Dragon Raja 5; Chapter 376: For Your Majesty (191)

Dragon Raja 5

Another bottle shattered on the back of Lu Mingfei’s head. It was an old bottle of Don Bérignon champagne, the shards of glass streaked with blood and bubbling. Lu Mingfei was already incredibly dizzy; his head felt like a pot of porridge was about to boil.

“Stop hitting me! Stop hitting me! I won’t hug you anymore! I’m just happy to see everyone again…”

But when he turned around, he saw Giovanni glaring at him angrily. He was startled and snapped back to reality. Then he heard Giovanni roar, “That’s the money the family saved for you to buy a house!”

He certainly hadn’t won the lottery; he’d stolen the card from Lu Lincheng’s wallet, and the PIN wasn’t hard to guess—his own birthday. Lu Lincheng was supposed to go on a short business trip to the suburbs for training today, and even if he realized the card was missing, he wouldn’t be able to get back immediately. But Lu Mingfei forgot that his mother was a strong-willed and domineering figure in his family. Since Lu Lincheng’s card had been used, his first instinct was to text his mother. Seeing the card being used extensively on Aspasia, his mother naturally rushed over.

Lu Mingfei scratched his temple and gave an awkward laugh. It was strange; he knew perfectly well that it was all fake, and that this Giovanni was fake too, but facing the middle-aged woman’s angry face, he felt a little embarrassed, like a spoiled brat who had stolen his parents’ savings to show off.

Or perhaps he genuinely wanted to cooperate with these actors, and the more immersed he became in the role, the happier he felt, as if time could truly be reversed, and the door that had been unintentionally opened could be closed again.

He hugged Giovanni tightly and said with a smile, “Mom, I’m fine. I just wanted to treat my classmates to a meal. They’ve always taken good care of me…” Xu Miaomiao suddenly appeared from the side and smashed a bottle of beer on Lu Mingfei’s head.

Lu Mingfei was a little angry and wanted to argue with him, saying, “I didn’t hug a female classmate, I hugged my mom, why did you hit me?” Just then, he heard Zhao Menghua shout angrily and loudly, “Take him away! Take your crazy son away! He’s being a pervert!”

Giovanni froze for a moment, then her face immediately changed. Lu Mingfei knew at a glance that his mother was about to explode; when Giovanni got angry, even the director of the research institute would have to crawl under the table. He quickly hugged Giovanni tightly, “It’s okay, it’s okay, they’re just classmates, it was just a joke.”

“You bastard, how dare you insult my son! Call your dad here!” Giovanni felt like she was about to explode.
Just then, a figure descended from the sky. It was Xu Leilei, holding a bottle of red wine high, like a marathon runner carrying a torch! He leaped up, stepping on the back of the sofa, and his weight of several dozen kilograms, along with the momentum, poured onto the wine bottle, which exploded into a big red flower on Lu Mingfei’s head!

Everyone was stunned: Giovanni, Zhao Menghua, Su Xiaoqiang, Chen Wenwen, and even Xu Leilei himself. He’d gone mad with greed and caused a problem; Lu Mingfei’s entire neck was red, and it was hard to tell if it was from red wine or blood.

But Lu Mingfei didn’t react at all. He still held his mother tightly, whispering in her ear, “I’ll send out resumes tomorrow. I’ll find a job and earn money to support you in your old age. There will be girls who like me. Your son is quite outstanding, although not as good as others…”

His vision blurred, and his mind was like a grand Buddhist ritual about to end, with the sounds of flutes and drums clashing and roaring. He felt so joyful yet so sorrowful, a phrase he’d only come across in a short article about Master Hongyi (Li Shutong). At the time, Lu Mingfei thought it was incredibly pretentious—a bittersweet experience, wasn’t that just a highbrow version of “crying and laughing like an old cat hanging itself”? But today, he truly experienced that bittersweet feeling. It turned out the monk hadn’t lied to him, nor to the world.

“Mom, I love you and Dad so much, I miss you so much.” He suddenly burst into tears, as if he had been saved, or as if he were standing on the edge of an abyss.

The world suddenly went out at that moment.

***

Lu Mingfei slowly opened his eyes and stared blankly at the middle-aged woman in uniform. The room was dimly lit, feeling like a hospital room. The woman was sitting on a chair by the bed, and was probably dozing off, but he had startled her awake.

He was stunned. He had just woken from a vivid and bizarre dream, but the person in front of him was still Giovanni, though different from the Giovanni in his dream. She was older and more dignified, but the sharpness in her eyes hadn’t faded with age. Her uniform was crisp and smart, and a silver badge was pinned to the corner of her collar. Mother and son stared at each other for a long time, then Giovanni panicked and hugged Lu Mingfei tightly. “Son! Son! How did you wake up? They gave you a lot of sedatives!”

She yelled outside, “Doctor! Nurse!”

But she couldn’t push open the door to call for help because Lu Mingfei was holding her tightly. He was trembling, whether from fear or nervousness, he couldn’t make a sound, but tears, as if inherited from a dream, kept flowing.

Giovanni paused for a moment, then turned and hugged her son tightly. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, Mommy loves you!”

***

Half a minute later, doctors and nurses ran into the ward. Some tried to separate Lu Mingfei from Giovanni, but Giovanni gestured to them that they didn’t need to.

They checked Lu Mingfei’s temperature and heart rate, leaving the muscular young man clinging to his mother like a koala. Lu Mingfei couldn’t let go either; his muscles were as hard as iron, making it difficult to even move a finger. He couldn’t imagine how he had managed to hold onto Giovanni just now.

“The effects of the medication haven’t completely worn off yet. He should be in a deep sleep. I don’t know why he suddenly woke up, but waking up isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” the doctor said in fluent English. “He may have a strong resistance to these medications.”

“I used to carry you a lot when you were little, but now you’re really heavy to carry,” Giovanni said with a wry smile.

“That’s easy to handle. We can give him some muscle relaxant injections. It’s best to continue bed rest and observation for a while. As for his leg, we’ll need to consult a higher-level specialist. I’m just a clinician.”

“Do what you can.” Giovanni’s tone carried a commanding tone.

After the muscle relaxant was injected, Lu Mingfei felt like a mushy noodle, slowly collapsing onto the hospital bed with Giovanni’s help. He was still conscious, and only then did he have time to observe the ward: mint green walls and ceiling, dim lighting, and he was surrounded by a thick plastic curtain, with a dense array of instruments around him and countless electrodes attached to his body, some of which were needle-like and inserted directly into his body.