Chapter 3: Lingering Regrets
"Is Liu Miaomiao here?"
The conference room door pushed open, and a tall, slender man in a dark green uniform stepped out. He had a striking Asian face, and as he spoke, a smile revealed a row of brilliant white teeth that contrasted sharply with his tanned skin.
The man's dark green uniform looked exceptionally well-crafted, with gold-threaded piping along the edges. The gold cufflinks and buttons were entirely hand-stitched with silver thread, and he wore a deep rose-red necktie. Embroidered on his chest was the pattern of a giant tree on the verge of decay.
Lu Mingfei knew that emblem. It was the crest of Cassel College—Yggdrasil, the semi-decayed World Tree.
Although the dark green uniform lacked any brand logos and looked more like a custom-tailored school uniform, none of the elites present were lacking in sharp eyes. A single glance was enough to tell that the fabric and texture were of extremely high quality. Combined with the examiner's extraordinary, graceful demeanor, it was hard not to feel that this low-profile Cassel College truly deserved its reputation as an aristocratic prestigious institution on par with the University of Chicago!
Liu Miaomiao, hailed as the little piano princess, stood up reflexively, looking precisely like a green recruit suddenly called out by a drill instructor during military training. Her simple reply still carried a trace of a tremble: "Here!"
"I am Ye Sheng, your examiner for today. Come with me." Following the man's brief self-introduction, Liu Miaomiao followed him into the conference room as obediently as a little rabbit, not forgetting to turn around and shut the door behind her.
"Senior Ye Sheng..." Lu Mingfei stared at the tightly closed door, muttering to himself.
"Senior? Lu Mingfei, do you know this examiner?" Chen Wenwen looked at Lu Mingfei in surprise.
"Not really... I suppose." Lu Mingfei kept his gaze fixed on the closed door.
"Lu Mingfei, calling him 'Senior' like that—don't tell me you think getting into Cassel College is already a done deal for you?" Zhao Menghua looked at Lu Mingfei with a hint of provocation.
Lu Mingfei couldn't even be bothered to give Zhao Menghua a look that said *you're an idiot*, choosing instead to treat the latter like air and ignore him completely.
After all, a towering tree does not pay attention to mayflies, and a giant dragon does not look down upon ants. At this moment, Zhao Menghua was no different in Lu Mingfei's eyes than a kindergarten brat downstairs with snot hanging from his nose, wearing split-crotch pants, and shouting threats at others over a lollipop.
If that kid flings snot at you, would you really strain yourself to blow an identical glob and fling it back?
Where is your dignity?
Besides, Lu Mingfei had no desire to chat or trade barbs with Chen Wenwen and Zhao Menghua right in front of him. Seeing Senior Ye Sheng—someone both familiar and unfamiliar—had sent his thoughts wandering to the ends of the earth.
Sitting in the conference room just a wall away from him right now shouldn't just be Senior Ye Sheng; Senior Shitoku Aki should be there too, shouldn't she?
Judging by the timeline, before long, these two lovers who had yet to confess their feelings would embrace their burning affection and perish together under the cold, pitch-black waters of the Three Gorges Dam.
Oppressive, stifling, suffocating—trapped at the sunless bottom of the Three Gorges, the two of them had still wanted to burn the remaining embers of their lives to bring the mission objective back to the college.
That day, the plaza of Cassel College was filled with candlelight like stars and the fluttering of white doves. The Secret Party had not only lost a pair of soulmate companions, but two heroic and generous warriors as well!
This had always been a deep, lingering regret entrenched in Lu Mingfei's heart!
Perhaps this was the very meaning of his dream's existence, Lu Mingfei thought. He instinctively clenched the fist resting on his knee, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. This was also the most important reason why he had been obsessed with strength and diligent in kendo over the past three years.
He had witnessed his past self doing nothing—like a stubborn, cowardly dead child holding onto an unbearable past, refusing to let go, making mistake after mistake, and never growing up!
Lu Mingfei didn't want to become that, and he was terrified of becoming that.
This time, those desolate and mournful dirges—he would fight desperately to rewrite them. Those tragedies named regret—he would cut them down one by one!
"Next, Su Xiaoqiang." The conference room door opened, and Ye Sheng politely escorted Liu Miaomiao out.
