The swimming pool and restaurant nestled among towering ancient trees, surrounded by lush, vibrant greenery.
Looking down from the hotel suite, the pool shimmered nearby, with the restaurant's lights flickering through the foliage. Beyond them lay the neatly arranged town and the harbor at the foot of the mountain. The view was fit for an emperor surveying his private garden.
"What did Angers say?" Frost asked, leafing through a stack of paper documents in the hotel suite.
"He said Lu Mingfei was in poor health and requested that the meeting be postponed by one day. The family has arranged accommodations for all the trustees." Pazzi paused, then added, "Angers refused the Italian branch's security detail. The Laurent family has taken over that hospital. This afternoon, Lu Mingfei's room was outside Norma's surveillance for about fifteen minutes. The operation logs show trustee-level access."
"Is Angers planning to make this meeting Lu Mingfei's political debut?" Frost frowned. "Receiving trustees in his hospital room-does he think he's an emperor?"
"There is only one emperor among Hybrids." Pazzi bowed his head and spoke quietly.
"Are the materials ready?" Frost asked.
"The files the last Investigation Group downloaded from Norma's database and the findings from the family's covert investigation have been loaded onto the conference room's computer terminal," Pazzi replied.
"This isn't something they can bluff their way through. The Secret Party's principle has always been to kill an innocent rather than let a threat escape," Frost said coldly.
The next day.
The meeting was held in a detached building atop a cliff. Its outer walls were carved from hard white marble, austere and solid, with narrow windows.
The entrance slowly closed from within. With the heavy clunk of four ancient locks, the building was sealed off completely.
"Everyone is here. It is time to begin this special meeting of the Board of Trustees." Angers sat upright at the head of the long table, his voice low and forceful.
He gently shook a small brass bell, producing a clear chime.
This had once been a place where ancient monks practiced asceticism, so the interior was dim. Though it was daytime, a row of candlesticks stood on the long table, their flames illuminating every trustee's face.
There were six in all: four men and two women.
No one spoke, and every expression was different. The elderly man beside Angers rolled Buddhist Prayer Beads between his fingers, looking contemplative. On the other side sat Frost with his cane, his face calm and his gaze lowered.
Beside Frost sat a middle-aged man in his thirties or forties, wearing a bright yellow tracksuit, with a bicycle helmet resting to his right. Despite being a trustee of an elite institution like Cassell College, he had actually cycled to the meeting.
The remaining two were women: Baroness Laurent, who had spoken privately with Lu Mingfei, and a girl of sixteen or seventeen.
Apart from the trustees, a butler stood behind the young female trustee.
"I called this special meeting, but I did not disclose its subject to any of you beforehand. Some of you may already have guessed, but before the answer is revealed, please read the document before you. Its title is An Analysis of the Four Great Dragon Monarchs," Angers said. "Its conclusions draw on several decades of research by Cassell College's Executive Department, Archaeology Team, and professors."
All the trustees opened the detailed report at once.
For the next five or six minutes, the only sound in the conference room was the turning of pages, punctuated by an occasional gasp. The contents were not top secret. As heads or acting heads of their respective families, the trustees had access to most of the Secret Party's intelligence and their own families' records. What astonished them were the details and conclusions of the Bronze City Report and the Panhandel Report.
Frost Gattuso picked up the brass bell before him and shook it. "The Executive Department's reports have always classified these two incidents as suspected Dragon King awakenings. Why is this document so certain that the targets were the two brothers who share the title of Bronze and Fire King?"
"Frost, my old friend." Angers shook his bell and spoke softly. "You should look at the author's name."
Frost and the other trustees turned to the cover together. Sure enough, they found a tiny author credit in one corner: MingfeiLu.
Below it were the signatures of his academic adviser and the head of the Executive Department, in even smaller print than Lu Mingfei's name.
"I believe you all know that Cassell College recruited an S-Rank student from China last year. His name is Lu Mingfei," Angers continued. "By coincidence, he encountered the twins of the Bronze and Fire King on two consecutive S-Rank missions."
Everyone present had heard the name to some extent. Now they were curious: just how "lucky" did someone have to be to encounter First-Generation Dragons on two consecutive missions? And those two First-Generation Dragons were brothers, no less.
Perhaps the only comparable case was Yamaguchi Tsutomu, the Japanese man who had survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings within four days.
Chapter 99: Diverting the trouble
Frost rang his bell again, drawing every trustee's attention. "Why were his accounts of the missions so ambiguous before now?"
"Frost, Lu Mingfei is an excellent young man, but he is only a freshman. You can't expect him to have the nerves to face a Dragon King and still ask for a photo and an autograph, can you?" Angers replied casually. He took a Havana No. 1 cigar from a cedarwood case, leisurely sniffed it, clipped the end with a cigar cutter, toasted its length with a slender match, then lit it and took a contented puff.
The girl covered her mouth and chuckled, but the butler behind her promptly placed a hand on her shoulder, reminding her to remain serious.
