Sufilade Pizza House

The lingering alcohol in the cabin had left Luo Qiusheng's head slightly heavy. With just the right tipsy warmth still in his veins, he hurried along amid the surging crowd. In the brief moment he turned his head, he lost sight of Jiu De Mai and Su Enxi, who had been walking beside him.

Travelers streamed past in every direction, a sea of people. In just a few seconds, they had completely lost one another.

Luo Qiusheng didn't panic. He took out his phone, sent them both a message suggesting they meet again another time, then put it away and turned to join the crowd, striding firmly toward the airport exit.

He had nowhere else to go after landing. His destination had long been set in his mind: the shabby old internet café that had run through Lu Mingfei's youth and witnessed countless ordinary days.

He chuckled to himself, warmth and familiarity in his eyes. Lu Mingfei really was like an NPC who reset on a fixed schedule. In his spare time, he spent most of his days at this internet café, without fail. Who knew whether he'd run into Lu Mingfei here today?

Weaving through streets and alleys, dodging the noisy traffic and crowds, Luo Qiusheng soon found the familiar internet café.

The old sign was a little faded, and people still came and went at the entrance. It looked just as he remembered, brimming with the bustle of everyday life.

He stepped inside. The damp air, mingled with the distinctive smells of tobacco, instant noodles, and air-conditioning, washed over him.

Rows of computers stood neatly arranged inside. Light flickered across the screens as countless teenagers bent over their games, focused. The clatter of keyboards and clicks of mice rose and fell, noisy and full of life.

Luo Qiusheng made his way slowly between the rows of computers, carefully scanning every face as he searched for that familiar, slender figure.

After making a thorough circuit of the place, he still hadn't seen Lu Mingfei.

The boy wasn't here.

He stopped in the middle of the internet café's aisle and instinctively pulled out his phone. His fingers swiped across the contacts list, then paused. A feeling both absurd and lonely suddenly welled up inside him.

He had been at Kassel College for quite some time, mixing with all kinds of people in its circles. Yet when he searched his entire phone, through the densely packed list from top to bottom, there was only one name: Hilbert von Ange.

At the vast Kassel College, among all the peers he'd stood shoulder to shoulder with, the mentors he admired, and the friends he'd crossed paths with, he hadn't saved a single other person's contact information.

He seemed to be at the heart of the storm, caught in fate's game of chess, yet in truth he stood all alone.

"Forget it."

Luo Qiusheng shook his head gently, accepting it.

If they were meant to meet, they'd meet. He could add everyone's contact information one by one next time. There was no need to force it.

If Lu Mingfei was at home, showing up unannounced would only be an imposition.

Having failed to find the person he wanted to see, he didn't linger at the internet café. He turned and walked out.

The afternoon sun was just right, spilling warmly across the streets and alleys and chasing away the early autumn chill. Cars streamed along the roads, pedestrians hurried by, and the smoke of everyday life curled through the air. It was a peaceful, settled picture of ordinary human life.

Luo Qiusheng had no intention of taking a taxi back. Instead, he strolled aimlessly along the roadside, letting the breeze brush through his hair as he quietly savored this rare, ordinary peace, far removed from bloodshed and strife.

As he wandered slowly along the street, his thoughts drifting, and privately considered his plans for future cultivation and finances—

A deep, sharp engine roar, packed with explosive power, suddenly erupted from the road beside him!

A black blur hurtled past, wrapped in a rush of wind like an arrow loosed from a bow. In an instant, it had shot past the street ahead, moving at astonishing speed.

As the sports car sped by, its window half-lowered, a cool, upright profile flashed past in the shifting light.

Luo Qiusheng's steps abruptly halted. The casual air vanished from his eyes, replaced in an instant by a look of keen interest.

That exceptionally straight, cold and solitary figure. Those features and that bearing, so unmistakably familiar. Those detached, distant eyes, untouched by the world...

Though the car was moving at tremendous speed and vanished in a flash, though he'd seen only a fleeting profile, he recognized the driver at a glance. It was none other than Chu Zihang.

He remembered that Lu Mingfei's birthday was July 17. Something seemed to be happening around this time of year, but what was it?

"Lu Mingfei's birthday is coming up, and Chu Zihang's driving... Summer vacation?"

"Could this be Lu Mingfei's first class reunion?"

Luo Qiusheng immediately put two and two together, a mischievous grin spreading across his face. "If Chu Zihang can join in the fun, so can I. Even if you're driving a Mercedes-Benz S500."

Luo Qiusheng called Su Enxi, and she was quick to oblige. Just ten minutes later, a brand-new Ferrari 458 Italia arrived.

Its signature red body bore the crimson prancing horse, and at the rear was a first-ever central triple exhaust.

"Ah, Mingfei, Mingfei. What will your classmates think when you show up in this car to pick them up?"

But another problem came up. Raymond's story had already happened long ago. The South Railway Station shouldn't have collapsed again. No, wait... it had already collapsed.

The information about the King of Earth and Mountains, Jormungandr, that the College had requested earlier was an important file. Though he'd torn it up, Luo Qiusheng had forged a replacement.

Lu Mingze wanted to kill Jormungandr and Fenrir, so Luo Qiusheng hadn't told Su Enxi or Jiu De Mai about that.

"How strange, how strange."

Luo Qiusheng sat in the driver's seat. In his previous life, he'd never been able to afford to sit in a sports car, but now that he finally had, it didn't feel like much.

He "started" the car.

The naturally aspirated 4.5-liter V8 roared at a high pitch. The seven-speed wet Getrag dual-clutch transmission meshed its gears tightly, sending power evenly to all four wheels. The broad tires gripped the ground like claws curled before a beast's pounce.

"According to the secret text, Shilan School History: Chapter of the God-Man, Lu Mingfei spent his six years of middle school in a state of abject misery and cowardice, utterly useless. According to his cousin Lu Mingze, the life of this god-man was a tragic one: his parents had abandoned him and gone abroad, where they'd been for seven or eight years without showing their faces. He'd been left in the care of his uncle's family, and he could really put it away—he was a glutton through and through... At Shilan High School, where the strong gathered, a person like him was just a weed growing by the roadside. Everyone trampled on him, more or less."

At Sufilade Pizza House, Lu Mingfei sat alone in a private room... holding a toilet seat.

What the hell! Was this really the pose for a literary club dinner? He looked more like some Western Regions monk holding an unorthodox weapon, come to smash the place up!

He'd been in high spirits at first, but the moment he entered, a polite waiter stopped him and promptly knocked him silly with a verbal blow. "Get out! Our restrooms are squat toilets. We don't need your toilet seat."

Lu Mingfei knew it looked bad, but there was nothing he could do. His aunt's orders were absolute. Even his uncle had to kneel on the keyboard if he disobeyed. What right did Lu Mingfei have to defy her?

The building-supply market was quite a distance from his uncle's house. He'd calculated that once he rushed over and bought the toilet seat, there wouldn't be much time left, so he could only head straight to the dinner. Even so, he'd had to jog the whole way, with the toilet seat looped around his neck... It felt like he was wearing a breastplate from a suit of sacred armor. And he was the only one who'd arrived on time.

"Found you." Luo Qiusheng sat in a car not far away, watching Lu Mingfei enter Sufilade Pizza House.