Lu Mingfei, why are you slaying dragons if you're not involved!

Chapter 141 A true man knows what to do and what not to do (4.2K)

The books that used to be piled up like mountains have been moved and placed in lockers at the back of the classroom or in the hallway. The desks are empty, and there is no one else in the classroom.

Lu Mingfei frowned slightly, suddenly sensing something was amiss.

He couldn't quite put his finger on what was wrong at first, until he sat down in his seat and glanced to the side, only to find an empty seat, and then he realized what was happening.

Usually, Zero would be by his side at this time...

In just five or six days, it became a habit.

Could her previous message of "sorry" have been something she anticipated?

"Surely not, if he could even predict this... what kind of Zhuge Ling is he?"

Lu Mingfei muttered something to himself.

[Warning, electric shock countdown...]

As the countdown began, his body tensed instinctively, but then relaxed again.

Since we've already used up one warning opportunity, we should make the most of those three seconds.

Can't waste it!

Just then, outside the classroom door, footsteps approached from afar. The footsteps were clearly hurried, but slowed down as they got closer to the classroom door.

【three……】

Lu Mingfei looked over there curiously.

There's plenty of time, just two seconds left. I only need to glance at it and then start learning.

Everything is under control!
Can……

"Liu Miaomiao?"

【two……】

The girl's face was flushed, whether from running or something else, she couldn't tell. She looked at Lu Mingfei and realized he was the only one in the classroom; Ling was still not there. Her last bit of hesitation vanished.

This is a golden opportunity!

If Heaven grants something and you don't take it, you'll suffer the consequences. A tactical stealth attack—action!

"I... feel great today! I told the driver I'm not going back for my lunch break!"

Most things only have a zeroth or an infinite number of times, and the little piano prodigy subconsciously used the skill she had just mastered.

Lu Mingfei looked at her and a smile appeared on his face.

That smile had a hint of helplessness in it.

He was already aware of what was about to happen, but there was only a fraction of a second left, and it was too late to correct it.

[First, release the electric shock!]

It hurts so much!
The "cannot move" and "cannot speak" effects of the "micro-management of vital signs" were skillfully applied in an instant. No matter how much pain he was in his heart, he was rolling on the ground like Sun Wukong being chanted the Tightening Spell. At least... in reality, he didn't die!

So Lu Mingfei stared at Liu Miaomiao for more than ten seconds amidst the excruciating pain, making the beautiful young woman blush. She wondered if her lie had been exposed.

"Probably not?"

Liu Miaomiao thought to herself that she was quite good at lying. "I even managed to fool my mom just now."

About half a minute later, Lu Mingfei finally regained his mobility. He stood up and strode aggressively toward Liu Miaomiao, finally stopping in front of her with a solemn expression.

"Liu Miaomiao."

"Uh-huh?"

"The eighth time! The eighth time!"

Lu Mingfei forced out his grief and indignation through gritted teeth.

"You are absolutely my nemesis!"

Liu Miaomiao stared blankly at him, the "action plans" that had been swirling in her mind just moments before vanishing in an instant.

Only a blank space remains.

The classroom was already empty, and now it was unusually quiet.

Fortunately, Lu Mingfei knew when to stop, because if he delayed any longer, the next electric shock would probably come soon.

So he thought for a moment and then spoke.

"Shall we go to the track and field?"

"Tian... track and field?"

Liu Miaomiao was startled and came to her senses.

"So early?"

The track and field stadium holds special significance for Shilan Secondary School.

The root of all evil was a scheme orchestrated by the head of student affairs. It happened during a speech at a grade-level assembly—"I just find it ridiculous. Some students are even dating! They abandon their partners and run away as soon as they see me! What's the point of dating someone like that?"

Once this is said, run away, and the puppy love will naturally fall through. Don't run away, then you'll be caught and have your parents called in!
But "life will find a way." The teaching building is easy to be caught in, while there are surveillance cameras and security guards patrolling in secluded corners... So the track and field during the evening self-study break becomes a good choice.

Given the financial resources of Shilan Secondary School, the track and field stadium is naturally equipped with large lights. Once all the lights are turned on, the entire field can be illuminated as bright as day. However, under normal circumstances, these lights will not be turned on.

In the dim light, it was barely enough to see. When people were coming and going, it was exciting enough for young couples to secretly hold hands.

Even if the dean of students randomly appears at the track and field stadium at night, it would be very difficult to make a successful arrest.

In fact, Shilan High School had good intentions. After all, it's impossible to completely eradicate puppy love, but as a school, it certainly has to strictly prohibit it.

