Lu Mingfei doesn't want to be a superhero

Behind the ice wall, Lu Mingfei lowered his raised arm and breathed a sigh of relief—he hadn't let his guard down while talking to Yuan Zhisheng and the others, which was why he was able to create the ice wall in time to intercept them.

Chu Zihang stood beside Lu Mingfei and reached out to grasp the hilt of Murasame's knife.

Standing in the biting cold, Yuan Zhisheng regretted not bringing his twin swords with him today. He could only pull out a pistol and then looked at Lu Mingfei, his eyes filled with undisguised surprise.

Such powerful incantations! They managed to create such a massive ice wall in such a hurry.

Sakura, crows, and yakshas stood guard beside Genji, all trembling slightly.

When Lu Mingfei created the ice wall, he was indeed in a bit of a hurry and released a large amount of cold air in one go. Some of the cold air overflowed, causing the surrounding temperature to drop sharply. He, Yuan Zhisheng, and Chu Zihang were not afraid of this level of low temperature because of their bloodline, but the bloodlines of Ying and the other two were not able to withstand it.

Genjiro's gaze swept across the area. Through the translucent ice, he could see that the other half of the living room was a mess from the explosion, and everything was charred black.

"What's going on! Didn't we already do an X-ray scan and find no explosives or anything like that inside him? And he was injected with a mental desensitizing drug, so he shouldn't be able to use his Word of Power..." Genji turned to look at Yasha and Crow, "Are you sure all the safety measures were in place?"

Yaksha and Crow nodded together: "Young Master, we personally oversaw this process."

"Damn it! What happened?" Yuan Zhisheng was a little scared. Although he wouldn't die in that kind of explosion, Sakura and Yasha Crow would definitely not survive. As for Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang, although they had higher bloodlines, they were only in the excellent category of hybrids. If they were directly caught in such an explosion, they might not survive either.

If these two were attacked and killed on the territory of the Snake-Headed Eight Families, the nature of the matter would be far more serious than it seemed, and Angers would likely come to Japan in person to hold them accountable.

Chu Zihang glanced outside the ice wall and frowned slightly—the explosion just now gave him a familiar feeling, as if it were... Jun Yan?

No, it must be an illusion. The probability of such an unstable and high-risk incantation appearing in a hybrid is too small. How could such a person be sent as cannon fodder for a suicide attack?

Chu Zihang silently dismissed his own guess.

"Watch out! There are still people outside!"

Lu Mingfei raised his hand, and the cold air condensed in his palm, turning into a long white ice cylinder. At each end of the cylinder was a glass-like transparent ice lens, which was a convex lens.

Lu Mingfei held the long tube up to one eye, scanned the surroundings, and finally looked at the rooftop of a building nearly two kilometers away: "There are people there!"

On the edge of the rooftop stood a woman. Although she wore a mask that obscured her face, she was still graceful and charming. Her black kimono was billowing in the wind, outlining her slender figure and making her look like a delicate flower.

Is this... a telescope?

In the hotel, Yuan Zhisheng was somewhat stunned. Firstly, he had never thought that Word Power could be used in this way, and secondly, he really couldn't understand how Lu Mingfei could control such a powerful Word Power so precisely.

The power and controllability of Word of Power are inversely proportional. Although a strong bloodline can enhance the control of hybrids over high-level Word of Power, isn't it a bit too outrageous to make a telescope with bare hands?

"They actually dared to come near Genji Heavy Industries to attack us... Sakura, immediately notify the clan's elites to go there!" Genji's face was cold. Originally, there were Fuma clan ninjas monitoring suspicious people day and night near Genji Heavy Industries. The monitoring was far stricter than that of the police, so the Oni Clan would not have had the opportunity to sneak in.

However, last night he diverted the forces of the Fuma clan, and some of the Fuma clan ninjas monitoring the area near the Genji Heavy Industries were also diverted as a result. Although some people are still stationed there, blind spots in the surveillance have appeared, which is probably why someone took advantage of the situation.

"Lu Jun, can you still create an ice wall like that?" Yuan Zhisheng asked. "We'll be targeted by snipers here."

Logically speaking, someone lying in ambush on the rooftop of another building could only be a sniper, which is why Genji asked that question.

Lu Mingfei shook his head: "No need. It seems the other party wasn't carrying any weapons, and they just left the rooftop."

"He left?" Genji was taken aback. "Then what was he doing here?"

“I don’t know, but she doesn’t look like a passerby,” Lu Mingfei said. “The woman was wearing a kimono and a mask with the word ‘Dragon King’ written on it.”

