Emperor and Devil (III)

"Brother, it'll be my birthday soon."

Seeing Lu Mingfei's surprise but no positive reaction, he repeated himself.

"I want a gift."

What does your birthday have to do with me... Lu Mingfei wanted to say, but couldn't. What if—just what if—they really were connected somehow?

As long as that possibility existed, he couldn't bring himself to say anything too heartless.

"My birthday is only seven days after yours. Don't you remember?" The devil suddenly wore a pitiful expression that made people soften.

"That's nonsense." Lu Mingfei instantly became alert. "My birthday is still more than a month and a half away! How could yours be coming up?"

Something was fishy. It definitely felt fishy.

Devils could scam people's feelings these days too?

Lu Mingze lowered his head slightly, pressed his thumb against the pad of his index finger, and swung his legs. "The birthday I mean follows the time in that instance just now. Over these past few thousand years, I've had too little happiness. People who can't get enough become stingy over every last bit. I don't want to miss a single chance."

"Brother, be careful. Love is such a rare thing that sometimes I'll trick a little extra out of you."

"You sound like a greedy devil. Let me see if I can find you some cake." Lu Mingfei thought that, if that was the case, he could just humor him. If someone lacked love, give them something sweet and wouldn't that satisfy them? He remembered that there seemed to be a mille-feuille cake in his backpack, layered with many thin crêpes. He had never been willing to eat it.

"Huh?"

Lu Mingfei searched twice and found nothing, looking as bewildered as a squirrel whose winter food had been stolen.

Where had that huge mille-feuille cake gone?

Damn it, he remembered correctly. He had once planned to save it for his nineteenth birthday.

Lu Mingze watched him leisurely from the side. "Brother, you look like Shinji Ikari from Evangelion right now."

"Can you not make me laugh? Shinji Ikari has Asuka, Rei, and Kaworu... What do I have? Nutrition Express? Which bastard ate my mille-feuille cake?" Lu Mingfei searched his backpack again with a headache, but the item was still nowhere to be found.

Lu Mingze said, "You have Chu Zihang, Gen Chisei, and Caesar. Most importantly, you have me."

Could you stop listing nothing but grown men... Lu Mingfei sighed heavily and gave up looking for the cake that had apparently grown legs and run away.

Lu Mingze seemed completely unable to see Lu Mingfei's dejection and continued on his own. "The person who loves you most in this world is embracing you on the throne to keep warm, Brother. Otherwise, what does owning the world matter? You'd still just wear a crown in loneliness, rotting away as you waited for the new king's challenge. Whoever possesses power and strength is the one the world loves... The world is like a bitch."

"Children shouldn't swear."

"Oh."

"You... really want a gift?"

"Mm-hmm. Something thoughtful, something with atmosphere. When it's your birthday, I'll give you a huge gift package."

Lu Mingfei thought, Why is he so hard to placate? He stood up, walked onto the bluestone paving behind the curb, scratched his head, and thought hard. Then he covered Lu Mingze's eyes from behind, leaving a gap of less than 0.2 centimeters between his index and middle fingers.

"Mr. Devil, please close your eyes and tilt your head up toward the southeastern sky. Then squint just a tiny bit. An atmospheric service is coming right up."

Lu Mingze obediently sat up straight and closed his eyes.

Lu Mingfei took out a bottle of employee drinking water dropped by Genji Heavy Industries, wrapped in sky-blue packaging, and twisted off the cap with his teeth.

"Psst... Okay, now it's time to use your imagination. The next act is called the 'Budget Leonid Meteor Shower.' My abilities are limited, so I couldn't persuade Tempel-Tuttle Comet to come early. The key is your imagination when your eyes go blurry."

Tempel-Tuttle Comet was the parent comet of the Leonid Meteor Shower, with a period of roughly 33.3 years.

Privately, he was someone who loved to fantasize. People who loved to fantasize had their own way of living, able to imagine versions of many things they had never experienced themselves, like the Leonid Meteor Shower Gen Chisei had once mentioned to him.

Genji Heavy Industries was not a good place for chatting or opening one's heart. Danger lurked everywhere there, and monsters capable of interrupting and tearing them apart could appear at any moment.

