Chapter Three: The Darkness Beneath the Torrential Rain (3)

Just as Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang were preparing to wipe the blackboard for the sixth time, a deep honking sound rang out timely across the playground.

The car headlights cut through the rain like sharp swords, and the engine’s rumble resembled a lion deliberately suppressing its roar.

A Maybach 62—a pinnacle of luxury automobiles.

“Wow, a Maybach 62! Senior Brother, is your dad really this powerful?” Lu Mingfei nearly pressed his entire face against the glass window in awe.

Chu Zihang didn’t quite understand what a Maybach 62 signified; he wasn’t well-versed in cars, only knowing that it was worth several times more than his “dad’s” priciest Mercedes-Benz.

His lips twitched slightly, but the words “It’s not my dad’s” still failed to escape.

“Let’s get going,” Chu Zihang said calmly.

“All right, all right, I’ll turn off the lights.”

After confirming the classroom was locked, Lu Mingfei and Chu Zihang went downstairs together.

At the building’s exit, a middle-aged man already stood waiting, holding a large black umbrella, bent slightly forward with a smile so servile it rivaled even the driver at Liu Miaomiao’s house.

Seeing Lu Mingfei, the man’s smile faltered momentarily, clearly surprised to see someone else accompanying Chu Zihang.

“My junior brother, with such heavy rain, let him ride along,” Chu Zihang spoke sparingly, refusing to slip under the umbrella with the man, instead braving the rain to get into the car alone.

The man hesitated, but undeterred, cheerfully extended the umbrella over Lu Mingfei’s head.

Lu Mingfei, who had never received such a grand gesture back in middle school, shrank his head in flattered surprise and nodded repeatedly in thanks.

After settling Lu Mingfei in the back seat, the man returned to the driver’s seat, folded the umbrella, and passed it to Chu Zihang.

“Stick it into the door, there’s a slot specifically for umbrellas,” he instructed.

“I know, you told me before,” Chu Zihang replied, feeling the umbrella’s weight heavier than usual but paying it little mind.

He had heard that Rolls-Royce offered custom umbrellas included with their cars, priced steeply. He wasn’t sure whether Maybach’s level surpassed Rolls-Royce’s.

But since both were top-tier luxury cars, it was normal for the umbrella to be heavier and better than an ordinary one.

The middle-aged man turned his head back, gripped the steering wheel, and through the rearview mirror studied Lu Mingfei.

“It’s rare to see Zihang come home with a classmate. What’s your name? Where do you live?”

“Hello, uncle, my name is Lu Mingfei,” Lu Mingfei answered truthfully, then gave his neighborhood address.

“That’s not far from Zihang’s home; it’s on the way.”

The man began to chatter: “You must be close with Zihang, huh? Your clothes are soaked? Let me turn on the heated rear seats for you—try it out. Zihang knows; it’s incredibly comfortable!”

Lu Mingfei was momentarily speechless, unsure how to respond, but glanced at Chu Zihang who, growing impatient, said, “Let’s go.”

“All right!” The man removed his gaze from the rearview mirror, cleared his throat, and gave a command to the central control panel: “Start!”

The screen lit up instantly as if the car had been electrified in an instant; air was compressed into the turbocharger, then pushed into the engine, roaring like a steel lion.

A subtle blue light radiated from the dashboard, extending around the cabin; linear ambient lighting traced the contours of the vehicle like flowing light.

“High-tech voiceprint recognition. Only three people in the world can start this car: me, the boss, and guess who the third is?”

Chu Zihang remained expressionless: “Don’t care.”

Lu Mingfei cautiously observed the two men, recalling the heartfelt conversation he had with Chu Zihang in the cafeteria of Kassel Academy before going to Japan last life.

This man before him… must be the father who divorced Chu Zihang’s biological mother, as the poker-faced senior had mentioned. They looked quite alike, but their aura was worlds apart—Chu Zihang cold and aloof, while this man’s demeanor… one could easily mistake him for Fingal’s father!

The Maybach roared to life amid the rain, splashing water fiercely behind. Lu Mingfei leaned back in his seat, feeling the force pressing against him.

He had ridden in many cars, but this kind of thrust was only experienced in Caesar’s Bugatti Veyron and Nono’s Ferrari.

“Your mom didn’t come to pick you up in this heavy rain?”

“Good thing I didn’t wash the car this morning.”

“By the way, the security guard at your school…”

The man’s tone grew lively as if recalling youthful tales, but Chu Zihang ignored him completely, letting him ramble on alone. Yet Lu Mingfei sensed that Chu Zihang was listening to every word.

Perhaps tired of the man’s chatter, Chu Zihang turned on the radio to listen to the news.

A female announcer’s standard Mandarin voice came from the speakers:

“…Typhoon Dandelion made landfall on the southeast coast of our city this afternoon…”

“I hate this typhoon weather—heavy rain, water rising, traffic jams everywhere,” the man grumbled.

