Lu Mingfei, who had read Dragon Clan before slaying the dragon

Then the man left, as if confident that Noyuki would follow his advice, and everything seemed like a dream. Miyamoto Noyuki watched the cold water slide over her fair skin and thought for a long time, so long that the guard knocked on the iron door of the bathroom, asking her to come out quickly.

The man's bet was right, or perhaps he wasn't betting, he firmly believed that Noyuki would do it. That night, the enforcers from the main family were pierced through the body, and the high-voltage iron net was torn apart. Noyuki released the demon within him, and then, in a state of confusion, boarded the train to Kagoshima.

The passengers in this carriage seemed normal. The only thing that made her slightly wary was a couple across the aisle. The girl, wearing a high school uniform, a Sailor Moon hairpin, and a slightly childish pink backpack, was in her prime, seventeen or eighteen years old, chattering non-stop as she pointed at the passing scenery. The man, on the other hand, was much more mature, wrapped in a windbreaker, looking at least in his twenties, and remained silent throughout the journey.

The two of them seem like a romantic plot of an ignorant high school girl falling in love with an older boy and then dropping out of school to elope.

But the thing was that Miyamoto Noyuki could hear their heartbeats. The girl's heartbeats rose and fell, but the man's remained as calm as a pool of stagnant water.

The view outside the window was delightful. The girl, wearing black stockings, slender legs, would occasionally brush against the man's wrist or thigh as she leaped up and down, admiring the scenery. She would also tug at his sleeve to share what color flowers or cloud shapes she had just seen. But from beginning to end, Noyuki Miyamoto didn't hear the slightest sign of love. The man was as cold and indifferent as an emotionless machine.

The train passed Kochi and emerged from the mountains and forests. The endless coastline appeared before everyone, with surging waves crashing against the 80-meter-high cliffs, presenting a breathtaking scene. Passengers gathered at the windows on the side of the train closest to the coastline.

"Hey, hey, hey, is that Cape Ashizuri, the southernmost tip of Shikoku? It's so beautiful, so beautiful, as if it's the end of the world!" The girl couldn't help but cross the aisle and wanted to get to the window where Miyamoto Noyuki was sitting.

Miyamoto Noyuki calmly moved her legs out of the way. The girl eagerly ran past her, her adorable face practically pressed against the window, her dark eyes filled with beauty and curiosity about the world. Noyuki could hear the girl's heartbeat, racing with excitement.

She turned her head and looked at the man, who was still sitting in his seat. He seemed indifferent to the beautiful scenery or the girl running away from him, which made Miyamoto Noyuki even more confused.

When the coastline was left behind, the train turned a ninety-degree bend along the track and headed into the mountains again. The girl sat down on the seat next to Ye Xue.

"It's so beautiful! I've never seen such beautiful scenery before. This train is really the right choice!" The girl clapped her hands in satisfaction.

Miyamoto Noyuki turned her head and glanced at the startled girl.

"Oh, by the way, sorry, sorry, I was so engrossed in the scenery that I forgot to thank you." The girl bowed to Noyuki. "My name is Ogata Madoka, you can call me Madoka. Thank you for giving me your seat so I can see this heavenly view!"

"You're welcome." Miyamoto Noyuki shook her head slightly. After a moment's hesitation, she finally said, "My name is Noyuki. Actually, I'm not a sister. I'll be forty next year, so I'm already an aunt."

Miyamoto Noyuki listened carefully to the girl's heartbeat, and there was indeed a moment when her heartbeat was beating rapidly due to surprise and panic.

"Ah?" Xiaoyuan exclaimed, "But he looks so young, it's too much!"

"What's so excessive?" Miyamoto Noyuki was unconsciously drawn into the girl's topic.

"It's time." Xiao Yuan stuck out her tongue. "The God of Time is so unfair. He's especially cruel to some people, making them age quickly, while treating others particularly well, as if they never age. Maybe it's because Sister Noyuki is so beautiful, the God of Time wanted to look at you a little longer, so he couldn't bear to cut your face with his knife."

"There's no one who doesn't age." Miyamoto Noyuki smiled. "But Madoka, your language is so beautiful. Are you joining the school's literature club or something?"

"Hai." Xiaoyuan nodded. "He's a member of the literature club and also on the track and field team."

"What a rich campus life." A hint of longing flashed through Miyamoto Noyuki's eyes, but she suppressed the emotion and looked at the man across the aisle. "Is Madoka on a school trip? With your boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend!" Xiaoyuan giggled. "He's my brother. His name is Ogata Gen."

