Chapter 47: Will Pulling Out the Ahoge Make You Stronger? (Two-in-One)
‘Who exactly is that person?!’
The Four-Way arc of the manga concluded with this sentence, and the next chapter would usher in a new arc.
Li Li flipped a few pages back and found a preview for the new arc, along with a notice that the next chapter’s end would feature an interview with the manga artist.
She propped her cheek, lost in thought for a moment, staring at the manga artist’s name.
It wasn’t that there was a problem, but the artist’s pen name was quite intriguing.
The author of the manga 《Extreme Black and White》 went by the pen name ‘Manga Artist,’ simple and straightforward.
“System, is this manga artist a ghost or a human?” she asked without much hope.
The usually silent and barely active system responded quickly to the question, as if it was always on standby.
[Please explore on your own.]
As expected, the question remained unanswered.
Sure enough, the system had no intention of letting her know too much.
Li Li thought about it, set the question aside for now, and prepared to check the forum.
In any case, whether it was a mule or a horse, the next chapter would reveal something, and she was quite curious about what the manga artist would say in the interview.
Exiting the manga page and entering the forum, discussions were already in full swing, still buzzing with excitement.
[Ahhhh I’m so thrilled I could run laps downstairs! So the one who saved Yiming was him, right? It’s gotta be him! Little Corgi, your big bro came to save you!!] hot
[One Big Happy Family still has hope! Crying my eyes out, buying a house in Floating City isn’t a dream anymore!]
[Let’s discuss, what does the name Li Baige represent?] hot
[Wuwuwu I knew I wouldn’t betray my ship! Li, my love, I’ll always love you!]
[Cold and seductive vibes, I knew this trait felt so familiar, turns out it’s all you!]
[Slice? Test subject? Who did Heige actually kill? Revisiting the surprise at the end of the Jiao Huang arc! Analysis post] hot
[I declare my cp is real! HeiLi forever!] hot
The dazzling array of new posts was all about the latest chapter.
Li Li refreshed, and several more posts shot to the top.
At that moment, her phone started vibrating.
Her roommate, who was supposedly studying at the library, sent her a string of exclamation marks.
[Yao Yao: Lili, you’re a prophet! My male god is still alive ahhhhh!]
Li Li replied.
[Lili: Aren’t you studying?]
[Yao Yao: Wuwu too excited, I’ll go study now!]
Two seconds later, another message popped up.
[Yao Yao: My male god is still alive ahhhhh!]
[Yao Yao: I’m so happy ahhhhh!]
Li Li shook her head and opened a post.
She’d let her dear roommate bask in joy for three more days.
[Li Baige! Is it what I think it is!]
1L Original Poster
Ahhhh is it you! Is it you, Ahoge Li! My wife!
2L
Get lost, don’t you have your own wife! Hugging my wife Ahoge Li and my husband Li Baige.
Perfect monogamy!
3L
Tears welled up the moment I saw the name.
Little Corgi, your brother isn’t just in your fantasies, he’s helping you in reality too!
He really came to save him.
In the artist’s short doujin, what Little Corgi saw wasn’t just Heige, but Ahoge Li too!
4L
Li didn’t abandon you!
...
[I totally get it now, this is a love-hate cp!]
1L Original Poster
Oh my god, Li Baige, Heige, they’re definitely involved!
At the end of the Four-Way arc, Heige clearly spared Little Corgi for Li Baige’s sake!
Think back to the end of the Jiao Huang arc when Ahoge Li left—wasn’t that also because Heige forced him?
Li Baige even seems to want to kill Heige.
Isn’t this a classic love-hate cp!
The player indulges the toy’s little tantrums because he knows the toy will always belong to him alone.
2L
Ahhh so shippable!
I need to see the artist’s doujin now!
...
[Let’s discuss, what does the name Li Baige represent?] hot
1L Original Poster
It means his surname is Li, and he’s probably connected to Heige.
2L
That’s some redundant literature right there.
3L
It means he’s my male god, Ahoge Li!
4L
It means Yiming has a brother now!
5L
It means Tang’s promise can be fulfilled!
6L
It means Li fans can rejoice!
...
[Doujin second creation, the path walked alone.]
1L Original Poster
First floor dedicated to my male god.
2L Original Poster
Wuwuwu male god, you’ve changed so much, I hardly recognize you. What made you like this?
Now I’m just crying from the angst.
Why is there no light in his eyes anymore?
OOC warning, premise is Ahoge Li had no choice but to leave.
...
23L
I was so happy my male god was alive, but after clicking in, I cried like a dog.
Why must you hurt me! Why!
Is it Heige? It’s his fault, right! He’s the one who made my male god sad, right!
