Turning around and leaving, with words stuck in my throat, unable to be spoken

Facing this sudden kick, Lu Mingfei was well prepared.

The moment the female knight lifted her foot to dismount, he took a step back, dodging the whip kick—which possessed enough force to snap a person's wrist—by a hair's breadth.

"Bang!"

Without the slightest hesitation, taking advantage of the moment when the female knight's kick missed and her old momentum was spent while the new had not yet arisen, Lu Mingfei pulled the trigger directly.

With a "clang" sound, the bullet unexpectedly missed its target. The deep-red Frigg bullet struck the front fairing of the Suzuki GSX-R1000.

A cloud of red bloody mist burst open. Like a ghost, the female knight avoided the point-blank bullet within a reaction time of a mere 0.5 seconds.

Simultaneously, using her graceful figure as a shield, a miniature handgun quietly slid out of her sleeve and into her hand. The instant she stood straight again, she raised the gun and aimed it right at Lu Mingfei's head.

Behind the transparent visor of her full-face motorcycle helmet, a pair of phoenix-like eyes held pupils where a brilliant, molten gold color slowly surged, glowing brightly like boiling magma deep beneath the earth.

Clearly, the inhumanly fast movement she had just displayed was indeed achieved by entering an inhuman state.

"Pointing a gun at a beautiful lady is hardly the demeanor and virtue expected of a gentleman."

"Aren't your people at Cassel College a bunch of dragon-slaying desperadoes? Why the sudden concern for courtesy toward ladies?"

Lu Mingfei raised his gun to meet her gaze, his tone refusing to yield an inch: "Does that mean even on the battlefield you have to follow the principle of ladies first, letting you charge ahead to fire the very first shot at the dragons?"

"Heh, I think you might have misunderstood." The female knight merely smiled slightly at this.

"First, I am not a member of Cassel College.

Second, the dragon-slaying battlefield makes no distinction between men and women. If you truly insist on establishing an order of precedence, I can only say that countless women have paid with their lives since the very dawn of hybrid origins."

"Admirable." Lu Mingfei nodded slightly, though he still did not lower his gun.

"If you aren't from Cassel College, why are you following me?"

Recalling the white SUV that had previously attempted to block his path via a rear-end collision, his brow furrowed even deeper.

"That person spying on me from across the hotel earlier—was that you?"

"Don't make it sound so unpleasant. What do you mean by spying? That's called protection." The long-legged female knight held her gun in one hand and placed the other on her hip, her tone carrying a mix of grievance and helplessness.

"If you hadn't suddenly run all the way out here for no reason, I would still be vacationing in Dubai right now.

Do you have any idea how many mosquito bites I got today just following you into the mountains? The insects in the mountains are venomous!"

"Protecting me? Who sent you to protect me?" Lu Mingfei ignored the female knight's complaints.

He felt that the mysteries surrounding him were growing more numerous by the day.

In this world, what kind of special identity did he possess that warranted so many people revolving around him?

Could it be that his old man really was Darth Vader, the Dark Lord of the Sith, and he was Mingfei Skywalker, destined to save the world?

Were both the underworld and the authorities trying to pull him into their respective factions just so they could make him and his father slaughter each other for profit?

"We call him the Boss, and beyond that, we know absolutely nothing. All missions are relayed through a gluttonous secretary." Seeing the atmosphere soften, the female knight shrugged helplessly.

"Seriously, the people sent by Cassel College to hunt you down must have already set out. Do you really plan to stand here and awkwardly chat with me on the road?

Pardon my bluntness, but they’ve made plenty of preparations nearby—enough to keep the police tied up for a good hour."

"So, how do you plan to help me get away?" Seeing her lower her muzzle, Lu Mingfei also slightly lowered his Colt.

"Get on my bike. It's fast." The female knight patted her beloved vehicle, which looked like a black panther poised to pounce in the night.

"If you're worried, I don't mind you keeping a gun pointed at me."

With that, she added a suggestive postscript: "Oh, and I mean the one in your hand."

Lu Mingfei: "..."

Regardless of whether this woman was trustworthy or not, she certainly looked like a mischievous, bad woman.

"With all the commotion this bike makes, can we successfully get past Cassel College's blockade?"