"PTSD." Angers exhaled a plume of bluish smoke. "Post-traumatic stress disorder. He deceived himself into believing he had never witnessed a battle between Dragon Kings. Only then could he sleep peacefully."
"Don't tell me he suddenly remembered everything now," Frost said slowly.
"Why call it sudden?" Angers shrugged. "You should say he happened to recover."
"The moment I uncover what you've been hiding, you confess without being asked..." Frost took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes. "Isn't that a little too convenient?"
Elizabeth rang her bell. "The document doesn't mention a battle between Dragon Kings. Where is Lu Mingfei's latest mission account?"
"That brings us to the subject of this meeting: the Dragon King Infiltration Theory." Angers clapped his hands. "Allow me to introduce our S-Rank student, an elite worthy of the name, Lu Mingfei."
The door opened.
Wearing Cassell College's winter uniform and carrying a small briefcase, Lu Mingfei walked slowly inside.
Every gaze settled on the black-haired, dark-eyed Asian boy. Facing the scrutiny of Hybrid leaders who had held positions of power for years, he remained composed, sweeping his eyes around the room and studying each of them in turn.
"What an upright young man," the middle-aged trustee murmured appreciatively.
Lu Mingfei's gaze finally settled on Angers at the head of the table. After receiving a nod, he took the empty seat at the other end.
"In all these years, no student has ever been invited to a meeting of the Board of Trustees. You are the first." Angers glanced at Lu Mingfei, then turned to the trustees. "A brief introduction: an S-Rank student, guest professor of close-quarters combat, newly appointed senior operative of the Executive Department, and winner of last year's friendship-first student tournament, Free Day... Incidentally, he defeated the two most outstanding A-Rank young men we've had in recent years."
The string of honors puzzled every trustee. In Angers's earlier introduction, Lu Mingfei had been a patient suffering from PTSD. Now he sounded like an unprecedented rising star among young Hybrids.
But they soon found an explanation. However exceptional this young man might be, he had faced Dragon Kings, beings that destroyed human civilizations in myth with disasters corresponding to the four great elements. Even now, they were formidable enemies that demanded the full strength of the Secret Party.
This was guided reasoning. People tended to trust conclusions they reached through their own thought. Even with identical logic and an identical conclusion, hearing it from someone else might lead them to judge it very differently.
"I came here because I don't trust anyone else." There was no bell before Lu Mingfei. Seeing that no one wished to speak, he tapped the table twice. "Esteemed representatives of your families, can I trust your allegiance as Hybrids?"
The elderly man with the prayer beads rang his bell and frowned. "You have no right to question the trustees' honor. For a thousand years, the Secret Party has stood on the front lines of dragon slaying!"
"Then let's change the subject." Lu Mingfei gave him a mild glance, untroubled by his displeasure. "What is your understanding of Dragon Kings?"
"Until now, we have always believed the Dragon Kings were cocoons buried underground or hidden beneath the sea. When the time was right, they would hatch and eagerly set about destroying humanity," Angers said, playing along. "That is why part of the college's work has always focused on finding Dragon Ruins. We aim to eliminate dragons before they hatch."
Most of the families present were doing the same.
"But imagine this." Lu Mingfei looked around at every face. "A Dragon King hatched long ago. With his capacity for learning, he quickly figured out how human society worked. Then he hid among us, secretly expanding his power..."
No one seemed surprised. Such theories had been proposed before, but they had always been dismissed as absurd flights of fancy, with no concrete evidence to support them.
Elizabeth rang her bell. "So what you're describing actually happened?"
The butler whispered a few words into the girl's ear. She nodded, then rang her bell as well. "That claim is too extraordinary. You need to present evidence."
"It's simple. I saw it with my own eyes," Lu Mingfei said lightly. "Inside the Nibelungen, I wasn't the protagonist of the story. The gods upon their thrones were."
"You encountered more than one First-Generation Dragon?" The middle-aged man rang his bell, his expression grave.
"That's right. These are the only surviving hard copies." Lu Mingfei took a stack of printed pages from his briefcase and slid them across the conference table. "All the firsthand intelligence on Dragon Kings you wanted is here."
He said "you," but his gaze rested on Frost. The elderly man with the cane had been silent for a long time.
The document passed from one trustee to the next. Each frowned deeply, committing its contents to memory before handing it on. Elizabeth Laurent did the same. She had already learned what was in it, but now she acted just as surprised as the others.
"Odin, Norton, Constantine. It sounds as though we have three Dragon Kings as enemies?" The middle-aged man rang his bell.
"No." Lu Mingfei shook his head. Under the man's puzzled gaze, he continued slowly, "During the Bronze City incident, Norton killed Constantine. During the Panhandel incident, Odin killed Norton."
Far away in China, Old Tang suddenly sneezed. He rubbed his nose in bewilderment, then pulled another thin blanket over himself.
"If the Dragon Kings chose to hide in human society, they must fear humanity's current power. Why would they kill one another when facing such a formidable enemy?" The elderly man with the prayer beads frowned. "That makes no sense."
