My goal is to conquer hurdles, go through hardships, defeat the poisonous dragon, rescue the princess… And then exchange it for money.
“The Uffizi Gallery, a treasure trove of the world’s art…” Rod pulled off the telescope, showing his emerald eyes that usually had a smile on them. “Of course, it is also a work of art in itself. Unfortunately, it is too big for me to move.”
“What treasure trove of art? It’s just your treasure trove, right?” The young man in black behind Rod sat on a park seat and swiftly ate pancakes. “Did you see the target?”
It is a great observation position in Florence, overlooking the key iconic structures. No one would have believed that the goofy gadget in a coffee bear case hanging around the neck of this huge boy dressed as a traveler actually contained a military-grade luminous standard of a 2km telescope!
“Baby, you really need to understand one thing. Stealing paintings is not an assassination. The targets are dead objects that cannot move. They are trapped in heavy security and thick steel city walls… Just like a princess guarded by a poisonous dragon, we can’t see it~” Rod raised the telescope again and confirmed the distribution of the cameras on each floor of the damn castle, with an excited smile before the climax, “When we defeat the poisonous dragon and snatch the princess… We can ravage them as we please~”
Li Xiaobai snorted coldly, “Aren’t you going to exchange it for money?”
“That’s right.” Rod retracted the telescope, climbed over the bench, and sat casually on the back of the chair. “Honey, do you know what real princesses are used for?” The green-eyed boy smiled and raised his eyebrows. He raised a finger and said, “First, marriage, money, exchange for territory, and peace.”
Li Xiaobai raised his eyebrows and looked at him, “What about the second one?”
Rod shrugged, “There’s no second.”
Li Xiaobai, “……”
Rod, on the other hand, “I just think it’s more imposing to say it this way…”
Li Xiaobai, “……”
Rod asked carefully, “Honey, are you mad?”
Li Xiaobai, “……”
Rod, “Please don’t make me sleep on the floor…”
The tourists passing by laughed, pointed, and murmured at them from a distance.
Li Xiaobai began to hack a certain one to pieces in his mind with an expressionless expression…
Rod, who had an incomparably sensitive nose, swiftly sensed the malevolent aura, shivered, and said, “Ho… Honey, I bought that pancake for you…”
Li Xiaobai, “……”
He bowed his head, ate the last pancake, grabbed his deflated backpack, stood up, and left.
Rod, “Huh? Honey, where are you going?”
Li Xiaobai did not look back: “I have classes in the afternoon.”
Rod showed a complicated expression, “You… Really came to study abroad…”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“The Uffizi Gallery was built in 1560. In fact, the building itself, supervised by the famous painter and architectural designer G. Vasari, is a masterpiece of Renaissance architecture. The building is located between Palazzo Vecchio and the Arno River. Vasari designed two long and narrow 3-story buildings extending in parallel into an interconnected “U” shape…”
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“Aren’t you here for that Hughes, Leo?” Li Xiaobai asked, sitting in the back row of the classroom, arms folded. There was nothing to eat, and the dull light made him feel sleepy… Going to school didn’t appear to be fun.
“He is also one of the reasons.” Rod graciously agreed. “This is not the school with the highest artistic attainments, but the tuition is ridiculously expensive and the admission requirements are extremely harsh. But there are still a lot of people from all over the world trying to get in. Do you know the reason?”
“Dignitaries, genuine commodities.” Li Xiaobai remembered what the actual Yin Ying had said on the train.
“Not bad~ Who told you?” Rod raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“The person whose identity I stole.” Li Xiaobai stated in a flat tone.
Rod nodded, “Well, that’s not surprising.”
“…you know he was killed by me, right?” Li Xiaobai closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair, “You don’t seem to have anything to say.”
“What do you want me to say?” Rod laughed, tilting his head and asking rhetorically, “Accuse you or send you to prison?”
Li Xiaobai opened his eyes.
“The indignation of others is meaningless. Sooner or later, you will understand that killing is a sin.” Rod’s green eyes shone coldly against the continually switching slides in the dim classroom. “And sins, they’re all very, very heavy…”
Li Xiaobai stared at him in the darkness and suddenly felt an inexplicable suffocation…
No one, no one had ever told him that killing someone was a terrible crime that might cause someone to nearly die.
“…the building was originally built at the behest of Cosimo I of the House of Medici. Due to various reasons, the building was not completed when Cosimo I and Vasari died in 1574…”
The lecture on the podium continued, but Li Xiaobai couldn’t listen anymore.