But if the restrictions are too strict, what if young couples sneak off to the woods or other places without any limits, and something goes wrong and someone dies?
Thus, the dimly lit track and field became a tacit compromise—like "opening a window without tearing down a building." A normal person wouldn't do anything outrageous in such a crowded place.

Over time, the track and field became the "romantic hotspot" of Shilan Middle School. There's a saying that goes, "If you don't take a stroll around the track and field, you're not really dating!"
Liu Miaomiao had certainly imagined such a scene... but she was thinking about it at night, and now it was daytime, the middle of the day!

"morning?"

Lu Mingfei glanced at the wall clock with a puzzled look.

"Isn't it getting late? The exam starts at 2 p.m., and we only have one hour and forty minutes left to finish the arrangement."

"Ah? Oh..."

Liu Miaomiao was mortified. She finally realized that Lu Mingfei was talking about serious matters, and that she had misunderstood!

When people are embarrassed, they always find something to do. She immediately went to her seat to get paper and pen, and then walked with Lu Mingfei with her head down.

The sunlight and shadows of the trees were still there, but this time she could feel plenty of warmth again, and even the wind carried cheerful sounds.

Those are the most suitable notes for the remaining part of the "four-hand piano" piece!
Liu Miaomiao wasn't in a hurry to memorize it; she only needed to remember the current scene and feelings, leaving the rest to her talent.

But she immediately realized a problem—

"Where did that piano come from on the track and field?"

"We don't need a piano!"

Lu Mingfei confidently uttered these words, words that would make most composers roar with screech.

"That melody is already in my head. I'll sing it for you later. With your musical sense, you can easily translate it into notes, and then it'll be a breeze, right?" As long as the [Words Become Law] attribute isn't used, simply chanting won't cause the supernatural phenomenon of wielding the power of fire that occurred before. That's why Lu Mingfei came up with this method.

Liu Miaomiao's steps were a little unsteady. When she heard the words "I'll sing for you," those five words were all that remained in her mind on an endless loop.

Singing.

He sang it just for me!
Although arranging the music was the "real deal," that didn't stop Liu Miaomiao from looking at the matter from a different angle.

Besides, it's normal for guys to use various excuses to get close to girls when they want to pursue them. What if Lu Mingfei thinks the same way?

In the south, it's common for the temperature to reach 20 degrees Celsius at midday in winter, provided the sun is shining.

At this temperature, there's no need for a down jacket, and you can even take off your sweater. Just wear a thermal undershirt, sit on the lawn, bask in the sun and feel the breeze—it's quite pleasant.

That's exactly what Lu Mingfei did. He took off his coat, spread it out on the artificial turf, and gestured for Liu Miaomiao to sit down with him.

People passed by the track and field every now and then, but Liu Miaomiao didn't care at the moment. Anyway, even if a teacher came to ask, what they were doing was legitimate, and they had a perfectly good reason!

In fact, to be honest, she'd love for this "misunderstanding" to become true...

The empty track and field was quiet, with the bright, warm but not glaring sunlight shining down from above, gently bathing the two of them. The boy's soft singing transformed into notes from the girl's pen. Occasionally, people who had finished eating in the cafeteria would pass by the edge of the track and field and glance in their direction, but the two of them remained undisturbed, immersed in their own world as if they were in another realm.

……

Meanwhile, in the real "other world".

"Professor Schneider."

This was a dimly lit room, and Zhang Shanfeng stared solemnly at the man in front of him.

The man's face was covered by a black mask, and a gas tube led to a small cart with a steel cylinder mounted on it. His neck was covered in red sores, and his breathing was thick and low, like a broken bellows. He had a pair of iron-gray eyes.

von Schneider, Executive Director and Head of the Kassel College.

"Teacher Zhang."

Schneider's voice was like a sharp knife scraping across a rusty steel plate.

“I didn’t expect you to come in person,” Zhang Shanfeng said.

“Even the Secret Service didn’t expect this.” Schneider chuckled softly.

Zhang Shanfeng's pupils narrowed slightly. The Executive Department of Kassel College was a global violent organization with influence over most parts of the world, making it the most important dagger in the hands of the Secret Party.

But the minister in charge of this spearhead came without the secret service's knowledge... Has the weapon developed its own consciousness?

"As you requested, there are no cameras or recording devices in this room." Zhang Shanfeng knew that a major secret was about to be revealed to him, so he decided to show some goodwill first.

