Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 365: For Your Majesty (180)

Dragon Raja 5

He once again reached across the fire and handed the bottle to Zero, shoving it straight at Zero’s chest, his face beaming with excitement, “Your turn, your turn! We’re just waiting for you, don’t cheat!”

He genuinely wanted to hear Zero’s story, and he had been holding back all along the way. Hitting the iceberg was far too dangerous, and it was only the warmth of the alcohol that gave him the courage to do so.

Zero didn’t take the bottle. Instead, she got up and grabbed a pack of cigarettes from the shelf. “Going out for a smoke,” she said, and then she actually pushed open the door and went out.

The people around the fire looked at each other in bewilderment. The heir of the Romanov family, a young prince who looked to be under eighteen, had run away with the lame excuse of “smoking.” It was as absurd as Finger using “practicing the piano” as an excuse not to go to the nightclub with you to see pretty girls.
Lu Mingfei sobered up halfway and immediately regretted it. He shouldn’t have forced Zero to tell stories; Zero had already refused him several times, but he wouldn’t stop. He was the one heading to the final destination; the others needed to return safely. People often speak when they’re about to die.

The once lively barbecue party suddenly cooled down. It wasn’t exactly an unpleasant ending, but the meat skewers in their mouths suddenly seemed to have lost their flavor. The four of them sat around for a while, and Su Enxi yawned first, followed by Chu Zihang.

“I’m going to sleep now. I’ll get some rest before we continue our journey.” Su Enxi said as she got up, found a spot in a corner, covered herself with her military cotton overcoat, and fell asleep with a box of canned yellow peaches as her pillow.

Chu Zihang and Lu Mingfei each found a suitable corner. The gas stove fire was still burning, leaving only the young old Bunin sitting alone in the firelight. He was drinking vodka in big gulps, and more and more empty bottles were around him.

When Lu Mingfei sobered up, it was still pitch black around him. He glanced at the digital clock on the wall; it was two in the morning. The gas stove fire had gone out, and Bunin had gone to sleep wrapped in his military cotton overcoat.

He was very thirsty after drinking too much alcohol, so he rummaged through the shelves looking for a bottle of water. Suddenly remembering something, he turned to look out the window and saw a petite figure leaning quietly against the hovercraft, her shoulders covered in snowflakes.

Lu Mingfei glanced at the wall clock again. It really was two in the morning. Five or six hours had passed. Could it be that the girl was leaning against there with an unlit cigarette between her fingers?

Did I really go too far? Did I make her angry, so angry that she didn’t want to be in the same space with him, or did I awaken some unwanted memories from the past?

He circled the shelves several times, grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then pushed open the door and went out.

The wind was biting cold; it felt like it had pierced right through his military-style cotton overcoat. He jogged cheerfully to the hovercraft, leaned against Zero, and lit a cigarette. “I’ll have a smoke with you!”

The moment those words left his mouth, he wanted to slap himself. There was coffee, liquor, and instant hot chocolate on the shelf; bringing any of those would have been more considerate than bringing a pack of cigarettes. With this “I’m your best buddy who can smoke and joke around with you” attitude, no wonder the girl wouldn’t be happy with him.

As expected, Zero simply nodded, remaining silent and gazing at the frozen river ahead. Lu Mingfei was extremely embarrassed and couldn’t very well turn back to get more hot chocolate, so he could only stay and watch the river with her.

A bright xenon headlight on the top of the gas station slowly rotates like a searchlight, illuminating the glacier and the distant mountain shadows, casting their shadows long and short.

Lu Mingfei suddenly recalled seeing a similar scene in Moscow: men gathered on the street smoking, not saying a word or exchanging glances, like a group of warriors serving different kings. The smoking spot was their neutral place. After thinking of their relatives and friends in a cigarette, they stubbed out the cigarette and headed to different futures.

Zero said that’s the etiquette of Russian men when they smoke: to be calm and cool, because smoking is when they contemplate life.

So maybe Zero didn’t actually have that much of a problem with him, Lu Mingfei thought. What they were doing was very Russian and very cool.

The polar night was truly desolate; the cold wind froze everything. Large swathes of fir and larch forests on the opposite bank of the river were frozen into ice sculptures. Only the hovercraft behind them was warm. It hadn’t turned off its engine to avoid having to preheat it before restarting. Water vapor filled the air around them, forming a warm atmosphere.

Lu Mingfei never expected that it was this warm air shield that saved his life. On the other side of the river, in the fir forest that looked like an ice sculpture, the dark muzzle of a gun was pointed at them. The sniper was very quiet and patient, but their figures and the air shield were completely integrated, and they could not be seen in the infrared scope. Lu Mingfei leaned against the hovercraft for about fifteen minutes without saying a word. Even his Russian-style etiquette was so cool that it was a little awkward.

Lu Mingfei patted the snow off his clothes. “I’m going back to take a nap. You should go to sleep early too.”

He rubbed his ears and ran back, and the sniper on the opposite bank immediately sprang into action, his gun muzzle making an extremely small turn to lock onto the blurry figure. The further Lu Mingfei was from the hovercraft, the clearer the infrared image became; even while running, he wasn’t completely unable to fire, as long as he calculated the lead time correctly.

“Hey!” Just as Lu Mingfei was about to run out of the air shield, Zero spoke behind him.

Lu Mingfei turned around at the sound of the voice, and Zero walked towards him with a cigarette between his fingers. Lu Mingfei thought to himself that he was a bit slow on the uptake. His Highness had been leaning against him for so long without smoking a single cigarette, probably because he hadn’t brought a lighter. He had brought one but hadn’t thought to go over and light one for him. Maybe lighting a cigarette would break the ice.

He hurriedly reached into his pocket, pulled out a delicate electronic cigarette lighter, and lit up the heating element with a press, revealing a pattern of the Kremlin on the casing.

He had no idea how foolish and deadly this move was; the bright red dot in the infrared scope was blindingly bright, completely revealing his position.

The sniper did not fire; he continued to observe silently as the two figures drew closer.

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