Rod stared at the youth’s face in silence for a while…
He’s still a kid, he thought.
So he couldn’t help but relax, “However… Although this school is good, the teachers talk too much nonsense.” Rod laughed, easing the subtly tense atmosphere, “After introducing so many things about the Uffizi, the most crucial thing was left unsaid. It is true that the building was originally built at the behest of Cosimo I of the House of Medici, but the purpose of the building was not to be used as an art gallery, but as an office for the Government Affairs Office of the Principality of Florence. In fact, the name Uffizi is the Italian word for office. Interesting, isn’t it?”
Li Xiaobai lowered his head and responded after a while, “Why is this the key?”
“Don’t you get it?” Rod leaned near to the youth’s ear, “This building has been political from the beginning and is under the wings of a certain family. If you want to break through the poisonous dragon’s minions, you can only start with its owner.”
Li Xiaobai glanced at the door of the classroom and said, “The Medici family… no, Hughes Leo?”
There was a disturbance in the first-year classroom from a distance. The brown-haired man, whom they had only met once during the opening ceremony, walked quickly across the corridor between classrooms, surrounded by people fawning over him. He is still dressed in a hard noble suit, his face is expressionless, his profound gaze does not halt for anyone, and his steps are unwavering…
“The current student president, third-year Hughes Leo, eldest son of the Medici family and honorary curator of the Uffizi Gallery.” Rod raised the corner of his lips.
“Him? He’s too young.” Li Xiaobai stared at the people in the corridor, and soon more enthusiastic students eager to express themselves swarmed over to obstruct his view.
“Indeed,” Rod nodded, “In fact, the honorary curator is his father, the legendary leader of the European Mafia and the current head of the Leo family. But you know, people like that are busy, and art is something that requires slow work, so he leaves these matters to his promising son. At 22 years old, he is the honorary curator, and no one raised any objections. Don’t you consider this a skill?”
The pair of dark gray eyes staring at him in the auditorium flashed by, and Li Xiaobai whispered, “A mafia…”
The brief commotion quickly subsided as the students excitedly exchanged with each other the lucky experiences they had just had with the god-like individuals in this school, wiping away the drab and lethargic aura that had before been…
The professor’s lecture resumed amidst the ruckus, but no one was listening.
When confronted with strength, art always appears far weaker.
“Please, please wait a moment…”
Rod and Li Xiaobai, who were arguing over a hat as they walked towards the cafeteria, came to a stop and turned around.
The person who stopped them was a short-blond boy. Baby blue eyes have always made people anxious and cautious.
In fact, this little guy is indeed trembling with nervousness…
“Ah~ It’s you~” Rod mocked, “the one who screamed so seductively at the opening ceremony.”
Instead of red, the blonde boy’s face went a little paler.
Rod was stunned for a moment before retracting his teasing and asking in a more serious tone, “Your name is Dylan, right? Is something wrong?”
Dylan quickly raised his head and looked at the green-eyed young man who actually remembered his name in surprise, and then quickly glanced at the black-clothed lad who had been silent, “I, I, I’m here to tell you guys… Please, please do not go to the cafeteria! Kearns and the others are looking for you! It’s true! Please leave… You can hide for now, one month… No, three months. Come back in three months! As long as they find a new prey, they won’t bother you again. Please believe me…”
“Hmm~ Kearns?” Rod smiled lazily, “Oh~ Those two idiots with shoelaces tied together~ I heard that they work under the Leo family and are very powerful, right? What’s the matter? Do you have to take three months off school to avoid being targeted by them? What exactly does this mean?”
Li Xiaobai stated, “It’s a local bully.”
“Is that so~” Rod took a step forward, bent down, looked down at the blond boy, and put his hand on Dylan’s shoulder. His breath was very close, as if he were both intimate and threatening, “Dear little Dylan~ Why did you go out of your way to warn us?”
The blond boy’s head was lowered as if he could not stand the pressure on his shoulder, but his eyes once again glanced at Li Xiaobai, who was on the side, his voice becoming lower and lower, “I… that day… thank you… really…” Dylan raised his head as if he had summoned up all his courage in an instant and said loudly and clearly to Li Xiaobai, “Thank you for what you did that day! Thank you so much!”
The latter, however, did not react much. He simply pulled the backpack over his shoulder and turned around, “Let’s go, Rod.”
