Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 179: Leviathan’s Song (16)

Dragon Raja 5

Lu Mingfei was terrified. In terms of strength alone, he would certainly not admit defeat with the blessing of dragon blood, but he felt that he could not chop wood with such vigor. Every time the old man’s axe fell, it burst out with majesty and violence, just like a heavy gunner calmly blowing up one bunker after another.

He suddenly realized that the old man chopping wood was the person they were visiting. Although he looked like a retired soldier, this kind of majesty only belonged to those who had once held high positions. With a wave of their hands, the fate of hundreds of people could decided, and with a rage, the lives of hundreds of people could turn into nothingness.

 Zero, however, was completely unfazed by the old man’s prestige. She stood behind him, watching him chop a few pieces of wood. Before he even noticed the visitor, she whistled loudly. The old man stopped his axe, turned around, and the moment he saw Zero, his eyes suddenly lit up and he opened his arms, “Hi!”

“No thanks, I don’t want to get your sweat on me.” Zero refused with a look of disgust on his face.

The old man still opened his arms wide, “Hi!”

Unable to refuse this invitation, which was filled with the old man’s masculine aura, Zero had no choice but to step forward and hug him. The petite girl was almost invisible in the arms of this giant bear-like old man.

“Hi!” The old man uttered this hearty syllable for the third time, lifted Zero high up and placed her on his shoulders, carrying her towards the wooden house in the woods.

Lu Mingfei was inexplicably moved for a moment, as if he saw those burly barbarians, bear monsters, tree monsters or something like that in fairy tales, carrying elf-like girls and trekking through the wilderness, so warm and so reliable.

Yet, at that moment, he felt a faint chill coming from behind him. He instinctively pressed down his sleeve, where his short curved knife was hidden. He glanced back, seemingly unintentionally, and saw some marks on the surface of a deep pile of fallen leaves somewhere on the hillside. If he was right, there was a sniper hidden in that pile of fallen leaves.

There should be more than just one sniper. This wooden house that looks like a Russian country house is actually under strict surveillance. Once the peace is broken, this peaceful canyon will turn into a battlefield filled with smoke.

He followed the old man into the cabin calmly. Before closing the door, he smiled faintly at the fallen leaves on the hillside. He guessed that the sniper must still be observing him through the scope, and he didn’t mind letting his opponent know that he had seen him.

Everyone in this valley knew it. The old man knew it, and of course Zero knew it too. But what difference did it make? Even in the calm of the storm’s eye, if someone set up a feast, people would come.

“Army General Vatutin, formerly Deputy Minister of Defense of the Soviet Socialist Union, is now an elderly man under house arrest.” Zero took off his leather gloves and tossed them aside, glancing at the stew on the stove. “Another pot of braised beef?”

Judging from her familiar appearance, this wooden house looks more like her home than Elizabeth Palace.

“There’s also mashed potatoes with mushrooms and borscht. I’ve prepared jam and black tea for you afterward!” Old man Vatutin suddenly grabbed a frying pan and slapped the bottom of it vigorously. “Get moving! Get moving! We need people to peel potatoes and grind pepper! I want my soldiers to have breakfast before the enemy’s charge!”

The tone was very old-fashioned, even a bit pretentious, a bit like those retired cadres in China who always think they are still relevant to the changes in the world.

But Vatutin was like a general sounding the charge himself. Lu Mingfei didn’t dare delay and immediately started peeling potatoes. With his skill with the short-arc knife, peeling potatoes was a perfect job for him. Zero rolled up her sleeves and sat at the table to grind pepper. Lu Mingfei noticed that she easily found the tools for the pepper grinder; it wasn’t her first time here.

Vatutin added a few more pieces of charcoal to the stove. The temperature in the already warm wooden house was so high that it made people sweat slightly. The broth in the pot was boiling, and the old record player was playing Tchaikovsky’s symphony. It was so warm that it felt like being back home.

Vatutin and Lu Mingfei stood side by side, staring at the pot of stew with thick eyebrows and big eyes, as if it was his battle map.

“Chinese? Japanese?” Vatutin suddenly asked in a low voice in his not very fluent English.

“Chinese, Chinese!” Lu Mingfei nodded and bowed, but he felt that even if this person was not Japanese, he must be a traitor, so he quickly straightened his back.

“Are you here to buy a plane?”

Lu Mingfei was stunned for a moment and didn’t know how to answer.

“The Chinese I know are all here to buy airplanes,” Vatutin shrugged. “You really like our airplanes.”

Lu Mingfei was stunned for a moment, and suddenly realized that the former Deputy Minister of Defense had been isolated for a long time. It was many years ago that China asked Russia to purchase large quantities of fighter jets.

“You look good.” Old man Vatutin secretly gave Lu Mingfei a thumbs up.

Lu Mingfei continued to be confused. How could it be considered good? Was the old man praising his skillful potato peeling skills?

“This is her first time bringing a boy here, so I have to help her be more careful.” The old man spoke stealthily. “Young girls are easily deceived by good-looking boys. You don’t look that kind of person.”

Damn you, a man of a fighting nation, you’d be dead if you were more direct. You curse without using any profanity, can’t you see you have quite the rhetorical ability? Are you Pushkin? Lu Mingfei’s inert internal complaining machine started working again, but he still had a friendly smile on his face.

“Cheers!” Vatutin raised the vodka beside him, uttered two clumsy Chinese characters, and drank it all in one gulp.

“How did you get to know Her Royal Highness the Princess?” Old Master Vatutin put down his wine glass and asked.

“Classmate, we are classmates.”

“You’re a lucky young man. You should try to curry favor with her. There’s nothing she can’t do in Russia.” Vatutin nudged Lu Mingfei with his elbow. “One of the keys to a man’s success is to curry favor with capable women!”

Lu Mingfei was so embarrassed that he didn’t know how to respond when he was interrupted by Vatutin’s hearty laughter. Vatutin put his arm around his shoulders, like a giant bear hugging a hyena with drooping eyebrows.     

Dinner was soon ready, and they sat around the long pine table, enjoying the warming richness of the borscht and the thick gravy of the pot-braised beef, which smelled of fresh fennel and parsley.