"Dragon King?" Chu Zihang grasped the key point. Kassel College was an organization whose mission was to bury the Dragon King.

“Not the Dragon King of the Dragon Clan,” Genji suddenly explained, “It should be one of the high-ranking members of the Demon Clan—the Dragon King. The high-ranking members and officers of the Demon Clan are codenamed after pieces in shogi. The leader’s codename is ‘King Sho,’ and the second-in-command’s codename is ‘Dragon King.’

“The King and the Dragon King are the most mysterious people in the Demon Clan. The Snake Clan has been looking for clues about them, but has made very little progress. I never expected the Dragon King to appear here, and I never expected that she would actually be a woman…” said Genji.

"And she's a woman with a very flat chest," Lu Mingfei remarked.

“Wait a minute,” Genjiro paused, “She’s wearing a mask and has a very flat chest, so how can you be sure she’s a woman? Is it because she’s wearing a woman’s kimono?”

“It’s all about the vibe,” Lu Mingfei said confidently. “She looks like a man in a kimono, but her demeanor and figure are clearly that of a woman. There’s no mistake about that.”

Yuan Zhisheng nodded and said gratefully, "I see, I understand. Thank you for the important information, Mr. Lu."

"You're welcome," Lu Mingfei said.

……

That evening, the hotel staff were dealt with by the Sheqi Bajia in some unknown way. They did not react to the bombing of the presidential suite, but instead arranged for Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang to stay in another ordinary luxury suite.

Lu Mingfei lay on the sofa in his new bedroom, still looking peaceful. His spirit flew out of his body and plunged headlong into the Genji Heavy Industries building.

Today's events are rather strange. Although the person who was captured included Genjiro and the others in his self-destruction, proving that Genjiro and the others probably did not intentionally try to harm him and Senior Brother Chu, the fact that the Snake Clan captured the person so quickly seems rather unusual.

It was as if they really didn't want them to carry out the mission, or to investigate the Ghost Clan.

This made Lu Mingfei even more curious, and he was determined to go to Genji Heavy Industries tonight to find out more.

To avoid being bothered by the head of the Uesugi family, Lu Mingfei decided to avoid her for now, look for clues, and then go find her after he had made some progress.

Lu Mingfei couldn't explain why he went to find her. Theoretically, he needed to keep coaxing the girl so that she wouldn't tell the Snake Clan. But emotionally, Lu Mingfei did feel sorry for her. A young girl in the prime of her life had been locked up in a room since childhood. Even though she could watch anime and play games and was pampered with a life of luxury, from a certain perspective, she should be considered "house arrest."

While lost in thought, Lu Mingfei flew to the top floor of Genji Heavy Industries and then plunged inside.

As soon as he stepped inside, Lu Mingfei sensed that something was amiss.

There seems to be an alchemical matrix here, which can affect spirits, but its power is not great. When Lu Mingfei was in it, he felt a bit like he was underwater. Although he could breathe, his movements were greatly affected, and he could feel resistance everywhere.

Fortunately, these obstacles only slowed him down, not made him unable to move. Lu Mingfei floated leisurely, examining the environment—the existence of the alchemy matrix proved that he had come to the right place.

The room was dark, with only many red candles lit as a source of light. The flickering flames connected to form lines, and two lines formed a passage that passed under a three- or four-meter-high torii gate. The vermilion lacquer on the torii gate was peeling off, revealing the dark red wood underneath. This thing was clearly an ancient artifact, originally built in an open-air environment exposed to wind and rain. The interior designer disassembled it, moved it into Genji Heavy Industries, and then rebuilt it exactly as it was.

Lu Mingfei realized that this place seemed to be a building similar to a Shinto shrine.

Just how much do the people at the Japanese branch love shrines? The place where they met with the heads of the eight clans was also a shrine. There are at least two shrines built in this building. Why not just rename this place the Shrine Building?

Lu Mingfei thought to himself, "This is what I'm thinking."

A spirit is not a ghost, and there is no buff in the dark. Lu Mingfei's vision in spirit form is no different from that in his physical body. With the help of these dim candlelight lamps, he can't actually see much. Fortunately, he doesn't have to worry about tripping. He can float slowly and look around slowly.

Until a perpetual lamp illuminated his eyes. Ahead stood a tall screen wall, usually built in front of a main gate to block the view of passersby. In feng shui, it is also a feng shui wall that gathers the feng shui of the residence. Screen walls are not uncommon, but one so tall is unique. It is about four meters high, reaching all the way to the roof, with a gilded top, and is more than ten meters wide.

