Volume 2 Hello, Xia Mi Chapter 156 Cicada, Mantis, and Yellow Bird (VI)
He called Lin Fenglong "Sir" because Lin Fenglong had been expelled from the family many years ago, although there was still a photo of him in the manor, and he would tell young children that it was someone's posthumous photo.
But this was just a show for outsiders. Lin Fenglong was too important to the family, and the family knew that he would never die easily. The pursuit of him had never stopped for hundreds of years. Until Lin Fenglong sold subway cards on the hunter website to make a living, he gradually came into the sight of hunters. This guy who had been hiding for many years finally couldn't help but surface.
Lin Fenglong was stunned for a moment by this name that he had not heard for a long time. Once upon a time, this name was also a brilliant and dazzling existence, and it occupied an important position in the secret party.
He subconsciously wanted to reach into his sleeve, trying to grab the dagger hidden inside. Although the Word Spirit was not suitable for fighting, every member of the secret party from that era was like this, and they would even put knives and guns under their pillows when they slept. He touched nothing, there was nothing inside his wide-sleeved cloth shirt. Over the years, he had become a complete BJ uncle, who would drink soy milk and carry a birdcage for a stroll in the morning and say hello to the neighbors. That kind of life was far away from him.
"Give me some time." Lin Fenglong whispered, leaning back in his chair and looking up at the old ceiling. A tide of thoughts surged from the lake of his heart that had been silent for many years. The gate that used to seal his memory was completely opened in the face of the curse of Friedrich von Long.
When he looked at Finkel again, the old quail's eyes had changed. Although they still had the turbidity that was unique to old people, they exuded absolute loyalty and perseverance, as if they could pierce through the dark clouds and let the sun shine again. Finkel couldn't help but feel that if he held a gun to Lin Fenglong's head now, this old man who was so scared of death a few minutes ago would never say a useful word to him.
That was the look of a soldier. In the summer more than 100 years ago, Lin Fenglong had already set foot on Chinese soil for the first time. But at that time he was an invader, a member of the German infantry division. He was an eyewitness to the countless atrocities that had been committed.
"If the other shop owners here knew that you had a part in the Eight-Nation Alliance, they would rush over and skin you alive, right?" Finkel joked.
"Not entirely true. I was already a member of the secret party at that time. I joined that army just to be able to take a warship to China more conveniently. When my comrades were sitting on the dragon chair and taking pictures, I was busy looking for relics related to the dragon civilization and spent a lot of money to move them onto merchant ships heading to Germany." Lin Fenglong said, "This was the task given to me by the secret party at the time. At that time, China was still under the corrupt rule of the late Qing Dynasty. The royal family knew a little about the dragon clan, but they didn't think they were alien creatures. Since ancient times, there has been a saying about the true dragon emperor, which led them to believe that they were relics of ancient true dragons. It was really not easy to take away the antiquities of the dragon civilization from these pedantic guys. The army was a good cover. When you put the gun on the table, those high-sounding late Qing nobles will be easy to talk to."
When Lin Fenglong said these words, he was full of energy and had a hint of contempt. It sounded like he despised those people in the late Qing Dynasty. Modern Europeans always whitewash themselves as fighters for peace from the Middle Ages to modern wars, but most of the time, they always used coercion, inducement, or robbery in those colonial lands. It was normal for Lin Fenglong to do things in this way in those days.
"I know that before the Summer Mourning incident, the Secret Party obtained a total of 666 items related to dragon civilization from the Far East, more than 30 of which passed through your hands. You are the last merchant sent by the Secret Party to the Far East." Finkel nodded.
These things are basically secrets to the modern secret party, but not to Fingel. The predecessor of today's Kassel College was named after the secret party member Meneck Kassel, who was once the elite leader of the European Dragon Slayer Secret Party. At that time, the secret party's base was in Kassel Manor, Germany, which was the territory of the Fingel family.
This group of German nobles had experienced the baptism of two world wars, and they were far inferior to the current directors of Kassel College, and were a little lonely, but in Germany a hundred years ago, they were the most powerful supporters of the secret party. At that time, Lin Fenglong was the leader of the younger generation of the family. His excellent words and flexible mind made him quickly stand out in the secret party, and he came to the side of Menek Kassel and was entrusted to go to the Far East to buy dragon antiquities.
