Dragon Raja 4; Chapter 104: Odin’s Shadow (1)

Dragon Raja 4

When Lu Mingfei woke up, he found himself lying in his uncle’s bed. The sky outside was gloomy and overcast. Finger was sitting by the bed, holding an ice pack to his head. His head hurt terribly, and last night’s events were blurry, feeling like one dream layered over another.

“You’re awake? Did you reflect on yourself in the dream?” Finger’s tone was heavy. “You’re still young, having impulses toward the opposite sex is understandable, but you need to learn to control yourself!”

“What impulses? Can you speak in a way I can understand?” Lu Mingfei touched his head, feeling a huge bump, and the pain nearly brought tears to his eyes.

“Pulling up someone’s clothes and grabbing them—doesn’t that make you a beast?” Finger added.

Suddenly, Lu Mingfei remembered something and shot up. Nono, her face icy cold, was sitting by the window, combing her hair.

“Oh no! My head hurts! I can’t remember anything! Am I losing my memory?” Lu Mingfei groaned in fake distress, attempting to lie back down.

“Stop faking amnesia! It won’t work! You woke up three or four times last night, each time grabbing your senior sister’s hand, saying, ‘As long as you’re okay! As long as you’re okay!’ And each time, she kicked you back into bed,” Finger said. “You didn’t sleep soundly until the morning, and now it’s noon.”

“Noon?” Lu Mingfei glanced outside. Judging by the light, it looked more like dawn or dusk.

“The weather forecast says this area is affected by a tropical cyclone, with continuous rain… But don’t try to change the subject! First, explain your behavior last night!”

“What… what happened? I really can’t remember!” Lu Mingfei stammered, fear creeping into his voice.

Nono, who had remained silent until now, suddenly stood up and walked over, grabbing him by the collar. “Speak! What exactly happened last night?”

Facing her sharp gaze, Lu Mingfei immediately gave up resisting. “Senior sister, I’m sorry! I know I was wrong!”

“No one wants your apology! I’m asking what happened last night! Even if you had the guts of a bear, you wouldn’t dare do that to me!”

Realizing he couldn’t bluff his way out, Lu Mingfei steadied himself. “Let me ask you a few questions first. Last night, did we find out that the hospital was actually a mental hospital?”

“Yes, Sacred Heart Hospital is a psychiatric hospital. Su Xiaoyan is a mental patient.”

“Then we started heading back, and you were driving fast, and a car chased us, almost crashing into us. It was a Maybach, right?”

“I was busy avoiding it and only saw a red taillight flash by. You said it was a Maybach, but I didn’t see clearly.”

“And then? Did anything strange happen after that?”

“Then you told me to pull over and said we should switch seats, but Finger’s car caught up with us and blocked the road.”

“Let me think, let me think. Everything is so confusing!” Lu Mingfei frantically tried to piece together his memory.

From the moment they switched seats, the world seemed to split. Nono’s perception of events and his own were entirely different. Could he have fallen asleep at the wheel and dreamt it all?

“I had a terrible dream…” Lu Mingfei sighed, wanting to tell her what happened in the dream.

“Brother, sometimes talking about fate can make it real,” a soft voice interrupted.

Only then did Lu Mingfei notice a fourth person in the room. Lu Mingze stood behind Nono, his expression solemn, with his hands on her shoulders. But only Lu Mingfei could hear his voice. Lu Mingfei suddenly didn’t dare say any more. For some inexplicable reason, he believed the little devil’s words: fate, when spoken aloud, can become real, and the ending of that dream was something he didn’t want to face.

“But I can’t remember anything… I woke up scared and confused, and then I did something wrong. Senior sister, please forgive me…” Lu Mingfei said with a pleading face.

Nono was silent for a moment before returning to the window to watch the rain. Finger slapped his thigh. “After all that rambling, it turns out you just couldn’t keep your hands to yourself! So how are you any different from me?”

At that moment, his aunt’s voice, as piercing as ever, came through the wall. “Xinxin, are you busy right now? If not, come help me mix the dumpling filling.”

