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

Chapter 204 No More Regrets
What brings you here?

Lu Mingfei shrank back into his seat with considerable caution. He was sitting in a window seat, and this shuffling almost pressed him against the inner porthole.

"Why is she called Senior Sister in Aki's eyes, but 'Your Excellency' in mine?"

Nono glanced at him. "Trying to discriminate, huh?"

“Of course Guan Yu wouldn’t address Lady Bian in a very intimate way…” Lu Mingfei said subconsciously.

His rambling statement was quite profound; those who hadn't read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms or were unaware of the current situation at Kassel College probably wouldn't understand it. For example, it's reasonable to consider Chu Zihang as Liu Bei and Caesar as Cao Cao. As for the Jiangdong rats, let's just leave them out and HIDE them. And Lu Mingfei, as the only S-class freshman, can obviously be seen as Guan Yu, the fierce general who, after Lü Bu's death, saw all the heroes of the world as worthless.

He is now loyal to Liu Bei, Cao Cao is eyeing his general with predatory intent, and it's perfectly acceptable for Nono, as Caesar's official girlfriend, to become Lady Bian... But is it wrong to have Lady Bian persuade Guan Yu? Guan Yu is a scholar of the Spring and Autumn Annals!

"Your imagination is so wild it could hold the entire Milky Way!"

As Nono spoke, she reached into the red bag she was carrying. Lu Mingfei then noticed that she seemed to really like red; the most striking feature was probably her long hair. At this moment, everyone had boarded, the cabin doors closed and locked, and the plane began taxiing to the runway. Just as it turned a corner, the sunlight finally broke through the thick clouds and streamed into the cabin, illuminating her long hair with a deep, rich red, like wine.

But now is clearly not the time to pay attention to hair color. What is the other person reaching into their bag to take out right now? Could it be some legendary black card that is anonymous and has no spending limit?
Lu Mingfei thought that the rumor he had heard that Caesar was "quite wealthy" was quite possible. However, if Cao Cao was a ruthless and ambitious man, he shouldn't have done such a thing. But if it wasn't that... it couldn't be some kind of scandal that he didn't even know about, could it?

His mind was racing, and he instinctively became wary.

Then he watched as Nono took two lollipops out of her bag and handed one to him.

It's one of those five-cent lollipops, classic strawberry flavor, and it's red.

"Eat?"

Lu Mingfei's mind went blank for a moment. What was going on? Had your recruitment budget become so tight? Was this the next stage of empty promises?
"How much funding did you embezzle?" he asked instinctively.

"What funding?" Nono asked back.

"It's the recruitment fee." Lu Mingfei rubbed his index, middle, and thumb together.

"Would you really be willing to join the student council?"

Nono asked again.

"I don't want to!" Lu Mingfei answered decisively.

"That settles it then. If you had even the slightest hope of joining, Caesar would be more than happy to generously offer his services, but unfortunately, he doesn't. Although I don't know how you and your Senior Brother Chu developed such a deep bond, Caesar is definitely out of the running, not even if he were to welcome you with open arms, right?"

Nono raised the two wisdom sticks in her hand again, "Besides, I didn't come here to recruit you... Come on, call me senior sister and I'll give you some."

"Hello, senior sister."

Lu Mingfei felt that something was off about Nuonuo's words, but the feedback from his [Emotional Perception] indicated that she wasn't lying, even if it was just a sugar coating followed by a bullet... But who cares? He'll eat the sugar coating first!

He unpacked the lollipop and popped it into his mouth. It seemed like a long time ago that he ate lollipops. He could only get them when the internet cafe held some small events. Although they were not expensive, he usually did not buy them himself. They were the kind of snacks that he could eat or not eat.

A sweet scent filled the air, and a moment of silence fell between the two. Lu Mingfei didn't care what this "enemy camp senior sister" was up to... He turned his head, pressed his forehead against the cold airplane window, and looked out curiously.

Come to think of it, this seems to be the first time he's been on a plane in recent years. He has no memory of whether he's ever flown before, only that he hasn't left the city since he was taken in by his aunt.