On this colossal screen wall, the artist boldly used rust red and indigo to paint a picture of half-human, half-snake giants embracing each other, their long tails intertwined. The male giants are majestic and ferocious, while the female giants are dignified and gentle. Various demons from Japanese mythology surround them, and countless arms sprout from the giants' backs, wielding different weapons to fight against the demons.

This is a work of art so beautiful it brings tears to one's eyes. The artist's brushstrokes fuse together a furious, violent, deadly, and alluring beauty, ultimately presenting a profound and poignant tragedy.

As Lu Mingfei stared at the mural, a strange sense of melancholy welled up inside him. He had never known that he possessed such artistic talent, that he could be so moved by a painting.

Shaking his head, Lu Mingfei composed himself and began to carefully observe the murals—

There must be a secret of the Snake Clan here.

143. Chapter 142: Is the elixir of immortality in Japan?

Genji Heavy Industries, top floor.

Lu Mingfei's spirit floated in front of the painted mural, looking somewhat troubled.

His spiritual vision is no different from his physical vision. He does not have night vision and can only see the murals illuminated near the ever-burning lamp. The murals further away are hidden in the darkness and cannot be seen clearly.

Although the eternal lamp was bright enough, the influence of the spirit on the material world was very weak. It couldn't even lift a candle, let alone the floor lamp that was almost as tall as a person.

After a moment of thought, Lu Mingfei had a flash of inspiration.

He raised his hand, and translucent crimson-silver threads emerged from his palm, quickly weaving into a longsword that emitted a faint, clear glow.

Immediately, with a thought from Lu Mingfei, the light on the longsword suddenly surged, illuminating the surroundings.

Lu Mingfei wasn't sure if someone in a physical body could see these lights, but as a spirit, he could indeed see his surroundings clearly with the help of the Silver Oak Sword's light.

As expected of a weapon made by the Dwarf King, it can even be used in spirit form after being fused into the body.

Using the light of the Silver Oak Sword, Lu Mingfei began to examine the murals from the beginning.

These murals look quite old; they are certainly not modern creations. However, the paint on them is still thick and sticky like paste, and it's unknown what materials the people who painted them used.

The first mural looks somewhat like a map, with dragons and snakes coiling in the vast sea, and majestic cities standing on the land. Roads crisscross the sea, and black and white dragons float side by side in the sky, each stretching out a hand and grasping the same golden scepter.

Aside from the two dragons floating in the sky that are clearly the Black King and the White King, this painting looks more like a map, a map that records the ancient dragon city.

Lu Mingfei was somewhat surprised. All hybrids knew that the world was once ruled by dragons, whose civilization was more prosperous than that of modern humans. The Secret Party had been working to reconstruct the history of dragons in order to study their alchemical technology and weaknesses, including the ancient dragon city distribution map. However, even the European part has not been fully reconstructed yet, and there is still ongoing debate in the academic community.

If the content of this painting isn't fabricated, it must be priceless; even the principal might have to fly over in person.

Unfortunately, Lu Mingfei didn't have a suitable excuse to inform on them, otherwise he would have been quite curious about what the academy would do—whether it would be forced purchase or robbery.

He continued looking at the map, and the scene gradually became absurd. There were ferocious monsters with eight long necks and eight heads encircling their bodies. The long necks were knotted like ropes. It lay on the ground, its head drinking water from the upper reaches of eight rivers. Its sharp tail cut through mountains at the end of the rivers, and bright red water flowed from its belly and mixed into the rivers. From this picture, it seemed to be a behemoth that was hundreds of kilometers long.

There are also naked women frozen inside huge blocks of ice, and a snake crawls out from a crack in the ice and talks to people above the ice; all sorts of bizarre scenes, rich in symbolism, but obscure and difficult to understand.

This is clearly a metaphor, but unfortunately Lu Mingfei can't understand it. Or rather, this metaphorical style of painting is designed to be incomprehensible to "outsiders." Only those with certain knowledge and who compare the murals one by one can interpret it.

Lu Mingfei recalled an online analysis of the novel *Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils*, in which the Sweeper Monk said that the more one practiced the 72 Shaolin Arts, the greater the malevolence became, requiring a thorough understanding of Buddhism to resolve it. This interpretation seemed rather un-Wuxia-like and leaned more towards Xianxia (fantasy martial arts). Therefore, some in that analysis speculated that the reason the 72 Arts required profound Buddhist knowledge was because the manuals heavily used unique Buddhist terminology instead of ordinary martial arts terms. This meant that those lacking sufficient understanding of Buddhist culture would practice the manuals incorrectly, leading to demonic possession.

