Nono stood beside the desk for a while, as though she wanted to say something more, but in the end, she simply turned and left.
Lu Mingfei picked up his pencil and wrote his name in the upper-right corner of the exam paper.
The A4 sheet held only the cross he had drawn and the little figure with a tuft of hair sticking up.
The characters of "Lu Mingfei" were crooked, his handwriting like a fence blown over by the wind. He stared at his name and suddenly found it a little funny.
He was Lu Mingfei, the "S-Rank" recognized by the principal.
He was Lu Mingfei, the "Fourth Children" recognized by the Marduk Agency.
He was Lu Mingfei, whom Lu Mingze had called "the very pinnacle of the world."
He...
"Lu Mingfei, and... Zero." Professor Manstein stepped around a student who was hugging a desk leg and foaming at the mouth. "Excellent! Faced with a direct assault from Dragon Script, not only did you avoid losing yourselves mentally, you even maintained a clear sense of self! That is precisely the psychological resilience elite hybrids should possess! You may hand in your papers early."
"Professor, I-"
"The intensity of spirit vision does not depend on the length of your answers," Manstein interrupted him. "Some people see a mountain and need three thousand words to describe it; others see a mountain and write only 'mountain.' But the mountain is the same."
Lu Mingfei felt the professor made a lot of sense, so he nodded, stood up, picked up his student ID and Nokia N96, and turned toward the door.
As he passed the girl in the front row, Lu Mingfei saw that she was packing up her things. She had a complete set of stationery-an eraser, a ruler, pencils-and put each item into a compact pencil case.
The moment he stepped through the library doors, Lu Mingfei's pupils contracted sharply.
Both sides of the corridor were packed with an imposing array of cameras and long lenses.
At least a dozen professional cameras were aimed at him from every angle, their lenses gleaming black, their flashes ready to fire. The people holding them all wore vests printed with "Cassell News Department." Their expressions were grave and their movements perfectly synchronized, like a well-trained special forces unit.
A familiar face led the pack.
Fingel von Frings.
"He's out, he's out!" Fingel's eyes lit up. "Everyone in position, ready-"
"Boss, he's already out," a rookie in a baseball cap beside him reminded him quietly.
"I can see that!" Fingel smacked the back of the rookie's head. "I said 'ready'! Are you not even going to let me say 'ready'?"
"But boss, he's already-"
"One more word out of you, and tomorrow's headline on the Nightwatch Forum will be 'News Department Rookie Measures Cafeteria Slop Bucket Capacity.'"
The rookie shut up.
Satisfied, Fingel turned back and approached Lu Mingfei with a camera on his shoulder. "My dear junior! How did the 3E Exam feel? See anything interesting? Care to share it with your senior? Don't worry, News Department interviews always protect our subjects' privacy. We would absolutely never-"
"You're in my way," Lu Mingfei said.
Click.
A crisp shutter sound rang out.
Lu Mingfei turned his head. It was the rookie in the baseball cap. He stood holding his camera in a rigid pose, his finger still on the shutter button, looking like someone who had accidentally stepped on a land mine.
Fingel slowly turned his head, the smile vanishing completely from his face.
"You pressed it?" Fingel's voice was very calm.
"B-boss, it was a reflex..." The rookie's voice trembled. "The moment he came out, that lighting, that angle, that look in his eyes... my hand just..."
"Just what?"
"Just pressed it on its own..."
Fingel took a deep breath, walked up to the rookie, and held out his hand.
The rookie obediently handed over the camera.
Fingel looked down at the LCD screen and tapped the zoom button twice with his thumb.
Then his expression changed.
He looked up at Lu Mingfei, then back down at the screen.
"Everyone." Fingel's voice was quiet, but every News Department member in the corridor heard him. "Put your cameras away."
A dozen cameras lowered at once, their lens caps snapping on in unison.
Fingel raised the rookie's camera and swept the screen around for the team to see.
"This photo," he said, pointing at Lu Mingfei's face on the screen, "must not get out."
The News Department members all saw the photograph.
At the exact moment he emerged from the exam room, Lu Mingfei's gaze had happened to land on the lens. Light fell from the side, carving his features into sharply defined planes of light and shadow. That world-weary look in his eyes, so utterly detached, was like someone gazing from far away, across a sea, across an entire world.
"If this photo gets out, everyone will repost it, everyone will ride the buzz, but nobody will credit the source, and nobody will pay licensing fees." Fingel returned the camera to the rookie and patted his shoulder.
The rookie's eyes reddened. "Boss, I-"
"Go back and write a three-thousand-word self-criticism," Fingel said. "Title it 'On Copyright Awareness Among Journalists.'"
"Yes, sir!"
The whole performance was absurd, yet these people carried themselves with the professional gravity of a team facing a formidable enemy.
"You said I was in your way, right? Don't worry, your senior will move aside right now." Fingel stepped aside and made an inviting gesture, his bearing so humble that the person before him might have been a board member inspecting the school rather than a freshman.
Lu Mingfei couldn't be bothered with these drama queens. He walked past them and headed straight downstairs.
"Hey, S-Rank, wait for your faithful chronicler!" Like a strip of iron drawn to a magnet, Fingel immediately latched onto him.
At the cafeteria entrance, Fingel rubbed his hands eagerly, looking every bit like an orderly waiting on his commanding officer. "With your august S-Rank presence gracing us, how could we let you perform such menial labor as getting food yourself? Give me your meal card, and I'll charge into battle!"
Lu Mingfei stopped, took his student card from his pocket, and tossed it to Fingel. "I want pork chop rice. Extra broccoli and carrots, no sauce, half the rice."
Fingel caught the card, looking utterly bewildered. "Huh? That's all rabbit food... Honored father, are you trying to get fit and burn fat? Going for an eight-pack so you can chase the red-haired witch?"
Lu Mingfei lacked the energy to correct his wild assumptions. He found a secluded corner by a window and sat down.
The meal period had only just begun, so there weren't many people in the dining hall, and plenty of seats remained empty. Less than half a minute later, a white tray was set gently on the table across from him. The Russian girl who had sat in front of him during the exam had already changed into a pale blue shirt with a dark blue ribbon tied at the collar. Her pale blond hair was still pinned up on her head, a few loose strands hanging beside her ears, almost transparent in the sunlight.
She sat down across from Lu Mingfei, her movements quiet, her posture perfectly straight.
In the center of her tray sat a tomahawk steak as thick as a palm, with three sunny-side-up eggs stacked beside it and a row of boiled chicken breasts next to those. Grilled salmon and spaghetti with meat sauce occupied the remaining space, while asparagus and broccoli were squeezed along the edges.
Lu Mingfei couldn't help glancing at her slender wrists, then at her tray.