The Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown Was an Illusion All Along (continued)

It was as if those three words had some kind of magic, making people laugh and making whoever shouted them seem funny.

Lu Zhao never cared. Across two lives, he had lived forty-five years. He had died, gone hungry, and suffered.

Apart from life and death, everything else was a small matter.

The school eventually found out, and its leadership commended Lu Zhao and gave him an extra monthly allowance of life supplements.

Lu Zhao's ranking began to rise steadily by fifty places each month. When he entered the top hundred in the school, all the jeering around him disappeared.

A girl named Chen Qian began approaching him frequently, but Lu Zhao flatly rejected her so she wouldn't interfere with his studies.

In his fourth year, Lu Zhao ranked twelfth in his class, and his ranking rose no further.

The top ten were all geniuses whose talent and wealth far surpassed Lu Zhao's. Hard work alone couldn't close the gap.

That year, Chen Qian began pestering Lu Zhao again.

Over those four years, Chen Qian's boyfriends had come and gone like water. At her most frequent, she had a new one every week, and sometimes she even had two at once. Her conduct was so promiscuous that the school publicly criticized her.

But she had a powerful background. Her father was a marquis, and she had yet to be expelled.

Lu Zhao kept his distance, hoping she would leave him alone.

To be fair, by Lu Zhao's standards, Chen Qian was a seven out of ten in looks, hardly ugly.

But relationships were about each person getting what they needed, and Lu Zhao had no need for beauty like a rotten persimmon. More than a dozen lives in the Lu family had sent him to the Imperial Capital, not so he could latch onto a bitch.

"Lu Zhao, don't refuse a face-saving offer!"

In a corner of the school, Lu Zhao was blocked on a path by a woman who stood before him, gnashing her teeth, her expression faintly fierce.

"I've pursued you for three years. What more do you want?"

Three years. The words made Lu Zhao's temples ache.

He had suffered from insomnia for years already. For the past three, he had not only had to fight the side effects of his spiritual ability, but also endure her harassment.

And because of his status, he had yielded again and again, greeting her with a smile every time.

Lu Zhao suppressed his discomfort and shook his head. "Chen Qian, I made it clear to you from the beginning. I only want to work hard and finish my studies."

"I don't care. You have to say yes today! Otherwise, I'll make you realize your mistake!"

Chen Qian's shrill voice drew more passersby. Students stopped in groups of three or five, pointing and whispering.

Her hysterics only deepened Lu Zhao's disgust.

Did she think she was acting in a romance drama?

He turned to leave, but Chen Qian immediately reached out and grabbed him, even baring her claws as she tried to pounce on him.

Smack!

Lu Zhao slapped her with the back of his hand and looked coldly at the stunned Chen Qian. "Fucking idiot."

With that, he turned and walked away, ignoring the even more hysterical voice behind him.

The day after Lu Zhao returned from his border rotation.

Zhang Like handed Lu Zhao a slip of paper with a phone number on it. "This is Chen Qian's number. Try apologizing to her. Things might turn around."

Lu Zhao took the slip. "I'll consider it."

This time, Zhang Like didn't call Lu Zhao stubborn.

Before this, an important figure in the border defense system named Liang Chengyun had called on his connections, hoping to contact Marquis Chen and resolve the matter.

Given Lu Zhao's record and achievements, it wasn't right to keep holding him back. The system wasn't all that good, but it wasn't that corrupt either.

Only a lapdog like Lü Jinshan would go all out to curry favor with the Chen family.

Marquis Chen had given only a brief reply: "Mm, I understand."

Then there was nothing more. Perhaps someone would resolve it after a while, or perhaps he simply didn't care.

Zhang Like thought the latter more likely. Otherwise, wrongful convictions wouldn't be so hard to overturn. A figure of a marquis's stature wouldn't target a nobody, but by the same token, he wouldn't admit fault for a nobody's sake either.

His daughter had done something wrong, but so what? What could Lu Zhao do about it?

Zhang Like understood all this, but still offered words of comfort:

"Don't be so pessimistic. It's not the marquis holding you back. He doesn't even know about this. It's all his daughter throwing her weight around."

Even he thought his own words sounded a little naive.

"Don't feel too burdened. At worst, you can resign and leave the system. With your education and life development, you'll do well wherever you go."

With that, Zhang Like rose and left Lu Zhao's room.

When the door closed, the room grew dim again. A ray of the setting sun fell through a gap in the curtains onto the lotus formed by the ashtray and cigarette butts on the table, where smoke still curled.

