Dragon Raja; Chapter 53: The City of Bronze (4)

Dragon Raja

Lu Mingfei was startled. He pointed at the empty whiteboard and said nervously, “Did you wipe the whiteboard? Someone scribbled on it.”

Nuonuo shrugged, “No one wiped it, and no one scribbled on it. Are you dreaming? Look at the corners of your mouth, there’s still saliva.”

“The test went well? No one went crazy?”

Nono glanced over her shoulder, “ Emotional instability during the 3E exam is common, but you were super calm. We’re all very curious about your performance—according to the monitoring results, you calmly finished answering and then fell asleep. Even Professor Manstein was impressed.”

“I… didn’t do anything weird?”

“Not at all. Like I said, you were super calm.”

Lu Mingfei pressed his forehead. When had that strange dream started? Was it when he saw Kiran crying? When he finished the exam? Or was he still dreaming now? This indistinguishable mix of reality and illusion was annoying. He pinched his wrist hard—too hard—and tears welled up in his eyes.

“Now it’s swollen…” Nono pointed at his wrist.

“Yeah… I know…” Lu Mingfei said, grimacing.

“Time to hand in your paper; you’re the last one.”

“Oh, right.” Lu Mingfei flipped over the sketches on the table with some fear. He was worried that the paper was actually blank and that answering the questions generously and boldly was just a dream. Fortunately, it was not the case. The whole test paper was filled with his own handwriting that tilted to the left like a dangerous building.

“Let me count,” Nono counted them quickly and then used a stapler to bind them together. “A total of nine answers.”

His head buzzed! He remembered that he had only written eight answers, and those eight answers were short enough to be memorized in the palm of his hand, but now there were so many words on the test paper that it looked like a long essay… The worst thing was that he himself could not understand what those key-like Korean characters were, but some of the circles of Korean letters were evenly blackened, which was obviously done by him when he was bored after finishing the test paper…

“Wait, wait… ” A thought suddenly occurred to him, “When I was practicing drawing a key on my desk… I actually drew it on the test paper? Wouldn’t that make it a mess of wrong answers?”

“What are you checking for? Isn’t this kind of exam a breeze for someone like you, an S-Rank?” Nono said, snatching the answer sheets away.

He was so anxious that he wanted to take the test paper back from Nuonuo’s hand and erase all those ridiculous practice papers. But it was too late. Nuonuo took the test paper and walked to the door of the classroom. Professor Manstein was standing at the door. He opened the heavy black password box and locked the last test paper in it. The sound of the box lid closing hit Lu Mingfei’s heart hard. After Professor Manstein scrambled the password table, he nodded to Nuonuo and said, “Send it to Norma. She is the examiner.”

Lu Mingfei pressed his forehead and suddenly felt a sharp pain there, as if a little devil was struggling to jump out. At this time, he noticed the indistinguishable ink marks on his palm. Yes, he had finished the test paper and erased the answers, all of which were true, but there was no demons dancing, no boy, and he did not fall off the window sill, no sunset, and no high tower.

In that brief moment, Lu Mingfei saw his final answer sheet—the one he had no memory of. It was undoubtedly his drawing, yet seeing it left him feeling as if thunder had struck him.

He stared blankly as Nono handed the answer sheets to Professor Manstein, who put them into a black, locked case. As the lid clicked shut, everything was set in stone. Lu Mingfei no longer had the right to make any changes.

Professor Manstein scrambled the lock’s combination and handed the box to Nono. “Deliver it to Norma for grading.”

Lu Mingfei pressed his hand to his forehead, his face pale. “No way… did I really draw that well?”

Lu Mingfei sat at the dining table, his face an expression of utter despair.

“Hey, hey! What’s up with that face? Did your cheating get exposed?” Finger sat beside him, nudging him with his shoulder. “Don’t rat me out!”

“That’s nonsense—I’m a pro at this!” Lu Mingfei impatiently waved his hand. “I answered all eight questions, and no one noticed my trickery. It’s just… I scribbled some random stuff afterward.”

“Are you crazy? Could it be that you…” Finger’s eyes widened, “You have resonated with the dragon language, didn’t you say that you never understood these dragon words?”

“Ridiculous… I’m just too sleepy…” Lu Mingfei still drooped his pants. He really couldn’t separate the turbulent hallucinations in his head from reality and tell Finger about it. Finger would probably think he was crazy, right?

They were sitting in the classical high-domed restaurant of Cassell College eating lunch. On the granite wall hung Latin words welcoming freshmen. A giant world tree-shaped chandelier symbolizing Cassell College in the center of the dome. Each leaf was a small crystal lamp, illuminating the huge restaurant that was as big as a gymnasium. Each dining table was a solid wood table worth a lot of money, 20 meters long and two meters wide. Students in the dark green uniforms of Cassell College gathered around the tables, waiting for the waiters to serve the food. At the end of each table sat the student in charge of that table. Finger sat at the end of the table.

“Never thought you’d be some kind of officer,” Lu Mingfei remarked.

“I’m just the table monitor. Since there are no positions for eighth-year students, I got assigned to sit with the freshmen,” Finger said.

“Pass it along,” the waiter placed a serving of lunch before Finger.” Lu Mingfei was stunned when he saw the dishes inside.

“Still the German cuisine?” Finger sighed. “For the freshman welcome lunch, all we get is roast pork knuckle, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut? I’ve had this meal eight times now.”

“No problem, I can make some adjustments for you,” the waiter said.

“Got anything exciting, like red wine beef or something?” Finger’s eyes lit up.

“I can adjust the main course to be roast pork knuckle, with either two servings of mashed potatoes or two servings of sauerkraut. Which would you prefer?”

“Is there a pork knuckle lodged in your brain or something?” Finger scrutinized the waiter’s head.

“Just eat. You don’t have a choice, and besides, this menu is a tradition of the school. Isn’t German cuisine your hometown food? How could you not love it?”

“Back home, cows drop cow dung, but that doesn’t mean I like cow dung,” Finger retorted. “Does that logic make sense to you?”

“Why do we always have German food?” Lu Mingfei poked at the pork knuckle with his fork, unsure where to start.

“Cassell is the surname of a German family—historically a renowned dragon-slaying family, known for producing great dragon slayers generation after generation. The current principal is said to be just a secondary figure in the Cassell family,” Finger explained, “The Cassell family is the head sponsor of the college, so the place has a German vibe.”

“The principal’s surname is Cassell?”

“No, all the members of the Cassell family are dead.”

“All dead?”

“Think about what they did for a living for so many years. It’s lucky they made it to the 20th century,” Finger took a big bite of pork knuckle. “Anyway, the exam is over. Just relax and wait for the results. I can take you around the campus tomorrow.

“Look at the class schedule. Don’t we have classes tomorrow?” Lu Mingfei’s eyes flickered to the side involuntarily. At a table not far away, Nuo Nuo and the blond emperor-like student Caesar were sitting side by side. The cadres of the Student Union were surrounding them. His brother had a solemn expression and shot cold glances towards Lu Mingfei from time to time.

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