Did he force Li to leave?!
24L
Li fans and Heige are sworn enemies!
25L
My fragile wife wuwuwu wah!
...
Has Heige secured the villain script?
Li Li blinked, then exited the post.
Perhaps because the manga hadn’t provided enough information yet, the readers were letting their imaginations run wild with all sorts of guesses.
While most believed Li Baige equaled Li, some had other ideas.
Then she clicked on a hot post and blinked in surprise at the content.
This poster’s imagination was something else!
[Slice? Test subject? Who did Heige actually kill? Revisiting the surprise at the end of the Jiao Huang arc! Analysis post] hot
1L Original Poster
The new chapter has Little Corgi getting beaten, Momo’s betrayal, and the ethical dilemma with both surviving in the end.
Throughout the Four-Way arc, Little Corgi has been growing.
After the Jiao Huang arc, he learned hatred and resentment, recognizing his own powerlessness.
Li’s death seemed to drive him into a corner, making him obsess over saving everyone.
But in the Four-Way arc, Momo taught him a lesson: kindness doesn’t always earn equal respect.
While he fought a powerful ability user for Momo and Youyou, they might not have needed his help and even discarded him, not caring if ‘Yue Shan’ would kill him in the end.
Yet, after learning all this, he still said: As long as you’re okay.
He’s still that kind, shedding Corgi, unchanged by Heige’s words.
Yiming is undeniably the light of Extreme Black.
But that’s secondary.
What shocked me most was the bounty hunter’s name.
He’s called Li Baige!
No one would believe this name has nothing to do with Li and Heige!
Combined with earlier plot points, Yiming found Li Baige familiar. Who he is couldn’t be clearer—our Ahoge Li!
I’m too excited. I always thought Li’s death was too abrupt, his background unexplored. Sure enough, he has more to come.
Reviving a popular character in a shonen manga is just too common, isn’t it!
Listing Li Baige’s appearances in the Four-Way arc:
During the Reunion Festival, I met Yiming, but we passed by each other.
I blocked Heige’s killing move for Yiming, without showing my face.
In the end, it was as if I transformed into an uncatchable white dove, with no meeting of gazes.
Then, compared to Ahoge Li in the Jiao Huang Arc.
[Reunion Festival Li Baige’s demeanor.jpg]
[Li being pulled along during the first meeting with Yiming.jpg]
[Li when agreeing to become family with Yiming.jpg]
The OP discovered something was off.
When Ahoge Li acted together with Yiming, he was much more lively than Li Baige at the Reunion Festival, so Yiming said it was an illusion, the Li we knew wasn’t like this.
The Ahoge Li we knew, though cold-faced, was soft inside, he would be sharp-tongued, tease Yiming, and also yearn for the light Yiming brought.
Li Baige had no awareness of this at all, he seemed completely unwilling to interact with Yiming.
This person’s gaze was a pool of dead water, similarly like a phantom that would scatter with a single breath.
His gaze expressed one sentence: don’t come near me.
So the OP wondered, what happened? Why did our Ahoge Li become like this?
2L
Too many words, won’t read yet, you say a lot, I’ll follow you.
3L
Too long, won’t read yet, only addressing the title.
I also guessed that Li Baige was Ahoge Li during the Reunion Festival chapter, but the lack of ahoge made me give up.
An Ahoge Li without an ahoge has no soul!
So if we talk about a clone slice, it might actually be possible.
4L
Finished reading, only addressing the suspicious point.
If Li Baige really is Ahoge Li, then what happened to make him like this, it feels like a foreshadowing.
5L
Did the person above forget Heige’s existence? Little Corgi survived Heige’s brutal beating, but Ahoge Li might not, he looks so fragile.
And from what we’ve seen, Heige seems to enjoy playing nurturing games.
OP, keep going, I’m squatting.
...
142L OP
Originally, the OP was very certain, but suddenly became uncertain, would the manga artist arrange Ahoge Li’s return so simply?
The OP repeatedly reviewed the manga at the end of the Jiao Huang Arc where Heige appeared, and finally found a problem.
[Two silhouettes chasing each other in the corridor.jpg]
Was Heige really chasing Li at that time?
It’s known that Heige was wearing a trench coat, and the silhouette in front of him, at first glance, seemed to have a coat hem like a trench coat, but upon closer inspection, it seemed to fit the legs more closely than an open trench coat.
[Qing Yu Chen standing in the corridor.jpg]
The OP found the image of Qing Yu Chen talking to Yiming, the sway of Qing Yu Chen’s changpao magua was exactly the same as this silhouette’s!
It’s highly likely that Heige was chasing Qing Yu Chen at that time, not Li!
