“Every time I fly over London, I look down, searching for the River Cam, and then along the Cam for the Bridge of Sighs… Do you know the story behind the Bridge of Sighs? A hundred years ago, Cambridge had a rule—students who broke school regulations were punished by having to reflect beside that bridge, and we always sighed while reflecting.” Anjou licked his teeth and suddenly smiled brightly. “Do you think I’m contradicting myself? On the one hand, I lament that Cambridge is no longer what it used to be; on the other hand, I still cling to it.”
“Honestly, I don’t get it at all,” Lu Mingfei admitted straightforwardly.
“Today’s Cambridge is nothing but a phantom of the Cambridge from a hundred years ago to me, yet I still can’t help going back there again and again. Standing there, I still feel warmth—I can vaguely smell the scent of a hundred years ago. The white silk dresses and Oxford-style white high-heeled shoes in my memory become vivid again,” Anjou said softly. “I have no family. My best friends are all dead. I’ve lived to an embarrassingly old age for a hybrid. There’s not much left in this world for me to hold on to, and even if I kill all the Dragon Kings, what difference would it make? Will my Cambridge come back? Will my friends come back to life? Will the girls I admired rise from their graves, divorce their equally skeletal husbands, and throw themselves into my arms, wearing the white silk dresses and high heels I loved so much? Even I feel that my reason for being alive has grown fragile with time; the reasons I live are too feeble.”
The old man took a fierce drag on his cigar, his eyes narrowing with sharp lines. “But! I still won’t allow the dragons to destroy it all. If they destroy Cambridge, I won’t even have a place to remember. If they destroy Cassell College, I will have let down my friends from the Lionheart Society. If they destroy the gravestones of the girls I once admired, I will fight them to the end. Because these remaining meanings in my life… even though they are like fleeting illusions in the light, they are all that I have left!” He forcefully flicked the cigar butt out of the car. “If anyone dares to touch my last slice of cream cake, how could I not fight them to the death?”
Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded.
“Damn it! I never thought… so this old guy… is really such a ‘lone and strong’ man!” Lu Mingfei thought. He drove a luxury car, wore custom suits, and had a beautiful young woman on his arm, acting like an old playboy. But when he revealed that fierceness, it was just as intimidating as the folding knife he always carried with him.
“Mingfei, what’s your reason then? What’s the fragile reason that made you not suddenly jump off the rooftop one day when you were just lounging there?” Anjou raised his eyebrows.
“What do you mean? Jump off?”
“Everyone has their reason for living, which is why we don’t just get high and then jump off a building or something.”
“Isn’t wanting a girlfriend enough?”
“Not enough!”
“Then, how about waiting for the release of Dynasty Warriors 6?”
“Still not enough!”
“Fine, let me be serious. Actually, I really want to see my parents again, even though they abandoned me and never came back to visit me all these years…”
“Still not enough!” Anjou smiled mysteriously. “The meaning of living is in the things that flash through your mind at the moment you almost die…”
Suddenly, he started the engine, slamming the accelerator to the floor. The Maserati leaped like a shark, its tires screeching against the asphalt, leaving clouds of smoke behind. Lu Mingfei’s screams and his body were both pinned against the racing seat by the brutal acceleration. This was the true power of the car in full force; in just half a minute, it reached nearly 400 kilometers per hour. This was something only Caesar’s Bugatti could achieve, and at such a speed on a regular highway, it felt like firing a cannonball from an old hunting rifle! The initially empty highway suddenly seemed crowded, as passing one car at this speed meant they’d soon encounter another. The Maserati weaved in strange arcs, narrowly passing car after car. The cars behind blared their horns in panic, their sounds elongated by the speed, quickly fading into the distance. To a Ferrari traveling at 200 kilometers per hour, the Maserati seemed to pass it like a person rushing past a stationary pedestrian, with a relative speed of 200 kilometers!
No doubt the maniacs from the Gear Department had tuned it up!
Lu Mingfei should have seen it coming—Anjou’s Yanling was Time Zero, capable of extending time. When he used it, this speed was nothing, comparable to riding a bicycle.
A crazy old man who loved fast cars and had this Yanling—how could his ride be anything but a beast always on the brink of going out of control?
At this point, Lu Mingfei had lost the ability to logically analyze things. He couldn’t tell how many times he felt like they were about to crash into the car in front or how many times he thought he’d be thrown out of the car from a sharp swerve. His vision was a chaotic blur, and his brain felt deprived of blood.
The old guy, Anjou… put on his sunglasses and started singing some old song at the top of his lungs!
This was Anjou’s life, wasn’t it? Living for over 130 years, always ready to die. A life lived recklessly, always speeding forward without knowing when he’d hit the wall and shatter. If you got used to it, you could sing fearlessly.
“Do you feel the memories rushing back, Mingfei? Do you see that slow, old Beetle in front of us? We’re about to crash into it! Think fast!” The old guy laughed heartily.
Damn it! He was trying to think, but nothing came to mind—his head was empty… Was his life just a series of fragmented moments like this?
The rooftop of his aunt’s house? Late at night, he used to sit there, staring at the sea of lights, fantasizing that one day someone would take him to see a brand-new world. But could he still go back there now?
Those sunny afternoons when Chen Wenwen sat on a bench reading, her white cotton dress so light it seemed almost transparent? But what did that have to do with Lu Mingfei?
Nono coming out of her diving suit at the bottom of the Three Gorges, wearing a three-piece swimsuit that could give anyone a nosebleed! But that girl and her stunning figure, even her swimsuit, belonged to the big guy on the boat above them!
Was there really nothing else to think about? Was his life really made up of just these scraps? There was nothing worth holding on to. Everything he cared about was either a daydream or someone else’s girlfriend. In that case… maybe getting drunk and jumping off a building wasn’t such a bad idea…
Suddenly, a vivid, vibrant green flashed before his eyes, like an endless forest. The sunlight shone through the leaves, illuminating his eyes. His pupils dilated, and his entire body trembled as if an electric current ran through him. He once again saw the old house he lived in as a child, the new ivy branches hanging outside the window, filtering the sunlight into a green hue as it entered the room. He was just a little boy, waiting for his parents to come home from work. Another little boy stood beside him, holding his head…
“Brother, you have to live on,” the boy said softly. “We both have to live on. Life is all we have… it’s everything!”
Lu Mingze!
Damn it! What was going on? That was his childhood! When had that little demon invaded his childhood? And saying those cheesy, corny, tragic lines, even with a brotherly hug? Gross! He wanted to puke!
But his tears started flowing, and he didn’t know why.
Suddenly, he felt overwhelmingly sad.
“Our fire… has to set the world… ablaze!” Lu Mingze said softly.
The Maserati gradually slowed down, pulling over to the side of the road. Anjou glanced at Lu Mingfei, handed him a couple of tissues, and took out a new cigar for himself. “Looks like you’ve had some deep thoughts! But you don’t need to tell me. Everyone has their own reason to keep living. Think about it and remember it. We fight the dragons for these fragile reasons. They may be fragile, but they’re all we’ve got.”
Lu Mingfei wiped his face and nodded, “Damn it, how embarrassing.”
Thinking back on it, it really wasn’t worth it. So many people in the world had ten or a hundred times more than he did—houses, cars, girlfriends, a great life, and even bright futures. And yet here he was, with nothing, being the one to save the world. Shouldn’t those who had more contribute more? Meanwhile, Zhao Menghua was probably wandering around with Liu Miaomiao, holding her slim waist. What the hell was he doing here?
But suddenly, there was this overwhelming feeling of defiance! Our fire… has to set the world… ablaze?
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