Dragon Clan: Lu Mingfei returns from Sekiro

Chu Zihang flipped through the photos one by one. There seemed to be writing on the corner of the photo with a red marker, but it was no longer clear because it was soaked in water.

He clearly remembers the scene in the photo.

Wearing a white competition uniform, he swung the sword with his kendo teacher in the kendo hall of the Children's Palace. His mother was on the stage waving a rolled-up poster to cheer him on.

Then there was the first car "Dad" gave to Mom, a pink Maserati. Mom sat on the handlebar and gestured to the camera, but it was not a candid shot, but a shot of "Dad". Originally, In the photo, "Dad" is also in the frame, but his head has been cut off.

There is also a shopping mall, where little Chu Zihang and his mother are sitting in a Starbucks seat, drinking coffee and eating chocolate mousse cake.

Every photo was taken secretly, through the grass, through the glass, through the rain curtain

Mom shows many faces in the photos, laughing, staring, lonely, like a mother, a little girl, and a wife. The slightly green Chu Zihang always has a straight face.

It gives the impression that the person photographed is some kind of perverted stalker.

Turning to the last one, Chu Zihang was suddenly stunned.

It was a family photo.

The shooting location was not an amusement park or a villa, but a simple farmer's market.

There was scattered snow in the dark sky. Behind the three people was a van. The trunk was open. Bacon and sausages were packed in red plastic bags, a bag of green grapes, bulk halva and mung bean cakes, and two boxes of pure Milk, and a brand new unopened electric train toy.

The child in a down jacket wore a felt hat and held a crayfish with its claws cut off in his hand, raising it high.

That was 6-year-old Chu Zihang. Standing on his left and right were his biological father and mother.

My mother was looking worried at the camera, while my father was holding a plastic box containing brine in his left hand. Inside was the hot braised large intestine he had just bought.

The family photo was written in black marker.

"My favorite son", "My favorite wife".

Chu Zihang suddenly understood who took these photos.

Sneaking behind the mother and son to take pictures was like something that man would do.

He's a top ten executive in Kassel, for whom cross-dressing and stalking are just a piece of cake.

Since you are so reluctant to let go, why did you break up in the first place?

He could obviously hold the hand of the woman he loved openly, but he did nothing to push her into the arms of another man. He could only take secret photos like a perverted stalker.

Kassel's "S-class" executives will never be short of money. Even if they are penniless, they can still make money with their own abilities that ordinary people can't make in a lifetime.

But at that time, life at home was always tight, especially after giving birth to Chu Zihang. Her mother was originally planning to quit the dance troupe, but for Chu Zihang’s milk powder money, she had to rearrange old clothes to make money to support the family. .

"Your dad is just fine. He comes to pick me up after get off work every day." Mom once told Chu Zihang in a joking tone.

Then my mother began to dress herself up carefully, choosing a small skirt in front of the mirror, and taking out the jewelry that her grandmother left for her from the exquisite small box, including pearl earrings, pure gold necklaces, and jade bracelets. She suddenly became radiant and charming. Kind of, there is a faint smell of perfume floating on the body.

"Be good, Zihang. Eat bread when you are hungry. Mom will be back later."

She always beat her father out at night when he went out to drink with his colleagues, leaving Chu Zihang alone at home, with cartoons playing on the TV and the toy train clicking on the looping track until the battery ran out of power. The drunken father and the angry mother squeezed in from the door, without saying a word. The mother hugged Chu Zihang and went to sleep in the inner room. The father was drunk in the living room, exuding the stench of alcohol.

When he came back to his senses, they had divorced. Chu Zihang was sentenced to his mother by the court, lived in a large villa, and wore brand-name new clothes worth tens of thousands of dollars.

But their family of three never got together again. Only Chu Zihang went back and forth between his parents, as if the family still existed.

Later, the man disappeared on that rainy night, and this broken home finally completely collapsed.

"We found these photos in an abandoned factory. They seemed to have been washed out by water." said someone from the school administration department.

Hundreds of water pumps are pumping water out with full power. The depth of the lake has dropped visibly to the naked eye. People from the school management department accidentally discovered these photos during further searches.

Some of them recognized Chu Zihang. During last year's summer vacation, this "A-level" specialist had given them a lot of care, so someone immediately found Chu Zihang with these photos.

"Can you take me there?" Chu Zihang raised his head and asked.

The person from the school engineering department pointed in a direction: "Please follow me."

Lu Mingfei was walking on the cement road, sharing these photos with Xia Mi and Eriki.

"Wow, senior brother, have you been facially paralyzed since you were a child? You can't even smile." Xia Mi pointed at Chu Zihang when he was a child.

"Isn't this photo a smile?" Lu Mingfei held the family photo in his hand.

"Cute." Eriki said.

"Where is it?" Xia Mi came over to take a look. If he took a closer look, he saw that there was really a slight arc.