"Brother?" Miyamoto Noyuki was surprised, but now she finally understood why the couple's heartbeats had barely pounded from beginning to end. Because they weren't lovers, but siblings.

Whether it was because the doubts had a reasonable explanation or because of the girl's cheerful personality, her tense nerves finally relaxed.

"Yeah, yeah, my brother has autism. He doesn't like to speak in public. I peeked at his notebook some time ago and found out he wanted to go back to Kagoshima, so I accompanied him here after I finished my exams." Ogata Madoka said.

"Your hometown is Kagoshima?"

"My brother was born there, but I've never been there," Xiaoyuan said. "My father took my brother to Tokyo when he was very young, and then he married another woman, my mother. So Kagoshima is my brother's hometown, and I've never been far away since I was a child."

"I see."

"What about you, sister? Are you going to Kagoshima too?"

"Yeah." Miyamoto Noyuki picked up a white porcelain bone jar with the name "Miyamoto Kenjiro" written on the label. Her voice was soft.

"My brother and I were both born there, and now I want to bring him back to my hometown to bury him."

Important Japanese figures have begun to appear. This chapter lays the groundwork for a very important chapter.

Chapter 176 The Woman from the Ghost Crowd

"Ah? Sister Yexue's brother...is gone?" The girl looked at the porcelain jar, as if she was too naive, and asked a stupid question.

How stupid... Can a living person be placed in an urn?

"Yes, it was gone a long time ago. Tokyo was too prosperous for us." Miyamoto Noyuki said softly with patience.

"Well, isn't bustling Tokyo good?" Madoka asked, tilting her head.

"There's nothing wrong with it, it's just that there are too many people. After burying the deceased, you may not be able to tell which grave is which after decades. Tokyo is too lively, and there is singing and dancing at night... It's hard to have any peace and quiet." A faint sadness flowed through Miyamoto Noyuki's eyes like a trickle.

"Yeah, it seems Tokyo doesn't have a nightlife. The streets are even more crowded at night than during the day. I haven't been to other places, so I don't know what the nights are like there, but I read in my brother's diary that the nights in Kagoshima are very gentle." Madoka's face was filled with beautiful reverie. "There aren't geishas or dancers there, but crickets and frogs sing at night, and mysterious torii gates stand in front of the caves in the mountains. Passing through them feels like you've traveled to another world."

"Another world?" Miyamoto Noyuki had basically concluded that this girl named Madoka couldn't be a law enforcer.

Each of those law enforcement officers, whether sloppy or arrogant, carries a burning sense of distance, which is the untouchable distance between "ghosts" and humans, just like the distance between her, whose file is marked in red, and freedom, which is out of reach, even out of sight.

But the girl's immature and even somewhat foolish words did not make her feel distant at all, but instead revealed an inexplicable intimacy.

"Yeah, it's a different world." Madoka nodded seriously. "I heard that Hayao Miyazaki filmed 'Princess Mononoke' in Kagoshima. It was inspired by reality. People say that the torii gates there connect the past and present worlds. If you travel back in time, you can see the villages and forests of a hundred years ago, where ghosts live."

"Ghost?" Miyamoto Noyuki was suddenly speechless.

She wasn't very good at communicating with others. Perhaps it was because she had been isolated for fifteen years, which would have caused even the most optimistic person to become ill. Her only way to understand the outside world was through watching Japanese dramas and movies, in that cage called the monastery, in every lonely evening.

The monastery regularly organizes movie screenings, most of which are healing films, such as "Green Book", "Forrest Gump", "Heidi and Grandpa"... The purpose of showing these movies is partly humanitarian, and partly to let these guys abandoned by fate feel a bit of the beauty of the world through the positive and healing stories on the screen.

But few people bought into the idea. To them, showing a film praising freedom to people without it was like offering a table of delicacies to starving people—one that they could only look at but not eat. It was a cold, ironic experience. There was a strict rule that everyone had to watch the film for the full half-hour before leaving, and everyone sat patiently in their chairs, feeling uneasy.

Hayao Miyazaki is a renowned master of soothing manga, and his film "Princess Mononoke" was also screened. The church erupted in accusations, and the volatile individuals were nearly overcome with emotion the moment they learned they would have to sit in silence for half an hour in front of an animated film. But by the time the half-hour rolled around, few were willing to leave, their gaze captivated by the lush, deep forests and the fantastical, mystical animal gods.

