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He was originally surprised by the vicissitudes of life that Valodia and Sonya occasionally revealed, but he explained to himself that it was actually the unique depth of the Russians.
But that day, after leaving the dining car, Ling did not return to his room. Instead, he squeezed into Lu Mingfei's bed wrapped in fleece pajamas.
The girl's body was soft and tender. From behind, her collarbones were exposed and her curves were as delicate as ice and jade, but the fragrance emanating from her body was that of a cold honeysuckle.
Just when Lu Mingfei was distracted and at a loss, Ling said that Sonya was old enough to be your grandmother.
Lu Mingfei didn't understand what he meant for a moment, until Ling took his hands and wrapped them around his waist, snuggling in his arms.
Lu Mingfei was still thinking about Sonya when he suddenly felt a piece of jade in his arms. His heart moved slightly as he realized that the princess was so petite.
Although he already knew about this...
Ling then repeated to Lu Mingfei exactly what Bunin had said to her at the Karominsk Manor.
She said that the reason she didn't tell him right away was because this matter was too unbelievable. Although the serum extracted from the bodies of pure-blooded dragons did have some panacea effects, the ability to make people look younger and even make it impossible to tell the passage of time was simply a miracle and was beyond the scope of medicine.
But after meeting Valodia, Sonya and Okinets that day, Zero had confirmed the truth of what Bunin said.
A real young person shouldn't have that kind of look.
The lifeless and dull aura about them could not be hidden in the eyes of someone like Zero who possessed mirror pupils.
Lu Mingfei hesitated for a moment, then he put his arm around the princess' waist and said, "Then why are you sharing the bed with me?"
"Because that's our character setting. We are a couple, so of course we should live together." Ling's tone was indifferent, but Lu Mingfei knew that her heart was not as calm as she appeared.
Because the tips of the girl's ears had turned red without her knowing.
——When Susie came and knocked on the door, all of Bunin's guests had gone to the dining car. Lu Mingfei yawned and opened the door, and saw a girl with makeup as light as water waiting at the door with a smile on her face.
"Where's Christina?"
"She's passed away...those people and Christina are old friends," Susie said.
Lu Mingfei nodded, put on his coat, and followed Susie to the end of the corridor.
The young people who had boarded the train in the past few days had already gathered in Brin's carriage. They hugged, kissed each other, and exchanged greetings. Waiters in tuxedos walked among the crowd and handed each person a small glass of liquor.
When Lu Mingfei pushed the door open and walked in, everyone looked in their direction, and those young faces all showed an expression that looked like both fear and respect.
The old guys who disguised themselves as children certainly would not express their respect for the two young Chinese people. Their awe would only be dedicated to the huge organization behind Ling, the Romanov family.
Bunin rang the bell, making a clear sound that drew everyone's attention. The old man smiled and pushed open the next door at the end of the carriage. "Since everyone who should be here today is here, let's get ready to start the dinner," he said. "This is the last dinner we can enjoy before entering City 023."
Everyone followed Bunin Fish Restaurant into the dining car.
The train slowed down, and when it swayed, the crystal pendants on the edge of the brass lamp stand on the long dining table jingled like wind chimes. Christina had returned to Lu Mingfei without him noticing, and she touched his ankle with the tip of her shoe.
"Some familiar faces are not here now." She leaned over and whispered in Lu Mingfei's ear.
Lu Mingfei didn't know why.
"Some of them died, and some got the drugs they wanted in the last auction." Christina whispered, "Similar auctions may not be limited to Russia. There may be financial oligarchs and capitalists around the world who are manipulated by similar means."
In fact, after being reaped for many years, most of Moscow's wealth fell into the pocket of the boss behind the scenes as mentioned by Bunin. If he replicated this model and promoted it around the world, how much money would disappear from the books in modern history?
Human wealth could have been used to realize more ideals, but now it has become a spring of fresh water that helps old people like rotten wood to prolong their lives.
"I know every account he has in every bank, but I just checked those accounts when he was away, and there's not a penny in them." Christina stared at the back of the man in front of her who was hunched over like an old bear, and whispered to Lu Mingfei, "I think even if the boss is willing to reopen the auction, the passengers on this train probably don't plan to spend money to buy."
Lu Mingfei's pupils shrank slightly.
He had never been inside any of the passengers' private compartments, but given the size of the private spaces, it would probably be no problem to cram in an entire reinforced platoon.
If they just used the space to store some heavy firepower weapons or hide a group of mercenaries, it might be even easier.
Looking at those smiling young people around, they appear healthy, friendly and helpful, but in fact, their veins are filled with dark red and rotten blood. As early as nearly a hundred years ago, they were active on the battlefield, and their hands are stained with the blood of countless people.
They were never capitalists who only knew how to exploit the proletariat, but rather desperate criminals who had gained merit in World War I or World War II.