Thus, we don’t know what happened between Heige and Ahoge Li at that time.
Since Heige is a rather capricious person, he would do things because they seemed interesting, like □□ Little Corgi.
And Li Baige was interested in Heige’s bounty, even saving Little Corgi in front of Heige.
So the OP had the following two guesses.
1. Ahoge Li and Li Baige are two people, but closely related, Heige killed Ahoge Li, so Li Baige is hostile to Heige.
2. Ahoge Li and Li Baige are the same person, Heige subjected him to the same nurturing game as Little Corgi, and intentionally stripped him of social connections.
...
231L
Damn, thinking like this, Ahoge Li is too tragic!
If it’s 1, then Ahoge Li’s revival is completely fake, Li fans would go crazy.
If it’s 2, then there’s eternal enmity between Li fans and Heige fans.
Summary, Ahoge stabs Li, the power hasn’t diminished!
232L
Although, can I say, 2 is kind of shippable.
...
This OP was the first to suggest that Li isn’t Li Baige, Li Li read it with relish and then shook her head regretfully.
Besides this, the forum also had power-level fans analyzing the power gap between Heige and Li Baige, Yiming and Li Baige, and so on.
Including analyses of Tide, where Momo and Youyou ended up, how Heige managed to keep Momo and Youyou alive, and even guesses about what the manga artist would say in an exclusive interview.
Then there was some memeing.
[Ahoge Li, where’s your ahoge! Was it plucked by Heige!]
1L OP dog head rose
Though he lost his ahoge, he became stronger!
[Chibi Li super cute.jpg]
[A hand in black gloves plucking the ahoge from his head.jpg]
[Pure black screen.jpg]
[Ahoge Li transforms into Li Baige, yay.jpg]
...
Li Li: Covered her head.
Fortunately, that tuft on her head was still there!
It would take at least a day or two for doujin to ferment, those who could churn it out that night were true fans.
Li Li browsed for a while and then exited the forum, it was past two o’clock, a flash of inspiration hit her, and she switched accounts to enter the group chat with the doujin bigshot.
Then she saw the doujin bigshot going crazy.
...
“I knew I wouldn’t jump ship! The only one I love is my male god!” Jiang Lan said while her fingers flew, “choker, ear stud, as expected of my male god, always hitting my □□!”
“What are you doing now?” her bestie said via voice message, “Why did you spam a bunch of ‘ah’ in the group? You’re hurting my eyes!”
“I’m producing content, I need to produce content!” Jiang Lan roared meaninglessly, “This wave is Heige wanting to control Li, deciding for him to leave and Li abandoned weakness, wanting to escape his control! I already have thirty thousand words of indescribable stuff in my head! Let me write!”
Half an hour later, A Few Doujin’s album gained three new pictures.
A few minutes later, group members started popping up.
[Lili: Liked.]
“My goddess thinks it’s good!” Jiang Lan happily slid off her chair, leaving only one hand raised straight toward the ceiling, “My cp is real!”
Her bestie sighed: “You’re hopeless, but the content is Xiang Xiang, give me more, yeah?”
On the day of the update, the forum’s trend gradually took shape.
Most manga readers believed that Li Baige was Li, while a minority suggested that the Extreme Black and White worldview included androids and clones, and an even smaller group proposed more interesting ideas, like Li and Li Baige having a split personality or something.
At midnight, with the system’s announcement, Li Li put down her phone and closed her eyes.
[Preparing for traversal.]
[Channel opened, wishing you to become a highly popular character, bringing new vitality to the manga.]
...
The Twinborn research institute was located in the remote suburbs of Four-Way City, where unknown individuals often wandered, and some big disturbances occurred.
Coupled with the bad relationship between Yue Shan and Yue Qing, they avoided contact whenever possible, so the Yue clan nobles still hadn’t received news the day after Heige visited Twinborn.
After confirming this, I transformed into Heige’s appearance, swapped my black trench coat for a navy blue hoodie, and changed the silver-edged mask back to sunglasses, returning to this underground base in the night.
Under the sunglasses, a red mark at the tail of my left eye hadn’t healed yet; when my ability upgraded, I used illusion to replace the real damage left by Dan, but during the Qing Tong period, I didn’t use my ability to remove the scar at the corner of my eye.
I thought it held commemorative significance, and from a distance, it looked more like red eyeliner, adding a touch of unrestrained wildness, without hindering my coolness.
The ‘Rubik’s Cube’ was initially blasted open by my ability, creating an open-air hole, but I patched it up afterward.
Because of this, looking at the ground from the outside, one couldn’t tell what earth-shattering changes had occurred inside.
