Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei finds a Freylian

“What are you thinking? I mean, getting involved in gang wars is quite interesting!” He flicked the crumpled beer can into the corner trash can.

Then he pulled a can of beer from the unopened beer can next to his pillow and tossed it to Chu Zihang.

"The Gattuso family really is a family of madmen," Chu Zihang said, catching the beer and pulling off the tab. The hissing sound of the carbonation escaping was particularly crisp inside the capsule.

“If I had heard you say that a month ago, I probably would have turned on you on the spot,” Caesar said, reaching for a can of beer from beside his pillow. He pulled the tab, and a drop of water slid down his wrist and into his rolled-up sleeve. “Now it sounds like you’re praising me. Maybe I can ask you to be my best man too.”

Chu Zihang took a sip of beer, lingering it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing.

He looked at Caesar, "Are you asking Lu Mingfei to be your bridesmaid?"

Caesar choked on a mouthful of beer, the bubbles rushing into his nasal cavity, followed by a violent coughing fit.

After wiping the foam from the corner of his mouth, he pointed the beer can at Chu Zihang and laughed out loud: "Congratulations, your sense of humor has also been upgraded."

Chapter 792 How is Dion?

The sound of an engine came from the end of the long street. The sound pushed through the rain curtain layer by layer from afar, and two bright yellow headlights pierced through the impenetrable water curtain, casting two shimmering shadows on the waterlogged road.

Caesar and Chu Zihang squeezed towards the window at the same time.

Two tall, long-legged men who wanted to look out at the same time could only awkwardly cramm their heads in front of each other, forehead to forehead, nose to nose, like two bears that had been locked up for an entire voyage finally squeezed to the same porthole, vying to see the spray splashing from the ship's side.

Caesar and Chu Zihang's breath hit each other's faces, but neither of them moved away.

Chu Zihang has the heart of a gossip.

This was no secret in the undergraduate department of Kassel College. Chu Zihang, who was always expressionless, always sparing with words, and seemed to have no interest in anything in the world, actually harbored an almost obsessive concern for everything that happened to the people around him.

He would text Lu Mingfei at 3 a.m., asking, "Can I borrow that book you borrowed from the library this afternoon?"; he would observe everyone's emotions discreetly while carrying out a mission, and then write "It is recommended to arrange a psychological assessment" in the mission report; he would sit silently next to Fingel when he was being forced to drink, without saying a word, just to make sure that he didn't vomit on his shoes.

Otherwise, his relationship with Lu Mingfei wouldn't be so close now. At first, Lu Mingfei only thought of him as a cold-faced killer, then he found out that he was a cold-faced butler, and later he realized that he was essentially a cold-faced mother.

Caesar's reasons for paying attention to this matter were much more subtle.

He considered himself a master of seduction, a top-tier host at the Takamagahara host club. Since Lu Mingfei, this good-for-nothing, was going to woo a monster girl who could wipe Tokyo off the map, as his senior and mentor, his primary task was to thoroughly ridicule Lu Mingfei's awkwardness when alone with the girl, and then, at the perfect moment, such as when Lu Mingfei was about to break down, to impart a few of his years of accumulated seduction skills like a divine initiation.

The taxi with its yellow roof light on came to a stop at the street corner.

Further ahead was an unfathomably deep flood, the water level reaching above the chassis of an ordinary car. The driver peered out, shook his head, and reversed away.

Lu Mingfei was the first to jump out of the back seat, opened a large, transparent plastic umbrella that could be used as a shield, and turned around to shield the car door for the people in the back.

Frillie followed closely behind, emerging from the same side and standing on the other side under the umbrella, taking the shopping bags from Lu Mingfei's hands.

The other rear door was gently pushed open from the inside, revealing first the girl's slender, beautiful legs. Under the dim yellow light of the taxi's roof, her fair skin glowed with a creamy sheen. She wore a white high-heeled ankle boot, its surface adorned with tiny artificial crystals that shimmered faintly in the rain.

She tentatively touched the puddle with her foot, but the water was colder than she expected, and she quickly withdrew it like a deer touching thin ice.

A moment later, the car door was pushed open again, and that foot came out again. This time, the boot was off, and she stepped barefoot into the murky water, which went up to her slender ankles.

A girl wearing a white taffeta off-the-shoulder dress emerged from the carriage, carefully holding her newly bought white high-heeled ankle boots in her arms, bending down to shield them from the rain with her own body.

The three of them ran across the street to the love hotel under the same umbrella.

The boy was carrying gift bags and shopping boxes of various sizes. The shoulders of his white shirt and the legs of his dark blue jeans were soaked through by the rain, clinging tightly to his thin frame.