The boss behind Bunin may have used the drug extracted from dragons to control them for many years, using time as a bargaining chip to make these old guys work for him and help him steal the entire Russian property. However, human ambition and desire are endless. Sonya, who looks lively and cheerful, may have been sharpening her knife fifty years ago, ready to use blood and fire to snatch her life from the devil's hands.
Nearly twenty high-backed gilded chairs surrounded the long and narrow dining table, and silver tableware was arranged in a simple and cold cross shape on the scarlet velvet tablecloth.
Bunin puffed on his cigar, and the smoke was carried by the heating system and hit the glass windows, condensing into cold white window grilles.
The violent storm and heavy snow raging outside the window crushed the car lights in the twilight into tiny rays of light. The special train was entering a bend, and the light streaked across the top and the mountainside as the front of the train turned.
After everyone was seated, Bunin raised his glass first. His eyes were black, but for a moment, they seemed to be ignited and burst out with a deep, icy majesty.
"The last time we had a gathering like this was in January 1985," he said, swirling his glass filled with vodka.
Ice cubes floated in the amber liquid, and this usually hunchbacked old man sat as straight as a KGB officer.
The year 1985 was when the Cold War was in full swing. Two years earlier, in 1983, Ronald Reagan first proposed the Star Wars plan in Congress. On January 1985, 1, the plan was officially launched by the U.S. government.
Bunin is far from being as old as Okinietz. He is a member of the new generation born after the war and was in his prime during the Cold War.
It is not difficult to imagine that after the United States proposed the Star Wars plan, the Soviet government must have made a corresponding response, and another matching experimental project may have taken place in City 023.
"You've spoken out of turn, Bunin," said Semyon softly, with features as firm as steel. He had the face of a young man of twenty, but his left eye still bore the scar of a gunshot wound from the Tsarist era.
“It should be our fathers who sat with you in 1985.”
Bunin stared into Xie Miao's eyes. After a moment, Xie Miao looked away. Only then did Bunin smile and say, "Now we are together again. Let's celebrate our friendship that has lasted for two or even three generations."
After he said this, he drank the vodka in the glass. Everyone else at the table, except Lu Mingfei and his group, picked up the vodka and poured the liquid in the glass down their throats.
"To our friendship," they said.
The banquet had just begun, and soon the atmosphere became lively again. There was a waiter standing behind each guest, and as soon as their glasses were emptied, new vodka would be poured into them.
Sonya, who concealed her flaming youth, sat next to Lu Mingfei, but she didn't seem to be in a very good mood today.
The woman's perfume was the scent of Siberian iris, not strong but refreshing. On her wrist, which was exposed when she held her chin, was a string of faded amethyst pendants. The chain was silver, like a tiny baby snake.
"My family needs that kind of gene medicine so badly. If the boss is unwilling to reopen the auction for the Romanov family, the old man might not even make it through this year." The fingertips painted with dark red nail polish sparkled under the light. "It's really sad. People who use this method to survive are just living in this world in exhaustion."
Lu Mingfei was in a dilemma as he had never been injected with a similar serum. Even if he had, it was a substance extracted from Norton's Dragon Cross when he was receiving Nibelung in another world line.
He noticed that Susie's eyes were quietly scanning the eyes of every guest.
As expected of a girl who would later become a decapitation expert, she would always find the most threatening guy first in a new environment and look for the most efficient escape route.
"Look in their eyes," Zero said as she pierced the foie gras with her silver fork.
Lu Mingfei looked at them one by one and noticed that everyone's pupils, except Bunin, were glowing an unnatural golden color, as if someone had mixed dragon's blood into vodka.
"Among all the people here, only Alexander Bunin is clean. He is the only one who has never been baptized by serum, and he himself is not a naturally awakened hybrid." Ling said.
Lu Mingfei understood.
Most of the people who were invited by Bunin had already had enough of their boss's exploitation. They boasted that they had gained powerful strength, so they felt that they could resist those things that once seemed doomed to be irresistible. This was a group of thugs armed with dragon blood. Before they boarded the train, they had already planned to use knives to snatch what they wanted from the city.
"What should we do then?" Lu Mingfei asked in a low voice.
He stared at the end of the dining car, where a waiter in a white uniform stood, holding a silver tray with black bread oozing dark red juice.
"Let's adapt to the situation. I heard that the serum comes from Li Wu Yue's other body. Maybe we can go and take a look." Ling also lowered her voice. At the same time, she helped Lu Mingfei cut open the deer heart with cherry sauce.
At this time, a vertical hurricane suddenly came down in the blizzard in the twilight of Siberia.
Groups of heavy helicopters were approaching both sides of the tracks at a speed similar to that of trains. Those steel monsters were like giants, casting shadows that covered the sky and the sun on the land.
Lu Mingfei was not worried that these helicopters were sent by the academy because Bunin did not show any panic.
It seems that it is impossible to transport them to the legendary City 023 by relying solely on railways.
Those helicopters should lift all the carriages here and send them to the tracks outside the city.
