Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 360: We’re All Monsters (4)

Dragon Raja 3

Su Enxi was silent for a moment. “If it were me, I’d just enjoy myself happily before the tragic ending came.”

“Years later, Lu Mingfei will remember that there was once a girl in this world who loved him deeply, a girl named Erii, but it was all just a scam. Those few days of happiness were scenes the playwright wrote to highlight the tragedy of the ending. If you were him, would you appreciate that kind of happiness?”

“Don’t be silly, Long Legs. Who do you think you are? You can’t control love. All you can do is accelerate the process. What I mean is, if Lu Mingfei really falls in love with the head of the Uesugi family, it’s because he already had the potential to do so. You just sped up the process,” Su Enxi said. “Remember that young earl who chased you all the way from Dubai to New York? You were never going to fall in love with him, even if he swaggered over to you looking all handsome, and angels descended from the sky to sing, ‘Oh, Mai, open your arms to receive your destined lover!’… Imagine, if an angel really told you that the earl was your fated lover, what would you do?”

Mai thought seriously for a moment. “I’d probably kick the angel in the face and tell him to stop bothering me.”

“I knew you’d do that. Not because of anything else, but because the earl isn’t your type. Only if you had feelings for the earl, and then received divine guidance, would you naturally fall into his arms. In the same way, you can’t force Lu Mingfei to fall in love with the Uesugi family head. All you can do is give a chance to a love that otherwise might not have had a chance. If the Uesugi family head really has only a short time left to live, then at least she can experience love before her life ends. We did a good thing,” Su Enxi said, snapping her fingers. “Even if it ends in tragedy, it should be a tragedy without regrets!”

Mai tilted her head and scrutinized Su Enxi. “Chips, your emotional intelligence is higher than I thought.”

“Of course! When I was at Harvard, I scored the highest in emotional intelligence out of the entire business school!” Su Enxi said proudly.

“If you’re so emotionally intelligent, why haven’t you been able to find a boyfriend?”

Su Enxi was so angry that she felt like coughing up blood and couldn’t speak for a while. “If I were a red bean mochi, I’d be crying and asking, ‘Why did I have to be eaten by such a sharp-tongued woman like Mai?’”

“Even if it’s a tragedy, it should be a tragedy without regrets,” Mai suddenly said. “Chips, what you said was really good.”

“Erii is out of control, but the situation hasn’t reached the point of no return yet. Last night, on the long street northwest of Ebisu Garden Place, she killed 76 people. There were no survivors. She issued a kill-on-sight order, so there were no injured. However, she didn’t indiscriminately slaughter the people who arrived later; she just quickly took Lu Mingfei and left the scene,” Chisei said slowly. “So she still retains some of her sanity.”

Chisei and Tachibana each held an umbrella, standing on the terrace of Shoushinji Temple.

Yasha, Crow, and Sakura waited inside the building, excluded from this conversation. Erii’s bloodline was the highest secret of the Yamata no Orochi clan, known only to Chisei and Tachibana. This secret even surpassed the existence of Chime.

“A street camera inadvertently captured someone. This person was also active near Ebisu Garden Place last night, and someone saw him wearing a servant’s uniform walking into Chateau Joel Robuchon,” Chisei said, handing a stack of blurry black-and-white photos to Tachibana. In the photos, a man with a pale face smiled at the camera, his lips bright red and his teeth iron black. It seemed he had noticed the camera and deliberately raised his head to strike a greeting pose.

“Osho,” Tachibana said quietly. “It’s him.”

“Before seeing this photo, I wasn’t completely convinced by what you said. But now that Osho has finally shown up, the situation is starting to become clear, isn’t it?”

“In our war with the Oni Clan, the gangs allied with them have all been dealt devastating blows. The majority of their cadres with Oni bloodlines have been imprisoned by us. Their strength has certainly weakened, but it’s possible they’ve hidden some of their elite. Osho appearing at this time must mean he plans to make a final comeback with the last of their elite,” Tachibana said. “If he appeared near Ebisu Garden Place, it must be because of Erii.”

“Why is he so interested in Erii?”

“Probably because he doesn’t want such a deadly weapon, capable of killing gods, to fall into our hands. He’s probably also the one who hacked our information systems,” Tachibana paused. “What’s the excavation progress at the Red Well?”

“Yesterday, they broke through the hard quartz layer. Shio has already dug a 340-meter-long tunnel. According to the hydrological map, they’re nearing Akaka River. In a few more days, they’ll reach the god’s incubation site.”

“What about safety measures? Is there any chance Osho could attack the Red Well?”

“There’s only one road leading to the Red Well, and it’s been blocked by the Self-Defense Force under the command of Ryoma Inuyama. The surrounding forests are full of infrared alarms and the Fūma clan’s ninja troops. We’ve also deployed light surface-to-surface missiles near the Red Well. If necessary, we can destroy the Red Well entirely,” Chisei said. “The secrecy measures are airtight, but with Osho’s infiltration abilities, he’s likely aware something unusual is happening at the Red Well.”

“But for now, he can’t determine that we’re excavating the god’s incubation site there, right?”

“Yes, the family’s geological survey work has been ongoing for nearly a century. On the surface, the work at the Red Well appears to be just a larger-scale geological exploration. But we must speed up, as Osho will surely try to gather intelligence about the Red Well. He hides in the shadows, and we are unable to fully guard against him.”

Tachibana nodded. “Leave the work at the Red Well to Ryoma and Miyamoto. The most urgent task is to find Erii. She’s already showing signs of losing control. The agitation of her dragon blood will gradually consume her mind. In this situation, we need to inject the serum extracted from the Death Servitor fetus to stabilize her, and the people at Cassell College don’t have that serum. Erii must return to the medical monitoring center as soon as possible.”

“She left traces when she fled the scene. Although the heavy rain washed away most of them, we can still roughly determine that she escaped toward the border between Shinjuku and Minato. Their hideout is likely in that area. The Execution Bureau has already identified several potential locations, and the search began two hours ago,” Chisei said, handing another photo to Tachibana. “This is also from a camera near Ebisu Garden Place. The reason our previous searches came up empty is that she had a beauty treatment and changed her hairstyle. A girl can look very different with a new haircut.”

Tachibana gently touched the photo of the radiant girl, who was wearing high heels and walking like a ballerina on tiptoe. “She’s beautiful. I never imagined she could look like this all dressed up. I must be a negligent father, right?”

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