Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's War Journey

"Lu Mingfei! All you do on vacation is lie in bed and incubate eggs! Hurry up and buy me some soy sauce! It's ready to be cooked!"

A loud, penetrating voice, like a thunderclap from a clear sky, resounded throughout the old residential building.

Soon a thin figure hurriedly opened the door, and like a startled rabbit, rushed downstairs in flip-flops, panting heavily as he reached the stairwell.

"Sigh..." Lu Mingfei scratched his somewhat messy hair and sighed.

However, what bothered him the most was the sun outside the stairwell. Lu Mingfei looked up at the scorching sun and couldn't help but curse.

"This damn weather, it's already September, why is it still so hot?"

The air was filled with the acrid smell of asphalt melting in the sun, and the cicadas in the trees were chirping louder and louder, making people feel irritable. At this time, the outdoor temperature had reached 38 degrees Celsius.

Then, wearing flip-flops and with his head drooping like a wilted cabbage, he listlessly went to the nearby convenience store to buy what his aunt wanted, and also used his internet fee for the night to buy the cheapest popsicle to eat.

After buying his things, he didn't go back immediately. Instead, he went to the newsstand next door and, as usual, looked for his favorite magazine, "Home Computers and Games," to see what new games had been released so he could go to the computer mall to buy pirated DVDs to satisfy his cravings later.

"Mingfei, how's your studies lately? Are you under a lot of pressure?" The old man at the newsstand, wearing a white vest and holding a large palm-leaf fan with frayed edges, asked leisurely while reclining in a rocking chair.

"Same as usual, nothing special, just a bit more homework." Lu Mingfei found his target and replied casually.

"I heard that Chu Zihang from your school went abroad to study? Which top-tier university did he go to?" the old man continued to ask.

"It seems to be a prestigious school called Kassel... the name is weird..." Lu Mingfei mumbled, his mouth full of an ice pop.

Chu Zihang is the school heartthrob and top student at Lu Mingfei's school. He also has a good temper and is the typical "other people's child" that parents talk about. He is the embodiment of the word "perfect." Even the old man at the newsstand has heard of him.

"Kassel? Never heard of it... I thought he went to a top university... What a pity..." The old man continued to mutter, seemingly feeling a little regretful that the genius had not embarked on the expected path to success.

However, Lu Mingfei didn't pay any more attention to that. He had already found the pages he wanted to read most and was engrossed in them.

Just as he was engrossed in watching, a loud roar came from afar.

"Lu Mingfei! Where the hell have you been?! I told you to buy soy sauce!"

Hearing that familiar roar, Lu Mingfei trembled with fright and almost threw away the popsicle and magazine he was holding.

He reflexively shoved the magazine he was holding back onto the shelf at the newsstand, not even bothering to greet the old man, and hurriedly ran upstairs with the soy sauce bag in his hand.

However, just before entering his home, he slammed on the brakes and swallowed the remaining half of the popsicle in his mouth.

The sudden, icy, stinging sensation shot straight to the top of his head, giving him an intense, exhilarating feeling of his brain freezing. Tears almost welled up in his eyes as he pushed open the door to await the onslaught of the storm.

"Lu Mingfei, have you grown wings?! You think you can travel the world just by buying soy sauce?! Do you have some kind of problem with me?! I've been married into your Lu family, treated like a slave, serving your whole family. I don't know what sins I committed in my past life!"

Lu Mingfei stood quietly at the door, head drooping, eyes fixed on his flip-flops, listening to his aunt's rapid-fire scolding, her spittle almost spraying onto his face.

But he remained silent until his aunt was so angry that she was hoarse and out of breath. Only then did he carefully place the soy sauce bag on the shoe cabinet by the door, and like an eel, he slunk sideways through the entrance and quickly hid back in his room.

Back in his room, Lu Mingfei collapsed onto the bed, looking rather downcast. He was so tired of hearing those words that he thought he had long since become immune to them, letting them go in one ear and out the other.

But those sharp words were like invisible needles, hidden in the softest part of his heart, pricking him from time to time. They weren't fatal, but the subtle stinging and aching sensation made him feel extremely uncomfortable.

"It's so hot..." Lu Mingfei buried his face in the pillow and mumbled to himself.

What bothered him even more than his aunt's barbed words was this damn weather.

The room he shared with his cousin Lu Mingze, who was also 160cm tall and weighed the same, actually had an old air conditioner installed, because his aunt couldn't bear to see her precious son suffer.

However, today is Sunday and that chubby boy Lu Mingze went to his extracurricular class. Without the chubby boy around, he would never dare to turn on this level 5 power consumption air conditioner by himself.

Otherwise, the ear-piercing noise you just experienced outside will immediately upgrade to version 2.0, bombarding you from all directions once again.

As the saying goes, a calm mind brings coolness. Lu Mingfei tried to clear his mind, lay on the bed with his eyes closed, and began to try to empty his mind, imagining himself floating in the cold lake.

Gradually, perhaps because he was too tired, or perhaps because the self-hypnosis was working, he felt his consciousness really starting to blur. As he was pulled away from his heavy body, he felt as if he were really floating.

He seemed to be escaping this weary body, this stuffy little room, and this life of living under someone else's roof and having to carefully read their expressions.

He seemed to be flying, soaring through the mottled ceiling, through the scorching air, towards higher and higher...