At that time, everyone was happy about the growing success of the secret party, but they did not expect that entrusting Friedrich von Roon to do this would be a wrong decision that would make them regret for the rest of their lives.
The four words "summer mourning" were like lightning that struck Lin Fenglong's mind. His fingers twitched uncomfortably, and the memories he least wanted to recall emerged one after another.
"However, my knowledge of those things is limited to what the elders in the family have passed down orally. If possible, I would like to hear it from you in person." Finkel nodded and smiled. It was rare for him to be so serious.
"Why are you looking for me? Revenge? Are you from Angers?" Lin Fenglong stared into Finkel's eyes.
"That's not accurate. I am indeed studying at Kassel College now, but I represent the ideas of my family. No one knows what you have been through in China and why you suddenly betrayed the secret party. What I am going to do with you depends on the truth you tell me." Finkel said lightly, but Lin Fenglong sensed a hint of danger in that sentence.
After a long silence, Lin Fenglong's body, which had been as tense as a bow, slowly relaxed. Maintaining that kind of tension at a high intensity was a great burden on his current body, and he also knew that he could never be a match for the young man in front of him. His greatest asset was that it was difficult for him to die, not that he would not die. This was really insignificant in the face of today's means, but it was very useful in the war-torn era many years ago.
"I didn't betray the secret party." Lin Fenglong's eyes were like a torrential rain and dark clouds.
"If that's the case, then you shouldn't have been on the run all the time. There must be a reason for hiding your identity for more than 100 years." Finkel shook his head.
"Not long after that deadly thing arrived at Kassel Manor, I was assassinated by the Qing imperial family while I was still in China. From those people, I learned what I had done. This thing was so horrible that it could even destroy the accumulation of the European secret party for thousands of years. Those who killed me threw my body into an ancient well and buried it with stones, but they didn't know how tenacious my vitality was. Even if I was just a piece of corpse, I could grow back. I survived, but I didn't know where to go. At this time, the manor far away in Germany was probably destroyed . No one could survive the sneak attack of that thing. The elders of the secret party would definitely track down my whereabouts like crazy. They would regard me as a traitor who was crazy and would use all means to force the secrets they wanted after catching me. The strong sense of guilt also made me dare not go back to Germany. If I had been more careful, if I had checked it once more and confirmed the goods with my own eyes, such a tragedy would not have happened."
Lin Fenglong held his head and cried bitterly: "I am sorry for Menek!"
"Cargo No. 666 arrived at Cassel Manor. It was a coffin," said Finkel. "According to later investigations, we learned that this was something the Qing government found while robbing tombs in Gansu. It was probably the royal tomb of the Western Xia Dynasty in history. At that time, the Qing government was in financial difficulties, so they organized officers and soldiers from all over the country to rob tombs for gold and silver. When this coffin was discovered, there was a spy from the Dragon Slayer family among the soldiers digging the tombs. He found that this was something from the Dragon Clan and reported it to the Qing government in exchange for a reward. After the Qing government opened the coffin for inspection, it was found that the body in the coffin was nailed to death with 20 silver nails, and the order was suspected to be the lost Taoist method of Liu Ding Liu Jia. At that time, they felt that this was an extremely dangerous thing, because ancient books said that only evil ghosts who would be resurrected from the underworld would use this method to isolate themselves from the world of the living."
"Yes, those silver nails are actually alchemical weapons of the ancient Chinese dragon-slaying family. They used these silver nails to destroy the heart of the corpse and forced it to stop beating. Although the people in the Qing court didn't know what it was specifically, feudal superstition made them very sensitive to these things. They knew that I was in the cultural relics business and deliberately came to me to act, wanting to sell this thing to me in exchange for 50,000 marks, paid in silver coins. At that time, I only took a look at the appearance of the coffin, and I knew that it was something related to the dragon clan, because there was a part of dragon text engraved on the coffin. But I didn't open it for inspection. After opening the coffin, the people of the Qing court sealed the coffin with more stringent means, which led me to think that was the state of the coffin itself, hoping to transport it back to Germany for inspection in the most intact form. I made a fatal mistake!" Lin Fenglong cried and sighed.
