Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 193: Girl with Sandalwood Scent (25)

Dragon Raja 3

That’s when Caesar heard a chilling laugh, like the hiss of a venomous snake.

Among the hundred shotguns, one nearby fired a barrage of pellets aimed directly at him. For a moment, it felt as if death itself was swinging a scythe at his neck. Caesar instinctively bent backward, and the pellets tore across his chest, grazing his skin.

But then he realized—he had made a fatal mistake! He stretched his hand out desperately, his fingertips grazing Makoto’s skin, but the sound of life slipping away from his grasp was like a whisper in the wind.

Makoto slammed into the ground, water splashing everywhere, mingled with blood. In the next second, the Viper roared forward, hitting her as she lay there, and plowed into the burning building, its hood pushing her along.

Caesar crashed onto the car’s roof, smashing through it as he fell back into the driver’s seat. He used all his strength to slam on the brakes, but it was useless. The Viper barreled through one wall after another, with blood splattering across the shattered windshield.

“NO!” Caesar let out a scream that was unlike anything he had ever uttered—a mixture of terror and despair.

On top of the box truck, Monkey face knelt, holding his smoking shotgun high. As the crowd cheered like a roaring tide, he ceremoniously kissed the gun that had accomplished the deed, shouting into the storm, “Hallelujah!”

The Viper finally came to a stop. Caesar sat inside the burning car, hearing nothing. All sounds had left him, and he was alone in the center of a pitch-black world. He never knew the world could be so cold.

He pulled Makoto from the wreckage. Miraculously, her bright eyes were still open, though all the bones in her body were broken, and her ribs had punctured her lungs.

“Thank you… for coming back…” Makoto whispered, blood pouring from her mouth with each word. “I feel… okay. But… could you take me… to the hospital?”

“I’ll take you to the hospital! Right now! I’m taking you to the hospital!” Caesar cradled her head tightly in his arms.

If there were a hospital in the world that could save her, Caesar would buy it, no matter the cost. But hospitals could only treat illnesses, and death was not a disease. Caesar listened as her heart gradually slowed, then finally stopped altogether, fading into silence.

He had never truly loved this girl. To Caesar, she was just a passing figure in his aristocratic life. She had helped him a bit, and in return, he had promised her a scholarship to study in Italy—an arrangement that would settle their debt. In the future, she might marry that boy Noda Hisashi, while Caesar had already planned to travel the world with Nono, who would be dressed in white. Caesar didn’t really know Makoto, and Makoto didn’t know Caesar either. Her admiration and faint affection for him were based entirely on her own fantasies, like the white foam left behind on the shore after the tide recedes, destined to slowly fade away. She wasn’t even a significant figure in Caesar’s life, especially compared to the many socialites who had once mingled with him under the guise of “good friends” for two or three years, accompanying him to charity balls and attending Oscar ceremonies, sometimes making headlines as his rumored girlfriend. He used to exchange lengthy letters with these girls, buying them limited-edition Cartier diamonds or filling entire flower shops with roses as birthday gifts.

But when he met Makoto, he was a wandering soul lost in the streets of Tokyo, while she was merely a service worker at an internet café. Their conversations were awkward and laughable, like children who hadn’t yet grasped the world.

But now she was dead… She had died for a love that was fleeting, wrong, and foolish. She died for something meaningless, never even receiving the compensation of “going to study in Italy.”

She should never have been involved in all of this. She was just an ordinary girl, but to approach a man like Caesar, shining like the Morning Star, she had to stretch herself to the limits, reaching out her hand far enough to place her head under Death’s scythe.

Because she was so insignificant, to grasp even a small amount of happiness, she had to pay ten times the price… even with her life.

Pain… a searing pain burned through Caesar’s mind, like a branding iron on his nerves. One arm clutched Makoto tightly, while the other gripped his skull, afraid that it would explode from the agony.

After all these years, he thought he had grown up, that he could now take control of his life, that he could distance himself from the anger and helplessness of “being powerless.” But once again, he had failed. He was falling back into the vortex of time, becoming that angry, helpless child again.

“My little Caesar is a kind boy… But the world is so cruel. What can your kindness alone do?” His mother sat by his bedside, gently stroking his head.

Yes, the world was cruel. No matter how much you resisted, it kept spinning, silent and indifferent to what you wanted.

You once slipped fish bile into the ambassador’s salad, making him flee in tears, but the lamb he had chosen was still slaughtered, skinned, and stewed in a pot with pepper and bay leaves. You scared away the socialites and celebrities, but soon enough they would gather again in your family’s ballroom, swaying to the music, their laughter echoing as the men and women clung to each other in drunken embraces. You chased away the movie stars your father brought home, but just a few days later, a new painting would adorn the bedroom wall, and another woman would step out of your father’s luxury car and into your home, following him into the bedroom. The river of women never ceased.

So many years had passed, yet you were still so small, still so weak. You thought yourself rebellious enough, but you never truly changed anything. All you did was turn away from the cruel side of the world.

Now it all comes back to you, doesn’t it? The memories of your childhood, ruled by anger and frustration.

The bōsōzoku gang members dragged Lu Mingfei by the collar, pulling him down the street before tossing him against the wall of the burning Manbo internet café. Flames poured out of the windows, and Chu Zihang had been inside the inferno for five minutes. Lu Mingfei figured that with his senior’s ascetic demeanor, maybe he’d burn down to relics like a monk.

The fire cast shadows of the bōsōzoku on the walls, and the human barricade grew closer, their sawed-off shotguns twirling in their hands. Lu Mingfei still held the MP7, but it was out of bullets. He pointlessly raised the empty gun in front of him, as if pushing back an invisible reaper.

Damn, this is it, he thought. He had always been a loser, but now, in this moment, he couldn’t even beg for his life. Not because of some heroic notion—no, it was just that he was thinking about his senior running through the burning building, about Caesar being blown out of the air by shotguns like an eagle shot down, and about the girl who was hit by the car and dragged into the fire. He didn’t doubt for a second that these bōsōzoku were planning to kill them, and they no longer had the strength to resist. The hole the Viper had smashed through was just ahead, and dozens of shotguns pointed toward it, flames flickering from inside. Even if Caesar hadn’t been shot dead, he’d be consumed by the fire—he had no bullets left. It was truly tragic: the lions, trapped and cornered, about to be torn apart by a horde of rats.

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