Chapter 30: Comic Con Hehe (Two-in-One)
Li Li’s idea of going to a comic con: light makeup, casual clothes, just strolling around.
My final state: full makeup, a black trench coat that looked casual but suspiciously like a cosplay outfit—though not cosplay, it was awfully similar.
Li Li chose to wear a mask.
My roommate was cosplaying a character from another series, with hefty props.
By the time we took the subway to the comic con venue, we had to queue with those heavy props.
“My feet are starting to hurt,” my roommate, wearing uncomfortable little leather shoes, complained before we even entered.
Li Li stared at the endless line ahead, perhaps because I was fully geared up, slipping unconsciously into character mode.
With a cold face, I said, “Hang in there. You have to walk this path yourself; I can’t carry you.”
After I spoke, my roommate didn’t respond for a while, and just when Li Li thought her fragile heart had been hurt, she suddenly let out an excited squeal: “Yes, yes, yes! That’s the vibe! Scold me, scold me! It’s so in-character, my ahoge Li!”
I gave my roommate a look that said, ‘I didn’t know you were like this,’ but she clutched her chest, even more thrilled.
What could I do with this silly goose raised in our dorm? Spoil her, I guess.
Finally entering the venue, the air conditioning wasn’t on yet, and the entire hall was stiflingly hot, so I pulled down my mask.
Soon, other cosplayers cautiously approached with their phones, asking if they could take a photo with me.
Comic con photo collecting was like taking group pics, similar to checking in at a tourist spot.
I thought about it.
So far, I hadn’t seen anyone else around Yiming who had crossed over.
This was just my guess, and the system hadn’t confirmed whether it was correct.
It wasn’t even certain if there were others like me shuttling between two worlds.
Besides, I was already here, so having fun was the priority.
“Sure,” I nodded in agreement.
As a cosplayer, I was in-character, and I had every reason to be.
I was just a very thorough cosplayer who did her homework!
After that, my roommate and I browsed doujin stalls and took photos.
She snagged the freebies she wanted, so happy she forgot her aching feet.
Meanwhile, the crowd around me for photos kept growing.
“Is this young lady cosplaying Extreme Black’s Li?”
“You’re so in-character!”
“Miss, miss, can you call me ‘good doggy’?”
“Artist, are you open to new contacts?”
“Wow, it’s Li!! My male god!!!”
“Miss, miss!”
Surrounded by layers of people, Li Li struggled to turn to my roommate and said, “Don’t you think there are a bit too many people?”
My roommate, holding her phone with the camera aimed at me, grinned and said, “Not at all, totally fine!”
I looked at the circle of people around me, their excited eyes practically glowing.
Fine.
The thirty-sixth stratagem: retreat was the best option.
Using the skills I honed as a bounty hunter, I slipped through the crowd, finally breathing fresh air.
Then, ignoring the shouts and screams behind me, I started running toward the bathroom!
A huge group chased after me, screaming.
Li Li, running at the front, felt like an apple dangling before them.
I felt as if I were being pursued by an army, the entire venue filled with screams.
“Li’s running!”
“Ahhh!”
“Male god, wait!”
“Husband!”
Thank goodness for my relentless training these past few days, though I never imagined my first real-world use of these skills would be to dodge enthusiastic fans.
My roommate, long out of steam, didn’t catch up but sent a voice message: “Wait, Lili! The comic con bathroom is a hotspot for cosplay meetups, be careful!”
“I sent you the private worldbuilding! Memorize it!”
Standing in front of the sink, Li Li slowly typed three dots in the chat and sent them.
“…”
How had I not shaken off this cosplay thing yet?
…
At that moment, a post suddenly shot up on the forum.
[Super in-character wild Li cosplayer spotted at ap38 comic con!]
1L Original Poster
Ahhh oh my god, so in-character, it’s literally ahoge Li in the flesh!
2L
What? Post pics!
3L
Curious, squatting.
4L
Let me see how in-character it is!
…
23L
At the scene! I saw it too!
This lady’s long legs blew me away! The kind you’d instantly call husband!
Wahhh husband, where are we going tonight hehe (dreaming).
24L
Ahhhhhhh!
25L
That ahoge is perfection! So expressive!
How can a human have such a light, airy ahoge!
26L
What! Where’s Li! I’m going too!
…
176L
So in-character! Cool and handsome, no trace of secondary setting fragility!
My god, it’s a lady! Girls really outshine guys when they’re this cool, step on me, sister!
Step on me hard with those boots!
177L
My wife just smiled at me, smiled at me hehehe.
