“Parents?” Lu Mingfei’s heart trembled slightly. He hadn’t seen them in years, always saying he’d stopped counting on those unreliable two, but deep down, he still missed them. Whenever they were mentioned, he couldn’t pretend he didn’t care.
The speeding Maserati suddenly slowed down. Anjou pulled over at a rest stop, lit a new cigar, took a deep puff, and blew the smoke towards the bright blue sky above.
“You don’t have many memories of your parents, do you?” Anjou gazed into the distance.
“Not many. I think I was about twelve when they left home, never to return,” Lu Mingfei said, a little dazed. “Back then, they worked at a geological research institute and often went on long business trips, leaving me alone at home. I grew up eating from different families.”
“Different families?”
“Just eating a meal here, a meal there.”
Anjou nodded. “Do you blame them?”
“Not really. When I was a kid, I thought my parents were a hundred times cooler than everyone else’s because they traveled to so many places around the world. In my impression, they were like Indiana Jones, meant to explore the world… But later, I realized vanity doesn’t fill your stomach. No matter how amazing they were, if they couldn’t pick me up from school, it didn’t count.” Lu Mingfei scratched his head.
“Indiana Jones?” Anjou smiled silently. “No, they far surpassed Indiana Jones. Lu Lincheng and Giovanni—they were the highest-purity hybrids we found before Chu Zihang… both S-Ranks.”
“No way! I thought there hadn’t been an S-Rank student in years?” Lu Mingfei was confused. A family of three S-Ranks—it sounded like they could easily sweep through any dungeon!
“Your parents were only at Cassell College for advanced studies; they weren’t considered students—more like alumni. And their records have always been confidential, few people know about them. You know, once the dragon gene ratio exceeds the human gene, hybrids will show significant ‘draconization.’ At that point, they’re more dragon than human. In other words, once the bloodline purity exceeds a certain threshold—the ‘critical limit’—a powerful friend instantly becomes a powerful enemy. When we first discovered your parents, they had an extremely strong resonance with the dragon language. We were all worried that their bloodline purity exceeded the ‘critical limit.’ You weren’t born yet then, but you were already in your mother’s womb. We had to decide whether or not to let you be born…”
“Hey! Principal, isn’t that too much? I was a firstborn, not even subject to the one-child policy!” Lu Mingfei protested immediately. Although there was no doubt he’d safely made it through that dangerous embryonic stage, the thought of there once being a vote on whether he should be born left him terrified. What kind of heartless monsters were casting those votes?
“It was a very serious vote. Because before you were born, even our most experienced bloodline scholars didn’t know if you would be a dragon.”
“You said… dragon?” Lu Mingfei thought he had misheard.
“Yes, not a true pure-blood dragon, but a hybrid with an extremely high dragon lineage, exhibiting a dragon-like appearance. We also call them ‘dragons.’ Normally, the dragon blood purity in hybrids isn’t that high, and when they interbreed, their children also have human forms. But in extremely rare cases, when two hybrids with very high dragon blood purity come together, a ‘purification effect’ can occur. It’s similar to how ancient Egyptian pharaohs often married their sisters because they believed that by combining their noble bloodlines, they would produce even more sacred offspring. Although, from a modern genetic perspective, this is dangerous, it is possible to produce an offspring whose bloodline purity surpasses the ‘critical limit.’ At that point, you could potentially exhibit dragon characteristics…”
“Horns on my head… a tail behind me?” Lu Mingfei nervously reached for his backside.
Anjou was stunned. “What are you doing?”
“I remember I’ve had a prominent tailbone since I was a kid… wondering if it’s a tail that hasn’t fully grown…”
“Could you refrain from talking nonsense on serious occasions?”
“Sometimes I just can’t stop when I get nervous…”
Anjou shook his head. “In any case, from a probability standpoint, given your parents’ high-purity bloodlines, you indeed could have been a dragon. Though morally, it would be brutal to destroy an unknown life, you know the Secret Party never follows the rules… The key is we couldn’t take the risk of letting a dragon be born. The supporters and opponents of your birth were evenly split. In the end, your mother stood up and spoke—her speech as a woman carried supreme sanctity. Her beauty at that moment stunned everyone; it was so overwhelming that those hard-hearted men couldn’t even look directly at her. She said, ‘This child is the treasure of my life. If I lose him, I don’t know how to face the rest of my life. I’m willing to give birth in an enclosed glass chamber, without any help from nurses or doctors. You can observe from outside the chamber, and if I give birth to a dragon, you have the right to destroy both mother and child.’”
Lu Mingfei looked up blankly at the sky, trying to imagine the unparalleled beauty of that woman at that moment—a beauty that made even the ruthless men lower their heads.
“At the time, this seemed like the least risky approach. Some dragons have strong mobility even before they leave the mother’s body, and some can even use Yanling. Once born, they could escape, and no one would be able to stop them, with the midwives being their first targets. A young dragon could kill them in an instant,” Anjou said. “We were almost persuaded by her strength and beauty when a man stood up and said, ‘No, absolutely not!’”
“Who was so disrespectful?” Lu Mingfei felt indignant.
Anjou smiled. “Your father. He said, ‘I will deliver my wife’s baby. I’ll start learning how to deliver a baby right now. My wife mustn’t give birth alone!’ He also said, ‘I want an opaque empty chamber for the delivery room. You can tie explosives outside, hold the detonator from afar, and if a dragon is born, I will signal you to detonate the explosives immediately. I can die… but I won’t allow other men to watch my wife give birth!’”
“That’s definitely my dad! Such a manly guy!” Lu Mingfei was moved to the point of tears.
Anjou patted Lu Mingfei’s shoulder. “It was your parents’ determination—risking their lives—that allowed you to be born into this world like any other child. If you ever blamed them for not being there for you, now you should be able to forgive them. They were willing to do anything for you—from changing your diapers to dying for you.”
Lu Mingfei half-lay in the car seat, gazing at the sky, lost in thought for a long time. “They never told me any of this.”
“It often works out like this. The ones you love the most, you do many things for them, but they never know, because you think it’s what you should do, and you forget to tell them,” Anjou exhaled a puff of smoke and sighed. “But we still couldn’t relax. From birth, you were a test subject—under observation for 18 years, by our best observers.”
Lu Mingfei’s eyes widened. Observers? Such a thing existed in his life? Had secret agents, in black suits and sunglasses, been following him since he was a child?