Lu Zhao smoked one cigarette after another, his gaze fixed on the slip of paper as he read it over and over.

In the end, he put it down.

Begging for mercy was useless, and he was determined not to do it.

If the matter could be resolved, Zhang Like would have given him a clear answer, and the station's leadership wouldn't have been so vague.

Lu Zhao bore none of them any grudge, and they weren't so bad that they made a habit of hurting others without benefiting themselves.

Suddenly, his phone vibrated. Lu Xiaotong was calling.

She was Lu Zhao's niece. She had been only two when his older brother died, and she was now sixteen.

As Lu Xiaotong's only male elder, he had been close to the girl since she was little, and to some extent, Lu Zhao had played the role of her father.

"Hello, Xiaotong. What's wrong?"

"Uncle Zhao, Grandma has to go to the hospital again."

"How much do we need?"

Lu Zhao didn't panic too much at the news, because his mother had to spend several months in the hospital every year.

His mother's heart condition couldn't be cured. Whenever it worsened, she could only be hospitalized for treatment, then discharged to live at home once she improved.

On the other end of the phone, Lu Xiaotong could be heard talking to his sister-in-law.

"My mom says ten thousand yuan. Also, Uncle Zhao, are you coming home for the Dragon Boat Festival?"

"I have to work overtime, so I won't be coming back."

"Overtime again? You worked overtime for the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day in '41, and you didn't come back for New Year's this year either. All year round, you only came back for Qingming. I'm almost not going to recognize you!"

"Smugglers and demonic beasts don't take holidays. I'll come back for the Mid-Autumn Festival, all right?"

"Really?"

"I promise."

After chatting for a while, Lu Xiaotong reluctantly hung up, adding one last thing: "You have to come back for the Mid-Autumn Festival."

Lu Zhao checked his phone and found that he had only five thousand yuan left in his bank account, so he had to borrow another five thousand from Zhang Like.

After transferring the money, he returned to his room, sat down at the table, and picked up the slip of paper, staring at it for a long time.

Then, as if possessed, he dialed the number.

Beep, beep, beep...

"Hello, who are you looking for?"

A soft, effeminate male voice came through. Lu Zhao said, "I'm looking for Chen Qian."

"Darling, someone's looking for you..." The sound from the phone faded in and out. A moment later, an arrogant voice came through.

"Hello, who is this?"

"It's me, Lu Zhao."

"Lu Zhao?"

There was a pause on the other end, as though she had forgotten.

"I remember now. Why are you calling?"

"..."

Lu Zhao fought the urge to crush his phone. He opened his mouth, but his throat felt clogged with phlegm, and it took all his strength to force out a few words.

"What happened back then... I... I was wrong."

"I'd forgotten all about it until you mentioned it. I'm busy right now. We'll talk another time."

The call ended, and silence fell over the room. Outside, heavy rain began to pour again.

Rumble!

A flash of lightning lit the room. Lu Zhao was already on his feet, the flip phone crushed and bent in his hand. Glass had pierced the web between his thumb and forefinger, but he didn't notice.

The Martial Marquis of Jiangbei didn't know, and Chen Qian had forgotten. One petty whim of power had left him stranded in the mountains of a remote backwater for four years!

He had walked out of the South Sea on the lives of his father, uncles, older brother, and older male cousins, endured jeers all along the way, only to be pinned down by a single word from a bitch!

He had thought he was being targeted, yet in the eyes of the person responsible, it was so insignificant!

Rumble!

The lightning and thunder could not calm the murderous intent in his chest. Lu Zhao opened a drawer and took out a handgun. Its dark, cold sheen was reassuring.

The border station's guns and ammunition were strictly controlled. He had secretly kept this one after killing a drug trafficker, along with three bullets in total.

He had already made up his mind long ago.

Lu Zhao's eyes darkened. The handgun clicked as he chambered a round.

Transcendents weren't immortal cultivators, and Chen Qian wasn't a physical-type transcendent. No matter what noble or powerful official you were, everyone was the same in front of a bullet.

Lu Zhao didn't rush to set out. Instead, he returned to his bed and lay down, staring at the ceiling, growing calmer by the moment.

At that moment, he was surprisingly calm, silently planning:

I can't take public transportation to Cangwu City. I can't expose myself too soon. It won't be hard to find out where Chen Qian is. The Chen family will probably be on guard.

But a thief can keep at it for a thousand days; no one can guard against one for a thousand days.