Lu Mingfei's focus was not on Chu Zihang, but on Chu Tianjiao beside him.

He has short black hair and wears a white shirt even in winter. The corner of the shirt is tucked into his waistband. He looks like a Hong Kong and Taiwan star of the last century. Judging from his facial features, he is indeed handsome. No wonder Su Xiaoyan fell in love with him back then. He, but the braised large intestine in his hand made him lose a lot of his temperament.

People from the school administration department took them to a gray-white three-story building. The first floor here was flooded before, but thanks to the hard work of the water pump, the water level has dropped to the waste accumulation area.

"here it is"

"Senior brother, have you been here?"

"Dad used to work here and I used to come visit."

Chu Zihang followed his memory and entered through the long corridor.

When he first came, the factory area had been sealed by the court, with the words "Media Asia Group Bankruptcy and Liquidation" written on it.

But the old man at the door saw that he looked familiar, so he opened the door for him and took him to find his father's single dormitory room.

"The photos were picked up near here," said someone from the school administration department. "They were floating on the water and our divers collected them."

"Yeah." Chu Zihang nodded and continued walking inside.

After turning a corner, there was a room. The rusty door lock fell to the ground, and the door seemed to have been washed open by water.

That was Chu Tianjiao’s former dormitory.

A group of people entered the room. In the middle was a soaked bed. Other daily necessities such as hot water bottles and water cups were scattered and washed away. The white wall was cracked by blisters and fell off.

Chu Zihang felt strange because there was still a lot of water in this room, and he keenly felt that there was something wrong with the mattress.

The last time he came, the old man accompanied him. They only walked around this room and found nothing. Chu Zihang went back without thinking about moving the mattress. Normal people Generally, you don’t think that your mattress will be tampered with.

But that man, he was not a normal person.

Chu Zihang desperately wanted to lift the mattress. He was very close to the hidden side of the man, but he forgot that he was still in the weak stage after the bloodshed. The water-soaked mattress was several times its original weight. times, he suddenly lost his balance, slipped and fell backwards.

A petite embrace caught him: "Senior brother, this is not how you eat tofu. It's so unskilled."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it." Chu Zihang stood up from Xia Mi's flat chest.

"If you had done it on purpose, I would have been shouting molestation." Xia Mi supported him.

"I'll do it." Lu Mingfei volunteered and lifted the mattress.

There is a solid metal pedestal underneath the mattress, but the mattress and the pedestal do not exactly match each other and are slightly misaligned.

A tightly assembled secret door came into view. The iron sheet and iron frame were welded together, and a heavy padlock was added.

You can vaguely see water gushing out from the cracks in the secret door.

Lu Mingfei pulled out the wedge pill. The blade collided with the iron lock and sparked, and the lock opened. The secret doors on both sides fell due to gravity. This was a secret basement filled with water.

"It looks like we need to use a water pump to drain the water here." Lu Mingfei scratched his head.

Although he could dive directly, the water below had not flowed for a long time and had an unpleasant smell, like smelly leather shoes. He took a shower and changed clothes. He really didn't want to jump in.

"Wait." Chu Zihang knelt down, asked for a bright flashlight from the school engineering department, and shined it on the secret door.

The spotlight did not shine on the wall, but on a hole about two meters in diameter, about seven or eight meters away from the secret door.

"Has anyone dug a tunnel to get here?" Lu Mingfei frowned.

Chu Zihang shook his head: "I should have accidentally blasted this hole using Jun Yan. This area belongs to the residential and office areas of factory employees. The terrain is higher than the container housing area where construction workers live, and the water level is also higher. Higher up, the basement wall is connected to the area below. After it explodes, it becomes a connector. The water levels will become consistent. The water in the basement will be sucked out from that hole. The photo should be from that hole. It was flushed out of the hole.”

"Sounds great." Lu Mingfei praised Chu Zihang's profound knowledge with wise eyes. He had long forgotten that connectors were something he learned in junior high school physics.

"Is there any way for Hui Liyi to seal the hole? Use ice to temporarily freeze it." Chu Zihang asked.

"Yes! And Hui Liyi!" Lu Mingfei just thought of it.

Because they had been talking in Chinese, Eriyi couldn't understand what they were doing. Her current mood was probably that she was shopping with everyone. Wherever you go, I will go.

So Lu Mingfei completely explained to Eryi what they were doing in Japanese.

Eriki: "So we have to find a way to drain the water down here, right?" (Japanese)

Lu Mingfei: "Yes, but we have to seal the hole first, otherwise it doesn't seem to work." (Japanese)

Eriki (serious face): "I understand, just keep it with me. Sakura and everyone will go out first." (Japanese)

In short, the matter was handed over to Eri Yi, and the others were asked to evacuate. Lu Mingfei also drove away the people from the school work department, leaving only his own people.

