Lu Mingfei: What? They're all real!

“They’re everywhere, with red hair,” Zero said. “Without exception, they’re all children who have failed to develop properly; the oldest is probably two or three years old…”

Xia Mi, who had been listening quietly, opened her mouth wide. This was quite a shocking piece of news. She had always thought that Lu Mingfei had lived in the "uncle and aunt's house" that he had mentioned since he was a child. It turned out that the environment in which he grew up was so harsh, with corpses, and so many of them.

Wait, it seems like we're focusing on the wrong thing...

The girl shook her head, then her expression turned to astonishment as she instantly recalled a horrifying fact—

"You mean, artificial cultivation?" The aura of misfortune that had been lingering around Lu Mingfei vanished in an instant. He squinted, as quiet as a stone.

Everyone present felt a chill rise from the bottom of their hearts. He stood there quietly, but something behind him seemed to be roaring and shrieking, trying to tear his back and burst out to burn the world to ashes. This twisted biotechnology had stimulated the sleeping demon.

Ling reached out and tugged at Lu Mingfei's arm, which made his eyes clearer and his imposing aura less forceful.

“I’m just saying, it’s possible,” Zero continued. “Although I don’t know your reasoning, I think it’s unlikely to be such a coincidence; there must be some kind of connection.”

“Of course, of course there is a connection.” Lu Mingfei’s tone was deep. “It can’t be such a coincidence… there are no coincidences in this world.”

He exhaled a breath of stale air, sighed deeply, then turned and leaned against the railing, gazing at the river.

Zero walked over and tried to lean on the railing, but the railing was a little too high for her. After several attempts, she silently gave up the idea and stood straight beside him.

"So why exactly do you want to find someone like this?" Zero didn't care what he was going to do, but she was very concerned about his motives.

Black Swan Harbor was her childhood, but also a nightmare. She didn't know what it meant for Lu Mingfei, but she didn't think it would be any better than what she had experienced. In Zero's mind, she was probably the luckiest child in the entire facility. Herzog, that devilish and despicable guy, gave her privileges, but used all his methods on Zero...

She didn't want him to need to revisit that past. She knew he was a great being, but she felt that even the greatest being shouldn't be hurt, much less be covered in wounds.

“It’s complicated…” Lu Mingfei sighed, staring intently out the window.

Actually, he has many answers now. He wants to find someone who considers himself his "wife," someone who occupies an important place in his memory, a pitiful person who only sees loneliness until death, and he wants to ask why all of this happened and what happened... He has many, many reasons.

There were too many reasons; he didn't even know where to begin.

Moreover, he's not so sure he can find that girl anymore; time has passed, and she might be long gone... especially after he heard about what appears to be "artificial cultivation."

After regaining his senses, he even began to doubt Chen Motong's background.

Lu Mingfei turned his gaze to the cabin, where the girl holding the child was also looking at him. After their eyes met, she hurriedly turned her head away and pretended to talk to the people around her.

“Whatever the reason, let’s go together.” Zero tugged at his arm again, forcibly drawing his attention. She said earnestly, “No matter who you’re looking for, no matter what you’re doing, I’ll always be with you. We’ll definitely find that person.”

Her voice was soft, but her tone was as firm as iron. Her usually expressionless face showed a rare change, a hint of resoluteness mixed with tenderness. Although it was not obvious, she did not hide her feelings at all.

Lu Mingfei was stunned, then felt a pang of sadness in his heart. He inhaled and exhaled, looking up at the sky. These words were so poignant, and he was afraid he would show a pathetic expression.

"Thank you, Zero." Lu Mingfei said earnestly to the sky, raising his hand to place on the girl's head. "You're so kind, really."

Zero stood quietly, not at all proud of what she had done; those were the words she was supposed to say, and those were her true thoughts.

She now finds the feeling of being patted on the head quite pleasant, and she rarely thinks that being short isn't entirely a bad thing.

Chapter 113 These three people... seem to be a family.

This is terrifying... Is this what humanity is like?

Xia Mi, who always prided herself on her intelligence, quietly squatted to the side, not daring to even breathe loudly. For the first time, she felt that Miss Ling was a somewhat frightening person.

She had already made it very clear to Zero that "Lu Mingfei looks like he's looking for a wife," but she didn't expect Zero to act this way at a time like this... She herself couldn't have come up with such a ruthless method; she was completely incapable of it...

