Chapter 42: Why So Flashy (Extra Update)
Though the timing was ungodly, the group was full of night owls.
After Li Li shared her thoughts, a wave of people popped up, including the authors of A Few Doujin.
[Lazy: Thank you, thank you, goddess! As long as goddess likes it!]
[Lazy: Ahhh, with goddess’s words, I can keep creating tonight!]
[Lazy: What does goddess want to see? I’ll write it! I can write anything!]
This doujin author seemed ecstatic, their next messages filled with garbled text.
Li Li didn’t know what to say for a moment. She stayed quiet, then replied.
[Lili: More, more!]
The doujin about her aliases had nothing to do with me, Li Li.
The doujin about manga characters had nothing to do with me, a reader who followed updates.
In the dead of night, I got to know people in the group.
Though the troupe was preparing for a performance at ap39, the scriptwriter hadn’t finished the script yet and was instead obsessed with writing spicy content.
What was known was they planned a stage play for the Jiao Huang arc, but that might change depending on the manga’s later developments.
Anyway, the white moonlight Li would definitely have a role.
The scriptwriter swore that as long as Yiming appeared, she’d find a way to include a flashback scene for Li.
I was very much looking forward to it.
It was too late, so I chatted briefly, got familiar with the online members, said goodnight, and went to bed.
The next few days were packed with classes, tutoring, and extracurriculars, like squeezing water into a sponge—my real-world life was full and vibrant.
Soon, it was time for the manga update.
That evening, my roommate went to the snack street near school and brought back fried skewers and barbecue for me.
“Eating this so late will make you fat,” I said, taking a bite of a skewer.
My roommate was unapologetic: “That’s exactly why we eat together—to get fat together, good sisters stick together!”
“How devious!” I teased, but ate happily.
With my roommate’s late-night snacks, we were still wide awake at midnight.
“It’s updated!” Right on time, my roommate wiped her hands and grabbed her phone to read the manga.
I was slower, washing my hands before picking up my phone.
This update’s color page was loaded with foreshadowing.
At the bottom were Yiming, Tang, Momo, and Youyou, while above was a bust of Yue Shan, except his face was shrouded in a diagonal shadow, completely hidden in darkness, leaving only a pair of crimson eyes glowing eerily.
Yue Shan had blond hair and blue-green eyes; crimson eyes belonged to Heige.
But this color-shifting technique was common, like in a certain famous anime where characters’ eyes turned crimson when they got intense about gambling.
The manga’s content, though, carried even stronger hints.
It picked up from the last chapter, with Yiming and Yue Shan talking.
Just as Yue Shan was about to stab Yiming through the chest, a booming sound came from above.
Yue Shan left to deal with the intruders.
The perspective then shifted to the intruders, but the manga didn’t show their appearance, only using silhouettes.
There were only three panels of the shadowy figure: one with a hole in the ceiling, dust billowing, the silhouette standing high above, looking down.
Another showed the silhouette jumping down, humming a tune, while researchers backed away in terror.
The final panel was a full-box speech bubble, black background, white bubble with the words:
“Do you still remember me?”
The perspective shifted back to Yiming.
The artist seemed to be hiding the intruder’s identity—or maybe not at all.
Whether it was the intruder’s leisurely stride or the little musical notes in the speech bubble, it practically screamed who they were.
At least, that’s what I and the readers thought.
[Holy crap, this guy’s so extra?]
[That familiar door-kicking pose, that classic gate-crashing vibe—it’s you, isn’t it!]
[Hua Yizhi and Qing Yu Chen send their congratulations.]
[Is this bigshot here for a friendly visit or to stir up trouble?]
[The earlier "Ge Li Ge Qi" vibe was hilarious, truly peak Ge Li Ge Qi.]
The main content wasn’t revealed, only a vague question left hanging.
Li Li felt her disguise was still intact.
She kept scrolling down.
Back then, she was locked in a desperate struggle with Yue Shan, where a single misstep could’ve cost her life, so she naturally hadn’t paid attention to what was happening with Yiming.
In the manga, Little Corgi first caught his breath under the incandescent light, glanced at Momo beside him, and pondered how he could escape with her.
Then, he couldn’t help but think of Li.
“Said I’d be ratted out if caught, but never even gave me a chance to be ratted out,” he muttered.
Then he steeled himself, taking advantage of Yue Shan’s absence to slice through his restraints with a blade, leaping up to knock out the nearby researcher.
Li Li carefully checked the comments, and as expected, they were almost all in tears.
[Wuwuwu, today’s ahoge-knife-Li is dishing out pain as reliably as ever.]
[Ahoge Li, the epitome of a sharp-tongued blade.]
[I just realized this time, no one was there to help Little Corgi or coordinate with him.]
[My Li! My Li! Manga artist, you have no heart!]
Li Li noticed that Ahoge Li had evolved into Ahoge Knife Li among regular readers—a pretty fitting nickname.
With a possible Heige appearance earlier, many readers in the comments were crying while cursing Heige.
The utterly shameless Li Li skimmed past it and continued reading the manga.
Unlike Yue Shan, most of these researchers weren’t ability users, and the few who were couldn’t match Yiming.