"The coffin was transported back to Germany, along with a group of deadpools. It was speculated afterwards that someone who knew the secret party and the dragon clan presented this perfect method to the Qing court, with the goal of destroying the core of the secret party." Finkel said, "It was an accident. At that time, the secret party supported the Chinese revolution to overthrow the monarchy because of Lu Shanyan's activities . This happened to poke the weakest point of the Qing court. The two sides should have had no intersection. At Kassel Manor, the dragon clan in the coffin was coincidentally released by the doctor in charge of the autopsy at the time. It was the first generation of the dragon clan. The dragon slaughtered the entire Kassel Manor. Almost all the elites of the secret party at that time were killed. Only one person survived and later became the president of Kassel College - Hilbert Jean Angers."
"Principal Ange has never stopped searching for you for a hundred years. He has never found anything, but he knows you are still alive. In his opinion, you betrayed the secret party and colluded with the Qing court. You are probably still living freely somewhere in China. Your Word Spirit is not in the textbooks. It is an extremely rare life-creating ability, called Nirvana by the Chinese dragon-slaying family. Before you, it has only appeared once in ancient China. Even if you are thrown into a meat grinder and crushed, as long as there are still a few living cells, you can be revived to your original appearance. So you can't be killed easily, unless something can destroy all your cells when killing you. The most likely way for you to die is old age. This Word Spirit can reverse life regeneration, but it cannot replace your aging organs with brand new cells. It can only restore you to the moment before you suffered a fatal blow."
"I don't have much time left. Even if I can crawl back from the abyss of death countless times, time is still my biggest enemy. We have dragon blood, but we are not true dragons and cannot fight against aging." Lin Fenglong curled up in a chair and said quietly. He had kept these secrets in his heart for many years and he never dared to tell anyone. Now his descendants finally found him. When he told all the secrets, the stone that had been weighing on him finally disappeared, and he felt relieved.
"I once expected Ange to find me one day, so that I could hug his thighs and cry to him and confess my guilt, telling him how sad I have been all these years. In fact, I have been secretly following the secret party. I know about the establishment of Kassel College, and I also know that the current directors are all from that era and made a fortune in the war. But I am also afraid that Ange will appear in front of my antique shop, with a hunting blade called revenge hanging around his waist, saying nothing, but stabbing the tip of the knife into my body the moment he sees me. It doesn't matter if I can't die. Modern technology has too many ways to kill a person completely. He could just tie me up and sink me into the depths of the trench, and then I will cycle between death and resurrection forever until I am completely old and no cell is active anymore."
Lin Fenglong lowered his head and whispered, without even looking at Finkel. He was like a devout believer sitting in the church, telling the priest about the sins of his first half of life. He did not even ask for God's forgiveness because he felt that he was unforgivable.
"Are you going to live like this for the rest of your life?" Finkel turned his head and looked at the old shop that was already in a state of disrepair. He, Chu Zihang and Xia Mi faithfully carried out the mantis catching the cicada plan and followed Garrincha to this alley. After confirming that Lin Fenglong was Friedrich, he hid here to avoid the search , so he knew the structure of the shop very well.
There is a small door behind the screen, and inside the door is a secret bedroom. On the old cupboard is a large computer with internet access, and in the corner are all materials about the secret party. On the wall hangs a yellowed poster, Es Ist Ein Schnee Gefallen, a classic German folk song, with a picture of a wife shivering in the snow outside a cabin, looking into the distance. It looks like it was made by a German troupe when they came to China for a performance. Lin Fenglong's homesickness made him secretly tear off the poster of the opera house and take it home to hide.
"Every old man should have his own nest, where he can slowly count down the few remaining days." Lin Fenglong whispered, "I don't have the courage to see Angers, let alone go back to Germany to place a mourning flower on the graves of those old friends. I am a humble and cowardly villain. Shouldn't villains stay in such shady places? Just like moles."
