Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 364: Grand Escape Into the Sunlight (1)

Dragon Raja 3

When Lu Mingfei returned to the hotel, Erii was kneeling in front of the mirror, brushing her hair.

It was already morning outside. After the heavy rain, the sky had unexpectedly cleared, and the sunlight slanted across the patterned carpet. Lu Mingfei placed the plastic bag containing the boxed milk on the floor and sat beside her, watching as she brushed her hair.

Erii didn’t ask where he had gone, and he didn’t bother explaining. He had only been gone for a little over three hours, but it seemed like Erii had gotten a full night’s sleep. She looked refreshed, and her complexion was even slightly rosy. Before Lu Mingfei had returned, she had already washed and dried her hair, and she was now brushing it back into its original style—long, straight, and unadorned, cascading down like a waterfall and pooling at her feet.

Indeed, the hairstyle the beauty salon had carefully crafted for her looked very fashionable, but this version of Erii felt more like her true self—serene, pure, and yet carrying a certain ancient allure, like the priestesses who trained in the ancient shrines.

After finishing her hair, Erii put on a small, round-brimmed hat and examined herself in the mirror carefully.

“You look great,” Lu Mingfei wrote in his notebook and showed it to her.

Today, Erii was wearing a knee-length deep purple dress, one she had bought but hadn’t worn until now. The hem of the dress was layered like overlapping lotus petals, with a high waist and a matching satin ribbon tied at the waist. It had a high neckline, and the front was adorned with delicate black lace.

She was also wearing black stockings and black Roman-style high heels.

In truth, her favorite outfit was the white taffeta off-the-shoulder dress she had changed into on their first shopping trip. She had flipped through fashion magazines and learned that young, fashionable girls often liked to show off their shoulders and backs, and she was young enough to have the confidence to do the same. But she could no longer wear that dress. Black veins had spread across her back, as if poisonous liquid flowed within them. Her legs were also covered in the same black veins, and her ankles bore fine white scales. The black stockings, which were meant to be sexy, were now merely used to cover the abnormalities on her legs. She had to wrap herself up tightly to avoid scaring passersby.

“I’m going home,” Erii wrote in her notebook and showed it to Lu Mingfei.

“Going home, just like that? There are still so many places we haven’t visited,” Lu Mingfei said nervously, unsure of how to stop her.

“My family is coming to take me back. If I don’t go, I’ll get Sakura in trouble.”

“We can go somewhere your family can’t find us.”

“It’s no use. I shouldn’t have run away in the first place. Me running around like this is bad for everyone.”

“You can speak, right? Why do you always write instead of talk?”

“I can’t speak human language, only strange words. If I speak, bad things happen.”

“What kind of bad things?”

“Death. Everyone I’ve spoken to has died.”

Lu Mingfei understood. Erii wasn’t mute, but her bloodline was too pure, and she was born able to speak the language of the dragons. That ancient, supreme language could only be used to issue commands. Her innate Yanling was “Judgement,” and the orders she gave always resulted in death. To others, her words were like a curse. She hated the consequences of speaking, so she never opened her mouth. Last night, however, she had spoken. In the moment when Lu Mingfei was on the verge of death, she had unleashed the power she had sealed within herself. Her voice had been clear, like the sound of wind blowing through the pipes of a pan flute, but the effect was like Death itself rising from the depths of the earth. As the power surged out like a wild dragon breaking free, she could no longer suppress the venom in her blood.

“Your voice is actually very beautiful,” Lu Mingfei wrote in his notebook.

“But I can’t speak,” Erii pressed a finger to her lips.

“We should have left sooner last night.”

“But it was so hard to meet Sakura’s family. Sakura’s uncle is very nice, though her aunt doesn’t seem to like me.”

“It’s not that she doesn’t like you. It’s because I’ve done a lot of things in the past that made her dislike me,” Lu Mingfei had always thought this girl was as simple as a blank sheet of paper and easy to fool, but simplicity didn’t mean stupidity. She had clearly sensed that her aunt didn’t like her, yet she still insisted on smiling at her.

“But it was still nice to have a meal with a family like that. When I used to go to that restaurant, I had to take a car with tinted windows and wear a veil, and I had to eat in a private room.”

“I’m sorry,” Lu Mingfei wrote, unsure of what else to say.

“It’s fine. This body was never going to last long anyway. I haven’t injected the serum in days. These symptoms have been here for a while; they just weren’t as obvious before.” Erii took off her black lace gloves and showed Lu Mingfei her wrist, which was covered in black veins.

No wonder she had insisted on wearing gloves when they went out starting two days ago. At the time, Lu Mingfei had thought it was some kind of “princess sickness”—were her hands really that delicate?

“Have you been holding on like this the whole time?” he wrote.

“It’s fine. I had a great time playing with Sakura, so I could hang in there. These have been the freest days of my life. I’ve never experienced this before, and I probably won’t ever again,” she wrote.

“So it’s been that hard.”

“If you want to see the outside world, you have to pay a heavy price. I’ve known that for a long time.”

Lu Mingfei looked into her eyes. The sunlight was reflected in them. When he tilted his head, she tilted hers as well, and a lock of deep red hair fell from her ear.

So this was how it was? To just escape and see the world meant paying such a huge price, enduring so much pain. She knew her life would be shorter than others’, but she didn’t want to spend it in that tiny, unchanging room for the rest of her days.

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