178L
Damn, what’s it like? Those not at ap38 are itching with curiosity!
179L
No front-facing pics without the cosplayer’s consent, but I can show you a back shot.
[picture.jpg]
180L
Holy crap, holy crap, does this aura actually exist?!
This waist, these legs, this ahoge—are they real?!
Too perfect!
181L
The cosplayer is even more in-character in person, nailing the vibe—seemingly aloof but with a touch of gentle warmth…
She just smiled at me! Really!
182L
Ahhh this back shot is unreal! Everything around fades away, his loneliness known only to himself.
It’s like that day when Li turned his back on Yiming, telling them to leave first.
He’s walking toward the ‘bad kid’s path’ he planned for himself.
183L
Damn, my drool—no, my tears—are flowing.
184L
I’m so mad! Can I still make it to ap38 now?
I want to get close to this ultra in-character lady too!
185L
Thanks for loving my husband, I’m thanking everyone on his behalf.
Hugging my husband tight hehehe.
Got a group photo, I’ve got the marriage certificate!
186L
Ahhh I’m so jealous! That’s such a flex!
187L
I want to get close to the lady too! Let go, let me have a turn!
…
Jiang Lan, a big name in multiple doujin circles, was currently helping a friend by watching their stall.
The freebies had long been snatched up, and as she minded the stall, she scrolled through her phone, naturally checking the Extreme Black and White forum.
While scrolling, she came across a post.
“Super in-character Li cosplayer?” She frowned, scrolling to the bottom but finding no pictures of the cosplayer. “Just hype, huh?”
“How in-character could it be? The gap between real people and 2D is obvious. Aura, looks—how could a real person compare to a paper male god!” she said, but then someone approached the stall, and she looked up to do business.
Then she saw a cosplayer passing by.
A black trench coat billowed with each step, long legs in boots striding forward, a choker at her neck accentuating fair skin, and those dark eyes gazing indifferently at the path ahead.
Suddenly, she thought she heard someone’s voice.
The cosplayer stopped, turned her head, her cold expression seeming to melt, and finally flashed a light, cheerful smile toward the back.
Those eyes seemed to glow.
Time seemed to stretch, but it was probably just Jiang Lan zoning out for a moment.
Soon, another cosplayer caught up from behind, chatting and laughing with this cosplayer as they left together.
It wasn’t until her friend asked if she was spacing out that Jiang Lan snapped back to reality.
She suddenly let out a scream: “Ahhh, a godly artist collected a photo with me!” She hurriedly climbed over the stall, chasing after the cosplayer’s direction.
Her friend shouted behind her: “What about the stall?! Ditching it for a pretty face!”
…
At this comic con, Li Li ran into plenty of Extreme Black and White cosplayers.
Yiming’s, Yu Xiao’s, and even Heige’s.
The Heige cosplayer was also a young woman, her eyes lighting up the moment she saw me, jogging over: “Sis, wanna collect a photo?”
She seemed to ship these two characters, asking my roommate to take a shot with a specific pose.
The Heige cosplayer leaned forward from behind, her hands lightly framing my face, while I looked up at her.
After the shoot, my roommate kept an original copy, and the Heige cosplayer said she’d edit the photo before posting it.
After bidding farewell to many strangers I met by chance but shared hobbies and topics with, the venue soon closed.
Li Li and my roommate followed the crowd out of the venue, then collapsed in exhaustion outside.
“This was scarier than escaping…” I murmured.
My roommate sat on the ground, her feet completely done for after a day of walking, not daring to touch the ground: “Because Lili’s so popular, hehe.”
“That’s the manga character’s popularity,” I said nonchalantly.
Then I thought, well, it’s kind of mine too, since I’m the real deal.
“Eat here or back at the school cafeteria?” I asked, looking at the sky.
The orange glow bathed me, warm and cozy.
Beside me, my roommate opened her phone, slowly browsing nearby food options: “Let’s see… there’s barbecue around here…”
I couldn’t help but smile.
I loved this mundane sense of reality, basking in the sunset’s glow, chatting with my roommate about ‘what to eat tonight.’
Of course, today was still quite eventful: namely, escaping the photo-collecting crowd.
…
After a day of messing around with my roommate, Li Li climbed into bed early, exhausted, waiting with open eyes for midnight.
[Data updated, total popularity value: 16,234.]
[Preparing for traversal.]
[Passage opened. Wishing you to become a high-popularity character, bringing new vitality to the manga.]
[System update detected. Please select your landing location.]
“The alley beside the Ability Guild,” I answered quickly.