Finkel was silent for a few seconds. "To be honest, there are actually a few people in the family you should know. They are old people who survived from that era. They once controlled the secret party, but now they can only survive with tubes inserted in the back of their heads. Talking to them will feel like communicating with a group of zombies. It usually takes more than ten minutes for their fingers to type a complete sentence on the keyboard. If you are willing to go back, you may be able to find some traces of the past. But I don't recommend you to do this. The family is still looking for your traces. It's not that they doubt the incident that year. That is already past history and is not worth mentioning. They still want to find you because your words are too incredible. Your extremely tenacious vitality and the ability to regenerate cells have surpassed the scope of human exploration. They hope to study you."
"You are still doing this kind of thing..." Lin Fenglong sighed, "The Dragon Clan is not something that can be interpreted through research! It has been proven countless times!"
"If you stay in a place like this, you won't know how vast the outside world is." Finkel smiled. "Before the First World War, European countries launched an arms race, and many of the research results were preserved, and some are still benefiting the public. You should also know that the secret party cooperated with various countries at that time, and everyone had begun to try to use the power of science to decipher the mysteries of the dragon race. After 100 years, perhaps someone has already deciphered it, but we don't know it yet."
"Your tone reminds me of Hitler. Are you going to take me back to the concentration camp?"
"No, I am not interested in their so-called great cause." Finkel shrugged. "Principal Ange is an avenger, and I am also an avenger, but he wants to kill all the dragons in the world, and I only want to kill one of them. I will tell the family that Friedrich von Long has not been found, and Lin Fenglong is just a charlatan. In exchange, I want to know if you have any other discoveries after the Summer Mourning incident. Since you regret it, you should want to urgently investigate and restore the full picture of the incident. That dragon...what kind of first generation is it?"
"Not sure..." Lin Fenglong pondered for a moment. He knew that this answer was not what Finkel wanted. Finkel had done a great job. He had to work hard to find some compensation from his old memories. "Later, I went to the place where the coffin was excavated and visited the local people. Due to lack of manpower, the officers and soldiers also mobilized poor people to help when digging the tomb. There are still several villages there today. Most of the people in the village have the surname Li. It is said that they are descendants of Li Yuanhao, the royal family of Western Xia. Western Xia is inland and there is not much water. The King of Bronze and Fire has been killed by you. The King of Earth and Mountains may be under our feet. If it is really a first-generation species, it may be the most mysterious sky and wind."
"The dragon has never appeared since the Summer Mourning. Throughout this incident, the dragon clan is no longer dominated by violence as in the past. Instead, they are displaying conspiracies, encirclements and scams similar to those of humans. Assuming that it really is the sky and the wind, this dragon king must be so cunning that it is unimaginable." Finkel exclaimed in admiration.
Lin Fenglong opened the cupboard that had not been closed yet, took out a few subway cards from it and placed them in front of Finkel.
"I never thought I'd see my relatives again in my life... I really don't have anything to show you. Do you want these? They can open the Nibelungen in this city, where the Dragon King is." Lin Fenglong smiled mischievously and gave a thumbs up. "To be honest, you look a lot like me when we were young. Very handsome!"
Everything was finally settled, and Lin Fenglong felt much relieved. He even dared to muster up the courage to recognize his relatives. Although Finger always looked like a hunched-over loser, if he really combed his hair, he would find that he was a good dog standing in the crowd. At least he could be considered a Chow Chow, majestic and powerful!
"People in my family make a living by showing off our good looks!" Finkel said with pride, "I was also a popular girl in the academy. Wherever I went, there were schoolmates holding flowers in their hands!"
He reached out and put all the subway cards in his pocket, and smiled at Lin Fenglong. What is politeness? These two words never appear in Finger's dictionary. Although his family even has a manor and is an inherited old aristocratic family, as a loser, his financial situation is not optimistic. If Lin Fenglong can make a fortune by selling these subway cards, then why can't Finger find an old fool to take over? For example, Caesar Gattuso, who didn't get the subway card, should be happy to spend money to buy another one!
