Scene 4: The Bronze City (5)

The boy opened the door like a normal schoolmate and went out. The moment the door closed, there was a deadly silence in the dormitory. Lu Mingfei stunned for a long time and shivered ruthlessly, stretching out a hand to pinch his own face. From outside came a shrill beeping sound, like a thief triggered alarms of all banks in the world in the same instant.

“Is that kid playing with a lighter and triggered fire alarm?” Lu Mingfei thought.

He rushed out of the dormitory, calmed his mood done and shouted, “What the heck is that?”

“What the heck is YOU?” A person said that.

Lu Mingfei was stunned and saw the person standing in front of him. Nuo Nuo, wearing a school uniform skirt, reaching out her hand to pat his face.  “Wake up. Do you sleep too much?”

Lu Mingfei was standing in the hall of the dormitory. Red lights flickered on the ceiling, the beeping came from speakers hidden in the walls. The students, men and women in school uniforms with serious looks, were gathering at the exits of the stairs toward the elevator. Cassel College is limited in size and has a mixed dormitory.

“Is it a fire alarm? Does everybody need such a serious expression for the fire alarm?” Lu Ming looked left and right.

“The first thing for Cassel College is to read the Manual of Emergency. From the day of its establishment, Cassel College is ready to deal with all kinds of emergencies related to the dragons. This alert indicates a sudden emergency and summons the upper-level student to assemble in the library. Hey, Nuo Nuo, you look more and more good-looking!” Fingel peeped out his dishevelled head from their room. Lu Mingfei knew that he only dared to show his head because he liked to sleep naked.

“And you haven’t broken the habit of sleeping naked.” Nuo Nuo said.

“As an F grade loser why do you know the Manual of Emergency! So what is it for? Like the Earthquake Self-help Guide?” Asked Lu Mingfei. “This has nothing to do with me, right? The mark of the 3E exam had not given, I’m not a proper student, can I go back to sleep?”

“It’s actually A FOOL’S BOOK: THE FIRST STEP ON THE BATTLEFIELD FOR A DRAGON SLAYER. I was asking you to bring me a coke when you come back later.” Fingel said, “In my ‘A’ years, I knew it was a state of emergency, they’ll take away your practical marks if you’re absent.”

“But I don’t have any practical marks at all!” Lu Mingfei shouted.

“Just go!” Nuo Nuo pulled him out and ran.

“Why are you pulling me? Shouldn’t you pull your Caesar?” Lu Mingfei stumbled.

“No need to pull him, he’s the most excited one about it. He must have assembled all the best minds from his Students’ Union and rushed to the library!”

A group of people burst into the library and entered the main control room.

Before Lu Mingfei could catch his breath, he saw Caesar strutting in his school uniform with a deadpan face. Behind him were the same deadpan Students’ Union executives, each holding a briefcase as if they were attending the biggest staff meeting. At the same time, Chu Zihang had arrived. All the upper-class students were divided between the Lionheart and the Students’ Union, sitting on the left and right sides neatly.

Lu Mingfei counted quietly, A total of 13 people, all “A” level above. Those who are not divided between the two groups are Kieran, him, and the little girl like the ice sculpture in the 3E exam. She sat in the front row, still leaving only her back to everyone. The professors occupied the remaining positions. Professor Guderian, Professor Manstein, and Professor Von Schneider of the Executive Department looked grim.

“There were 13 students, 12 ‘A’ level, one ‘S’ level, 27 professors, all arrived.” Professor Manstein said to Professor Schneider.

“Start right now.” Professor Schneider dragged his cylinder cart up to the wall and scanned the crowd. The ferocious face, half-hidden by the black mask, made the surroundings quite rapidly.

“Folks, we need your help right now. At that moment, two members of the Executive Department were trapped in a relic of the dragon nationality. We just got important information from there, but the mechanism was triggered and the access road was blocked. Their oxygen is going down every second, and we have to find a way out for them as quickly as possible.” Professor Schneider’s voice was low and quick. It seems it’s very urgent indeed.

“To find the way… They can use Google Earth.” Lu Mingfei raised his hand. “Well… It works fine.”

He didn’t realize how stupid it was until he said it. The whole party turned to look at him with hell-like looking.

“Google doesn’t offer services in place like this.” Professor Schneider clapped his hands, the sides of the teak bookshelves on the top wall moved away, revealing a giant 100-inch screen.

Huge 3-D simulations appeared on the screen, with rulers at the corners. Everyone gasped, it’s a pure bronze city!

“The palace of Norton, King of Bronze and Fire, ancient ruin. Some of you are related to him. Here is a picture of the dragon’s language shot by Aki Shutoku, one of the members inside the dragon’s tomb. Based on speculation, we think it’s a monument to the bronze city, and I want you to concentrate on reading it.” Said Professor Schneider.

“Do you want one of us to resonate with it to have ‘spiritual vision’?” Caesar asked.

“Yes, we could have taken a decade to read it. But they don’t have more than 20 minutes of oxygen! Please as soon as possible!”

“Aki Shutoku?” Lu Mingfei recalled the girlish Japanese girl who interviewed him. He also remembered her gentle smile, how she got in trouble?

Everyone took their computers out of their bags. Both Kieran and the girl connected the cables and pulled out their student cards to swipe through the slots in front of them deftly.

“Approved… Approved… Approved… “

Norma’s voice echoed in the control room as students and professors got into their interfaces.