The two girls beside him moved as nimbly as white deer wading across a river. Frillie carried a shopping bag in one hand and gripped the umbrella handle in the other, the hem of her dark green trench coat leaving a shallow ripple on the water's surface. Erii walked barefoot in the puddles on the asphalt road, the hem of her white dress lifted high with her other hand, revealing her complete calves below the knees. A very thin gold chain adorned her ankle, rising and falling with her steps in the rain, making a soft, crisp rustling sound.

The three of them ran across the deserted street in front of the love hotel, splashing water everywhere, the spray reflecting the colorful glow of the neon signs overhead.

Between the rise and fall of the skirt and the feet, summer, which had been reluctant to show itself, seemed to arrive suddenly.

The thunder faded away in an instant, and the lightning flashed briefly on the horizon before disappearing, making the long street in the rain seem to stretch out in slow motion, extremely long.

Caesar suddenly felt he had no lessons to teach. Before he could even offer a single insight, this good-for-nothing had already silently taken his first steps into the unknown.

At this moment, a certain string that had been taut in Chu Zihang's heart inexplicably loosened, and the force of the loosening even made him slightly stunned.

On this long street flooded by torrential rain, the sight of three young people huddled under the same umbrella, running through the water towards the hotel entrance, made him feel that perhaps the world really wasn't so bad after all.

They suddenly realized that this was the best time of year.

Mid-spring hasn't left yet, and early summer is just around the corner. This is the most beautiful time in Japan. Cherry blossoms are giving their last bit of energy to bloom in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden and Ueno Park, while black tuna are so plump and glistening with oil on the auction stage of Tsukiji Market.

Although the underworld is waging a fierce battle in the shadows, the Yamata no Orochi is secretly gestating in a well, and every night torrential rains and active volcanoes spew thick smoke into the sky one after another, Tokyo is a breathtakingly beautiful city in the eyes of tourists.

The city's attractions and restaurants have opened their doors to welcome crowds from all over the world. Sushi chefs are competing behind the counter to bring out the fattest tuna belly of the season or the finest abalone sashimi just flown in from Hokkaido.

After the rain, Minami-Aoyama and Ginza were teeming with tourists, who enjoyed cherry blossoms, browsed boutiques, bought amulets at shrines, and then sat down at a corner café, gazing absently at the rain-washed streets outside the window.

Perhaps the world is still some distance from complete destruction.

This crisis may eventually be resolved, just like every crisis in the history of Kassel College that seemed destined to drag all of humanity into the abyss. They were fortunate to be thrown into Japan during this best season, and to have such a long period of time to linger in this Eastern city.

There's no need to hand in assignments, write papers, or worry about final exams.

Summer has just begun, a real summer with humid sea breezes and the smell of chilled Ramune soda, not the sticky, year-round heat of a tropical island.

This is a beautiful season, and all sorts of wonderful stories can still unfold step by step.

Lu Mingfei, Frilian, and Erii rushed into the love hotel side by side.

The proprietress came out from behind the counter, holding three snow-white dry towels in her hands, and eagerly handed them over. This middle-aged woman, who had been cold to them just a few days ago, had completely evolved into a kind-faced aunt who seemed to be watching her own younger relatives come home.

Erii took the towel, and the first thing she did was not to dry her wet hair, but to squat down and carefully wipe the water droplets off the white high-heeled ankle boots she was holding in her arms.

Lu Mingfei bent over, supporting himself on his knees with both hands, and took several deep breaths. After recovering, he straightened up and helped Frilian wring out the rainwater from the hem of her trench coat.

The three of them walked up the stairs together, their footsteps overlapping and colliding in the narrow stairwell. The light in the fifth-floor window came on, and the warm red light shone through the floor-to-ceiling window onto the flooded street.

Ten minutes later, Lu Mingfei furtively pushed open the back door of the love hotel, crossed the street, and plunged into the entrance of the capsule hotel.

He was soaking wet, his hair plastered to his forehead, and the plastic bags he was carrying were still dripping water, but his face showed the look of someone who had just crawled back from the battlefield alive, a survivor of a disaster.

As soon as he pushed open the capsule door, several bundles of banknotes were thrown at his head. Each bundle contained 10,000 yen bills, brand new and crisp with Yukichi's portrait, one hundred bills per bundle.

Caesar made a move and millions of yen in cash rained down on Lu Mingfei, landing on his face, shoulders, and chest, before scattering across the tatami mats like a sudden and perfectly timed localized torrential downpour of money.

