Chapter 3: Temporary Resurrection
Following that was a full-page spread.
In the black and white manga, the pupils behind the youth’s sunglasses were like bottomless black holes.
It was a somewhat crazed wantonness, and also the death signal issued by a beast before preying.
The Grim Reaper picked up his scythe, raising it high in the shadows.
And in that eye, nothing was reflected, only thick darkness.
...
The manga ended here, leaving readers with a question mark before abruptly stopping.
And Jiang Lan stared at the pupils on the last page, not recovering her senses for a long time.
After an unknown amount of time, she suddenly shivered.
“Hoo...” She let out a long sigh, exhaling all the breath she had unconsciously held.
She reached out, wiped her forehead, and only then realized she had actually sweated.
She found that she had been too engrossed in reading, completely drawn into the boss's perspective, terrified and extremely nervous, even forgetting to breathe.
“So terrifying, is this an A-rank ability user?” she murmured, “The boss has almost no power to fight back!”
“The boss won’t just get killed off like this, will he?” she worried.
She was a fan of the boss’s looks, so she would naturally worry about his safety.
But at the same time, she couldn't help but recall the new character's appearance.
“Just, he’s so handsome...” Jiang Lan couldn’t help but voice her fickle affections.
The black and white artwork perfectly expressed the tension, every move of the new character exuded an imposing aura.
He arrived arrogantly, and no one dared to confront him.
That kind of unrestrained demeanor born from strength was very beautiful.
Jiang Lan thought and thought, then couldn't resist calling her best friend.
“Babe, what late? Not late! It’s only twelve! Let me tell you, didn't the manga just update? There's a new character in it who's super handsome, totally your type!... Don't believe me? If you don't like him, I'll treat you to milk tea tomorrow!”
...
[Current time is six in the morning.]
[Popularity value calculation starting.]
A little light seeped through the bed curtain.
At six in the morning, the sun had already risen.
But Li Li still lay icily on the bed, awaiting the final result.
She was extremely calm, even having the leisure to wonder when her roommate would get up and ask if she wanted breakfast brought for her.
[Searching for newly added relevant comments.]
[Search complete.]
[Searching for newly added relevant topic threads.]
[Search complete.]
[Searching for newly added big data discussion level.]
[Search complete.]
...
[Processing popularity value collection data. ]
[Data processing...]
The sound of someone turning over came from the bed next to hers, and her roommate's sleepy voice drifted over.
“Mmm...”
Her roommate was awake.
[Total popularity value: 397.]
[Popularity value to survival value exchange ratio is 100:1. The system has automatically exchanged one survival point for you.]
[Wishing you a happy resurrection.]
A warm current seemed to spread from her heart.
Li Li's cold fingertips suddenly trembled.
The numbness was receding, and she vaguely felt the sensation of her body's existence.
The rustling sounds of getting out of bed arose.
Her roommate, who had an early class, unwillingly turned over and sat up.
Blood circulation began, and her lungs slowly resumed work.
Air flowed through her nasal cavity, and Li Li gently began to breathe.
“Thump, thump, thump.”
It was her heartbeat, slow and powerful.
Her roommate got up, and the friction sound of going down the ladder was heard.
At the same time, airflow moved through her trachea, and Li Li silently opened her mouth.
Her roommate, after getting out of bed, paused for a moment, identified the direction, and then slowly walked to Li Li's bedside.
Her roommate asked, still a bit muddled, "Lili, do you want me to bring breakfast?"
A hoarse voice came from Li Li's vocal cords, a bit soft, and a bit muffled.
“Yes.”
“Okay...” her roommate responded with a drawn-out sound, then walked into the bathroom in her slippers.
The bathroom door was casually closed by her roommate.
And Li Li finally lifted her heavy eyelids.
She saw the light shining on the back of her hand through the gap in the bed curtain, saw the cold light of early morning before her.
Tiny dust motes floated in the light.
Her soft fingertips gently lifted, touching the cool air.