So Lu Mingfei could only piece together those fragmented bits of information through one trial after another, assembling a complete story. It was one of the few things he had seriously done in high school... Caesar was the easiest to piece together, since he always liked talking about family and the way of men. Gen Chisei's story was not actually difficult to assemble. After all, he was an Emperor. Whenever he was on the verge of death, he lived the longest and could calmly say the most. If there were gaps, they could be filled in elsewhere next time.

Piecing together Chu Zihang's story was absurdly difficult, so difficult that Lu Mingfei had made almost no progress. Senior Brother was a man who never changed. A more fitting description would be a steadfast man whose resolve could not be turned.

Even when he died differently, Chu Zihang's last words remained largely unchanged. There was almost no information in them. They were brief but full of encouragement, and often seemed fixated on something, usually related to Lu Mingfei rather than Chu Zihang himself.

Perhaps there were only a handful of people in the world for whom Chu Zihang would leave behind a few extra nagging words, and Lu Mingfei happened to be one of them—and happened to be present often.

When he pieced together the middle part of Gen Chisei's story with his younger brother, he felt some admiration for Gen Chisei.

From what he heard of the past, Gen Chisei had not always been such a rule-abiding person. To take his younger brother to see the Leonid Meteor Shower, he could steal blankets from the middle school gym, steal a telescope from the astronomy classroom, use the money he had saved to buy a compass and hiking boots from a little shop, and pack leftover plum rice from lunch into a small bundle.

Then they climbed mountain paths for three hours to reach the highest peak near Katori Town, set up the telescope, and waited for the sun to set. It rained heavily that day, but Gen Chisei had a good way of comforting his younger brother.

When it rained, they could not see the meteor shower at all. But having the most important person by one's side still made it a wonderful memory.

The older brothers of this world could be divided into capable older brothers and older brothers who did not want to be capable. Gen Chisei, a man of action, belonged to the former. As for Lu Mingfei... If he had a younger brother, he would probably only sell him dreams. They would never save up enough for any equipment, and would just go hungry together, get soaked in the rain, and stupidly stare at the night sky with their own eyes.

Unfortunately, the ending was a tragedy that made people grit their teeth.

"I am a demon slayer, but the first demon I killed in my life was my own younger brother. We grew up in the mountains, and when we were at our loneliest, we only had each other to depend on. From then on, I never felt any guilt when slaying demons again, because I had already paid the greatest price for justice."

After hearing Gen Chisei's account in fragments, Lu Mingfei roughly understood what demons were. What a tragic past. Those who did wrong naturally had to be punished.

But even so, Gen Chisei still loved the younger brother who had become a demon, didn't he? Whether one loved or did not love, one could feel it when on the verge of death. At such times, people could not deceive themselves. If he had to do it again, he would surely still choose justice, but having abandoned you, I am already a homeless dog.

There would never again be a younger brother willing to do foolish things with him.

Could you stop loving him just because he was a demon? And what if he was a devil?

After his thoughts ran wild, the immense sorrow made Lu Mingfei's hand covering Lu Mingze's eyes tremble unsteadily. With his other hand, he shakily prepared to drip a few drops of drinking water into Lu Mingze's eyes.

When human eyes were blurry, looking at the night sky through the gaps between one's fingers created the illusion of stars falling in clusters.

"Give me some credit. The method may be cheesy, but just pretend I'm bringing you a meteor shower. That's a little romantic, right? It was a little dating trick I once thought of. You're getting a bargain by having it used on you."

Lu Mingfei felt a little uneasy. Honestly, this method seemed a little too stupid. Someone asked for diamonds, and he gave them glass, then shamelessly claimed that both contained carbon.

I will for you... Lu Mingze suddenly remembered hearing similar words before.

"I will build an immortal kingdom for you."

After that, we would no longer have to wander this world.

That had been tens of millions of years ago. So very, very long ago.

"I haven't even dripped the water on you yet... Don't cry. You're making my hand all wet. With how sentimental you are, you must have done terribly in hell."

Not understanding why, Lu Mingfei became flustered.

Lu Mingze snapped out of it and raised a finger toward the direction of the Leo constellation's distinctive "Sickle" star pattern.

"Brother, look, the rain of Leo!"

What a devil who knew how to play along with empty promises.

He sounded so delighted and surprised, as if it were real... Lu Mingfei raised his head and stared blankly at the deep, unmoving night sky.