King and Rebel Minister (3)

Chu Zihang, in his third Blood Rage, stood motionless. He knew Jormungandr had noticed his movements.

Jormungandr beat her membranous wings and flew higher into the tunnel, looking down at the two people facing each other below.

"You even went so far as to pretend that an older woman you secretly loved was toying with you at school. After all these thousands of years, your life in human society has really been quite interesting, Odin."

"No matter how little you value human women, you shouldn't disregard your own former pride and dignity, should you? Disguising yourself as such a loser... have you evolved a masochistic streak?" After sneering, Jormungandr gradually became sorrowful again. "...So loneliness is this terrifying. It can ravage a monarch who once roared across the world into this state. Your dragon heart is far inferior even to Fenrir's."

"How pathetic, once-lofty king!"

Jormungandr's face briefly twisted into a savage expression, though it was not especially frightening. To some extent, many of Xia Mi's traits could still be seen in her.

"...Junior Sister, you weren't spreading outrageous rumors about me, were you?"

"Being, being toyed with by someone who secretly loved him..." Lu Mingfei's PTSD flared up, and his expression stiffened. He was not quite at the point of slumping his shoulders and blacking out, but his entire aura visibly became somewhat dejected and embarrassed.

Again?

The thing he had feared most had still happened. Could it be that he had ended up at Cassell just as badly as he had at Shilan? No, though, had this "toying with" thing even happened that obviously at Shilan?

He had personally ended his feelings for Chen Wenwen. He had cut his losses in time.

"Senior Brother, is what she said true?" Lu Mingfei's voice was complicated. Based on what he knew about his original self, the odds really were not low.

Chu Zihang did not answer immediately. With scales covering his face and bone protruding beneath them, he lowered his head, making it impossible to see even a trace of his expression. The domain of flame around him lightly scorched his own body and soul.

"It's false. Your Senior Sister treated you well... in certain respects," he said softly. "I believe you aren't Odin, Junior Brother. If you get the chance, run as fast as you can later. I can't leave. I'm about to stop being myself. If you escape, remember what you once promised me. Keep hope."

Lu Mingfei froze, blinking his eyes in troubled helplessness.

"Anyone with eyes could see your secret love. How could you hide it from the person herself? You really could bring yourself to hurt yourself just to conceal your identity." Jormungandr continued mocking him disdainfully. "Oh, right. It was just as successful as when you pretended to secretly love that Chen Wenwen in high school. I stayed at Shilan, and I never left the class group chat. I know all about those three futile, widely known years of yours."

"I see..."

Lu Mingfei said softly, "...Did the whole school know in high school? Then that kind of life was really a little pathetic. There wasn't any qualitative change by college either, huh?"

He understood now.

Actually, he could have long inferred what his future self was like from all the clues. But who had never dreamed of becoming an imposing, grand figure?

He had always been best at deceiving himself. Being teased by someone from the future was not a big deal, and neither was failing to win over the girl he liked. He could just drink some soda, bury his head in nonsense, and have a good cry. The catastrophic part was deceiving himself even as he buried his head and cried.

A life of self-deception was like living in a cramped attic room, surrounded on all sides by surging, noisy, familiar calls and sounds, yet none of them had anything to do with you.

"Thanks, Junior Sister. Otherwise, I might still have been keeping myself in the dark. Sometimes I'm just not very honest with myself and need someone to whip me with the truth a couple of times... If I have to kill you today, I'll do my best to make it hurt less."

Staring directly into the Dragon King's majestic eyes, Lu Mingfei habitually scratched his head, then pointed behind himself with his thumb.

"I think I need to take your Fenrir out for a walk first."

Before he finished speaking, a gale swept across the platform.

The black dragon that had been lying on the ground without moving raised its head behind him and let out an aggrieved, whimpering roar at Jormungandr, like a child protesting against a parent. But when Jormungandr's commanding gaze swept over him, he hesitantly shook his head and lowered it to stare at Lu Mingfei.

