pdf-ebookys 070 Ball Invitation
070 Ball Invitation
Lu Mingfei gripped the PS3 game controller tightly, his eyes fixed on the battle in Virtua Fighter 5 on the screen.
His opponent was a player with a cartoon duck avatar. Lu Mingfei was cornered several times, facing dangerous situations.
Two knocks came from outside the dormitory door.
Fingel ran off to open the door, all excited.
Ling stood in the corridor, carrying a lunchbox wrapped in white cotton cloth, and walked up behind Lu Mingfei.
"Let's go out for lunch," Zero said.
Lu Mingfei slowed down his movements, leaving the character on the screen wide open.
Based on the opponent's "little yellow duck's" fighting style, he should have been taken down in one combo. But the moment Lu Mingfei stopped, the opponent's character quickly jumped backward. Then, the little figure quickly crouched twice in place.
Seeing that Lu Mingfei still didn't move, a slightly silly-looking emoticon popped up in the public chat in the lower left corner of the screen:
(°_°)?
"Mother makes me eat."
Lu Mingfei quickly typed and then turned off the screen so that Ling wouldn't see it. Then he took Ling's hand and said, "Let's go."
As I walked to the bench by the lake, I saw two swans creating crisscrossing ripples on the water.
Lu Mingfei opened the cotton cloth wrapping, revealing a palm-sized lunchbox. Lifting the lid, he saw a few slices of carrot arranged in the upper left corner, a small piece of broccoli on the right, pasta drizzled with pepper sauce in the middle, several thinly sliced chicken breasts neatly arranged on top, a handful of corn kernels scattered in the corner, and a cut tomato resting against the edge of the lunchbox, cut side up.
The portion was small, but the colors were beautifully matched, like the kind of bento box that the female lead in a Japanese drama hands to the male lead.
As he ate, he watched the swans on the lake. One of them had its head submerged in the water, its rear end sticking out, and its tail feathers were fluttering in the wind.
"There's a ball at the Amber Hall tomorrow night at seven o'clock," Zero said, sitting next to him. "It's to celebrate Ye Sheng and Aki's retirement and their engagement."
"Oh, that's great, I'll definitely go."
Retirement, engagement, and public displays of affection—it's all good.
"Formal attire is required for the ball."
Lu Mingfei said, "I don't have formal attire. Does a school uniform count as formal attire? Do Ye Sheng and the others care about this?"
"Most of the students in the school will be attending," Zero said. "I've measured your size; the formal attire will arrive tomorrow."
"When did you take your measurements?" Lu Mingfei asked. "I don't even know my own size."
"On the Moniach," Zero said.
On the Moniach?
What did you do during the ten minutes I was unconscious?! Lu Mingfei roared inwardly.
He remembered the force with which those slender pliers pressed against his thigh, the pain bringing tears to his eyes.
But she really did understand every single inch of it.
That's not what I meant.
That's the idea.
Lu Mingfei lowered his head, stuffed a whole head of broccoli into his mouth, and chewed for a long time but couldn't taste anything.
Zero didn't give him time to process it before dropping another bombshell.
"Tomorrow is the last script the boss left behind."
The moment he uttered those words, the lunchbox in his mouth seemed to have been mixed with a spoonful of gunpowder.
"There's another script?"
"The boss made a deal with the principal before," Zero said. "He guaranteed the success of Operation Kuimen, ensuring the brass can was retrieved and stored in the ice cellar of the academy's underground armory. In exchange, the principal gave the green light to stage a scene where outsiders sabotage the brass can, releasing its contents, and then you were allowed to kill it."
"You've made the operation a success; now the principal will start creating the necessary conditions."
The swan on the lake finally pulled its head out of the water, shook its feathers, and the water droplets sparkled in the sunlight.
"The principal learned a few days ago that Caesar was going to hold a ball, and all the students of the Kassel College and the elites on the Moniach would be there, so he sent us a message telling us to make our move at the ball."
"...The principal is quite the genius," Lu Mingfei said. "What's the plan?"
"The plan is for Su Enxi to hire 13 bounty hunters, for Jiu De Mai to personally lead a team to cause trouble at the school to attract attention, for me to hold Chu Zihang back, and for a veteran hunter to go to the ice cellar to release Constantine."
"You're stalling Chu Zihang? Why?"
"His Word of Power is Junyan, which poses a threat to others."
"What about you? Can you handle him?"
"My Word of Power is Mirror Eye; I can replicate Chu Zihang's Word of Power."
"You're really something else. Can you replicate my abilities?"
"cannot."
The two remained silent for a while.
"Why not build a rocket and launch it directly into the sun?" Lu Mingfei suddenly realized a blind spot he had been holding onto all along.
"The launch schedule for rockets is very tight right now, making it difficult to conceal cargo," Zero replied earnestly.
"With so much money, why doesn't the Peruvian government pursue commercial spaceflight?"
"Stop talking nonsense." Zero turned to look at him. "Are you going to do it or not? You can refuse and let Angers have his own headache."
Lu Mingfei looked down at the small lunchbox on his lap: a few slices of carrot, a few florets of broccoli, a few pieces of chicken breast, pasta, corn kernels, and half a tomato. It was an adorable Japanese-style girl's lunchbox, so small that he could finish it in just a few bites.
"Of course I'll do it," he said. "I'm getting stronger and stronger, and I reckon killing Constantine will be even easier than killing that dragon servant before."
Ling took out a large lunchbox from his bag, opened the lid, and the amount inside was about five times that of Lu Mingfei's portion.
"If you're not full, you can eat mine," Zero said.
"Need not."
Zero lowered his head and began to eat.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves of the sycamore trees by the lake, falling on her platinum blonde hair. Every few bites, she would brush the hair back with her fingers and then continue eating, as if the rice was the only important thing at the moment.
Her eating so intently made Lu Mingfei's heart pound.
This feeling of excitement started from the first time we met during the 3E exam, when she forcefully stuffed a meat floss biscuit into his mouth in the library, when she held his wrist in the infirmary of the Three Gorges Dam, and when she caught him as he fell from mid-air on the deck.
"zero."
She looked up at Lu Mingfei.
"You came close to me," Lu Mingfei whispered in her ear, "wasn't that also part of Lu Mingze's script?"
Zero's ear tips turned red, and the redness spread from her ears to her cheeks.
"Just kidding," Lu Mingfei quickly said, "I..."
"Wash the dishes." Zero stood up and slammed the lunchbox lid shut. "Bring them to my dorm tomorrow, and I'll change into formal attire while I'm at it."
"Okay, okay." Lu Mingfei took the lunchbox she handed him.
As Ling turned to leave, Lu Mingfei immediately followed, reaching out his hand and taking her fingers in his.
The two swans swam back at some point, stretching their necks to look at the silent young couple on the shore.
-----------------
The player with the cartoon duck icon still remained in the room.
A girl dressed in a red and white shrine maiden outfit held a controller and stared quietly at the system message "Opponent has disconnected" on the screen.
She tilted her head slightly, and her smooth, dark red hair slid down her shoulders.
The girl took out a small notebook she always carried with her and carefully wrote down a line:
"You didn't finish today."
She held the notebook up to the screen, showing it to the grayed-out profile picture.
After waiting for a while, there was no response.
She obediently put away the notebook, curled up her legs, rested her chin on her knees, and quietly stared at the empty room list.