"What is she going to do?" Chu Zihang had a bad feeling.

"Did you really tell her what to do?" Xia Mi also looked at Lu Mingfei with suspicious eyes.

At this moment, the three of them retreated to the open-air parking lot outside the building, which was more than ten meters away from the small building. Eriyi waved to them through the window, smiled and gave a thumbs up.

"Don't worry, Huiliyi is no longer a child. She will be twenty this year and is already a mature and reliable adult." Lu Mingfei chose to trust his wife unconditionally.

As soon as he finished speaking, the wall of the three-story building disintegrated silently, leaving a big hole. Hui Liyi clasped her hands together, golden light burst out from her eyes, and a deep ravine opened on the cement floor. From shallow to deep, the ground at the end suddenly collapsed, and a deep well with a diameter of two meters appeared. The basement was forcibly dug out and exposed to the sun. The water in it flowed along the ravine and flowed into the deep well.

Eriki waved happily, with "Come and praise me" written on her face.

Lu Mingfei walked over and gave her a high-five: "Eriyi is so awesome."

"Hehe." Eriki smiled happily.

"This couple is stupid," Xia Mi said slowly.

"The problem has been successfully solved, hasn't it?" Chu Zihang looked at the ravine on the ground that was at least 10 meters deep, and carefully walked around it to avoid falling.

The basement that had been dusty for many years was finally exposed before his eyes.

There was a steel pipe standing. Chu Zihang and Xia Mi slid down the steel pipe. Lu Mingfei, carrying Huiliyi on his back, landed lightly from a high place.

Because of the water flow, the layout inside was washed into a mess.

But at a glance, you can still see a lot.

For example, classic jazz vinyl records may seem inconspicuous, but there are not many of them left in the world, and some versions are simply astronomically expensive.

Then came the cigars. Chu Zihang picked up one. Although it was wrinkled by blisters, he still recognized its brand. It was the most authentic cigar produced in Cuba, not just this one, but all of them.

And whiskey, the strongest island whiskey.

In the center is a large, comfortable bed, upholstered in Australian sheepskins.

An old-fashioned camera lay on the floor, next to a complete set of photo-development equipment.

In the corner is fitness equipment. The dumbbells are bigger than Chu Zihang’s head...

Sunlight shone in from the cracked floor wall, and Chu Zihang seemed to see the man living here.

Wearing a tight T-shirt that outlined his muscle lines, he walked around the space, holding a cigar and whiskey in his mouth. He leaned against the sink to develop photos, and the subwoofer played the song "Heartbreak Hotel" sung by Elvis Presley in 1956. .

In Chu Zihang's heart, his father has always been coquettish, but he couldn't figure out where that coquettishness came from. What else can a driver who drives for his boss in a factory do besides bragging in the bathing center?

Today he finally understood that his father knew the best cigars and the best whiskey, and loved to listen to Elvis Presley’s fun photography.

That man has been to many places and had many experiences.

He is the kind of person who licks blood with the tip of a knife. He has nothing to do with ordinary people's lives all his life. The only things that accompany him are cigarettes, liquor and cold sabers. When the mood comes, maybe he goes to a bar to have a one-night stand, and he can easily let him do it. Women are obsessed.

But he mistakenly fell in love with a woman named Su Xiaoyan. That woman danced very well. With his ability, it was too easy to chase a beautiful but stupid female dancer. They got married and gave birth to a child. All very happy.

He lived an ordinary life for so many years, and he was greedy for it all, but had to abandon it, because he knew that it was best to only let cigarettes, liquor and sharp knives stay with him, otherwise one day, he would give His wife and children brought disaster.

So in the end he pushed his wife and son away, and even found a man worth entrusting to him in advance.

How cool, this is Chu Zihang’s dad.

But it would be nice if Dad wasn't so cool. If he was really just a driver who loved braised intestines and double spicy chicken wings, maybe their family would still be living an ordinary and happy life.

Chu Zihang suddenly complained about that man. He really wanted to complain to him about why he couldn't hold back and fell in love with his mother.

Besides, since you have fallen in love, you must at least be responsible to the end. What kind of man is he who retreats midway?

But he never had the chance to say these words. He took out the family photo and rubbed it gently with his fingers.

There is his own signature on the man's feet, which reads "Chu Tianjiao" in elegant artistic style.

Everything is really a thing of the past.

"Dad, are you still alive?" Chu Zihang asked softly.

"What's wrong, senior brother?" Xia Mi waved his hand in front of his forehead, "I feel like you are so lost."

Chu Zihang suddenly held her hand.

"What are you doing! I'm going to scream!"

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to feel the warmth of another person."

"Do you feel it?"

"Well, thank you."

Chu Zihang let go of his hand, but Xia Mi held his hand again.

"Sometimes, it's better not to force yourself."