But just as he cut through the biomaterials binding Momo and prepared to carry the unconscious girl out, the blue-robed people arrived.
Yiming fell into a bitter fight.
Unlike Qing Tong’s guards, who were mostly low-rank, these people were C-rank at their highest—on par with Hua Yizhi and above Yiming.
Carrying Momo indeed slowed him down.
Just as he was struggling, Momo woke up.
The girl, who often kept her eyes closed, did something surprising upon waking: “I don’t want to leave. I need to find Youyou.”
She didn’t open her eyes but seemed aware of her surroundings.
“Youyou’s still here. Put me down, I’m not leaving.” She tried to break free from Yiming’s grip.
At that moment, darkness suddenly enveloped them.
Losing all five senses, Yiming faltered, and Momo succeeded in slipping away.
The sensation of being shrouded in darkness receded like a tide.
Yiming shook his head, regaining his vision.
“Wait!” Yiming spotted Momo and tried to stop her, but just then, the fallen Momo suddenly looked up.
She opened those eyes that were usually closed.
Ability: mimicry-type pupil technique.
In the black-and-white panel, her pupils seemed to blend into the whites of her eyes, a halo forming around them.
In the next panel, everyone’s movements froze.
Those eyes could halt all living beings in her line of sight, like Medusa turning humans to stone.
Momo, eyes open, struggled to her feet and stumbled deeper into the facility.
‘Please, save me, save Youyou!’
Her inner thoughts spilled out in a speech bubble as she ran, praying to someone unknown.
When her figure vanished completely, the pupil technique lifted, and Yiming regained his mobility.
He chased after Momo, but the blue-robed people kept hounding him, preventing him from catching up.
This was the scene Li Li later witnessed.
The manga’s next plot point showed Yue Shan reappearing, recapturing Yiming, and locking him in a box for a new experiment, pushing him to his limits.
Interspersed were bits of information Li Li had deliberately leaked, but the main perspective was Yiming’s.
The manga detailed Yiming’s combat awareness and thoughts when facing tricky ability users, making readers despise Yue Shan even more.
[Heart aches for Little Corgi.]
[Heige should thank Yue Shan. If not for him, Heige would still be my most hated character.]
[Aaaaah, how is this villain so infuriating!]
[So Heige really just dropped by for a visit?]
[Daily question: when will Yue Shan die?]
Watching Yiming’s fight scenes, Li Li nodded, already planning how to catch him off guard with extra training to teach him about “surprises” when she returned to the manga world.
At the end of this update, Tang found Youyou.
Just as Li Li had seen, Youyou said to her, “Kill me.”
[!!!???]
[Youyou’s eyes, Momo’s eyes—what’s going on?!]
[Heart aches, he doesn’t even want to live anymore.]
[Aaaaah, Yue Shan deserves to die!]
Debuting recently, Yue Shan’s ability to draw aggro was impressive, living up to his role as the fanatic researcher even Li Li disliked.
At the manga’s end, there was a preview for the next chapter: What’s the relationship between Youyou and Momo? How will they survive?
Having finished the manga, Li Li also polished off her fried skewers.
“This Yue Shan is too vile, what a scumbag!” her roommate fumed, standing up to help Li Li clean the table and move the smelly garbage to the balcony.
“Villains always die eventually, don’t worry,” Li Li reassured, though Yue Shan was already long dead.
After a moment, she added, “Who knows, maybe next chapter you’ll see his corpse.”
“I believe you, I really do!” her roommate said, eyes teary.
After a shower, Li Li climbed into her top bunk, hugging her phone and opening the forum.
The forum was buzzing with activity.
With one refresh, Li Li saw several new posts.
[Analysis post: Whose ability was that sudden darkness—Heige’s or Yue Shan’s?]
[Is Heige just dropping by? Popped in and left?]
[I hate Yue Shan! Even if he looks decent, I still hate him! When will he die?!]
[What’s the deal with Momo’s pupil technique and Youyou’s gouged-out eyes? Isn’t Momo the blind one?]
[Let’s sort out the plot progression of the Four-Way arc so far.]
[Ding, today’s White Moonlight Knife Li check-in complete.]
[Don’t be picky, wouldn’t it be great if both Heige and Yue Shan died?]
Li Li casually scrolled through, finally clicking into the post that might expose her disguise.
Though she felt the manga artist wasn’t even trying to hide the difference between the two Yue Shans.
[Is it just me, or does the later Yue Shan feel kinda Ge Li Ge Qi?]
1L Original Poster
I know my eyes might be playing tricks, but this Yue Shan.
[Striding forward confidently with an arrogant smile Yue Shan.jpg]
This Yue Shan.
[Legs propped on the coffee table, super cocky Yue Shan.jpg]
And this Yue Shan.
[Chin resting on hand, looking at Yiming with keen interest Yue Shan.jpg]
Now compare it to the Yue Shan from the previous chapter.
[Face flushed, obsessed and entranced Yue Shan.jpg]
Doesn’t he suddenly exude a bigshot aura, but like, a Ge Li Ge Qi bigshot aura?