"Of course. It just takes a little skill." The female knight raised a hand, measuring the distance of a galactic fingertip in the air.

"I'll demonstrate for you. Just don't shoot, okay?"

As her words drifted down, a strange and deeply resonant cadence drifted leisurely through the gaps of her helmet. Clad entirely in a cloak of pitch-black battle gear, the female knight resembled an emissary of the night, slowly blending into the surrounding twilight.

With the conclusion of that bizarre chant, the enchanting, midnight-black figure suddenly shattered into pieces, as if swallowed by an invisible force. Along with the panther-like motorcycle, she transformed into an ethereal wisp of black smoke and vanished into the evening breeze without a trace.

Lu Mingfei stared at the empty road ahead. Had it not been for the total absence of the crisis-inducing feeling of a gun barrel locking onto him, he almost would have pulled the trigger.

Soon, however, he sensed an inexplicable, unknown energy sweep past him, and the female knight along with her mount reappeared:

"This is my Spiritual Gift: Underworld Cover. It creates an invisibility-like effect, and the range of the domain is about two meters around me."

"Didn't they say Spiritual Gifts are the greatest secret of hybrids? You're just telling me this like it's nothing?" Lu Mingfei was full of doubt. Logically, confidentiality for such a superpower should be extremely high; why was this woman spilling it so casually?

Straddling the driver's seat, the female knight leaned forward slightly, resting her head on her hands atop the fuel tank, the curve of her waist and hips breathtakingly stunning.

"A secret makes a woman a woman!

Now that I've shared such an important secret with you, might I ask you to add a touch of luster to my somewhat lacking charm and honor me with your company?"

"If I choose to refuse, are you going to say 'refusing a lady's invitation is truly ungentlemanly' next?"

Lu Mingfei shifted his backpack to his front, still clutching his gun. "One last question: you guys aren't the Black Organization, are you?"

"Black is merely my personal aesthetic; my colleagues don't have any particular fondness for such a melancholic and mysterious color."

...

Events proved that the Suzuki GSX-R1000 was ill-suited for carrying a passenger, especially since Lu Mingfei was particularly mindful of the boundaries between men and women.

The backpack he wore on his chest was stuffed with heavy items, digging uncomfortably into the long-legged female knight's back and making her exceptionally ill at ease. She was already regretting having flirted with Lu Mingfei using suggestive remarks.

Who could have guessed that this guy would actually keep a gun pressed against her spine the entire ride!

And to top it off, he clearly possessed the courage to pull the trigger and send them both to their deaths!

Yet, matters having reached this point, she could only swallow her grievance in silence, only relaxing a bit whenever they encountered roadblocks set up by Cassel College and the police.

During those times, they would cut their engines and push the motorcycle on foot to avoid attracting unwanted attention.

Strolling and stopping in this manner, they soon left behind Coffin Mountain, the site of the incident, and arrived at Wushan County.

By this time, the long-legged female knight had deactivated her Spiritual Gift: Underworld Cover and slowed the bike down. Just as she was about to tell Lu Mingfei their destination to keep his persecutory delusions from flaring up again, a sharp pain suddenly radiated from her waist.

She slammed on the brakes, the tires letting out a screeching groan against the ground. Turning back with a gaze full of shock and disbelief, she threw an elbow, attempting to overturn the passenger who had returned her kindness with hostility.

However, Lu Mingfei had leaped off the motorcycle a fraction of a second before it came to a complete halt. At that moment, he was holding the casing of a Frigg bullet, and the towel wrapped around his hand bore a thick, concentrated layer of red.

"Are you out of your mind?!"

The long-legged female knight was on the verge of driving herself crazy. In all her years in the field, countless men had tried to drug her to win her favor, but none had ever succeeded.

She never expected to stumble today over a seventeen-year-old high school student. If word of this got out, what face would the Queen of Liquor Germany have left?!

Racing against the onset of the anesthetic, she swiftly fished a small medicine bottle from her pocket, shook out two tiny pills, and swallowed them straight down.

This was medicine she had only brought along temporarily to counteract anesthesia effects, never dreaming it would actually come in handy.

Yet, this stuff took time to take effect, leaving her with no choice but to watch helplessly as the jerk who ambushed her turned and left, unable to voice the words stuck in her throat.