Chapter 51: The Manga Artist’s Art of Dodging (2-in-1)
Answer: Hmm, maybe.
The artist’s response was as good as saying nothing.
Li Li sighed, as expected, then kept scrolling.
When the foreshadowing wasn’t revealed, the artist definitely wouldn’t spoil anything.
A few questions caught Li Li’s interest, like, ‘If they escaped Qing Tong, what would Li do?’
The artist answered, ‘He’d take the two kids for milk tea.’
That’s impossible!
Li Li stared at her phone, pondering. If that actually happened, she…
She couldn’t imagine it because that premise would never happen.
There was also a death-related question, asking who Li would save if Yiming and Tang both fell into a river.
The artist’s reply was watertight: Li would cheer them both on from the shore.
Li Li thought, no way, am I that scummy? This is slander!
Alright, she did indeed have that confidence; she believed they could climb out on their own.
There were only ten questions about the White Moonlight “Li,” and Li Li quickly skimmed through the Q&A related to the character “Li,” summarizing that the manga artist was using the interview to flesh out “Li’s” character design.
For example, a height of 1.75 meters, a fondness for fluffy things, and a favorite drink of milk tea.
Interestingly, some small habits matched Li Li’s own, like tapping something while thinking or blinking in surprise.
After finishing the ten questions about “Li,” the next character was “Heige.”
When it came to this apparent antagonist, the manga artist’s responses were even more intriguing.
Q: Why does Heige often cover his left eye when he appears?
A: Well, maybe it looks cooler that way?
Q: Does Heige enjoy playing nurturing roles?
A: Maybe?
Q: What’s the relationship between Heige and Yue Shan? Did they know each other before?
A: Hmm, yeah.
It was practically the epitome of dodging and deflection.
Out of the five questions about Heige, the artist brushed off four.
The final question, however, was answered properly.
But that answer left Li Li feeling a bit uneasy.
The question was: How do you personally view the character Heige?
And the manga artist’s response was: Heige feels like he has his own thoughts, always surprising me.
Li Li: Nonsense.
She was a living, breathing person, of course she had her own thoughts.
But to readers, this meant something else entirely.
Li Li saw fans in the comments joking about Heige “stealing the pen,” creating a new meme.
[Pen-stealing Heige, who’re we killing today?]
[Heige has a wild, untamed, freedom-loving soul!]
[Heige: Not even the manga artist can control my mind!]
[Arrogant both in and out of the panels, haha, Heige the bigshot.]
Throughout the entire interview, the manga artist gave no hints about future developments, dodging wherever possible with vague responses, providing no substantial information.
But for character fans, this interview was a goldmine, offering deeper insight into their favorites.
Li Li read through it again from start to finish, then pursed her lips and mulled it over.
From these hundred Q&As alone, it seemed the manga artist genuinely treated Extreme Black as their own manga creation.
Li Li couldn’t tell if the artist was truly unaware, pretending to be unaware, or something else.
Asking the system would surely yield the usual “please explore on your own.”
After thinking for a bit, Li Li gave up; she didn’t have enough clues yet.
After finishing the artist’s interview, Li Li clicked into the forum, where plenty of users were still active.
[It’s definitely my male god! My male god is back!]
[Li fans, hold on! The artist’s interview answers feel off!]
[Yu Xiao, darling, you’re on your own this time, good luck!]
[Little Corgi!!!! How’d you get beaten up again?!]
[As expected, Li Baige is Li! The one who stabbed Corgi was with Li Baige!]
Scrolling down, manga readers were even more convinced that Li Baige was Li, and some even mistook Hundred Faces for Li Baige.
Li Li smiled without commenting.
Combat fans analyzed the battle prowess of Yue Fu, who made a move in the latest chapter.
Theory crafters listed two or three points proving Li Baige equaled Li.
Predictors speculated on who An Huyu was targeting by stabbing Yiming.
Meanwhile, character fans were having a field day, especially Li fans and Heige fans.
[Doujin: Pen-stealing Heige refuses to be controlled!]
1L OP Doghead Rose
Lmao, manga artist, you’ve met your match today.
[A chibi stick figure labeled “manga artist” holding a pen, drawing.jpg]
[A chibi Heige jumps out of the paper, snatching the artist’s pen.jpg]
[Manga artist crying, Heige laughing evilly with hands on hips.jpg]
…
[Discussion: If they fell into the water.]
1L OP
Water guests: Little Corgi, Tang Tang.
Shore guest: Li.
Result: Water guests save themselves successfully.
2L OP
Water guests: Little Corgi, Li.
Shore guest: Tang.
Result: Little Corgi saves Li successfully.
3L OP
Water guests: Little Corgi, Li.
Shore guest: Heige.
Result: Heige saves Li, stepping on Little Corgi’s head to get ashore.Self-rescuing Corgi gets kicked back into the water by Heige.
4L
Hahahaha, OP, you’re too talented!
…
The silly netizens were on fire, making Li Li laugh uncontrollably in the middle of the night.
Figuring it was about time, she turned off her phone, closed her eyes to sleep, but her mind kept replaying the image of Corgi being kicked back into the water.
Sorry, but it’s just too funny.