But judging from his expression, this method seemed far too effective, almost too incredibly so! His hands were trembling; he looked like he was about to be won over!

"Cough, cough!" She stood up from the deck, making a fuss.

But when their gazes turned to her, she began to panic. In such moments, she was overwhelmed by her emotions and forgot to think about what she should say before speaking...

She realized that nothing she said seemed quite right... No matter what she said, it didn't have the same impact as Ling's words. She couldn't even say something like "Me too" after clasping her hands in a fist and palm salute like Master Zhang did, because that would make it seem like they were some kind of harmonious and loving family...

Even if we take a step back and assume there are families, there is no place for mere human beings to stand!

"What's wrong?" Zero asked, blinking.

“Uh…” Xia Mi hesitated, blinking, unsure how to answer.

She felt so embarrassed that her gaze involuntarily drifted to the river. She thought that if she announced right now that she had suddenly gone crazy and wanted to jump into the river for a swim... it would probably be a little better.

Fortunately, someone helped her out of this situation.

"Um... are you all alright?" Chen Motong walked out of the cabin.

Now she doesn't seem like a new mother who's always holding a baby, but without something to hold in her hands, she seems a little out of place, looking somewhat helpless, as if she's a little shy.

"Great, how could it be bad?" Lu Mingfei quickly recovered from his sullen state, but his hand was still on Zero's head, and both of them looked a little dazed.

“I saw you guys chatting for quite a while, and you didn’t look too good. I thought something was wrong.” Chen Motong also adjusted her expression. She became cheerful and spoke warmly and generously. “If you have any problems, just let me know. Maybe I can help.”

She is usually a cheerful person, but her timidity and awkwardness these days are the exceptions. However, she still seems to be deliberately acting, and her enthusiasm and generosity are only on the surface.

"No." Xia Mi shook her head, taking the opportunity to clear her name. "We were just talking about our own things, we were just a little engrossed in it, thank you for your concern."

Being embarrassed in front of "her own people" is a minor matter; she is more of a territorial creature, and she can figure out what this guy is doing with a snap of her fingers.

Zero also became a little wary. Although she had always felt that Lu Mingfei was looking for someone "related to their past," she kept hearing that person being connected to the girl in front of her, which made her unhappy...

She subtly shifted her position, blocking Chen Motong's path, expressing her stance without making a sound.

However, the rejections from both Xia Mi and Ling only had a superficial effect, which made the girl who approached with suspicion even more convinced of her thoughts.

"If you're free, how about we chat?" She ignored the girls who were eyeing her covetously and extended an invitation to Lu Mingfei.

She felt she really should guide the boy who had gone astray in his relationship. This couldn't go on forever. As the protagonist of this story, she felt she should take responsibility and at least help him face his own heart.

Lu Mingfei nodded; he was thinking the same thing.

Some people were anxious. Some people's anxiety was written on their faces, and they stretched out their hands, wanting to pull Lu Mingfei's arm. Others' anxiety was written in their hearts, but they could only try their best to stand on tiptoe, trying to make themselves as a wall more noticeable.

"Over here?" Chen Motong ignored the anxious girls and turned to invite them.

"No need, let's just stay here." Lu Mingfei felt that Zero should listen in, since his own memories were incomplete and Zero remembered things much more clearly than he did.

He now desperately wants to know the girl's background, just as he had just told Zero, there are no simple "coincidences" in the world, everything is interconnected.

So the girls who were initially a little anxious suddenly stopped being anxious. Xia Mi silently withdrew her outstretched hand, pursed her lips, widened her eyes, and quietly stood beside him; Ling adjusted his position and continued to hold his ground like a short nut.

The three of them looked like they were taking some kind of family photo.

"Are you sure?" Chen Motong grinned.

"We were talking about your family last time, weren't we? You said you have quite a few siblings," Lu Mingfei said, eager to get to the point, "So, approximately how many?"

"That's a bit rude of you to ask a girl about her family affairs like that." Chen Motong narrowed her eyes, half surprised and half embarrassed. "People will think you have ulterior motives. Who would ask such a question right off the bat?"

She didn't know why he would ask such a question, but she felt he must have something to gain.

But the topic has been completely veered off course, and someone has found a point of attack.