"Thank God you guys actually got the money! I would have been dead without it!" Lu Mingfei was overjoyed. He didn't even bother to rub his forehead, which was sore from being hit by banknotes. He bent down and frantically stuffed money into his pocket. His movements were so fast and skillful that he looked like a squirrel rushing to the depths of its burrow to stuff nuts before winter.

He deliberately turned to the side when stuffing the banknotes into his shirt pocket, so that Caesar and Chu Zihang would not see that the so-called hidden pocket was just a piece of rag that he had pinned to his underwear with a safety pin.

"We fully understand how difficult it is to date when you're broke, so Chu Zihang and I will each sell a kidney to sponsor your girl-chasing!" Caesar said solemnly, his arms crossed, not a trace of a smile in his eyes.

The fact that he's managed to hold his nerve until now without breaking down shows that this Italian has truly mastered some remarkable skills.

"I'm so touched! Did you emphasize to them that this is a kidney from the Gattuso family, and ask them to raise the price by a few percent?" Lu Mingfei plopped down on the edge of the lower bunk of the capsule and started rummaging through the plastic bag for something to eat and drink.

He pulled out a bag of potato chips, two tuna rice balls, and a can of cola. He first unscrewed the cola and tilted his head back to gulp down about half of it, as bubbles of carbon dioxide surged up from his throat.

"So hungry?" Caesar looked at him with shock as he devoured the food like a ravenous tiger.

"NO! It's hunger!" Lu Mingfei swallowed the potato chips in his mouth, then pulled a rice ball out of the bag, his hands moving as fast as if he were defusing a time bomb.

"You're starving after a date? Did your date take place on a land reclamation site in Tokyo? Was the main task just moving bricks?" Caesar pulled a can of ice-cold Asahi beer from the plastic bag next to him and tossed it to Lu Mingfei.

The beer can traced an arc in mid-air before Lu Mingfei caught it. The cool aluminum can immediately fogged up in his burning palm.

"Didn't I tell you, today's project is Disneyland! But I didn't have time to sit down and eat. I was busy being Princess's attendant the whole time." Lu Mingfei pulled the tab on his beer can, tilted his head back and took a big gulp, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You have no idea how much she can eat. She ate three pizzas, three whole pizzas—one Margherita, one Teriyaki Chicken, and one Seafood Special Edition—each a standard 12-inch plate, and she finished them all by herself. She also had two super-sized Cokes, the kind that are bigger than your face, and after finishing them, she had a strawberry milkshake.”

"I ate four servings of onion rings, countless servings of French fries, and a whole bucket of fried chicken wings—not the kind that come in small paper bags in pairs, but a proper whole bucket, at least twenty or so. I only managed to eat two fries from start to finish, and I almost choked to death when she handed me an onion ring."

Chapter 793: Establishing a Deeper "Friendship" with Erii

"How are you feeling?" Chu Zihang asked.

"It was alright. The shopping center manager gave us VIP tickets, so all the rides were free. Tokyo Disneyland was really fun. We went to Cinderella Castle, the big castle where you can see the whole park from the windows. We queued for about twenty minutes. The VIP lane didn't have a long queue, but you still had to wait a bit. Then we rode Pirates of the Caribbean, which is one of those rides where you sit in a small boat and go through caves to watch pirates fight. The captain fires a cannon at the water every few minutes..."

As Lu Mingfei spoke, he gestured with his hands as if a pirate ship was firing its cannons, ignoring the rice grains of rice falling through his fingers.

"I didn't ask you about the amusement park rides," Chu Zihang corrected him helplessly, his brows furrowing slightly, and fine lines reappearing between his eyebrows.

He found that he had frowned more times in the past 24 hours than he had in the entire previous semester combined.

"I'm asking if the head of the Uesugi family is satisfied? Is he in a normal state?"

"It's getting more and more normal... hiccup!" Lu Mingfei choked. Chu Zihang handed him a can of cola, and Lu Mingfei tilted his head back and gulped down a big mouthful. The carbon dioxide shot straight to his head, making his eyes roll back. It took him a full minute to catch his breath and continue speaking.

"He's not like he was at the beginning, all cold and indifferent, ready to kill anyone he saw. When we were playing in Cinderella Castle, I was actually scared by a staff member dressed as a monster. You know, one of those guys who suddenly jump out of a hidden door, dressed as the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, wearing a furry costume, and letting out a muffled growl. I was so scared I almost jumped out of my skin, thinking, 'This guy is going to die.'"