Rodrian chuckled, rubbed the blond boy’s plush head, and whispered a snitch, “Look, he’s shy~”
Dylan, who was left out, was stunned for a moment, then looked again at the young man in black who had walked away and the green-eyed lad who turned around and waved goodbye to him as he hopped after him. His mood abruptly improved.
It’s better this way, he thought; it’s better to do the right thing to feel better.
How long has it been since he returned home?
Dylan looked up at the azure sky of Florence… My hometown is poor and rural, but things are better there…
“So… it really is the behavior of a local bully…” Rod held the lunch trays of two people in his hands, looked at the people in front of him in a circular circle to intercept the two, and sighed helplessly, “It’s rare for other people’s little beauty to go out of her way to warn us… You really shouldn’t have come to the cafeteria…”
Li Xiaobai: “I’m hungry.”
Rod sighed again, “Didn’t you eat pancakes two hours ago……” Then he began to have a headache and considered whether to change to a guy who can’t eat so much……
The gangster students carrying knives, firearms, sticks, and all types of weapons eventually could not take this kind of conversation based on pancakes, and their murderous intent became increasingly violent and unstable… The shouting stage had already passed, while the floral shirt man and the bronze-skinned man, who were the leaders, were obviously ignored by the two. At this moment, there appears to be nothing left to do but take action.
Li Xiaobai: “Can I beat them?”
Rod: “Hmm, just beat them until they can’t come to school for a month and there are no injuries on their faces.”
Li Xiaobai, “…to what extent?”
“…” Rod sighed, “Just don’t kill them.”
Li Xiaobai realized, “Got it.”
Rod, “Take your time beating them; I’ll go grab a seat first…”
——————I am the dividing line between violent behavior and harmony———————
Two people enjoying a lunch of fresh cheese and cherry pie by the window under the sunshine in Florence: Rod, “It’s unbelievable that you beat them to tears! Hahaha… What, they are like children…”
Li Xiaobai said, “I’m just an ordinary student who is supposed to be a brat.”
Rod, “Na~ This sentence is particularly unconvincing when it comes out of your mouth~” He licked his fork and placed the last cherry pie on the plate, “Hehe~ It’s about time for the owner to step in when their dog has been beaten, right?”
Li Xiaobai asked, “Is this okay? I thought a thief should keep a low profile.”
Rod, “The mission requires being high-profile this time; otherwise, Young Master Hughes won’t notice us~”
Li Xiaobai said, “You want to catch him?”
“Wrong,” Rod smiled cunningly, pulled the fork inserted in the salad, and pointed at Li Xiaobai, “It was ‘you’ who wanted to catch him.”
“Why me?” Li Xiaobai asked, frowning. “I don’t like him; that man… Is like a snake.”
“Actually, it’s not necessarily you. It’s the same whether you come or I come,” Rod shrugged, “It’s just that in the auditorium that day, I saw that he was obviously more interested in you.”
Li Xiaobai seized the final piece of Rod’s pie and devoured it angrily, “What am I going to do?”
“The curator’s key and the interior floor plan of the Uffizi Gallery.” Rod pulled a few scraps of paper from his backpack while holding a fork in his mouth, “This is the plan for a touring exhibition of Picasso’s works, and the exhibition will start in three days. The total value of the works on display is as high as $300 million, so the Uffizi will be closed for at least one day before then, and all defense and security systems will definitely be changed. We need to know the rearranged internal facilities, and we must know in advance.”
“And only the supreme commander of the Uffizi and the honorary curator are qualified to inspect in advance, right?” Great opportunity—if you can follow along.
“Bingo! You have to acquire Hughes’ trust and become a member of his entourage, or,” Rod curled the corners of his lips, “just become him.”
Li Xiaobai hesitated and gazed up at the big thief across from him, “Become him? He is the son of the European gangsters’ leader; you are insane. Is it worth it if it’s only a painting?”
“Do you know which painting we’re going to steal?” Rod took out a smaller version of the photo and handed it to Li Xiaobai… “‘The Boy with the Pipe’ was created by Picasso in 1905. On May 5, 2004, it sold for a sky-high price of more than 100 million U.S. dollars at the Sotheby’s auction in New York! Nobody knows the buyer’s identity, but nobody looks into it because everyone is stunned by the absurdly expensive price! Yeah, baby! This is currently the world’s most expensive painting!”