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Meanwhile, in the remote suburbs of Chicago, there is a classically elegant and luxurious aristocratic college hidden in the mountains.

A beautiful girl with red hair was resting her head on her hand, looking listlessly at the rainy night sky outside.

"I'm so bored, I feel like my bones are going to rust." The red-haired girl suddenly turned her head and said to another beautiful girl in the dormitory who was sitting at her desk, reading quietly in the warm light of the desk lamp, with long, silky black hair.

"Susie, let's sneak out and drive to downtown Chicago! I heard Michigan Avenue is really lively at night." The red-haired girl's eyes gleamed with a thirst for excitement.

"I'm not going." The girl named Susie didn't even look up. Her voice was calm and gentle. Then she turned a page of her book, the paper making a pleasant rustling sound.

"It's already 11 p.m., and I have an appointment with someone to go to the library to look up information tomorrow morning. I should go to sleep now. Nuonuo, you should go to sleep early too. Staying up late is bad for your skin and will give you dark circles under your eyes." As she spoke, she subconsciously touched her smooth cheek.

"Who are you going on a date with? Is it that cool, handsome guy, Chu Zihang? I heard he was the one who kindly helped you carry your suitcase to your dorm when school started? How about it? Are you smitten?"

The red-haired girl named Nono immediately perked up as if she had discovered a new continent. She stepped barefoot onto the floor, took a few steps to Susie's desk, leaned down, and had a gossipy expression on her face.

"It's not a date!" Susie's cheeks flushed slightly, and she closed the book with a hint of helplessness.

"I'm just helping my mentor find an ancient document about the dragon lineage. He happened to have looked at that document a couple of days ago, which will save him a lot of time." Her explanation sounded reasonable, but her slightly accelerated speech revealed something unusual.

"Oh~ I'm just looking for information." Nono deliberately dragged out her words, but the interest in her eyes immediately faded like the receding tide.

"That would be boring. I would have thought our Miss Susie was experiencing her first love." She straightened up and spread her hands exaggeratedly.

"Since you're not coming with me, I'll have to find someone else to go with me." Nono turned around, jumped to her bedside like a nimble cat, grabbed a car key with a red ribbon tied to it from the bedside table, and twirled it on her finger.

"It's only been a month since school started, and you've already made so many friends who'd go crazy in Chicago with you in the middle of the night?" Susie finally looked up, her eyebrows slightly raised, expressing her doubt.

"No," Nono replied confidently, but a mischievous smile crept onto her lips.

"But I could drive my convertible right downstairs in this dorm and yell, 'Anyone want to go partying in Chicago with me? This school is full of monsters, there's bound to be some daredevils who'll jump up here!' How about that, isn't that a brilliant idea?" Her eyes lit up, thinking the idea was absolutely ingenious.

"How about we go shopping in Chicago tomorrow at noon when the weather is better? It's late now, and it's raining outside, so it's not safe to drive..." Susie tried to make one last effort, her tone full of concern, like comforting a playful child at home.

But before she could finish speaking, Nuonuo had already grabbed her car keys, opened the door, and run out like a gust of wind.

Susie looked at the still slightly swaying door, could only shake her head helplessly and sigh.

Nuonuo, holding the keys, excitedly went to the underground garage, jumped into a well-maintained, bright red convertible BMW M3, skillfully started the engine, and the deep roar echoed in the quiet garage before opening the convertible top.

She deftly drove the car out of the garage, and the cold raindrops instantly hit her face and arms, bringing a chill.

Just as she drove the car to the dormitory building, ready to carry out her earth-shattering recruitment plan, the excitement that had just surged within her vanished without warning, as if extinguished by the cold rain.

She stopped what she was doing, and just stood there blankly in the thick rain, letting the cold rain soak her school uniform.

"It's boring...it's really boring..." she muttered softly, her voice carrying a barely perceptible emptiness and weariness.

She started the engine again, but instead of heading towards the highway to Chicago, she turned around and drove towards the hilltop behind the school.

The mountain road was slippery and quiet, with only the rhythmic sound of the windshield wipers and the low growl of the engine. When she reached the top of the mountain, she turned off the car, and the world instantly fell into silence, with only the pattering rain hitting the leaves and the sound of the engine hood remaining.

She opened the car door, slowly walked to the base of a huge oak tree, and sat down with her knees drawn up to her chest, seemingly oblivious to the wet grass and fallen leaves on the ground.

She raised her head, her eyes vacant as she gazed at the sky, which was obscured by thick clouds and rain, and she could see nothing at all.

Originally, she was full of expectations for coming here to study at university, thinking that she could finally escape from that gorgeous but suffocating cold cage called home, and look forward to meeting her true kind and making true friends here. After all, the people here are all mixed-race people who have come together because of the sorrow of blood.

However, when she actually arrived in this new place, looking at her equally outstanding classmates who also had their own secrets, she felt like a caged bird tethered by invisible threads, only in a bigger and prettier cage. She still couldn't truly and freely soar in the high sky she longed for.

A familiar sense of loneliness enveloped her once again.

Before she knew it, exhaustion and inexplicable emotions welled up inside her. Leaning against the rough tree trunk behind her, she slowly fell asleep. Her soaked clothes clung tightly to her, outlining her beautiful but slender figure.

"I wonder if I'll catch a cold tomorrow..."