Everyone present snapped their heads up in a synchronized copy-paste motion, gazing at the little piano princess who had been the first to step up yet had only lasted ten minutes before getting a Game Over. They thought to themselves that even if they couldn't pass the trial, they must absolutely not fail quite so quickly.
Only Lu Mingfei looked at Ye Sheng, secretly plotting world-shaking, destiny-altering matters in his head.
Liu Miaomiao had already felt somewhat aggrieved, and now, being stared at by everyone as if they were observing a silverback gorilla at a zoo, she could no longer hold back her humiliation and desolation. With her eye rims reddened, she grabbed her schoolbag and hurried away without a word.
With Liu Miaomiao as a cautionary tale, even the usually fearless Little Goddess stiffened her posture the moment her name was called, mechanically following Ye Sheng into the conference room. Everyone present except Lu Mingfei had the words "I am nervous" written in plain sight across their faces.
"Lu Mingfei, aren't you nervous?" Chen Wenwen looked at Lu Mingfei's unchanged expression and asked with curiosity.
"Just keep a calm mind. Cassel is a rather eccentric school, and their criteria for selecting people are quite... special. Whether you can get in or not is actually written in your family tree long ago. But for the vast majority of people, not getting in is actually a blessing," Lu Mingfei said.
"You seem to know a lot about them," Chen Wenwen said curiously.
"Utter humbug!" Zhao Menghua sneered.
Barely five minutes later, the Little Goddess walked out of the door with an indignant look on her face. She grabbed her backpack, made a not-very-scrightening grimace at the courteous Ye Sheng behind her, gave a fierce stomp of her foot, and left.
"Zhao Menghua," Ye Sheng called out.
Before stepping through the door, Zhao Menghua shot Lu Mingfei a provocative look. The underlying message was roughly: *I know you, Lu Mingfei, have always put on this all-knowing, completely in-control act to scare people, but inside you're actually terrified to death. Such pathetic tricks won't work on me at all. Just wait, now it's Lord Zhao's turn to step up and perform!*
Well... Zhao Menghua certainly delivered a rather spectacular performance for Lu Mingfei—face-changing.
Lord Zhao had gone in with an imposing, swaggering air that said, *If I, Zhao Menghua, can't pass this interview, no one else even needs to dream about it*, and then emerged less than three minutes later looking utterly devoid of hope, as if struck by a bolt from the blue.
"This academy is toxic!" Zhao Menghua dropped those words with lingering resentment and departed in regret.
"Chen Wenwen," Ye Sheng read the name of the next interviewee.
Chen Wenwen felt her heart skip a beat and jumped abruptly to her feet, her body stiff. She felt like an imperial envoy suddenly called out by the emperor during morning court, unsure whether the next second would bring the glorious reward of a promotion or the death sentence of "drag him out and behead him."
Watching the colleagues she knew in the imperial court get executed by the emperor one by one until only Lu Mingfei was left as her single straw of hope, Chen Wenwen looked back at Lu Mingfei with a helpless expression. "Lu Mingfei, I'm a little scared."
Any ordinary boy, upon seeing Chen Wenwen act like this, would have his heart flutter, drop to his knees on the spot to perform the three-kneel and nine-prostration kowtow to the emperor, praying for His Majesty to deal with her leniently—otherwise, execute this humble subject along with Minister Chen!
But was Lu Mingfei an ordinary subject?
He said nothing at all, merely returning Chen Wenwen's look with a calm-as-water smile. Yet this smile carried a rather intriguing depth.
It was as if he were telling her: *I, Prime Minister Lu, have long been a great favorite by His Majesty's side; I know all the inside information! What kind of grand scenes has old Lu not witnessed? Spare me the weak act, Minister Chen, you might as well meet your end with dignity. Dead is dead whether sooner or later, and do you really think a few words of comfort from me will save your neck?*
In the end, Chen Wenwen lasted fifteen minutes before walking out crestfallen. She glanced at Lu Mingfei's completely un-nervous face, wanting to say something several times, but ultimately closed her mouth and fell silent.
"Shall I wait for you here?" Chen Wenwen finally asked Lu Mingfei.
"Don't worry about waiting for me, you go ahead. I'll be in there quite a while," Lu Mingfei replied with a brilliant smile. Yet this smile wasn't directed at Chen Wenwen—it was aimed squarely at Ye Sheng.
Then, he asked a question that left even Ye Sheng baffled.
"Senior, are you ready?"