A sharp spear-like tail had pierced her chest.
“I said I would protect you… taking someone as a little brother always comes at a cost.” Her voice still echoed, but she could no longer speak.
He really did like her a lot, though perhaps not to the extent of love. He never got the chance to love such a girl, never had the chance to know her. What he liked was only her beauty and cunning. She must have known that, right? She could figure out the owner of an old house just by profiling it. But just as Lu Mingze said, it was like Mars colliding with Earth. Caesar was great—if he were a girl, he wouldn’t kick Caesar aside to pick Lu Mingfei.
But… he still wanted her to live!
Lu Mingfei placed his hand on the hatch and said softly, “Black sheep wall.”
A faint “click” echoed.
He kicked the hatch hard, and as the water rushed in with several atmospheres of pressure, Lu Mingfei escaped, holding Nono tightly. He could no longer feel her body temperature through the diving suit. If he’d held Nono like this before, she would’ve surely kicked him flat on his back. But now, no matter how much he took advantage of the situation… she wouldn’t respond in any way.
“But I don’t like a girl without warmth,” Lu Mingfei whispered, “The gathering.”
In the boundless darkness of his heart, a pair of golden eyes slowly opened. Flash-like images flickered before his eyes—those ink-drawn, chaotic lines writhing like snakes, forming picture after picture: a giant dragon unfurled its wings on a seaside mountain peak, the world tree sprouted, a rooster crowed atop it, a sea serpent rolled in the ocean, and on a lonely boat drifting among raging waves, a girl looked out with a lonely gaze.
Why so lonely? Who was so lonely? Such a familiar, lonely look, just like… Nono!
Lu Mingfei held her tightly, as if trying to squeeze out the last bit of warmth from her body to prove that she was still alive.
“Don’t… die!” he shouted, like a stubborn child.
Who cared about losing a quarter or even a third of his life or body? Let that damned contract take effect.
For a moment, the world seemed to pause for a second. Lu Mingfei could clearly feel something spreading out from him, forming a “domain” in a vast, spherical space.
The ink-like blood that had dispersed into the river suddenly surged back into Nono’s wound with an immense force.
Lu Mingfei couldn’t believe his eyes. For an instant, he couldn’t tell whether this Yanling was for healing or for reversing time—everything before him seemed like a video tape being played backward.
The tail spike lodged in Nono’s chest quivered, as if the Dragon King had realized something was amiss and was attempting to use his immense power to tear the girl apart.
“No!” Lu Mingfei yelled.
At that moment, he felt Nono move. Her body suddenly heated up, as if her veins were filled with magma instead of blood. Nono opened her eyes, reached behind her, and grabbed the tail spike, forcibly pulling it out from her chest! Her entire body made subtle cracking sounds, and she broke that incredibly sturdy spike in half, throwing it aside.
“What kind of effect is this? Isn’t this just like ‘By the power of Grayskull, I am She-Ra!’?” Lu Mingfei was stunned.
Nono didn’t continue to move but lowered her head as if she were falling asleep, like a child.
“Hey, don’t do something so ridiculous and then immediately fall asleep, alright? If you have the strength, you should go kill the Dragon King first before sleeping, Senior Sister!” Lu Mingfei watched as the vague dragon figure swimming in the distance unfolded at high speed and disappeared. He certainly didn’t believe that the Dragon King, losing a tail spike, was retreating to heal. It attacked like a great white shark—always hiding in a blind spot and suddenly striking without warning. Disappearing was a prelude to an attack.
Nono began coughing violently, struggling to breathe, but showed no sign of waking up.
Lu Mingfei could only remove his own respirator and put it into Nono’s mouth.
He turned to look at the diving bell behind him, a thought flashing through his mind. He unscrewed the bolts of the diving bell’s cable, detaching it, and the bell began to slowly sink.
Lu Mingfei held Nono with one arm, using the other to pull on the cable with all his strength.
“Hurry up! If you’re still alive up there, pull with all you’ve got!” Lu Mingfei shouted.
Caesar slowly opened his eyes, unable to remember when he had lost consciousness. What woke him this time was the pull on his hand—the cable connected to the diving bell was still in his grip. Even while unconscious, his hand had refused to let go, holding on with all its strength.
Caesar turned his head to look at the unconscious Zero beside him. Her body was much less resilient than her facial expressions, but she hadn’t let go of the cable either.
“There are definitely more than a few stubborn people at this college,” Caesar thought.
He gritted his teeth, enduring the pain in his back that felt like it was going to snap, and kept pulling the cable hand over hand. Unexpectedly, the cable was much lighter than before—it was nowhere near as heavy as if the diving bell was still attached.
This made him much more efficient.
“Which brother is this reliable?” Lu Mingfei was pleasantly surprised.
They were ascending, and at this rate, they’d reach the surface before the remaining oxygen in his suit ran out.
But when he looked down, his heart sank. Deep in the waters below, golden light was flowing. It certainly wasn’t treasure at the bottom—there was only one thing that could emit such intense light underwater right now: the Dragon King, Norton.
He had moved beneath Lu Mingfei.
Lu Mingfei had watched Discovery Channel, and he knew sharks behaved similarly, hiding in the depths before suddenly rising up to take two bites out of a swimmer’s legs—utterly impossible to defend against.
A speed of fifty knots, faster than a shark, with jaws far deadlier than a shark’s—Lu Mingfei didn’t think he could escape. The creature below had intelligence beyond a human’s.