"Who knew she would just take two steps back, stare at that person for several seconds with wide eyes, and then turn to write in her notebook for me: 'Furry.' I asked her if she liked it, and she wrote: 'Like.' If that staff member had found out later that she had just scared someone who could kill an entire street in an instant, she would probably have rushed into her office to hand in her resignation. Frilian stood in front of her the whole time, but it was obvious that Erii didn't need protection at all. By the last stop of the project, she was already able to lean back in her chair and watch the pirate dolls fire at each other quite naturally."

"So, did you hold the girl properly in your arms?" Caesar asked with a smile.

"Am I that much of a beast? Even if I were, I wouldn't have the guts! The monster the staff member was dressed as was fake, but she was real!" Lu Mingfei mumbled, shoving half a rice ball into his mouth.

"Surely not? Even if the other party is a monster, as long as the monster retains the appearance of a cute young girl, we elegant nobles should play along and treat her with the same courtesy we would show a young girl. Fear and retreat are the greatest disrespect to a lady dressed in finery for an appointment." Caesar was giving his juniors a lesson in chivalry.

"If you're so good, then you do it," Lu Mingfei said without even looking up, continuing to bury himself in the third rice ball in his hand.

Caesar was unusually silent for a few seconds before frankly admitting, "I can't. She's not my type. Besides, I have a fiancée."

"What are the plans for tomorrow? Don't keep taking her out. Even though she changed her clothes and hairstyle, she might still be recognized on the street," Chu Zihang steered the conversation back on track.

He pulled a neatly folded map of Tokyo from his pocket, unfolded it, and laid it on his lap. Several places were circled on it with a red pencil, marking the locations Lu Mingfei and his group had visited that day: a beauty salon, a shopping mall, and Disneyland.

These circles are connected in a line, stretching southeast from Shinjuku all the way to Maihama.

The bounty for the Snake Clan has been posted for a full day and night, and no one has called to report them yet, which means that luck is indeed on their side today. But luck won't always favor the same group of people.

“But she ran away from home just to go out and have fun. How can she be satisfied if I don’t take her out?” Lu Mingfei finally swallowed the last bite of rice ball and wiped the rice grains from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

"You didn't see how she looked when she came back. Oh, right, she changed into a new dress, the white one. You didn't see it, it was really beautiful. She danced on the Disney float in that dress, and she still had a smile on her face when she got off. It wasn't the kind of embarrassed smile you get when you look in the mirror and realize you've become more beautiful, it was just a very simple smile, the kind of smile you get when you're exhausted from playing but still want to keep playing. If I were to tell her 'I'm not going out tomorrow because I'm afraid I'll be recognized,' I'd rather run to the Snake Clan right now and turn myself in, and let them hang me on the flagpole on the roof of the Genji Heavy Industries building."

Chu Zihang wanted to say something about the risks and safety, as they were now undocumented and without any support.

But he remembered the scene he had seen through the porthole that night: a girl running barefoot through puddles, clutching white high-heeled ankle boots to her chest, with a thin gold chain around her ankle that jingled in the rain.

So Chu Zihang said nothing.

"How would she know about a place like Odaiba? Hasn't she never left home before?" Caesar asked.

Lu Mingfei pulled a stack of colorful flyers from his wet pocket and slapped them onto the bed.

The stack of papers had long been soaked and softened by the rain, with all the corners wrinkled, but the pictures on them were still dazzlingly bright: Tokyo Disneyland, Palette Town in Odaiba, Hanayashiki Amusement Park in Asakusa, Sanrio Puroland, Fuji-Q Highland, and several guide maps of the Ginza and Harajuku shopping districts that were stuck together by the moisture.

On the back of the promotional leaflet, you can vaguely see an advertisement card for the red-light district of Kabukicho-style shops, with images of scantily clad girls and the words "Free Information Center" printed on it.

“How did she even manage to find all this?” Caesar picked up the one from Palette Castle in Odaiba, the front of which featured the giant Ferris wheel, shimmering with iridescent colors in the night. He read the tagline aloud: “'The Ferris wheel at night offers a panoramic view of Tokyo Bay. Legend has it that couples who confess their love at the highest point will stay together forever.' — So cliché, but it suits you perfectly.”

"Aren't there all sorts of brochures on the shelves at every tourist attraction? There was an entire wall covered with them at the information desk at the entrance of Disneyland. She brought back brochures from every single attraction in Tokyo. I watched her pull them out one by one, and after she finished, she sat on a bench and flipped through them all afternoon. Then she picked out all the elegant and classy ones like Senso-ji Temple, the Imperial Palace, Meiji Shrine, and the Tokyo National Museum, and neatly stacked them back on the shelf. What was left were all the brochures for shopping streets, amusement parks... and even brothel promotional cards for Kabukicho. I quickly snatched them and stuffed them into the trash can."