Sure enough, the Maybach’s speed slowed, and through the rain-speckled windows, the gridlock of vehicles was clearly visible.

Like a school of flying fish swimming upstream to a waterfall’s mouth, no matter how much they flicked their tails, they couldn’t advance.

The Maybach crept forward with the traffic, and a few hundred meters ahead, red and blue flashing lights appeared. Two small cars had collided.

Two drivers stood under umbrellas, pointing fingers at each other in the rain, while a raincoat-clad traffic officer stood between them photographing the cars.

Only a narrow lane remained open for cars to squeeze through.

“I told you I hate rainy days—rain breeds accidents and then everything’s gridlocked,” the man said, tapping the steering wheel impatiently.

“Damn it, what’s there to argue about? Insurance companies will pay anyway. Just move the cars and get going. I’ve got things to do after dropping off my son…”

He glanced around and suddenly noticed a turning lane to the right, connected to a side road. For some reason, it was empty. A nearly camouflaged elevated highway loomed ahead in that direction.

“That road should lead onto the overpass, but it’s probably closed now,” the man said.

“Planning to break onto the overpass?” Chu Zihang’s brow twitched. “What if you can’t get down?”

“If you can get up, you can get down,” the man replied. “Bribe the cops with a few cigarettes, in this heavy rain they won’t give us trouble.”

Just then, the cars to the right inched forward a few meters, opening a space for an incoming vehicle.

The man reacted swiftly—gas, handbrake, steering wheel—all in one smooth motion, executing a perfect in-place drift to slip the 6.2-meter Maybach precisely into the gap between two cars like a scalpel.

The BMW driver behind slammed his brakes and honked furiously, cursing through the windshield.

“Can you drive or not? Are you rushing to a funeral?”

“Don’t mind him. He won’t dare hit us. Our rear bumper alone could blow out his insurance coverage.”

The man shrugged, whistling cheerfully as he turned the car into the side road leading to the overpass.

Under the dim streetlights, the Maybach sped along the empty elevated highway. The spray of water shimmered amber in the glow.

Once the road cleared, the man’s mood brightened noticeably, and he began chatting with Chu Zihang again.

The topics ranged from Chu Zihang’s plans after high school to childhood anecdotes, even taking the liberty of playing some foreign music—a song Lu Mingfei had never heard.

The trees they grow high, and the leaves they do grow green,

Many is the time my true love I've seen,

Many an hour I have watched him all alone,

He's young but he's daily growing.

...

“Altan’s ‘Daily Growing.’ Not bad, huh? Everyone says it’s a great album, so I bought it. It’s about fatherly love—Lu, do you know them?”

Not wanting to dampen the man’s enthusiasm, Lu Mingfei nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes! I love them too. I sing their songs every day in the shower.”

“That’s good, that’s good. I was worried you wouldn’t like foreign songs. The young people I know all prefer Jay Chou. I like him too, his ‘hmm-hmm-ha-hey’ style, so cool!”

“Then why did you buy this album?” Chu Zihang asked flatly, staring out the window. “Don’t you realize it’s a girl singing to her father? It’s not suitable for us to listen to.”

“It’s just to cultivate some taste. Listening to foreign songs makes you seem more cultured. Besides, having a boy or a girl is the same...”

Suddenly, for some unknown reason, everyone in the car fell silent. Only the plaintive, mellifluous female voice accompanied by soft guitar strumming hummed the Irish folk tune inside the cabin.

Though the conversation between the man and Chu Zihang was carefully restrained, Lu Mingfei vaguely sensed a complex relationship between them.

And Chu Zihang showed clear signs of displeasure—perhaps even anger—toward some of the man’s topics.

If Lu Mingfei weren’t still in the car, he felt they might have started arguing.

Everyone has their own struggles...

Thinking of the formidable Chu Zihang admired by all at Shilan Middle School and Kassel Academy, yet who bore hidden growing pains, Lu Mingfei sighed inwardly.

Suddenly, the music in the car cut off abruptly. Lu Mingfei assumed the man had turned off the stereo.

But soon he realized not only was the sound gone—the dim streetlights, the splashing water, the speeding Maybach—all seemed paused, as if time itself had been frozen.

A handsome boy dressed in gothic black mourning attire sat in the front passenger seat, somehow producing a car window crank and rocking the window up and down like paddling.

“Beautiful, isn’t it, brother?” the boy said without turning his head, extending his hand outside the window.

“Scenes like this are rare—even Hollywood blockbusters wouldn’t dare give you such exquisite special effects.”

As he spoke, the boy gently reached out to touch the raindrops suspended midair.

His movements were soft and delicate, as if he wasn’t stroking frozen rain but plucking the strings of some ancient musical instrument.