Was I Set Up?

If Luo Qiusheng hadn't carried this unspoken concern and compassion that others couldn't understand in his heart, he would never have made exception after exception to proactively look after Lu Mingfei, a seemingly ordinary boy who actually bore endless loneliness and a cruel fate.

His concern was never mere surface-level courtesy or an attempt to be friendly. It came from the heart, after Luo Qiusheng had seen through the course of fate.

For an instant, his thoughts drifted, and a familiar scene from an anime suddenly flashed through Luo Qiusheng's mind, so vivid it was as if he had witnessed it himself.

In a dim, oppressive alley on a rainy night, Little Devil stood before Lu Mingfei, his gaze piercing the boy's flippant disguise as he spoke the cruelest truth: "You're the loneliest one of all."

Everyone saw Lu Mingfei as someone who liked to spout nonsense and muddled through life, as if nothing mattered to him.

But only those who had glimpsed the true nature of his soul knew that deep in the boy's heart lay a desolation and loneliness no one could reach.

He habitually hid his inferiority behind a goofy grin and wrapped his cowardice in nonchalance, swallowing all his helplessness and torment alone until he became the loneliest shadow in any crowd.

Luo Qiusheng pulled himself out of his tangled thoughts. A complicated melancholy flickered in his eyes as his fingers flew across his phone screen, editing a brief, direct message to Lu Mingfei: [I'm coming too. Where's the place?]

The moment he sent it, a reply appeared on the screen almost without delay. Lu Mingfei's instant response was proof enough that he had been waiting by his phone, anxiously awaiting Luo Qiusheng's answer.

Luo Qiusheng lowered his eyes to scan the address on the screen. His expression darkened slightly. He pressed the lock button and slipped the phone into his pocket. Without a moment's hesitation, he floored the gas. The engine roared to life, and the red sports car shot through the traffic like a blazing arrow, speeding toward the mission site.

The night breeze rushed against him, carrying the darkness with it, while the neon lights along the way streaked backward into blurred trails of brilliant color.

Though the drive took only a little over ten minutes, Luo Qiusheng's mind remained taut. An inexplicable sense of dissonance lingered in his heart, impossible to shake.

Missions from Kassel College were usually clear in their objectives and sound in their logic. But this hastily issued assignment felt strange in a way he couldn't put his finger on, from how the notice had been delivered to the choice of location.

The car came to a steady stop by the curb. Luo Qiusheng opened the door and stepped out. At once, he spotted two familiar figures waiting at an open-air café.

Lu Mingfei was slumped in his chair, his posture lax, his face tinged with bored irritation. His fingers absently rubbed the edge of his phone, and unmistakable bewilderment lingered between his brows.

Beside him, Chu Zihang was as aloof and cool as ever, standing straight as a pine. His presence was sharp and still, his dark eyes deep and unreadable as he gazed silently into the night, as if he had already discerned some hidden truth.

Noticing Luo Qiusheng's arrival, they both turned to look at him.

"Sorry I'm a little late." Luo Qiusheng walked over with a relaxed smile, deliberately easing the tension in the air.

"It's fine," Chu Zihang replied calmly. He skipped the small talk and got straight to the point. "Now that we're all here, let's begin the mission."

As he spoke, he took out his personal phone, its screen black, and tapped it to open an encrypted file from the College's Council of Elders.

The screen glowed faintly, and the mission details, action site, and risk level appeared one by one. Every word was clear, yet every word weighed heavy.

Luo Qiusheng leaned over to look. When his gaze fell on the listed address, his pupils contracted slightly, and a tempest suddenly rose in his heart.

Shock, confusion, and wariness crowded his mind. At the same time, a faint, almost imperceptible killing intent stirred deep in his eyes, only to be perfectly concealed an instant later.

He knew that address all too well.

Lu Mingfei also saw the area listed in the mission details. His brows furrowed at once, and he raised an eyebrow, bewildered and surprised. "That's strange. Why would the College assign us a place like this? Why set the site of a perfectly ordinary mission in a barren wasteland on the outskirts? What kind of unusual Dragon Tribe activity could there be in a deserted suburb like that?"

The outskirts were barren and uninhabited, with no crowds and no usual fluctuations in the ley lines. It simply didn't fit the normal pattern of Dragon Tribe incidents. It was far too unusual.

Lu Mingfei was full of questions and was about to press further when Chu Zihang beside him cut him off.

"That isn't an ordinary suburb."

Chu Zihang's voice was low and grave, with an air of guarded seriousness. As he paused, he turned his head slightly and glanced precisely at Luo Qiusheng from the corner of his eye. His look was laden with meaning, but he said nothing more.

What he left unsaid spoke volumes.

That subtle glance instantly laid Luo Qiusheng's doubts to rest, but it also stirred even deeper apprehension.

"So what does the Council of Elders mean by this?" Luo Qiusheng's smile faded, and his voice turned steady, edged with curiosity. "That place shouldn't even be on the College's records."

He knew all too well that the history concealed by that land was deeply secret. It was a past he had deliberately buried and never mentioned to anyone, a secret few people could ever uncover.

Yet now, the people behind Kassel College had pinpointed the place with precision, and Chu Zihang had the mission details. There was no way this meant anything simple.

This was definitely no routine patrol.

Luo Qiusheng's thoughts raced as he sorted through the stakes and the hidden implications.

With the Council of Elders and the Board's authority and intelligence network, if they had truly wanted to investigate the secret of this place, they would have learned of its unusual past long ago and understood every secret tied to the area. But they had never revealed a thing to him beforehand. Only now had they drawn him in under the pretext of a mission.

Was this a test? Or were they raising venomous creatures to fight one another?

Were they testing his background, the secrets he hid, and his ties to this place, to its buried past, and to the Dragon Tribe's power concealed within?

Or had this been a carefully laid game from the very beginning, with another purpose in mind, drawing everyone into the trap beneath the guise of an ordinary mission?

Countless questions circled in his mind, making Luo Qiusheng's thoughts grow heavier and heavier.

After a long while, Luo Qiusheng finally spoke, his voice gentle but heavy with memories. "I lived there for four years. It was where my boyhood dreams began—and quietly shattered."

That simple sentence said everything about how special the place was.

Silence fell for a moment. A breeze swept past the three of them, carrying the chill of late autumn and making the air around them feel even more oppressive and still.

Luo Qiusheng's fingers, hanging at his side, curled tight, their tips paling to a faint bluish white. The calculations and schemes in his mind never ceased.