Lu Mingfei looked up at him, and a thought crossed his mind of the Buddha Sakyamuni, who, upon his birth, took seven steps in each direction, pointing above and below, declaring, “In heaven and on earth, I alone am honored.”
“Does he have to be so over-the-top?” he thought. “Doesn’t he know being too flashy can make people want to step on you?”
Actually, he could have said that out loud, and it wouldn’t have mattered because no one cared about him. Everyone was clapping, then excitedly embracing each other. Before they came, they were just happy to hear that they had received an invitation from the Student Union President Caesar Gattuso to attend a grand ball, but they didn’t expect that this was also an invitation from the Student Union. In previous years, the official members of the two major organizations, the Student Union and the Lionheart Club, were only a dozen or so people, and the others could only choose to lean towards one side, but Caesar’s meaning was obviously ready to open the door of the Student Union and accept more people.
“Should we hug too? It feels a bit out of place if we don’t,” Finger wriggled into place behind Lu Mingfei.
“I refuse to hug a guy… Besides, I can’t bear seeing someone like you, a complete loser, joining the Student Council,” Lu Mingfei shot him a glance. “Aren’t you worried about getting trampled by these elites?”
“Not at all… I heard Caesar is a decent boss; he even uses his own money to give the Student Council members an allowance.”
“Could you have a little self-respect…?” Lu Mingfei covered his face again. There had been way too many facepalming moments lately.
“Lu Mingfei!” Caesar’s voice called from above.
Lu Mingfei jerked his head up and saw Caesar extending his hand to him from afar. “Come up here and stand with me,” he said. Then he sneered, “You can refuse.”
Lu Mingfei’s mind went blank. Everyone was looking at him. It was decision time. If he walked up there and stood with Caesar, the campus news would be full of articles about him joining the Student Council by tomorrow. Chu Zihang would immediately become his enemy. On the other hand, if he refused… In short, going up meant making an enemy of Chu Zihang, while staying put meant making an enemy of Caesar. Caesar wasn’t giving him any time to think. This wasn’t even like joining a club—no application, no assessment.
Honestly, he wasn’t entirely against the idea of joining Caesar. When Finger mentioned that Caesar was the kind of rich kid who even gave his brothers an allowance, Lu Mingfei was a bit tempted…
But he just wasn’t ready to go against Chu Zihang.
The room fell silent.
In the future, Lu Mingfei would find that the result of not wanting to offend anyone was that he offended everyone. But it was no big deal, at that time he would just stand up silently under the gaze of everyone and look back one by one.
But at this moment Lu Mingfei did not have the courage of a desperado. Everyone could see that he was a little trembling.
Caesar’s hand was still in the air. This invitation was truly fatal.
Then Caesar’s phone rang, surprising him. He reached into his pocket to retrieve it.
In the hall, the sound of phone ringtones filled the air—ringing tones, musical tones, buzzing, the old-fashioned trilling of phones, unknown caller alerts—all kinds of different ringtones going off at the same time, like an orchestra suddenly starting up. Few people had heard so many phones ringing at once, and it was unnerving.
After a moment of stunned silence, everyone began reaching for their phones. The girls had hidden their phones in various places—some in their stockings, some in the folds of their dresses, others had theirs with their dance partners. Over a hundred people were rummaging for their phones, and seeing this, Lu Mingfei breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t have a phone, so he didn’t need to worry about who was calling. He looked around, ready to sneak away.
“Brother, can I have a look?” Finger leaned next to a boy.
“You don’t have a cell phone either?” Lu Mingfei moved closer to take a look.
“Yes! But the screen broke and I didn’t have the money to fix it, so I could only dial the number and make a call.”
A text message from Norma appeared on the boy’s phone screen.
Dragon invasion!
March Night Out
Caesar answered his phone and listened for just a second before his expression changed. He gestured for everyone to be quiet, then put his phone on speaker mode.
“…Go to the window and look toward the main gate. Hold your breath. When a guest arrives, the host should be prepared,” said a low voice on the phone, distorted by some kind of voice changer.
Everyone’s expression changed because the exact same voice was coming through all of their phones.
The guests rushed to the windows, and from within the Amber Hall, through the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, they could see the wrought iron gate of the campus, illuminated by a cold spotlight.
A deafening explosion suddenly took away everyone’s hearing. In the blinding flash, the iron gate twisted, hurled into the air by the blast, rising twenty meters high before crashing back down. Alarms blared across the campus, and the entire place lit up, shattering the silence of the night.
The red alert was instantly activated.
Bright beams of light and the roar of motorcycles flooded the campus. The intruders, dressed in black combat suits, rode in on roaring Black Widow bikes. In their hands, guns gleamed menacingly. Upon entering the campus, they immediately spread out, accurately shooting out the surveillance cameras as they passed by.
“What’s going on? What’s going on?” Lu Mingfei was alarmed. “Is this a raid? Do colleges raid each other too?”
The appearance of the intruders was too much like a biker gang.
“This is… the beginning of our war!” The person on the phone laughed coldly before hanging up.
“Red alert! Red alert! Dragon Clan invasion! Dragon Clan invasion! Freshmen, stay in your dormitories. Students who have passed the Battlefield Survival course, proceed to collect your weapons, and load with Freyja rounds; live ammunition is not allowed,” Norma’s voice broadcasted through the loudspeakers to every corner of the campus. “Seal all entrances; you are authorized to shoot any unidentified persons.”
“Dragon Clan invasion?” Lu Mingfei was dumbfounded. “Dragons… invading on motorcycles? Could this be another ‘Free Day’? Aren’t there supposed to be only one a year?”
The serious expressions on everyone’s faces indicated that this wasn’t an exercise. Moments earlier, the students had been dancing gracefully in formal wear, but now they displayed a military bearing formed through rigorous training, moving orderly toward the exits. Repair department staff parked trucks outside each building, opening their compartments, revealing racks of neatly arranged automatic rifles. In front of the Amber Hall, the sound of magazines being loaded echoed densely.
Under the starless sky, a dark figure stood on a turret of Cassell College, watching as the motorcycle lights spread out like fireflies to various corners of the campus before extinguishing. People poured out from the buildings, taking control of all pathways and entrances, and the previously tranquil campus suddenly transformed into a heavily fortified military base.
The figure threw his phone off the turret, put on a mask, and took out another phone. “Everything is going as planned, and the operation has begun. But isn’t this entrance too much of a performance?”
“Regardless of whether this operation succeeds, I want to leave a deep impression on them,” replied the person on the other end, laughing.