The movement of her jaw was still a bit sluggish, but she couldn't help but curve her lips into a smile.
See, she had won the bet.
...
Having finally come back to life, Li Li slept for nearly three hours, catching up on sleep.
She only woke up when her roommate returned to the dorm.
“Lili, the jidan guanbing I brought for you is on the table.”
Her roommate had just finished her first class.
When she walked over to Li Li's side, she couldn't see clearly if Li Li was up, so her voice was relatively soft.
However, the sound of her opening the door had already pulled Li Li from her light sleep.
Li Li smelled the fragrance of breakfast, rubbed her eyes, and pulled out her phone from beside her pillow to take a look.
It was currently 9:15 in the morning.
According to her schedule, there was a major course at two o'clock this afternoon.
She wanted to sleep a little longer later.
She didn't know if the time she was dead didn't count as sleep time, but she was still very sleepy now.
After all, before she died suddenly, she had been working on her thesis for three consecutive days, breaking her previous record for staying up late.
Her spirit was indeed somewhat exhausted.
By the time she finished washing up, her roommate had gone out again.
Li Li and her roommate were not in the same major, and their class schedules were completely different.
These two days were the school's midterm week.
Li Li, having finished her thesis, had some free time, but her roommate was still in exam hell.
However, the school allowed students to choose their roommates freely.
The two of them, being fellow "old otaku," had decided online to be roommates before even arriving at school.
Li Li still remembered that when they first met, her roommate's social media avatar was a popular handsome anime character.
In the month between getting to know each other and meeting in person, her roommate changed her avatar five times, each time a different character.
If nothing else, her roommate was very quick to switch allegiances.
But Li Li was different. She was a standard loyal fan.
The ones she liked now were also some old series, and her childhood male god's status was stable and had never changed.
Even if the mangaka loved mahjong and turned her childhood male god from an older brother into a younger brother.
Looking at it this way, 《Extreme Black and White》, which updated every three days, was really diligent.
Li Li made herself a cup of coffee, moved lightly, pulled out a stool, and sat at the table.
With a still-warm jidan guanbing in one hand and her computer open in the other, she clicked on a manga website.
The theme color of this website was blue. In the largest section at the top of the page was a colored manga illustration.
A brown-haired youth, about sixteen or seventeen years old, turned his face to the side.
His blue denim jacket was faded white.
The youth's expression was resolute and focused. In his azure eyes, which should have been gentle, a blurry black figure was reflected.
Beside it were four large characters: Extreme Black and White.
This was the manga Li Li had transmigrated into, and the youth in the colored illustration was the protagonist of this manga.
Because of his young age, and his hair and eye color being similar to a Corgi, he was jokingly called ‘Little Corgi’ by readers.
Not to mention the strangeness of 《Extreme Black and White》, this manga was actually very popular.
Sometime ago, at the school anime club's Cosplay event, there were even cosplayers cosplaying the protagonist of Extreme Black and White.
Li Li took a bite of the jidan guanbing.
She glanced at the black figure in the protagonist's pupils, confirming that she couldn't tell who it was.
Then, without pausing, she clicked into the manga's page and started reading the latest chapter.
In the early morning, she had told the system that she felt the first time entering the manga world was an opportunity for her to inevitably appear, and the system would evaluate her performance to arrange her panel count in the manga.
But that was all her own analysis, and the system hadn't directly answered whether it was true.
At this time, she first roughly scanned the manga content, tallying the proportion of her appearances in the manga.
The result was gratifying. Excluding the beginning about the protagonist, Li Li's appearances accounted for one-third of the update.
Li Li had won the bet; her analysis was completely correct.
Afterward, she carefully read the update again.
The second time she read the manga, she read it very meticulously, repeatedly reading about the protagonist's movements and the boss's impression of her, and also took notes.
“Clearly scared but still pretending nothing happened.” She found it amusing. “It made me so scared too.”
She had thought the boss was very calm, but it turned out the boss was just as panicked as she was.
Two people in a small dark room, both wearing false masks, trembling inside.