At the same time, the giant cyan dome stitched together by photos appeared on the big screen. Lu Mingfei stared about it. Is it the dragon’s language? It looks like a big tree!

“The dragons are a group of literary youths right?” Lu Mingfei scolded, is this kind of thing done by people? How can these literary youths create a language that does not make rhetoric but uses pictures to express their content?

“Scan your card! There’s a backup computer.” Nuo Nuo said not far away.

“Oh, oh!” Lu Mingfei took his student card and fumbled through the card slot.

The desktop flipped open with a tablet. The screen lighted up and the boot page appeared automatically. A 3D image of a young girl emerged. She is wearing a white gown like a nightgown, her long hair flying, bowing down to Lu Mingfei.

“Freshman Lu Mingfei, glad to serve you. Please configure your system.” The girl’s voice came through the earphones.

“Wow! The novice guide is so sweet!” Lu Mingfei was very happy to see such an interface, “Are you Norma? I thought you were a middle-aged woman.”

“This is EVA.” The girl smiled. “According to the record, you didn’t take any computer-related modules. Shall I just follow the default setting?”

“No problem!” Said Lu Mingfei. All is well said by the little beauty. He can’t use the system anyway unless it’s configured to look like the StarCraft interface.

The window flashed quickly and the StarCraft interface appeared on the screen.

“Are you familiar with this interface?” EVA said, “Use this. All the reading, moving, and storing is done with a single click, and it’s easy to get started.”

Lu Mingfei stared at the picture of the big tree in his map frame blankly.

Maans looked serious on Moniaher. “Can you get in touch with them? How much longer can they hold?”

“Ye Sheng’s snake can still maintain the communication, I don’t know how long it will last. The speaking spirit will consume his strength, and his oxygen consumption will rise.” Selma looked pale. “Time is running out.”

“The rescue helicopter is only 60 kilometres from here.” Shouted the chief mate, taking off his headphones.

“I think I understand what the system Aki triggered. It wasn’t a clock, the whole city was a machine! Once started, the bronze components begin to move. Old roads were blocked and new ones appeared. It’s a Rubik’s cube city, but we don’t have a map… Aki may have taken photos of the map, but none of us could read them!” Maans clenched his fist on the operating table.

“The principal has ordered the college to support the interpretation. All we can do is wait.” Selma comforted.

Lu Ming looked left and right. Everyone stared at the painting, meditating, sketching on paper with pencils rustling. Caesar and Chu Zihang both stared at the big screen, their faces were gloomy and terrible; Kieran held his forehead in his hands; Nuo Nuo folded her hands in arms, frowning; The little girl sat sculpted and motionless.

The professors kept their voices down and argued fiercely. They are inferior in lineage to these higher-level students, which’s why they cannot expect the happening of spiritual vision. But they’ve been studying dragon’s language for decades, they’re going to bring that knowledge together to do wonders in 20 minutes.

Lu Mingfei thought these people are quite loyal, and quite not easy. It is an impossible task to read a map from a picture in 20 minutes. But these people are the elite, for them even if there is a glimmer of hope, it will be shameful to give up. This is just like what Uncle Ben told Spiderman before he died. With great power comes great responsibility. But Lu Mingfei was different. He was just the sort of person who would scream “ah” when he saw Mary Jane being thrown from the sky by Goblin. Others heard the dragon language as heard thunder, saw dragon language as flowers, long branches and leaves. While for Lu Mingfei, chanting is chanting, the tree is the tree, simple and vigorous.

In fact, if, just say if, he has the ability to think with these elites to save Ye Sheng and Aki, he will try all he can do to save them.

He likes handsome Ye Sheng and beautiful Aki, though their interview questions were kind of silly. It would be a pity if these two people died. Nuo Nuo was right. Why don’t they got married?

As the minutes ticked by, he sighed. This cross-sea rescue is not realistic at all, things are very cruel, for example, you are the Zerg, your two dogs were in the Terran’s base, they are going to set tanks to bomb, you start hatching dragon to save those dogs, do you think there is any chance? You can’t save them at all.

Lu Mingfei froze for a moment and shivered slightly. Not necessarily too late, there is a chance… As long as you want to cheat!

The map of the dragon tomb… Isn’t that a map?

Black sheep wall!

Black sheep. The restless evil among the white sheep, it stirs.

Lu Mingfei felt that he was only a layer of paper away from a taboo. In the control room were a flock of white sheep, cooped up in the wall, very good, looking down at the grass, not looking out, so they had to be pulled over and sheared by the owner. The black sheep… The black sheep is different. It jumps the wall and runs. Anyway, he’s a really bad, bad boy, and he doesn’t play by rules.

Lu Mingfei looked around sneakily and pressed the Enter key. Sure enough, the input box jumped up.

“Black sheep wall.” He typed letter by letter to make sure there’s no mistake.

After a few seconds, everyone’s screen changed to black. From top to bottom, a giant 3d map refreshed. Everyone froze, unable to believe their eyes. On this map, the great bronze cities were dissected into running pieces, old roads were blocked, new roads were generated.

“Lu Mingze” promised a reality, the miracle is happening. Lu Mingfei went over the wall. He played the role of naughty black sheep.

Everyone jerked their heads to look at Lu Mingfei, and everyone realized it was the right map. In the corner of the map marked clearly, “Lu Mingfei’s result.”

The ice-sculpture-like girl also turned around, Lu Mingfei saw her face for the first time, transparent as snow.