When I opened my eyes again, moonlight shone directly overhead, illuminating the ground, and I was in the alley where I had disguised myself.
Completely far from the suburbs and Yue Qing, but when I looked into the distance, dust was still rising from the suburban direction.
Though for Yue Qing, it might have been just a moment, for me, it had been a whole day.
Before leaving, I had faced an S-rank’s ability head-on.
Now, returning, a chill enveloped my body, as if my blood were slowly freezing. With last time’s experience, I tried using my ability on myself, just to test it.
Illusory Reality activated, turning all the injuries I had suffered into falsehoods.
At that moment, I couldn’t help but smile.
Was this truly cosplay-turned-real?
My roommate’s repeated mentions during the day came to mind, and I thought of the barbecue we ate that night.
When I pulled back my wandering thoughts, I realized the chill had vanished.
Even the trauma Dan had caused was gone.
“Illusion, reality,” I murmured, chuckling softly.
The manga world I was in was illusion, while the real world I lived in was reality.
In a daze, I felt my understanding of my ability deepen.
The ability, like a gentle warm current, dispelled my discomfort.
I closed my eyes, yet it was as if I could see the range I could touch unfolding before me.
From the original 200 meters, it began to expand, like a silent, invisible wind spreading quietly.
Expanding, expanding, continuing to expand.
It finally stopped at nearly a thousand meters, then halted.
I felt I could freely manifest phantoms or turn solids illusory within this range.
“Upgraded?” I opened my eyes, looking at my palm in surprise.
Perhaps because I was too tense last night, I hadn’t noticed my ability rank had risen.
Now I was B-rank, one step closer to the A-rank I was pretending to be.
The ability’s limiting conditions hadn’t changed—still the same four—but the duration and range had.
Awesome, I thought.
I was still dressed as Heige.
I casually snapped my fingers, and my appearance changed.
The ice-blue pendant reappeared in my hair, hanging by my right ear.
The silver-white mask vanished into the air, and the black trench coat returned to its original style.
At that moment, I transformed back into ‘Heart-Sealed, Love-Locked Li Baige.’
Let me continue to be a bounty hunter in this illusory world.
…
“Did you hear? Last night in the eastern suburbs…”
“My place got affected too; I was frozen awake in the middle of the night!”
“Ugh, I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Last night’s tremor made me think it was an earthquake, but when I ran out, it was ability users causing trouble.”
“The power reached almost to the city center; it had to be an A-rank ability user or higher!”
“A-rank? I’d believe even higher.”
“Shh, there aren’t many A-rank and above ability users in Four-Way City. Better not talk about it.”
“True, those kinds of ability users aren’t people we can mess with.”
The commotion from last night was huge, and even at the Ability Guild, Li Li could hear bounty hunters gathering to discuss it.
I passed by these conversations without a glance, but my ears didn’t miss a single detail.
Still, civilians knew little; they didn’t even know nobles were involved.
At that moment, Le Caille, who had been chatting idly nearby, suddenly turned around.
Seeing me, he walked over, his face full of smug pride.
“Madman, I’ve got news you definitely don’t know.”
I was heading out after picking up a mission, and upon hearing this, I tilted my head, signaling him to continue.
We soon left the Bounty Hall, and Le Caille’s voice grew louder.
He quoted a price, and after I agreed, he continued: “Did you feel the tremor from the eastern suburbs last night? A big battle happened there.”
Li Li, the ‘battle’ participant, blinked, my face still icy and expressionless.
I was curious to see what this info broker knew.
“I got word that a noble’s villa collapsed there.” Le Caille smirked mockingly. “Don’t know which noble, but something like this is super embarrassing. By this afternoon, there’ll probably be a new bounty or news that the culprit’s dead.”
Le Caille was just a civilian, and the tension between civilians and nobles had long existed, growing fiercer by the day.
Naturally, he wouldn’t give nobles any respect—he might even cheer.
“Quite the hero,” he said, describing the potential ‘culprit.’
Li Li: I’ll take that as a compliment.
I accepted the praise in my heart, paid him, and went to find my bounty target.
Perhaps because it was lunchtime, when I returned to the Ability Guild, the familiar young noble was squatting at the entrance, pouting.
Seeing me, he instantly broke into a beaming smile and rushed over.
“I saw the name you registered—Baige!” he said cheerfully, while I silently sighed in my head.
Calling me ‘big brother’ right off the bat isn’t great, is it? I thought nonchalantly.
“Will you keep being my bodyguard today?” the young noble asked, though he didn’t seem to expect rejection.
Then I said coldly, “I refuse.”