This is similar to the principle behind murals being used to metaphorically convey certain information.

Anyway, the snake in the mural is definitely not real, or at least it's not that big. A behemoth that's hundreds of kilometers long would, from a biological point of view, crush itself to death, unless it has the physical abilities of the Hulk. But if that were the case, it could probably play with a nuclear bomb like a firecracker, which is a bit fantastical.

Unable to decipher the key information of the metaphor, Lu Mingfei did not linger long in front of the second picture, but instead drifted to the third picture—which had many annotations in small seal script.

That was undoubtedly Chinese Small Seal script. It's likely that the Japanese hadn't invented their own writing system when the mural was painted, so the artist used Chinese Small Seal script for annotation. However, Small Seal script was a new script created by Qin Shi Huang after unifying the six kingdoms and "standardizing the writing system," based on the Large Seal script of the Yin and Zhou dynasties. It was gradually replaced by Clerical script by the end of the Western Han Dynasty.

Judging from this, the mural may be about two thousand years old. Regarding the cultural exchanges between China and Japan at that time, Lu Mingfei can only think of the legend that Xu Fu led five hundred boys and girls eastward to find the elixir of immortality, and then drifted to Japan and became the ancestors of the Japanese.

The third mural depicts many people. Lu Mingfei had limited knowledge of seal script, but fortunately, Chinese characters have been passed down through generations, and each change is traceable. For example, modern Chinese people have the innate ability to understand traditional characters.

Although the Small Seal script has changed a lot due to several transformations, the characters on the murals are relatively simple, so Lu Mingfei was able to understand some of them by guessing and deciphering—they were mostly exaggerated and flattering words.

The gist is that a supreme and noble hybrid will periodically appear in the world, known as the "Emperor." His birth is called "Descendant." His significance is comparable to Prometheus who stole fire and Jesus Christ who redeemed humanity with his own blood. He is the Son of Heaven, the Emperor of Destiny. His titles include "Eastern Emperor," "Radiant Emperor," "Thunder Emperor," "Lord of Taiwei," etc. He embodies all the virtues of humanity and possesses the great power to fight against the gods, and so on.

These annotations are all written near a small figure with a gold outline in the mural, and people around it are bowing and worshipping this figure.

Lu Mingfei wasn't too interested in this kind of thing. He was a long-time otaku and was very familiar with Japanese customs. These people were always exaggerated when they used words of praise. Their everyday phrases were "Amazing" and "Fantastic." They called Olympic athletes "The Strongest High School Girl Who Made a Comeback," and there were even "Cooking Immortal" and "Sushi God." If you didn't know better, you would think they were about to ascend to heaven through cooking.

Therefore, Lu Mingfei didn't pay much attention to the resounding titles on the murals. After looking at them for a long time, the only useful information he could extract was that "every few years, the Snake-Headed Eight Families will give birth to an 'Emperor'. The Emperor's bloodline can exceed the limit of the mixed blood species and remain clear-headed. He has the potential to rival the Dragon King and is the natural leader of the Snake-Headed Eight Families."

Upon seeing this, Lu Mingfei suddenly thought of the head of the Uesugi family—according to her, all the pure-blooded dragons that the Snake Clan couldn't handle would be handed over to her to deal with, which meant that her power was at least above most pure-blooded dragons, and might even have reached the realm of ancient dragons.

Could it be that she is the "Emperor" mentioned in the mural?

Lu Mingfei was a little puzzled. Wasn't the "Emperor" supposed to be the natural leader of the Snake Clan? Why were the Snake Clan just keeping their leader locked up in a small room in a large building? Was this some kind of puppet emperor?

He continued looking, and the murals behind him were devoid of text and extremely abstract, depicting a winged skeleton giving a bone to a person. Surprisingly, the skeleton and the person formed a yin-yang symbol, with the golden skeleton lying on a black background and the golden person on a white background. The skeleton's arm holding the bone touched the person's hand, and the whole image swirled like a vortex.

The "yin-yang fish" background probably represents the meaning of reincarnation, circulation, birth and death, which Lu Mingfei could guess. But what do the winged golden skull, bones, and the person who received the bones represent?

Since the metaphorical painting lacked key information that could be used as a "key" for interpretation, Lu Mingfei skipped this one and moved on to the next.

This is the last mural. Its composition is very simple. At first glance, there is only a white dragon roaring to the sky. The dragon occupies almost the entire mural, with its wings spread out to the edges of the two walls, as if it will break free from the mural and fly out.