It was a little past eight o'clock on a deep winter morning outside the window. The sky had just been torn open, and the rising sun, lacking warmth, cast pale light through the low-hanging clouds, lazily spreading across the gray earth. In the distance, on the tarmac, the frost-covered, withered grass stood out starkly, yet appeared exceptionally small, in the cold wind.

The fuselage vibrated slightly, and the roar of the engines pressed heavily into our eardrums. After a brief taxiing, the Air China Boeing 737-700 reached the runway, straightened its course, and began to accelerate.

As the roar grew heavier, the scenery outside the window began to rush past, and a peculiar feeling surged in my heart, as if my heart was being gripped by an invisible hand and suddenly pushed forward.

At a certain critical point, the fuselage suddenly lightened and lifted up. Amidst a huge roar, a sense of weightlessness came, not intense, but with a strange feeling... It felt like being freed from shackles or breaking free from constraints, and an unconscious sense of ease was accompanied by an inexplicable joy.

The plane climbed very quickly, and the scenery outside the window began to shrink. As we entered the low-lying clouds, layers upon layers of mist obscured the windows, creating a chaotic scene. All we could see were water droplets slicing across the glass at an angle, making the view completely unappealing.

With nothing else to do, Lu Mingfei subconsciously began studying based on muscle memory. However, he didn't take out a book; instead, he reviewed the material in his mind…

"I'm curious."

At this moment, Nuonuo suddenly spoke, her voice very low, barely audible to Lu Mingfei amidst the roar of the engine.

"Are you really human?"

"Senior sister, one lollipop isn't enough to swear..."

Lu Mingfei pursed his lips and looked at her, "It'll take at least a carload, right?"

I'm not insulting you.

"Judging from your perspective, it's not very convincing," Lu Mingfei commented.

Nono usually seemed like a proud princess who didn't care about anything. Even when she looked directly at someone, it felt like she didn't really see that person. But this time was different. She looked at Lu Mingfei very seriously, with a gaze that didn't seem like she was looking at a person... but rather at some kind of strange creature.

This made Lu Mingfei feel a little guilty.

Through these ten days of experience, Lu Mingfei has gained some understanding of his "inhuman" condition, which is somewhere between A and C.

And then Nono's next words—

"I'm just stating a fact... How did you manage to study during a time like this, and even appear completely normal?"

Feeling extremely guilty!

Lu Mingfei's heart skipped a beat. He thought to himself, "I knew I hadn't chosen the wrong name or the wrong nickname." This "little witch" Nono's ability to read people's minds was simply too amazing! Was this really profiling or some kind of magical mind-reading technique? It felt even more perverse than [emotional perception]!
He was indeed learning simultaneously... This kind of multitasking, which is impossible for normal people, seemed to be a skill that he could master with practice. In the beginning, he was not very good at it and was shocked a few times, but he has not been shocked since.

How did Nono know that?!
"Senior sister, were you... profiling me yesterday?" Lu Mingfei decided to get straight to the point, "What exactly were you profiling?"

Nono's eyes glazed over for a moment. She had tried so hard to forget and erase the pain that was so intense it could destroy her soul, but it turned out that the human brain is not a completely controllable disk.

With Lu Mingfei's words, that memory seemed to resurface clearly... accompanied by that pain.

She couldn't help but shiver slightly, as if she were shivering.

“Most of them,” she said softly.

In-depth profiling involves immersing oneself in a person's life. It's not so much about profiling as it is about experiencing every little detail from the other person's perspective. As a result, one can almost completely understand a person.

Therefore, Nono doesn't really like using this method. Although it's always effective, using it too often might have the side effect of mental breakdown... But she still used it last time, and that's how she discovered Lu Mingfei's special nature.

Even disregarding that inexplicable thunderous inferno, she still couldn't see through Lu Mingfei. Although she could "see" Lu Mingfei's actions, she knew that what she saw was only the "effect."

There is no "cause".

Everything seemed to be abruptly interrupted by that inexplicable thunder, a phenomenon that had never occurred before.

That's why, after being completely baffled yesterday, Nuonuo chose to switch seats with Chu Zihang today. With her abilities, it would be incredibly easy for her to do this; with just a few words of enticement, she could portray it as "Susie wanting to take the initiative," while she was "trying to help her best friend succeed."

"most?"

