Chapter 50: Father’s Debt, Son’s Repayment?
The instant he snapped back to reality, Yiming opened his mouth, his eyes brimming with tears.
“Brother!”
Tang looked over in surprise, but Yiming only stared in that direction, leaving her behind as he chased after.
In the dusk, late-returning doves soared in the sky, and under the warm orange glow, Yiming’s legs pounded the ground.
His feet moved furiously, sprinting toward the shadowed alley across the street.
The ground was hard, but stepping on it felt like treading on clouds—drifting, unable to find balance.
My whole body felt weightless.
The alley loomed larger in my view. I heard my own breathing: inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
In my trembling vision, under the sunset’s shadowed veil, I thought I saw a figure pause in place.
Is it you?
Are you still alive?
Are you hiding from me?
These questions floated in my mind, yet they seemed like mere chaos in my jumbled thoughts.
Finally, I reached out with my right hand, my fingertips brushing that patch of shadow.
A look of joy spread across my gaunt, brown-haired face.
I opened my mouth, my blue pupils reflecting a dark silhouette.
“Brother—”
In the next second, an unfamiliar face appeared in my sight.
The boy stepping out of the shadows was a complete stranger.
He seemed to be waiting for someone, his golden eyes calmly fixed on the alley’s entrance.
I said, “Sorry,” and turned my foot to arc around him.
As I passed by his side, my sudden turn swung my left hand back.
My denim jacket lifted with the breeze, leaving my waist exposed.
At that moment—
“Rip!”
The sound of tearing fabric rang out as a dagger plunged into my waist.
I turned back, bewildered.
I saw the unfamiliar red-haired boy, his eyes gleaming with excitement, gripping the dagger he’d stabbed into me.
Then he said, thrilled, “Got you!”
On a decorative tree outside the alley, among dense leaves, a faint shadow stood.
The figure flickered like a glitchy screen.
A blue pendant glinted faintly under the sunset.
[Update target achieved.]
[Opening channel for you...]
[Welcome back to reality.]
...
My real body wasn’t there—just witnessing the sudden event through an illusion.
Back in reality, I stared at the computer beside me, slowly raising my hands to cradle my face.
I couldn’t help but recall the first time I met An Huyu, when he mentioned his plan: get close to Heige, then stab him.
And he actually did it—though he stabbed Yiming instead.
What is this, some new-age “father’s debt, son’s repayment”?
Poor Little Corgi!
Even my usually unshaken conscience stung a little.
I rubbed my face, thinking the young master was truly a genius—and incredibly bold.
An Heyu hadn’t told him Heige had already been baited out.
That day An Heyu and I first met to discuss, An Huyu was locked away in a remote villa far from the scene.
That’s why he snapped, taking Hundred Faces to hunt Heige himself.
And then he baited out a Little Corgi.
And stabbed said Little Corgi.
I’d wondered if An Huyu might appear in the manga, but I never imagined his debut would be so explosive.
I took a deep breath and kept grinding my assignments.
College students still had to submit homework, after all.
I hoped Yiming would be okay the next time I entered the manga world.
...
Time passed buried in assignments and studying.
When I finally submitted my work before the deadline, I leaned back in my chair and let out a long breath.
After washing up and climbing into bed, I checked the time.
A few minutes had passed since the manga updated.
My roommate was still battling in the library.
I turned off the dorm’s main light and read by lamplight.
The manga picked up from the last chapter.
Yiming and Tang joined the Ability Guild as bounty hunters and embarked on their first mission.
The first half focused on this—Yiming’s ability growth, paired with Tang’s healing ability.
It was thrilling but ultimately successful.
I flipped through.
Readers praised Yiming and Tang, while power-scaling fans debated Yiming’s current strength and whether he could match Hua Yizhi in Jiao Huang.
After this plot wrapped, the perspective shifted, revealing the long-absent “flipped fish.”
This seemingly docile boy, with his round eyes, wandered aimlessly down the street.
In the next panel, a noble’s transport appeared at the road’s end.
In the stark black-and-white manga world, cars existed, but nobles preferred primitive carriages over mechanical vehicles.
The “horses” used by nobles were biotech products—upper bodies like real horses, but with bat-like wings on their backs.
They were called wing-horses.
Nobles loved decorating wing-horses with lavish gems and silks to flaunt their wealth.
And now, ahead of Yu Xiao was such a wing-horse carriage.
In the next panel, the carriage’s occupant appeared.
I recognized Yue Qing.
Walking beside the carriage were Yue Fu and Rao Yue.
I noted Rao Yue showed no signs of injury, so this likely happened before that night.
The manga continued.
Yu Xiao walked forward like a clueless goose, staring ahead but seemingly oblivious to the approaching noble.
He walked on the side path, not conflicting with the noble’s carriage.
But I didn’t think things would be that simple.
I turned the page. Yu Xiao faced sideways, walking right, while the wing-horse carriage moved left.
In the next panel, Yue Qing’s gaze flicked to the side.