“It doesn’t matter. Once a secret is told, it’s no longer a secret. I chose to tell you, Teacher Zhang, because I have a reason to find that ‘Prince’.”

Schneider reached into his suit jacket and took out a file folder he kept close to his body, then handed it to Zhang Shanfeng.

"SS-level file?"

Zhang Shanfeng looked at the red "SS" stamp on the seal.

"This thing... even if you're the head of the executive department, Professor Schneider, you probably couldn't get your hands on it, could you?"

Like most institutions, the Secret Service has a classification system for the importance of documents and materials. The 'SS' level is paper files that can only be accessed by members of the Board of Trustees. There are no electronic copies of these files in Normana, and they have always been kept in the top-secret archives of the Equipment Department of Kassel College, Watalheim.

"I can't get it, but someone can."

Schneider said, "That person doesn't need to care about the opinions of the board members."

Zhang Shanfeng understood that there was only one person in the Secret Service qualified to be said that way: Angers, the principal of Kassel College, whose status was equivalent to that of Dumbledore in Harry Potter.

Just as Hogwarts, funded by pure-blood families, needed Dumbledore, Kassel College, funded by the Secret Society, also needed Angers. However, unlike Dumbledore, Angers was less bound by rules.

He then continued examining the file folder, which had "Kalaallit Nunaat" printed on the cover, meaning "Greenland" in Greenlandic.

He opened the file.

After a moment, he put it down: "An ancient dragon embryo?"

“In the autumn of 2001, a person with the ID ‘Prince’ posted a message online saying that his tugboat had caught strange bronze fragments in the depths of the Greenland Sea. The ancient inscriptions on the fragments matched the ‘Ice Sea Bronze Column Table’ that the academy had secretly kept.”

Schneider nodded. "You should understand the importance of that thing."

“That’s the history of the Dragon Clan. If we can decipher it, we can obtain many long-lost secrets,” Zhang Shanfeng nodded.

"The 'Crown Prince' gave us the fragments without charging a penny... His reason was that he was willing to donate these fragments to research institutions rather than to businessmen who offered exorbitant prices, and he also gave us the accurate coordinates."

Our team set off immediately, but we found no Ice Sea Copper Pillars in that area, only a strange heartbeat. All the underwater robotic chips were burned out, leading us to speculate that it was an ancient dragon embryo. Legend has it that ancient dragon embryos deploy a protective domain when they hatch.

"The hunter's bait."

"Yes, but we exercised due caution. We were observing, but then the board of directors intervened. They forced us to dive down to confirm, arguing that we couldn't just wait for the embryos to hatch."

"What a lame excuse," Zhang Shanfeng sighed.

"Yes, if we just can't sit and wait for it to hatch, then we can launch underwater bombs. Those lunatics in the Equipment Department are always reliable when it comes to tinkering with bombs."

Schneider sneered, "But what they wanted was never to stop the hatching, but to obtain that ancient dragon embryo."

"Your wound is from that operation?"

“That’s right… It was a disastrous operation, and only one and a half people came back, and I was the half.”

Schneider said, "The Secret Party has sealed all files related to the incident in order to cover up the huge accident caused by their short-sightedness... I will settle this score with them sooner or later, but I have never forgotten the real culprit."

Since then, the 'Crown Prince' has vanished without a trace… He was an extremely cunning and treacherous man; he left no clues whatsoever after that incident. But Kassel College has never given up the investigation, not even now!

Schneider pressed his hands on the table, his heart filled with uncontrollable anger and excitement.

“Eight years have passed, and he has finally reappeared, recruiting people to your place at the ‘Hunter’s Market’ at any cost. I couldn’t stand by and watch… So, I found Principal Angers, and he promised to help me, allowing me to secretly come here. I can tell you the truth: I’m willing to pay any price!”

The room fell silent for a moment.

A moment later, Zhang Shanfeng made a move. He used his only remaining right hand to put the document back into the file bag and handed it back to Schneider.

Schneider accepted it with some hesitation.

"What are you..."

"Originally, I was planning to rip you off as much as possible."

Zhang Shanfeng sighed.

"But a true man has things he will do and things he will not do. I would feel uneasy about taking advantage of someone for revenge."

He stood up.

"I agree to your dispatch of the task force, but the condition is that it must be completely under the command of the External Cooperation Division."

“Okay.” Schneider agreed without hesitation.

"In addition, there is another request that must be answered by Principal Angers."

Zhang Shanfeng spoke slowly.

“Lu Mingfei cannot join the Secret Party. He can attend Kassel College, but only as an exchange student.”

(End of this chapter)