"The document already mentions it, and I believe you should all know this as well." Lu Mingfei responded calmly. "Dragons can seize one another's power by devouring each other. And the formidable enemy they fear isn't humanity, but Nidhogg. They devour each other to strengthen themselves, all so that one day they can face their father again."
Lu Mingfei was out in the open; Odin was hidden in the shadows.
But that was also Lu Mingfei's advantage. Odin could not come into this conference room to defend himself. The entire account of events rested on Lu Mingfei's word.
"Everything you've said is too unbelievable. The only evidence we have to go on is your testimony." After consulting her butler, the girl rang her bell and spoke.
Chapter 100: Time Zero
Before Lu Mingfei could answer, a furious ringing drew the trustees' attention.
Frost Gattuso, the Gattuso Family's representative, wore a face that seemed frozen solid. "Have you finished your story? Apart from the extraordinary Alchemical Domains, Word Spirits, and mythological figures on these pages, is your evidence nothing more than the Cassell College professors' research into dragon prophecies?"
"There's also a mathematical model analyzing the total amount of wealth in society each year. There's always an invisible black hole in that model, swallowing up vast amounts of wealth." Lu Mingfei shrugged, supplying what Frost had left out.
Su Enxi had provided the model. At Lu Mingfei's instruction, she and the others were tracking this unaccounted-for wealth around the globe. But it was an extremely difficult task. Existing investigative methods could hardly pinpoint the person manipulating it within the immense expanse of human society. The wealth might be stored as money in numerous accounts at major banks, converted into weapons stockpiled in warehouses, or even turned into secret bases hidden inside Nibelungen.
Yet Frost contemptuously flung this invaluable intelligence onto the table. "We pay Cassell College enormous administrative fees every year, not to read such an utterly absurd report at a special meeting concerning Dragon Kings."
Frost was an important figure who managed the entire family business in his elder brother's stead. The core of his importance lay in the fact that the Gattuso Family donated more to the college each year than any other family. Elizabeth's Laurent family came second.
He certainly had the right to criticize them on those grounds.
The air seemed to grow colder, but Angers smoked as though nothing had happened. He shifted in his chair, finding a more comfortable position.
The other person who remained unruffled was Lu Mingfei. He shrugged. "What a shame."
Frost looked around at everyone's faces and spoke slowly. "In fact, ever since the S-Rank mission codenamed Sword of Victory, Cassell College's headquarters and Executive Department have been covering up certain secrets. Our last Investigation Group found no evidence because Angers hid Lu Mingfei in China and deleted his records."
He suddenly waved a hand. Ghostly blue beams lit up at several points on the ceiling. They converged above the conference table, forming a projection suspended in midair: an enormous screen.
The screen displayed a vast amount of information: written records, mission reports signed by different people, images, and audiovisual files. Everyone could operate the enormous circular screen. The girl was the first to open the longest video out of curiosity. It showed an overhead view of Lu Mingfei's duel with Chu Zihang on Free Day.
Most of the trustees began opening files that interested them. Everything was there, from Lu Mingfei's birth, childhood, and high school years to his experiences after joining Cassell College.
Lu Mingfei's expression shifted. He tapped open a file concerning his parents, but it contained only two names, Lu Lincheng and Jovini, with no other information.
He looked up at Angers. Angers leisurely puffed on his cigar without responding. Its tip glowed and faded, illuminating the old man's lowered eyes.
"This S-Rank student who 'happened' to encounter Dragon Kings twice in succession is himself enough to arouse suspicion. Before high school, he was utterly unremarkable, to the point that one might even question whether he had dragon ancestry at all. Yet overnight, his dragon blood suddenly awakened, turning him into an S-Rank Hybrid with a top-tier bloodline. Principal Angers was even more remarkable: he foresaw this result." As Frost spoke, every trustee's screen began displaying the relevant materials. "Principal Angers's explanation was that Lu Mingfei's parents were both Cassell College alumni with S-Rank bloodlines. Yet all we know about them are the names Lu Lincheng and Jovini."
"My dear Frost, that concerns a secret of the Secret Party," Angers replied. "Those records are available only to a very small number of core elders."
"Fine. I believe you." Frost surprisingly let Angers off with magnanimity. "Let's move on to the next point..."
He had prepared plenty of material. Lu Mingfei's parents were not the most crucial source of suspicion, and Angers's evasive explanation only deepened the other trustees' doubts about Lu Mingfei's origins.
But someone called a halt.
Lu Mingfei tapped the conference table again. "I want to know what this supposed secret is."
His tone was level, but his words puzzled the other trustees, especially Baroness Laurent. Everyone had assumed Angers and Lu Mingfei were on the same side, yet now Lu Mingfei was undermining him.
Even Frost froze for a moment, suspicion stirring as he wondered what trick Angers and Lu Mingfei were playing now.
This time, he was overthinking it. Lu Mingfei and Angers had never planned this part. Lu Mingfei had simply spoken his mind.
He had always trusted Angers, believing his parents were searching for Dragon Ruins in the tropical jungles of South America, just like the other operatives Cassell College sent around the world.