Dragon Raja 2; Chapter 71: Beware of Senior (5)

Dragon Raja 2

At the college’s main campus, in the central control room, a sealed aluminum box sat on a long table, with a label indicating it was from China. The last CC1000 train before the strike had delivered it.

Schneider shone a dark purple flashlight on the edge of the box. Under the purple light, security marks appeared, much like anti-counterfeit marks on banknotes. Schneider nodded. “The seal’s intact. The box hasn’t been opened in transit. Its contents are secure.”

“This thing didn’t need to be sent to the college. It should’ve gone straight to the School Board,” Manstein frowned. “Now we have to wait for them to send someone to pick it up.”

“I told Chu Zihang to send it to us,” Schneider said. “I wasn’t completely confident. It’s safer to check it ourselves.” He wasted no time, picking up a hydraulic cutter and snipping the lock with a “click.”

“Hey, hey!” Manstein shouted, but it was too late.

“The way you do things is like a thief breaking in. Didn’t you have a key?” Manstein said. “Just leave it alone. It’s not ours to keep. We’ve retrieved it according to the School Board’s instructions—now just hand it over to them. Don’t touch it; you’ll get yourself in trouble.”

“It’s that simple,” Schneider said flatly. Sometimes Manstein had to wonder if some of Chu Zihang’s violent tendencies came from learning from this brute-force-prone teacher of his.

Inside the aluminum box was a sealed envelope, with an intact seal on it. Schneider tore the seal open and emptied the contents onto the table. The envelope contained photocopies, printed on transparent sheets. Schneider began flipping through the documents at lightning speed, his hands becoming exceptionally nimble, not at all like those of an elderly man. The sheets slid swiftly between his fingers, his eyes scanned them like a machine, his steel-gray irises contracting to tiny points. It was rare for Manstein to see Schneider this focused.

“Hey, you! You’re crazy!” Manstein realized what was happening and shouted.

Schneider wasn’t simply checking if the documents were intact—he was scanning them, trying to skim through the School Board’s top-secret “SS”-level information before it was taken away.

“Do you know what these documents are?” Schneider said expressionlessly, showing no intention of stopping. “These are classified records from the past five years about ‘unknown types of crime’ handled by the Chinese police. ‘Unknown types of crime’ means ‘supernatural crime.’ This is like the U.S. Air Force’s Blue Book Project on UFOs. Of course, most of these incidents are just crimes with intricate methods, difficult to solve, but some are related to the Dragon Raja.”

“The Chinese police know about the existence of the Dragon Raja?” Guderian was shocked.

“No, but they know these incidents are beyond what normal humans can understand. For example, this one.” Schneider placed a piece of film on the table. “On July 3, XXX, Typhoon ‘Dandelion’ made landfall on the southeast coast of China, causing a storm that lasted three days. During that storm, there was an unresolved incident: a Maybach car was abandoned on an elevated highway, with extensive unexplainable damage on the vehicle, as if it had been pressed through a series of mechanical processes and then cut with a laser welding torch. The driver wasn’t in the car, and no one ever saw him again—he vanished from the world,” Schneider said slowly. “That driver was Chu Zihang’s biological father.”

“No wonder the School Board didn’t let Chu Zihang serve as an agent…” Manstein suddenly understood. They had no choice but to use Chu Zihang, but they couldn’t fully trust him.

Manstein turned and slowly backed away from the long table. “Schneider, I can’t stop you from protecting your student, but I want no part in this! You will be punished under school regulations… No, under party rules!”

He was the head of the Disciplinary Committee, overseeing school rules. Above school regulations were the Secret Party’s rules. The party rules originated from an ancient alchemical text, The Abrahamic Blood Covenant, a set of strict provisions passed down from the Middle Ages. Schneider had violated the secrets of the Council of Elders, an act bordering on “rebellion.”

“No, you are involved in this,” Schneider replied without looking up. He handed a prepared envelope to Manstein. “See for yourself.”

Manstein opened the envelope and found a series of student profiles, each sealed with a special red wax stamp. The inscription on the wax read, “Nibelungen Plan.”

“Nibelungen?” Manstein had heard of this mythological “land of the dead,” but he didn’t understand how it related to him.

Suddenly his expression changed. He flipped through a few profiles and saw Chen Motong’s name.

“Why are you flipping so fast? I see there’s Lu Mingfei…” Guderian also craned his neck to take a look.

“What does this mean?” Manstein asked in a low voice.

“The Nibelungen Plan, a bloodline screening initiative led by the School Board. Officially, it’s aimed at selecting elites from students of A-Rank or higher for special training. But in reality, there’s also a goal to purge those with suspicious bloodlines among us. All of these students are considered to have questionable lineage—including your student Chen Motong,” Schneider pointed at Guderian, “and your student Lu Mingfei. Do you still think this has nothing to do with you, old friends?”

“Impossible! If we’re talking about questionable bloodlines, shouldn’t the most suspicious one be your student, Chu Zihang? Yet he’s not on the list?” Guderian said.

“That’s easy to explain,” Manstein said in a low voice. “He’s Chu Zihang’s mentor. Even if Chu Zihang was under suspicion, his profile wouldn’t be given to him. Whoever he is assigned to investigate must have no direct connection to him.” He was beginning to believe Schneider.

“What kind of problem could they possibly have? Aren’t they all our outstanding students, both in character and academics?” Guderian asked, bewildered.

“Did you investigate them?” Manstein asked.

“The School Board’s orders must be carried out. I already submitted the investigation report. I collected some information and wrote a cursory report stating that there was nothing suspicious about their bloodlines. However, my conclusion may not be accepted,” Schneider said blandly. “The two most unique among them are Lu Mingfei and Chen Motong. They resonate with dragon inscriptions but don’t possess Yanling. Especially Lu Mingfei—he’s the only S-Rank among the students, which means he’s on the same level as the School Board members. Yet, he has no Yanling. Anyone would easily suspect him.”

“What exactly defines a questionable bloodline?” Manstein asked.

“Excessive dragon lineage. Generally, we believe that if the dragon bloodline surpasses the human bloodline, that hybrid becomes closer to a dragon than a human. They are no longer one of us. However, the dragon bloodline can also manifest as a recessive gene, which may awaken gradually. This can cause hybrids to slowly ‘dragonize.’ Once they exceed the 50% threshold, they become an enemy,” Schneider explained. “The dragon king Norton is a typical example. He was a pure-blood dragon, but before awakening, he always believed he was a human orphan.”

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