I only handled kicking butts and breaking doors; I didn’t participate in what happened afterward.
But according to the manga’s content, Momo and Youyou returned to Tide, and Twinborn should have been taken over by Tide, just like Qing Tong.
This time, I came to check out the people from Tide’s Four-Way City branch.
I had said before that I would use these two organizations, though I wouldn’t really act as some ‘leader,’ but I wouldn’t completely avoid them either.
The earthen wall door opened for me, I adjusted my sunglasses and stepped inside.
At this moment, the ‘Rubik’s Cube’ interior had no electricity, further confirming my guess that Tide’s people had probably already been here.
It was pitch black, and I deliberately lightened my steps; this darkness was silent.
A smile hung on my lips, like a mask tightly glued to my face.
I walked within the box, the empty space seeming to contain only me.
But when I reached the center of the room, my foot stepped on something, producing a faint click.
In that instant
“Bang!”
A flash of fire suddenly lit up in the darkness.
It was a gun!
In the darkness, the bullet seemed to reach my eyes in an instant, and I heard the sound of it cutting through the air.
My ability Illusory Reality activated, illusion climbing onto the bullet’s form.
It was about to vanish into the illusion.
But just as the illusion covered the bullet, something unexpected happened.
The illusion didn’t turn into reality!
My smile unchanged, I still located the bullet’s position.
Instantly, I tilted my head slightly, and the bullet flew past my cheek, hitting the wall behind me, sparking a burst of flames.
“Thud!”
In an instant, this probing ended, and both sides in the probe tacitly paused for a moment.
B-rank? Or above B-rank? I thought.
This greeting wasn’t fun at all.
The next second, they moved.
My ability continued to activate; in the darkness, the black curtain was impossible to capture.
The opponent’s position was as obvious as a spotlight.
“Bang bang bang!”
Bullets poured out, aiming at the spot where the sound had come from.
With Illusory Reality, for ability users of the same or higher rank, there’s a 5% chance requirement; the attack methods created by illusion can’t cause damage if the opponent denies them.
But what needs affirmation is only the part they need to touch!
The darkness was like a giant vortex, enveloping me the next second.
I completely vanished from the enemy’s sight.
The bullets hit the wall, the sizzling sparks briefly illuminating the area.
Yet the person who should have been standing in the center of the room had melted into the darkness, nowhere to be seen.
The next second, a snap sounded, and the light of a flashlight abruptly appeared in the air.
It was as if a stage spotlight had been installed on the ceiling, the light shining down, illuminating the person below.
In the empty box, a white-robed person wearing a mask looked up, gazing at the suddenly lit light above.
At that moment
“Good evening.”
The voice of a black-haired youth appeared behind the white-robed person.
Instantly, the white-robed person turned, leaping backward with a forceful kick, swiftly creating distance.
At the same time, twenty rifles materialized in front of the white-robed person, firing directly at the youth without the white-robed person looking up.
“Bang bang bang!”
Firelight accompanied the smell of gunpowder, the illusion flickering in the smoke like a bulb losing power or a reflection rippling on water.
The next instant, the white-robed person looked up, catching the final moment of the illusion’s disappearance.
The barrage of bullets hit the wall behind, collapsing it directly in a cloud of dust.
Clean and efficient, like the most professional assassin.
The flashlight’s light temporarily went out, and I, hiding in the darkness, felt a slight challenge.
If the opponent didn’t witness, didn’t engage, and acted like an emotionless killer, the chances of my attacks succeeding would be greatly reduced.
The problem was that I didn’t know their stance, so I couldn’t immediately find the persona I should perform for them.
But I felt that the opponent was definitely targeting me, no doubt about it.
So, let’s keep probing.
The flashlight’s light lit up again, and the white-robed person’s movements in the darkness were fully within my grasp.
In the darkness, I moved as if on flat ground.
The white-robed person vigilantly turned around, but the illusion followed like a shadow.
"Are you looking for me?" The voice appeared again, and at the same time, the white-robed person did not turn around.
Twenty rifles emerged in the air and fired simultaneously.
The gunfire illuminated half the box once more, and at that moment, Li Li suddenly had a flash of inspiration.
She abruptly recalled a scene.
In an instant, a phantom appeared out of thin air in front of the white-robed person.
The black-haired youth in the phantom pushed up his sunglasses with one hand and raised a gun with the other.
Then he pulled the trigger.
"Bang!"
As the bullet left the barrel, a rifle appeared in front of the white-robed person, firing a shot.
The two bullets met in midair and collided.
The phantom’s attack was effective!
In the darkness, Li Li slowly raised the corners of her mouth.
She knew what to do.