Dragon Raja; Chapter 4 Cassell’s Gate (2)

Dragon Raja

He lives with his uncle and aunt. He has a cousin named Lu Mingze, who attends the most famous private high school in the area. “Shilan Middle School” The tuition is high, the teachers are harsh, luxury cars flow like water, and beauties flow like clouds.

He has three months and four days left before he has to take the college entrance examination. During these days, everyone who sees him gives him earnest advice, telling him that the end is coming and he should be more motivated.

But the more pressure he felt, the lazier he became. Besides playing “StarCraft,” he would just lie on his bed staring at the ceiling. As someone who didn’t have much of a presence, his laziness was quite understandable.

He hadn’t seen his parents in over six years. The good news was that they were both alive and would still write him a letter every six months; the bad news was that in each letter, his mom would regretfully inform him that their plans to visit him had to be postponed again because “things had taken a new turn.”

Both his parents were archaeology experts, claiming they were busy with a big project that, once revealed, would shock the world like Sven Hedin discovery of the ancient city of Loulan.

When he was in middle school, Lu Mingfei was very proud of his parents. He read a lot of books on archaeology and talked about it with his classmates on the way home from school. But he soon realized that the real pride should come from those whose parents would come to pick them up after school, After school, a group of classmates walked side by side in a sloppy manner, occupying almost half of the street. Car horns rang again and again behind them, and students would flow into the parking lot like mercury, got into the cars of their parents or drivers sent by parents. The number of people decreased one by one, and in the end Lu Mingfei was often the only one left, continuing to sway forward.

His classmates watched him with envy through the car windows, admiring his carefree demeanor while they sat in leather seats, he was enjoying the cool breeze, longing for his wild life like a stallion. They envied that he could go wherever he wanted, go shopping in the mall, buy food, and even play billiards.

Only Lu Mingfei knew how boring that stallion-like life was. After sitting in the internet cafe until he was tired of it, he would return home, enter the building but not his room; instead, he would go up to the rooftop, sit next to the humming air conditioning unit, and gaze at the city until the sun set.

“Lu Mingfei’s family treats him the best and never cares about him.”

Lu Mingfei felt that his parents were superhumans, burdened with many important matters and couldn’t spare any attention for him. Perhaps only when one day the plane he was on crashed they would suddenly appear in front of him and hold the plane to land safely. But Lu Mingfei had never even been on a plane, let alone enjoyed a first-class trip to the beach during summer vacation, which his classmates often bragged about.

Superhero parents can certainly be used to flatter, but in fact, it is no different from not existing. Lu Mingfei can hardly remember what his parents look like. Only occasionally looking at the family photos when he was a child can he barely recall the man and woman, along with the old building covered in ivy. That was his original home.

What the uncle and aunt were more interested in was the money that Lu Mingfei’s parents regularly sent back from abroad. Thanks to that money, Lu Mingfei could go to a private aristocratic high school. Thanks to that money, the uncle and aunt could buy a small-displacement BMW. The uncle had money to buy some imitation brand-name goods, and aunt could join the ladies’ mahjong games in the neighborhood, Thanks to that money, the cousin Lu Mingze got the nickname “Young Master Ze” by a group of younger boys.

His aunt was concerned about appearances; she knew that given their family’s financial situation, attending Shilan Middle School was a stretch. Worried that others might bully Lu Mingze, she secretly gave him pocket money, encouraging him to pick up the tab when he was with his classmates. Lu Mingze did well academically and was favored by teachers, especially since his essays were often used as examples in class. His uncle and aunt would dress smartly to attend Lu Mingze’s parent-teacher meetings; their small family was heartwarming.

If Lu Mingze weren’t 160 centimeters tall and weighed 160 pounds, he probably could have gotten a girlfriend at school.

As for Lu Mingfei, he neither had extra pocket money nor parents to support him, and his clothing was at least two tiers lower than Lu Mingze’s. Thus, in most people’s eyes, he was merely “Young Master Ze’s cousin.”

Lu Mingfei was indifferent to this; if his parents didn’t care for him, what high expectations could he have of his uncle and aunt?

With his hands in his pockets, Lu Mingfei hung his head and stared at the ground as he made his way downstairs. He bought what his aunt asked for at the convenience store and then slipped over to a newsstand to buy the newly released “Sprout.”

Aunt thought Lu Mingze was smart, studious, ambitious, and had a strong love for literature, so she often bought him literary magazines. While Lu Mingze indeed wrote good essays, he was definitely more enamored with literature girls compared to those magazines. As a result, it was Lu Mingfei who read those magazines more.

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