Lu Mingfei instinctively hugged himself. "Senior sister, the way you're talking is a bit creepy... You can't possibly have mentioned things like how I was a few years old when I wet the bed, things I've forgotten myself, can you?"

The following sentence can be considered pure nonsense, or it can not. What Lu Mingfei was actually worried about was whether Nuonuo had "profiled" some things that he had experienced but forgotten—such as his past with Zero.

If someone else sees something important that happened in the past, something he hasn't even remembered yet... that would be a huge problem!
"No...actually, I only have one question."

Nono ignored Lu Mingfei's nonsense; she simply stared intently at him and, like him, went straight to the point.

"Aren't you tired of doing this?"

"It's impossible not to be tired, isn't it?"

Lu Mingfei scratched his head. Come to think of it, no one had ever asked him this question before. But with Nuonuo's question, he felt a real sense of exhaustion, a mental exhaustion, welling up inside him.

"Then why do you still insist on this?" Nono pressed.

In Nuonuo's opinion, Lu Mingfei's persistence was really inexplicable. She had seen hardworking people, but people need to rest, and most of their efforts were only superficial... Chu Zihang's efforts were already at the level of an ascetic, but compared to Lu Mingfei, they were simply insignificant.

That kind of effort could easily be described as torture. It's hard to say whether it's more unbearable than the temporary pain of a thunderous punishment, yet Lu Mingfei persevered... and there was even a hint of "sweetness" in her portrayal.

Lu Mingfei fell silent for a moment.

This is the time to implement the "temporary schedule." According to the schedule, he can actually rest, doesn't need to study, and can play or sleep however he wants.

Learning seems to have become an instinct... Although they say "I can't be alienated into a dog," their actions tell a different story.

In just over ten days, it is actually not enough to form such an instinct. Habit is indeed a rather terrifying force, but it is not enough to form in such a short period of time, even with the threat of electric shock punishment... It is more likely to arouse rebellious psychology, just like many people who have experienced retaliatory binge eating after dieting.

But for Lu Mingfei, there was none.

His gaze unconsciously drifted out the porthole. The clouds were thick, and although the plane was taking off, it was still unable to escape them. The misty fog swept past, and something that had been used as an excuse for a long time seemed to be gradually receding, revealing the truth beneath.

"Senior sister, have you ever experienced anything like this...?"

He spoke softly.

"They are not things you deliberately memorize over and over again, but they have been in your heart for many years. You don't think about them intentionally, but they suddenly appear at some moment for some inexplicable reason."

At times like these, you rack your brains, trying every possible way to figure out right and wrong, whether there's a better way or way to respond... You think about it a lot, considering every possibility and every reason, all in order to get a better result.

He turned his head and looked at Chen Motong.

"But what you really want is not to determine right or wrong, nor to shape an outcome. You are just regretting, feeling sorry, and feeling sorry for things that you know are already in the past and can never be changed."

The deep roar of the engine drowned out the sudden silence. Lu Mingfei didn't look at Nuonuo anymore. He turned his head to look out the window again, as if sensing something. The cabin was shaking slightly, and the inevitable turbulence from the clouds was transmitted through it, but he remained unmoved.

"I've experienced too many things like this. I used to wonder if fate had destined me to be like this. How can a person overcome a predetermined destiny? It's like Sun Wukong couldn't lift the Five Finger Mountain of Buddha, so he could only obediently wait for Tang Sanzang to come and become a Fighting Buddha."

Just when I was about to resign myself to my fate, it came, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

The opportunity is right in front of me, even if it's destined to be agonizing and painful, but I don't want to go through that agonizing, repetitive feeling of being alone again and again. I'm going to seize it, I'm going to…”

He stretched out his palm, as if trying to lift the veil of fog.

Without warning, the plane pierced through the clouds.

The blinding, unobstructed sunlight suddenly poured in, instantly filling the entire cabin. Lu Mingfei subconsciously squinted.

Outside the window stretched a vast, fluffy sea of ​​white clouds to the horizon, shimmering with an almost sacred light under the winter sun. The churning clouds below seemed to transform into solid earth, hovering above this new and expansive land.

"No more regrets."

The boy spoke softly, his hand clenched into a fist, as if he were grasping this brand new world.

If it is a command, it is also an oath.

(End of this chapter)