After finishing the manga, she scanned the forums again.
Posts speculating about power levels appeared on the forums, as well as discussions about her purpose.
【LT, what's the power level of the new guy? Will he insta-kill the boss or insta-kill the boss?】
【PBC fanfic, lightly drew some fanart of the new character.】
【I bet this newly appeared character is definitely a future boss! If not, I'll eat my keyboard upside down!】
As a new character appearing at the end of the update, Li Li received extremely high attention from readers.
Powerful, mysterious. Either of these two qualities was enough to attract people, and she possessed both.
But this didn't mean that attention could be converted into popularity value.
Converting the readers' attention towards her into affection was what she needed to do next.
However, she had already made a good start.
Her portrayal this time was very successful, not only perfectly deceiving the mid-rank ability user, but also showing a trend of surpassing the boss in popularity.
Li Li casually browsed the forum, her fingers moving, and couldn't help but click into the fanart thread.
“It’s really beautiful...” Li Li murmured, looking at the picture.
The main tone of the picture was black.
Half in light, half in shadow, the black-haired youth glanced sideways, his fingers resting on the bridge of his sunglasses, his head slightly raised, his gaze arrogant and sharp.
Below the post was a stream of praise, and also some outrageous comments from old perverts who had little attachment to the mortal world.
Li Li took out a mirror, looked at herself, pondered for a moment, and confirmed that there was indeed a gap between 2D and 3D.
Actually, she had been using her own face at the time, but with a little makeup to accentuate her features.
Li Li's appearance was androgynous.
Among girls, her looks were aggressive, but when dressed as a boy, she was surprisingly handsome.
She thought about it and felt that she looked better in men's clothes, and should be able to present a handsome, pretty-boy image in the manga, so she changed into men's clothes.
Considering it was her first time pretending to be a big shot, she was worried her micro-expressions would betray her, so she wore sunglasses.
However, it seemed to make her more recognizable and even more handsome.
But Li Li wasn't planning to stay like this.
She knew that appearance was also very important in terms of popularity.
For example, the boss, a minor character with few appearances, had many fans solely because of his looks.
She would definitely have to show her face.
Actually, she had thought about whether she could change her face to that of an unparalleled beauty, but the system did not provide a free face-changing service.
Instead, it called face-changing 【Disguise (One-time)】 and sold it for 10 survival points.
Too expensive, she couldn't afford it.
Her survival points weren't even enough to let her rest for a few days, let alone buy non-essential expensive items.
This also made Li Li more eager to accumulate her initial popularity.
If she could, she wouldn't want to rush over like she was ganchang .
Li Li rested her chin on her hand, staring fixedly at the protagonist smiling foolishly on the title page.
The popularity of a manga character was related to the number of appearances.
The character with the most appearances in a manga was definitely the protagonist.
Characters related to the protagonist, the deeper the connection, the more appearances they would have.
When Li Li approached the boss, she had already created an intersection between herself and the protagonist because of ‘Tang’.
The protagonist wanted to take ‘Tang’ away from the ability user organization.
Under Li Li's performance, the new character's goal also seemed to be ‘Tang’.
This way, Li Li could follow this intentionally left clue and find the protagonist.
But at this time, the protagonist was in a dangerous situation.
Directly seeking out the protagonist after the second transmigration would definitely be more dangerous than waiting for the protagonist to escape and then seeking him out.
Li Li looked at her popularity value, and with just one glance, she consciously started to reread the manga from the beginning, looking for usable information.
Admittedly, observing quietly was the rational approach, but if she didn't continue to appear in the manga, she would die again.
...
At twelve o'clock at night, the system's voice sounded again.
[Updating data, total popularity value: 682.]
[Transmigration preparing.]
[Passage opened, wishing you to become a highly popular character, bringing new inspiration to the manga.]
Jiao Huang was still immersed in the darkness of night.
In the distance, waves crashed against the coast, turbulent and surging.
Under the moonlight, a dark figure took off her hat, revealing sharp eyebrows and eyes.