Ignoring the young noble, I headed straight to the Bounty Hall.
The young noble froze for a moment before chasing after me.
Of course, he wasn’t alone.
After yesterday’s events, his brother had assigned more people to him.
When An Huyu ran over, I felt nearly half the people present watching me.
Maybe it had something to do with Yue Qing’s attack last night.
My expression unchanged, I continued with my plans.
“Baige, Baige!” An Huyu persisted. “Heige really went after Yue Qing, so my idea was right!”
“Last night! I heard it from Big Brother!” He spoke like a peacock eager to show off, proudly saying, “So I changed the plan. This time, I’m super confident! We’ll definitely find Heige!”
I glanced at him.
It seemed the nobles knew who attacked Yue Qing.
This young noble really trusted me, I thought.
As if encouraged, An Huyu said, “We’ll secretly follow Yue Qing. When Heige and Yue Qing fight to the death, you swoop in and take Yue Qing’s head! Then we win!”
I wondered if there was a chance he hadn’t considered: I can’t split myself, nor would I steal my own kill.
This young noble’s logic was getting harder to follow, completely ignoring the vast gap in strength.
As An Huyu’s face flushed with excitement, awaiting my response, I coldly looked away.
“A-rank mission number 7421,” I reported to the service desk, stating the bounty number I was taking next.
Then I took the mission and left, leaving the ignored young noble teary-eyed in place.
I was more interested in mastering my newly upgraded ability than babysitting.
As Le Caille predicted, that evening, a familiar broadcast echoed through the Bounty Hall.
“SSS-rank mission number 3, team pre-registration now open.”
I was very interested, but my points weren’t enough to apply.
For the Ability Guild’s bounty missions, aside from low-rank ones, mid-rank top-tier and high-rank missions could be taken as a team.
Individual missions didn’t require points, but team missions allowed the initiator to set a point threshold.
Low-rank missions gave single-digit points, mid-rank C-rank gave double digits, B-rank ranged from 100 to 200, and A-rank from 200 to 500.
High-rank missions started at thousands.
B-rank missions were rare.
Mid-rank ability users in Four-Way City seemed as numerous as stars, but those wanted by the Ability Guild for heinous crimes were almost nonexistent.
I had grinded missions for days and only accumulated just over a thousand points, while this team’s preset threshold was 5,000.
Besides the point threshold, I could also try backdoor methods to join.
I wasn’t clueless about backdoor methods, but I didn’t want to use An Huyu too blatantly for now.
He had an S-rank brother with a necromantic ability, after all…
Better not be too obvious for now.
Besides, the deadline was about two weeks away.
Thinking this, Li Li continued grinding points and training my ability.
…
[Opening the passage for you… Welcome back to reality.]
Soon, it was evening, and I remembered the manga updated today.
But I hadn’t shown my face around Yiming lately, and he hadn’t appeared at the Ability Guild either. We had no interactions.
I figured this update probably wouldn’t involve me, so I casually checked the forum first.
Then I saw a post about me.
[Super in-character wild Li cosplayer spotted at ap38 comic con!]
[Who got that cosplayer lady’s contact info?]
I skimmed through.
Usually, comic con photos were edited before being posted, out of respect for cosplayers.
The pictures in the thread were touched up, making them look less like my actual appearance.
Several comments said things like ‘looks better in person’ and ‘cameras can’t capture my husband’s beauty.’
After exiting, the first batch of readers who finished the update started posting.
Then I saw a post from just a second ago.
[Heige confirmed illusionist! Forum prophet is awesome!]
Followed by a second one.
[Heige is so cool ahhhh!]
A name that shouldn’t have appeared did, and I fell into thought.
Wait, was this update related to me too?
Originally planning to sleep, I immediately left the forum and opened the latest manga chapter.
The first part focused on Yiming, Tang, Yu Xiao, and that pair of twins.
They arrived in Four-Way City, but the research institute was no longer at the twins’ old address.
Right after reaching Four-Way City, they got tangled up with some bounty hunters, landing in trouble.
Standard shonen manga plot—readers were used to it.
But after that, Heige appeared.
I stared at the black-and-white manga page.
A black-haired youth with a white mask sat lazily on a sofa, moonlight barely illuminating half his face.
It was my confrontation with Yue Qing, unexpectedly shown in the manga.
In the panel, the youth’s brows were bold and sharp, looking at the noble ahead, but his gaze seemed to pierce through the page to the readers outside.
“I heard someone put a bounty on me.”
“Was it you?”
The words were a question, but the youth’s smiling face showed no trace of doubt.
Such unrestrained sharpness.