"Not friend... you." The giant dragon decided to pick on the soft target.

Yes, Fenrir was of course not dead yet. He had been playing dead. Lu Mingfei had watched his health bar empty... and then a second health bar appeared.

This dungeon was using that disgusting RPG or action-game boss design from certain stages: large bosses had multiple health bars. The outer bar could not represent the boss's total health for the current phase. Empty one bar, and the boss still had N more. You had no idea how thick the boss's health bar was; all you could do was gamble on the unknown or beg some expert to clear the way and provide a strategy.

"Are you a siscon? You're still this obedient?" Lu Mingfei turned and ran. The black giant shadow followed close behind with a roar. The Dragon King raised his head and spread his massive wings, his dragon roar soaring high, violent and mournful.

This dragon had broken free of its restraints. Perhaps what had bound him was never a physical stone wall. Now, he revealed the true majesty of the King of Mountains, a dragon's might even greater than Jormungandr's.

While fleeing, Lu Mingfei did not forget to snatch a bag of Fenrir's sea salt Potato Chips from a pile of platform clutter. Unfortunately, his lungs had been injured earlier. The crushed chips mixed with streaks of blood as he swallowed them, making the taste a little strange.

Tonight's second subway marathon had begun.

"You..." Chu Zihang looked at Jormungandr, his Golden Eyes as cold as ice. He was expressionless now, as if he did not know Jormungandr or Xia Mi at all. All that remained in his eyes at this moment was the murderous intent of a savage dragon.

"You've even lost your consciousness?" Jormungandr stared at him with equal coldness. "Becoming a Deadpool is fine too. That way, you can accompany me in my kingdom for eternity."

Lu Mingfei crunched on Potato Chips, made a sharp turn, and leaped onto the roof of a train on the tracks. The giant dragon followed, smashing through the subway station's concrete load-bearing wall as it chased after him.

The subway station used I-beams and reinforced concrete columns to form a grid structure. Those structures supported the entire space like a complex human skeleton. Yet many things within Nibelungen did not necessarily obey physics, and the Dragon King Fenrir's rampage had not caused a large-scale collapse.

Lu Mingfei turned, cursed, and accelerated along the train roof, overtaking the two people sprinting one after the other ahead of him.

At a time like this, there were actually other people playing subway runner too.

"Hello." Pazzi nodded slightly.

"No, brother, what the hell is that thing chasing you from behind?" Mr. KFC looked on the verge of tears.

This guy was Fingel, right... Lu Mingfei glanced at Mr. KFC.

His Word Spirit: Blood Sickle was still active. To some extent, it could function like a super hearing aid. As long as his brain's ability to distinguish and process language was strong enough, and the sounds he heard were properly and fully absorbed... he could determine whether sounds existed, their volume, speed, and rhythm, judge pitch and timbre, and thereby identify a person's voice.

Even without Blood Sickle's enhancement, his overall abilities, including his hearing, were already at the level of a super hybrid. With the enhancement, there was no need to mention it. Fingel had altered his voice to a certain extent, but Lu Mingfei could still recognize whose that sleazy voice was.

"King of Earth and Mountains?" Pazzi asked quietly.

"Seems like a stay-at-home puppy wearing the King of Earth and Mountains' skin. His taste in Potato Chips is pretty good. Have some."

Lu Mingfei handed out sea salt Potato Chips while running, casually emptying his mind to contemplate life.

"They're not expired, right?" Mr. KFC shoved them into his mouth as soon as he took them.

Lu Mingfei looked back at Fenrir. "Expired by five months. This Dragon King probably bought them during a supermarket clearance sale."

"Thank you, Mr. Lu. I'll take them back for my family to eat." Pazzi hesitated for a moment, then accepted them politely and tucked them into the breast pocket of his Florence white shirt.

The three of them each had their own thoughts. After dividing up the Potato Chips, they reached a branching intersection in the middle section of the connected tunnels.

"Let's split up and run."