Lu Mingfei thought to himself that this was usually his task. Why was she asking Finger to help today? Despite the usual ear-piercing volume, her voice sounded unexpectedly warm and kind.

“Auntie, I’m coming! Watch Xinxin show you his skills!” Finger replied cheerfully, like a rooster crowing.

As he rolled up his sleeves and headed out, Finger turned at the door and winked at Lu Mingfei. “Take notes! A man without a sweet tongue will never have a happy childhood!”

With that, he left the room, leaving Lu Mingfei and Nono alone. Neither of them spoke. Nono looked out at the rain, and Lu Mingfei stared at her back.

“Was your dream that terrifying?” Nono asked quietly.

“Thank goodness dreams aren’t real,” Lu Mingfei whispered.

“Get some rest. I’ll rest too.” Nono draped a blanket over herself and sat in the chair, quickly falling asleep. She must have been exhausted from all the commotion since last night.

Lu Mingfei watched her from a distance. Her long eyelashes were as thick as curtains, and her messy hair curled against her cheeks. A faint vein stood out on her neck.

In that dream, when death came for her, she had been in the same position.

Last night, Zhang Facai had just stepped foot into this household, and by today, he was already getting along with Lu Mingfei’s aunt as if he were her long-lost son.

All afternoon, Zhang Facai helped her make dumplings, learning how to fold them into small treasures and large wheels. Even Lu Mingfei’s aunt didn’t get a chance to join in.

Although his uncle had become wealthy, he still deferred to his aunt at home. Now that Zhang Facai had charmed her, the household atmosphere became harmonious, and even his uncle started to look at Zhang Facai more favorably. During dinner, he opened a well-aged bottle of Moutai to drink with Zhang Facai. Lu Mingfei watched silently as the two went from sipping to downing shots, with their formal titles of “Uncle” and “Mr. Zhang” gradually shifting to “Brother Lu” and “Xinxin.” Seeing how happy they were, his aunt even went into the kitchen herself to fry some peanuts as a side dish.

Finger might’ve been right. Lu Mingfei’s difficult adolescence wasn’t anyone else’s fault—it was his own. A man without a sweet tongue could never have a happy childhood.

After dinner, Lu Mingfei went up to the rooftop alone. This had been his personal kingdom, where he had spent countless nights gazing into the distance, lost in thought.

The rain had stopped, but the city was still shrouded in a mist that flowed through the streets like rivers returning to the sea. A boy in black, seemingly part of the dream, sat at the edge of the rooftop, swinging his legs.

Lu Mingfei believed that if he went to find the little devil, Lu Mingze, he would be there waiting—and indeed, Lu Mingze was.

He sat down beside Lu Mingze. “You always talk about the ‘current of fate.’ What exactly is fate?”

“When you learned to dive, did you ever watch the schools of fish in the sea? Thousands, even tens of thousands of fish swimming in one direction, forming a shimmering band.”

“That’s because there are currents in the ocean, currents that divers can’t see but the fish can feel. They follow those currents to save energy.”

“But the fish don’t know about the currents; they’re simply swept up in them, swimming along thinking they’re in still water.”

“So fate is like a current? We can’t see it, but we’re unknowingly influenced by it?”

Lu Mingze nodded. “Have you heard of the butterfly effect? Humans think the course of events is subtle and unpredictable—like a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon and causing a superstorm in Texas weeks later. But some things, no matter how hard you try to avoid or prevent them, are destined to happen. You might even unknowingly bring about these events yourself. That’s what we call fate. The universe is both divergent and convergent: the butterfly effect is the divergent side, while fate is the convergent side.”

“Like my meeting with Odin? His raven said to me, ‘You’ve finally awakened, you’ve finally arrived.’”

“Gah! Gah!” Lu Mingze suddenly mimicked the sound of a raven.

“Quit playing around. Tell me what happened last night. I know that wasn’t just a dream.”

“You did enter Nibelungen, and you did meet Odin. Chen Motong was nearly pierced through the heart by Gungnir. Luckily, I set up a divergence point before you entered Nibelungen. Think of it like a save point in a game. I couldn’t stop Gungnir, but I could reload you from that point, preventing Chen Motong’s death temporarily.”

Series Navigation

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