Just like a group of birds longing for the blue sky, no matter how much they yearn for it or how much they flap their wings, they cannot fly, because the cage that traps them is called fate - the fate of being a "ghost".

Ye Xue sat in her seat for a long time that day, until the movie was over and everyone went to be questioned by the law enforcement officers. She was still alone in the darkness, unwilling to extricate herself from the aftermath of the story, tears silently sliding down her face.

Ye Xue really wanted to tell the girl that there is no "other world" or "ghost" in this world. These are all childish fantasies. Girls should basically get rid of such unrealistic and low-level interests after graduating from junior high school... But the words came to her lips and she couldn't say them.

Because wasn't I, who was refusing to withdraw from the movie in the darkness, also slightly warmed by this childish, absurd fantasy...?

"It really exists," Madoka said with great conviction. "Legend has it that if you place the ashes of a deceased person in a porcelain jar and bury it on the quietest, most beautiful mountain in your hometown, their soul will pass through the nearest torii gate in the middle of the night and return to their birthplace, living a carefree life as a ghost. Sometimes, when they think of a family member or friend from the past, they'll pass through the torii gate again and return to the real world. At night, they'll enter that person's dream, offering words of advice like 'The weather is getting cold, so dress warmly and live well,' and then depart before dawn."

"So, Sister Noxue, your brother is not gone. You bury him in the softest soil in your hometown. The sounds of crickets and frogs will wake him up at night, and he will become a ghost and continue to live, living in a place we can't see... but he can see you. He will always watch you, watching you live freely in this world." Xiaoyuan said softly.

Miyamoto Noyuki was stunned, her lips trembling slightly, unable to utter a word. Only then did she realize that the serious-looking girl in front of her wasn't stupid or childish at all. She had said so many absurd things and woven such a fantastical fairy tale simply because she had seen the sadness flowing in her eyes.

She thought she was immersed in the sorrow of her brother's death, so she used her imagination as a cadre of the literature club to tell herself such a heartwarming story. Or maybe the girl was really so innocent at heart... In short, Ye Xue could feel that the sunshine-like warmth seemed to penetrate her pores and warm her heart, creating a crack in the haze of her fifteen years, and the brilliance of the world landed there and then took root and sprouted.

"Thank you." Miyamoto Noyuki had never thanked someone so sincerely in his life.

"No, it's just that I felt like my brother just now," Xiaoyuan said. "My brother is always like that, standing far away from the crowd, looking lonely and a little... pitiful. So when I saw you were the only one in this carriage, I always felt like I was seeing my brother. But my brother still has me by his side, and I can talk to him, but your brother can't talk to you, sister."

"But I have Madoka. You make me feel warm." Miyamoto Noyuki touched Madoka's head and said softly, "I don't feel lonely anymore."

"Really? Really? So I'm that powerful?" Xiaoyuan grinned. "Speaking of which, sister, do you feel hot? I'm only wearing a thin layer of stockings, but it's so hot that the stockings are sticking to my legs."

"Indeed, a little." Ye Xue looked up at the air vent, "The air conditioner seems to be set very high."

"Attention, passengers! Attention, passengers! We are now announcing an emergency. Due to a control system failure, the air conditioning system in carriage number eight has malfunctioned, and the temperature in the carriage has risen uncontrollably. The conductor is repairing it. As an apology, passengers in carriage number eight can move to the VIP carriage. We have prepared free afternoon tea for everyone in the VIP carriage." The conductor's voice sounded over the radio.

"I'm so lucky. I got a free transfer to the VIP carriage and free afternoon tea. Now I can eat three ice creams in one breath." The boy in the light yellow wool sweater high-fived excitedly.

"Hurry up, let's go and get a good seat with a good view. Jianshan is not far ahead." said the girl sitting next to me.

Everyone was happy to be in the VIP carriage, which had spacious and comfortable seats and cost three times the price of an ordinary carriage. Passengers rose in pairs, picked up their luggage, and walked hand in hand toward the VIP carriage, leaving Carriage 8 empty.

Xiao Yuan walked to her seat, tugged at the man's sleeve, and said something. The man said nothing. Xiao Yuan looked a little anxious and took the man's hand to pull him up, but the man stubbornly stayed in his seat. Xiao Yuan sighed and sat down resignedly.

Miyamoto Noyuki kept looking at them from beginning to end, her ears moving slightly and a glimmer flickering in her eyes.

The passengers had almost all evacuated from Car 8. Miyamoto Noyuki asked softly, "Isn't Madoka going to the VIP car?"

