copy of the brand and size list later."

“The original price was 1.78 million yen, which is about the same as a penny dropped in the sofa cushions in the eyes of a rich woman like you,” said Mai Shutoku.

She turned her back to Su Enxi, facing the window, and sighed softly.

The sigh was so faint that it was almost impossible for any ear to hear it amidst the noisy voices and whirring machines in the hall.

But Su Enxi caught it.

She had known Mai Shutoku for so long that this woman sighed about as frequently as Halley's Comet passing over Earth—a rare event that occurs only once every seventy-six years.

Each time she didn't sigh, it meant that something had truly touched the soft core beneath her black Prada suit and ten-centimeter high heels, a core she never easily revealed to outsiders.

"Why are you sighing? Do you feel like you're getting old and past your prime?" Su Enxi put down the photo and tried to lighten the mood with the lightest tone possible.

At this critical juncture, one cannot be too serious; the more serious one is, the more oppressive the atmosphere will become.

"Relax. In the eyes of a man who truly knows his stuff, you're the kind of sexy bombshell. The charm of young girls is on a completely different level. You're like, how should I put it, aged whiskey, while she's like a freshly picked peach. You're not even in the same category. Don't use the same yardstick to measure her."

"Why would I bother competing with a mere girl in terms of charm?" Mai Shude retorted.

Mai Shude turned around, leaning her back against the window frame, facing away from the sunlight streaming in from outside. Half of her face was illuminated by the sunlight, while the other half was shrouded in shadow.

"But don't you think this girl is becoming more and more like Frilian every day?"

She reached out and snatched one of the photos from Su Enxi's hand. In the photo, Erii was wearing a dark gray, asymmetrical long vest over a white turtleneck sweater, an outfit that looked almost identical to the one Frilian had personally picked out at the shopping mall.

“Whether intentional or unintentional,” Mai Shude said, “Lu Mingfei is gradually molding her into another Frilian. He took her to a beauty salon to get a similar look to Frilian, picked out clothes similar to Frilian’s style, and helped her choose a hairstyle similar to Frilian’s. He’s not doing this on purpose; his mind isn’t complex enough to devise such a script. But he has a template in his subconscious, and whenever he’s unsure what Erii should become, that template automatically activates. The template’s name is Frilian.”

She put the photo down, pinching the edge with two fingers, and let it fall gently onto the table.

"If things continue like this, even if he really falls in love with this girl, he'll only be in love with Frilian's reflection on the water. The real Erii, the one who can't speak, loves dolls, and firmly believes that every little yellow duck in the world is unique, has no idea about this. She's standing in front of the mirror, happily spinning around in front of a new dress, completely unaware that she's being molded inch by inch into the likeness of another person."