"So what if they're just curious? What do you mean by 'having ulterior motives'? You're not overthinking it, are you?" Xia Mi chimed in. "That's how our club activities are. We need to write literary reports, so we need to survey students' family situations. What, is there a problem? If you don't want to talk about this kind of thing, then bye-bye~"

She was always the most rude to Chen Motong. At first, it was just an act, but now she disliked him more and more. She admitted that she had many thoughts in her mind, and from any perspective, she didn't like this person.

"There are club activities like this? I thought clubs in Kassel only knew how to fight and kill!" Chen Motong exclaimed, hoping that the male protagonist would stand up and set things right.

That's right.

But Lu Mingfei repeatedly agreed with Xia Mi's words, and even stood a little closer to her. He always felt that the red-haired girl in front of him had misunderstood something... He didn't want that kind of thing to happen.

“That’s right,” Zero echoed, as if he were a tacit believer.

These three people... Chen Motong looked at the three people standing in front of her like a family photo, and for a moment she felt that she might have misunderstood something.

But that thought vanished in an instant. She felt that what she had experienced and seen couldn't be wrong, and the principal's words just now were irrefutable proof. She felt she hadn't misjudged him... Maybe he was just being swayed by the girls around him...

“This is a question I can’t answer; everyone has privacy.” She sighed regretfully. “If this is the kind of question you want to discuss, then I can only say goodbye. But if you want to talk about other things, we can arrange another time.”

She blinked lightly, trying to give a hint.

—But finally, the dragon, having filled its energy bar, unleashed a powerful breath attack—

"There's nothing else to talk about." Xia Mi wrapped her arms around Lu Mingfei's neck, cutting off his gaze like a sharp blade. She curled her lips into a cold smile, tilted her head back, and said in a seemingly kind but actually persuasive tone, "Don't cause him any more trouble, and don't flatter yourself. Have you forgotten that you have someone else? Don't let our President Lu get any more bad publicity, okay? Please, have some self-respect!"

The air seemed to freeze for a moment, and the smile on Chen Motong's face was mercilessly torn away. Her heart felt like it had been struck by a heavy hammer, and even her soul seemed to fly out of her body. She had been deliberately ignoring this fact, so even hearing it from someone else now felt like a deadly curse.

When she came to her senses, there was no one in front of her.

Chapter 114 We have news about that girl.

"That's really impressive," Zero exclaimed in admiration.

Although it was a bit late, or even too late—she was already lying in her dorm bed when, much later, she finally remembered just how devastating Xia Mi's words had been that day.

"What?" Xia Mi had no idea what her roommate was commenting on. She was sitting in front of the computer screen with a goose leg in her mouth.

This goose leg was personally delivered to her door by someone. It was not only delicious but also full of heartfelt sentiment. She sincerely felt that this roast goose was more delicious than Constantine's, and more importantly, it was for her alone, something that the girl named Zero didn't have.

"Oh, oh!" She suddenly realized, picked up the goose leg, and smiled proudly at Zero. "You mean this? Well, I had to sacrifice a lot. You wouldn't understand how much I conceded even if I told you. Eating some roast goose is already a favor to him~"

Ling rolled her eyes at the smug girl and sighed inwardly. She wasn't stupid; how could she not understand what she had seen and heard in Bronze City that day? She was almost certain of the girl's identity, but out of politeness, she had never mentioned it.

It doesn't matter to her. Compared to this, the world is unimportant. She has never felt warmth from this world, so how could she identify with humans or anything else? She simply maintains the same attitude as the person in her heart. She accepts what he accepts and opposes what he opposes.

Aside from that, she cared about nothing else, and she didn't even intend to report this to her accomplices, with whom she had almost lost contact.

She shook her head and said, "No, I meant what you said to Chen Motong at the end of that day."

"Oh, you mean this?" Xia Mi wiped her mouth, revealing her canine teeth, both proud and indignant. "What's wrong with that? I was just telling the truth. Who told her to keep waving around like that, hinting and making suggestive remarks? It's so annoying! She's so shameless!"

"Yes, it's annoying." Zero nodded.

"Don't say that, it's like we're allies." Xia Mi waved her hands repeatedly, trying to distance herself from the relationship between the two.

She wasn't part of any "joint defense front," she just couldn't stand seeing someone being harassed all the time... Yes! That's it! The girl thought to herself, slowly raising her head, inwardly praising herself for being such a public-spirited and righteous girl.