"I do want to go." Xiaoyuan sighed slightly, "But my brother doesn't seem to want to go. He doesn't like being in crowded places. I'll stay and keep him company."

"I don't like crowded places either. I'll stay with you guys," said Miyamoto Noyuki.

"Ah? Isn't that a shame, sister? I heard there are free senbei and ice cream cakes in the VIP car." Xiaoyuan looked regretful, "Just to stay with us or something..."

"It's not a pity. I really don't like crowded places, but I like ice cream. I haven't had it in a long time." Miyamoto Noyuki smiled, "Can you help me get some ice cream? Lemon flavor. I'll help you watch your brother."

"Got it! Target lemon ice cream, let's go now!" Madoka waved and smiled as she said goodbye to carriage No. 8 and Miyamoto Noyuki.

Smile brightly.

Miyamoto Noyuki also smiled and waved goodbye to the girl Ogata Madoka whom she had just met... and this free world.

The smile is sad.

As Xiaoyuan disappeared from sight, the front and back of Carriage 8 instantly closed, the heavy iron door tightly shut, and the windows lowered several layers of steel plates, blocking out the beautiful scenery of the mountains and forests and the warmth of the sun. Inside the car, silence fell like death.

"Actually, you noticed it, right?" The man in the black windbreaker spoke slowly. His voice was like sake, without any of the reservedness of an autistic person.

"Yeah." Miyamoto Noyuki responded calmly, "The girl's heartbeat suddenly intensified when she held your hand. This shouldn't be a reaction between siblings."

"Why don't you run away?" the man asked.

"Can you escape?" Miyamoto Noyuki asked back.

The man was silent for a long moment, then pulled out a document from his windbreaker. The golden emblem depicted a giant, half-rotten tree. A silver ring with a gentian pattern adorned his index finger. A knife in a dark red sheath peeked out from the hem of his shirt beneath his ribs. He placed the knife against the seat across the aisle from Noyuki Miyamoto, and his hand, adorned with a silver ring, slowly placed its hand on the hilt.

"Gen Chisheng? The young master of this generation of the family?" Miyamoto Noyuki said softly.

"Yes, I'm the Director of the Executive Bureau of the Kassel Academy Japan Branch, Executive Officer Yuan Zhisheng." The man nodded. "Do you know me?"

"You should have heard of it." Miyamoto Noyuki nodded.

"I forgot. After all, you were once an important member of our family, Miss Miyamoto Noyuki." Gen Chisheng looked at Noyuki across the aisle. "It would be great if all 'ghosts' were as quiet as you. We could chat, drink tea, and in your last few minutes I would do my best to satisfy whatever you want. And then you could die by my sword before you go berserk. That way my job would be much easier."

"I never said I was a content person, but no one ever cared about my opinion," Miyamoto Noyuki said. "You locked me up in a monastery because of my brother's betrayal. I've been locked up for fifteen years, and it will be my whole life, until I die. You, the enforcers, have never asked me any questions. Other red people can still hold on to the hope that one day they will turn yellow and then green, but hope and freedom have never belonged to me. You call me a 'ghost', and I will always be a 'ghost'..."

"Think about it again, is it just because of your brother?" Yuan Zhisheng interrupted the woman's increasingly excited narration.

The woman was stunned, her hands holding the porcelain bone jar trembling slightly. She seemed to be afraid, afraid that some forgotten memories would come flooding back like a tide.

"Miyamoto Noyuki was born in Kagoshima in 1972. In 1979, she was brought to Tokyo by her brother, Miyamoto Kenjiro. Extremely gifted in medicine and pharmacy, she was self-taught and was recruited by her family's pharmaceutical research institute. During her time there, she assisted researchers in achieving several important breakthroughs." Gen Chisheng recited the woman's biography, his calm voice drifting back and forth in the carriage. "In 1995, fifteen years ago, you completed a study that could change the history of hybrids. You improved a certain potion. This potion could rewrite the genes of hybrids, allowing a hybrid's bloodline to be infinitely purified. However, this potion had a fatal side effect... It could transform previously normal people into 'ghosts'!"

"Don't say it... don't say it..." Miyamoto Noyuki muttered with empty eyes.

"The family originally knew nothing of this. It wasn't until fifteen years ago when a man named Miyamoto Kenjiro, after a potion went out of control, killed his wife and a family leader, and even cut off one of his own arms, that the truth was finally revealed. Seriously injured, he was taken away by the demonic group, but you couldn't escape. You were immediately apprehended by the family and thoroughly investigated."