Lu Mingfei had experienced similar things before. When he was performing a cross-sea mission, the carriage he was in was carrying a large amount of weapons and equipment. In order to transport these weapons and equipment to the other side, the academy dispatched three Super Stallions to transport him and the carriage across the strait that was dozens of kilometers long.
Chapter 577 City No. 023
The heavy bulletproof patent locomotive was running at high speed on the dilapidated railway. The tracks in front were completely submerged by heavy snow, but the steel plates on both sides of the front of the locomotive used strong power to lift all the snow into the air.
This military route once carried countless heavy freight trains during the Cold War, loaded with tanks and engines for intercontinental missiles.
When the steel wheels rolled over the frozen sleepers, it was like a dying steel beast coughing up sparks in the wilderness. Lu Mingfei and the young people around him, whose eyes had a century of vicissitudes, drank vodka together. Outside the car window, the snowfields of Siberia were flying backwards at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour, and the continuous coniferous forests turned into countless inverted black spears in the twilight.
Outside the window, a group of heavy helicopters had been following the special train like flying dragons for a full half hour, and no one in the dining car cast their eyes on those huge helicopters.
"This is crazy," Suzy whispered.
Zero looked at her.
"As long as we use a helicopter to lift all the carriages to another section of track before this section of track reaches the end, no one in the world will know where Bunin and his friends go every year." Susie lowered her voice.
Compared to the laxity of Lu Mingfei and Her Royal Highness the Princess, the vice president of the Lionheart Club, who was known for his rigor even in the academy, did not touch a single bite of food or the vodka in the wine glasses during the entire dinner.
There were blades as thin as cicada wings hidden under her coat, and when necessary, Yanling.Jianyu could help Susie cut them into the throat of everyone present.
As early as when these old guys who had taken dragon serum and regained their youth got on the bus, Ling had already discovered that the purity of the dragon blood in their bodies was terribly low. It was not even C-grade according to the academy's standards. Such a group of low-level hybrids were nothing more than lambs to be slaughtered in front of Susie even if they were experienced in battle.
"Before I commit the final sin, I hope to confirm with everyone here one last time." Bunin tapped his wine glass with his fork, making a crisp sound to attract everyone's attention.
The dining car suddenly became quiet.
"The boss has already given the news. Maybe the auction of City 023 will be completely terminated after the next one. Some of us still urgently need time to continue his family." Bunin stood up and scanned the eyes of everyone at the table with cold eyes. A kind of tyrant-like majesty burst out from the old guy's body.
"Maybe there is still a lot of stock, but he is not going to sell it to us. My daughter needs this medicine... You need it too. You have spent all your wealth on this matter over the years, but in the end you still have nothing... So, are you determined to go all out?"
There was a crisp sound of metal colliding under the dining table, and Lu Mingfei saw Valodia applying antifreeze oil to an SV-98 sniper rifle. He treated his weapon as if it were a charming woman and hummed the tune of Katyusha in his throat; Okinets had started playing with some terrifying special bullets for anti-material sniper rifles, and the copper shells were engraved with Orthodox scriptures.
There are all kinds of weapons hidden under the tablecloth. If Lu Mingfei wants to, he can find a single-soldier rocket launcher from it.
No one spoke, but it was clear that everyone had made their choice.
Bunin laughed loudly. He unbuttoned the brass buckle of his mink coat, and the chain of his pocket watch shone a tiny golden light on his vest. "Very good, we will never abandon each other!" He stretched out his hand and knocked heavily on the wall of the carriage inlaid with ebony decorations. "It's time to change trains!"
The knocking sound spread from the dining car to the back, and then to a certain compartment. There was a faint rustling sound in that compartment. Dozens or even hundreds of death row prisoners pardoned from the Black Sea Prison huddled in the shadows. The ceramic daggers on their waists glowed with a unique bluish-gray color after being quenched with poison, and the muzzles of the weapons in their arms glowed with a ferocious cold light.
Lu Mingfei and his friends' guess turned out to be correct. Bunin's guests took their carriages to City 023, and there were really thousands of troops hidden in these carriages.
Then the entire carriage suddenly made a teeth-grinding sound of metallic twisting.
Lu Mingfei suddenly saw a hideous ice ridge rising on the horizon from the car window, and the rusty railway track suddenly broke into two parts hundreds of meters away. This military line built during the Cold War could not escape the fate of being swallowed by permafrost.
As the Mi-26 heavy helicopter tore through the lead-gray clouds, the blizzard was mixing the sky and the earth together into a milky white vortex.
The titanium alloy cables hung down like spider silk, and with the assistance of groups of engineers who were lowered along with the cables, they were accurately fastened to the military-grade rings on the top of each carriage.
It is obvious that the engineers are quite skilled in this operation as they have been repeating the same work day after day, year after year for many years.
Then the Mi-26 began to slowly climb in altitude. Its horizontal speed was exactly the same as that of the train. As it rose, it carried each carriage into the sky. Before the track reached the end, the entire train meandered dozens of meters in the air like a soaring iron snake.