They parted in opposite directions.
It seemed like it ended there.
But in the next panel, the wing-horse carriage, which Yu Xiao had his back to, suddenly stopped.
“Wait.”
A white speech bubble appeared in a standalone black panel.
In the next, Yue Fu turned, his eyes fixed on Yu Xiao at the panel’s forefront.
In the black-and-white scene, vines as thick as three fingers burst through the gaps in the floor tiles.
They seemed to instantly bind Yu Xiao’s body, hoisting him upside down in the air.
In the frame, Yu Xiao wore a bewildered expression, his hair falling downward with gravity, revealing a smooth forehead.
Then Yue Fu strolled over, casually tilting his head, and said, “This unlucky commoner, come with me.”
“Why?” Yu Xiao swayed in the air, looking utterly perplexed.
“My cousin hates your eyes,” Yue Fu stated.
The confusion on Yu Xiao’s face deepened: “Huh?”
[Damn, it’s tragic, but hahahahaha!]
[Darling, are you starting your Lucky E streak again?!]
[Damn, Flipping Fish, you always surprise me.]
[What a random disaster, Fish!]
[Yiming! Save Yu Xiao!]
In the pitch-black dorm room, the phone’s glow illuminated Li Li’s face, where she wore a thoughtful yet puzzled expression.
Yu Xiao’s luck had always swung between extremes, oscillating wildly between the best and the worst.
This time, he was just unlucky.
But what Li Li cared about was why Yue Qing was making such a big move.
She recalled the events of that day, speculating, “Is it to invite the Qu clan nobles?”
If Yue Qing was just going to find someone, that was one thing.
But if Yue Qing was going to meet someone, then An Heyu’s information was significantly outdated.
What she had heard from An Heyu was that Yue Qing would invite the Qu clan, not that they had already reached an agreement.
Li Li thought briefly before scrolling down.
The next page first depicted a dusk scene in black and white, then showed Yiming and Tang leaving the Ability Guild.
As the comments hoped, the two talked about Yu Xiao, but Yiming said to leave him be.
[Wait, Little Corgi! This time Flipping Fish really flipped!]
[Corgi! Save Fish!]
[Yu Xiao, darling, if you weren’t so absurd usually, you wouldn’t be left unsaved now!]
But soon, they stopped dwelling on whether Yu Xiao would be saved.
As the manga progressed, Yiming spotted a silhouette.
In the manga world, Yiming could instantly recognize it, but readers, separated by a layer, couldn’t discern anything from the back.
The manga gave that figure a close-up, a side-profile close-up.
As Yiming chased after, that familiar 2D image appeared on the page.
Black hair, black eyes, a choker around the neck, his lips curved into a calm line as he walked forward, but his eyes were hidden in the manga, left undrawn.
The eye area was merely shaded in.
But for manga readers, this was enough.
[!!!!]
[Ahoge Li!!!!]
[Ahhhh, it’s my male god! My male god!]
[Running laps downstairs, roommate called me a lunatic, yes, I am!]
[Wuwuwu, chase him, chase him, Little Corgi!]
Yiming chased after.
Then, as Li Li had seen, he was brutally backstabbed by An Huyu.
[Huh??? What’s happening???]
[Where did this guy come from?!]
[Ahhhh, Little Corgi!]
[Ahoge Li! Your brother got stabbed behind you!]
The manga ended there with, ‘Who is he? And who is he? Friend, foe, or old acquaintance?’ It didn’t reveal that Li Li was nearby.
Li Li felt satisfied.
After all, Li Baige followed a high-end route—rare appearances, but his presence lingered everywhere in the story.
She casually flipped forward and, surprisingly, didn’t hit the comment section but entered the next chapter.
“Double update?” Li Li found it unusual, then remembered this issue included an interview with the manga artist.
“Grinding deadlines and forgetting,” Li Li sighed, then flipped to the artist’s interview to keep reading.
The interview was in Q&A format.
The question lines had white text on a black background, large and eye-catching.
The artist’s answers were black text on a white background, taking up the most space.
Li Li looked at the first question.
Q1: The Four-Way Arc has ended. Are you satisfied with your work, Sensei?
Answer: Not very satisfied. In my original plan, Youyou was supposed to die.
Q: Then why did Youyou survive in the end?
Answer: A flash of inspiration, I suppose.
A flash of inspiration? No, it was me, Li Li, turning the tide!
Seeing this, Li Li couldn’t help but sigh.
As expected, her guess was right.
This manga artist really wanted to go for a hot-blooded shonen route with heads rolling and teammates dropping like flies.
But she refused.
Then came some questions about character designs, arranged by screen time: Yiming, Tang, and Yu Xiao, the three with the most focus, followed by the main supporting characters of the Four-Way Arc, Momo and Youyou.
Li Li checked the time and flipped forward to the questions about herself.
Q61: Some time ago, the popular character Li died, and readers reacted strongly. Do you have plans to bring him back due to pressure?