"Didn't I tell you... to stop talking?" Miyamoto Noyuki's face was distorted and he gasped.

"It wasn't until a while ago that we traced the origins of the original potion you modified. It turned out to be from the Fierce Ghost Clan." Yuan Zhisheng's eyes flashed. "From the very beginning, you were a member of the Fierce Ghost Clan. Am I right?"

Chapter 177 Cherry Blossoms as Her Tombstone

Memories are like the tide, so suffocating.

Miyamoto Noyuki slumped back in his chair, staring at the glaring light on the ceiling of the carriage and taking deep gulps of air into his lungs.

A pale light shone down from above, illuminating Miyamoto Noyuki's face with a pale, almost transparent glow. She stretched out a pale hand, reaching towards the light, trying to grasp something...light? Memories? Or freedom?

"You're right... because I've been a 'ghost' from the very beginning." Miyamoto Noyuki said in a hoarse voice.

"What do you mean?" Yuan Zhisheng frowned in confusion.

"I mean, I've been a 'ghost' from the very beginning. It was destined, from birth." Miyamoto Noyuki smiled, and her smile was as sad as falling snow.

"Since birth? I've looked through your file, and that's not the case," Gen Chisheng corrected. "Your file was marked red after the first experiment with the 'Ghost Potion' you developed, which was when your brother lost control after taking your drug. Ever since you came to Tokyo at the age of five, your bloodline has been tested annually by the family. You've been within the safe zone every year, and no one has ever treated you as a 'ghost'."

"So, what about before Tokyo?"

"What?" Yuan Zhisheng was stunned.

"Why do you think a child of the Miyamoto family was born in the most remote village in the southernmost part of Kagoshima?" Miyamoto Noyuki asked silently.

Gen Chisheng fell silent. It occurred to him that the Executive Bureau had no information on Noyuki Miyamoto before she arrived in Tokyo. The first five years of her life were blank. Yet, no one would notice, let alone delve into it. Because until now, everything was peaceful in the village where Noyuki Miyamoto was born and raised... No one would question whether a five-year-old child thirty-three years ago was a "ghost"!

"Before I was born, the color that symbolized my identity was already red. Once I arrived in this world, I would be marked with a glaring crimson. I was born to my father and his second wife, both of whom had high bloodlines, so I was actually not allowed to be born from the very beginning," said Miyamoto Noyuki. "The red color was supposed to follow me my whole life."

"But you were born, and there is no record of all this. The family will never make mistakes on such issues." Gen Chisheng stared into Miyamoto Noyuki's eyes.

"Yes, the family did not make any mistakes. That's why I was born in Kagoshima. My father sent my mother to Kagoshima because he wanted her to abort the child and not let the child be born. After the miscarriage, she stayed in the family villa to recuperate. But my mother wanted to give birth to me no matter what, so she fled to the most remote village in the south, and I was born there... I came into this world without telling anyone." When she said the last sentence, Miyamoto Noyuki turned her head and looked at Minamoto Chisei.

Coming into this world without telling anyone...what a stubborn statement!

Yuan Zhisheng saw a faint blush in the woman's eyes, like a fading cherry blossom. It was the question of her life... a daughter's question to her father, a "ghost"'s question to the law enforcer, and even more a question of the world from a child who was judged not to be in the world before he was born.

"You came into this world without telling anyone, but how did you manage to become a normal person without telling anyone?" Yuan Zhisheng followed up on Miyamoto Noyuki's words and asked, "Your family wouldn't allow someone with questionable origins to enter such a secretive institution as the research institute, and there's nothing wrong with your bloodline."

"Who was sitting in your position fifteen years ago? Executive Officer Yuan Zhisheng."

"Is that really the case..." Gen Chisheng sighed softly, "The former director of the Executive Bureau, a pillar of the Miyamoto family whose status is comparable to the head of the family, your brother... Mr. Miyamoto Kenjiro."

"Yes, when I was five, my brother became the Director of the Executive Bureau, a position of considerable stature. He compiled my resume, and in the family records, my biological mother became my father's first wife, my brother's biological mother. No one would suspect the Director of the Executive Bureau's sister was a 'ghost,'" Miyamoto Noyuki said. "As for my bloodline, it won't show any problems because I undergo blood transfusions every year."

"The family has always strictly prohibited the use of blood transfusion technology." Yuan Zhisheng questioned again.

"Yes, the Sheqi Eight Clan strictly forbids it, but I never rely on my family."