But speaking of being public-spirited and righteous...

She turned her gaze back to the screen and called out to Zero in a moderate voice, "I'm saying, what if they find out he has some kind of problem?"

Ling smoothly sat up in bed, her attitude becoming serious. She thought carefully for several minutes, then shook her head vigorously, "No."

"Really not?" Xia Mi asked skeptically. "But the news is spreading like wildfire..."

Lu Mingfei returned in triumph as a standard hero. When he got off the CC1000 train that day, the girls who wanted his autograph almost overwhelmed the platform. Some even took advantage of the chaos to kiss him. When the crowd dispersed, red marks were left on Lu Mingfei's clothes.

But this is no exaggeration. The two dragon servants that were slaughtered were identified: one was a third-generation species, and the other was a second-generation species. Undeniably, this was a feat worthy of being recorded in the history of Kassel School. It is said that on the day the news came back, Guderian ran wildly and cheered all over the campus, constantly throwing the blank sheets of paper he had grabbed as he ran out, somewhat like Fan Jin in his fantasies. He was eventually knocked unconscious by three bullets fired by Frigga.

But Lu Mingfei wasn't greeted only with cheers; he was also met with a rigorous investigation. Despite Mans's best efforts to cover for him, the evidence sent back by the school's logistics personnel after clearing the battlefield—the exaggeratedly cut rocks, the marks left on the bronze door, and the corpses of the dragon servants—all pointed to one thing:

Lu Mingfei's Word of Power is an extremely high-risk Word of Power. Based on the information obtained from the three-day and three-night seminar of the professors in the research department, it was finally confirmed to be "Word of Power: Judgment," which only exists in theory. On the Word of Power list, the next one is "Word of Power: Rhine," which is an indisputable world-destroying level Word of Power.

The news was immediately blocked, but it still spread like wildfire. No one knew how many paparazzi, both overt and covert, were in Kassel. Suddenly, Lu Mingfei was thrust into the spotlight, and even the school board got involved. He had to undergo numerous tests every day at the medical school to prove that he was still human.

This was the only thing Xia Mi had been worried about these past few days. She didn't know what results a human examination could yield, but she certainly wouldn't dare to lie on the operating table and be examined repeatedly. What if something was found out? In that case, she could only look at the attending physician and chuckle, then snap her fingers and blow the whole room away.

“No, because he was originally human,” Zero said softly.

"What do you mean? It's like nobody's human!" Xia Mi, feeling like her tail had been stepped on, started to protest too much.

Of course, she knew that Zero must know something... but she couldn't believe that the "oath" between Zero and someone was so solid that it hadn't had any impact even in the face of this, and Zero didn't even mention it.

"Anyway, that's me." Zero slumped down again, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"Me too, okay?" Xia Mi mumbled, her voice growing softer and softer. She chewed on the sizzling goose leg, her heart filled with concern for that idiot who didn't know how to hide his feelings at all.

If you're really in danger, then this place will have to be sent to heaven... she thought silently, and took another bite.

-----------------

“Principal, I want to destroy the world,” Lu Mingfei said with a droopy face. “If I really had that ability, I would destroy the world right now.”

“You can’t say anything like that. The board of directors’ spies are watching you all the time.” Angers leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. “It’s just some inspection. You can treat it as a physical exam. It’s a perk for S-class elites.”

"..." Lu Mingfei rolled his eyes. "You don't seem to have any intention of defending your student at all... I feel very hurt. I don't want to work for the academy anymore. You don't know how fierce that dragon is. I was so scared that I cried underwater."

Actually, Samson was almost crying from fright. Lu Mingfei could hear it wailing in dragon language about its bad luck, and the rest of its words were all apologies to Prince Norton...

"Don't get hurt, don't get hurt," Angers said as if coaxing a child. "I have some news you want to hear. A wounded baby can't hear big news, he won't be able to handle it."

Lu Mingfei stood up from the sofa, almost knocking over the black tea in front of him.

“Yes, it took a lot of effort. Norma even had to shut down for a whole week because of it. The college had to process countless documents every day, resulting in huge losses.” Angers said in a typical Chinese parent’s tone, “It’s all for you, Mingfei.”

However, Lu Mingfei has never been one to withstand this kind of pressure. This British principal is far less capable than his aunt in this regard.

He just blinked expectantly.

“Yes, we probably have the information you need,” Angers said.