Li Li’s cheerful mood lasted until she re-entered the manga world.
With the system’s prompt, she shifted her real body to the phantom’s position.
It wasn’t that she was worried about them—Yiming wouldn’t kill, and An Huyu didn’t have the ability.
She just wanted to check three days early what direction the manga plot would take after these two met.
And, by the way, prevent the big boss behind An Huyu from getting angry.
At that moment, the sun was setting, and she stood on a large tree at the alley’s entrance.
The dense spring and summer foliage, combined with her ability, ensured no one could see her there.
Just then, a crisp sound of metal clashing came from the alley.
An Huyu’s dagger had struck metal.
In the split second before being stabbed, Yiming had metallized his abdomen, blocking the dagger’s attack.
Compared to the battle-hardened Yiming, An Huyu’s attack was child’s play, incapable of truly harming him.
“Huh?” An Huyu showed a puzzled expression.
Meanwhile, Yiming reacted, his left hand behind his back clenching into a fist, instantly smashing into An Huyu’s right cheek.
An Huyu was sent flying, his left shoulder scraping the ground, tearing his clothes and leaving a bloody gash on his shoulder.
“It hurts!” He couldn’t help but cry out, tears streaming down as he looked up.
Yiming, who had instinctively countered, froze.
He hadn’t expected his attacker to be such a frail, ordinary person.
The alertness from being attacked morphed into unease for having hurt someone.
Unseen by Yiming, a golden halo began spreading from thousands of miles away.
It was An Heyu’s ability, the domain-type Necromantic Prelude.
At that moment, Li Li stood on a sturdy branch, coldly staring at her phone screen, her fingertip tapping to send.
[Don’t make a move.
Heige]
With the message sent successfully, the golden halo’s spread halted, then vanished into the horizon.
What a mother hen.
Li Li thought expressionlessly.
“Yiming! Who did you see?”
Tang caught up, her voice snapping Yiming back to reality.
He turned to Tang first, saying, “I saw Li.”
Then he stretched his neck to peer toward the alley’s exit, but the familiar silhouette was gone.
He felt a bit dejected but quickly pulled himself together, squatting beside An Huyu to ask, “You okay?”
“I’m not okay!” An Huyu flinched, but seeing Yiming’s apologetic demeanor, he wiped tears and said, “Why are you so ferocious?!”
Yiming apologized, then said, “You’re looking for someone, right? We don’t know each other; I’m not the one you’re after.”
He recalled An Huyu’s initial claim of “got you.”
Tang approached as well, her gaze sweeping over the torn fabric where Yiming had been stabbed, clearly piecing together what had happened.
So she had no intention of healing An Huyu, standing aside to let them talk, her eyes occasionally drifting toward the alley’s end.
“No, it’s you,” An Huyu said, clutching his scraped arm, sobbing. “You’re so strong, you’re definitely Heige!”
“Me? Heige?” Yiming’s eyes widened in shock, practically leaping to his feet. “Don’t joke around!”
“You can call me an idiot, but how dare you say I’m like Heige!” He was genuinely furious, never having been so insulted.
“No, you are!” An Huyu had his own logic. “Hmph, trying to fool me because I caught you? No way!”
Yiming, likely feeling communication was futile, stood up. “Let’s go, Tang. We’re finding Li.”
But at that moment, An Huyu, tears blurring his eyes, said, “You’re looking for Baige?” He seemed to have a new idea. “He’s not here now, but if you come with me to see my brother, I’ll take you to Baige. Baige likes me a lot and even says I’m smart!”
Li Li, nearby: No, I don’t.
Please don’t mistake “speechless” or “can’t be bothered” for praise, thank you.
But he wouldn’t step out to refute, so An Huyu’s words effectively caught Yiming and Tang’s attention.
Both turned back simultaneously, Yiming’s expression like he’d bitten a lemon, while Tang’s gaze sharpened.
Li Li decided there was no need to watch further.
The three were talking past each other, yet bizarrely managing to communicate, tangled up in some strange competitive drive.
Sighing at how she was truly universally adored, she activated her ability, her form shifting into a red-eyed crow.
Then she flew out from the canopy.
The plot here would likely follow Yiming accompanying An Huyu to meet An Heyu, with An Huyu convinced he’d caught someone to show off to his brother.
But Li Li didn’t have time to escort them to An Heyu.
The crow circled in the air, its gem-like crimson eyes reflecting the city.
She recalled her question from reading the update: what exactly was Yue Qing up to yesterday?
The sun gradually sank in the west, the orange-red of dusk turning deep blue as the moon rose.
Then Li Li spotted the wing-horse carriage from the manga, carrying Yue Qing and a stranger along the road.
The stranger’s hair wasn’t blue but purplish-red.
Someone from the Qu clan?
Identifying relatives by hair color seemed to work in this 2D world.
The crow perched on a streetlamp, tilting its head.
Yue Qing had kept An Heyu in the dark.
While An Heyu thought Yue Qing was still negotiating with the Qu clan, Yue Qing had already brought someone to Four-Way City.
Was this to catch Heige off guard, or to take on both An Heyu and Heige?
Poor mother hen, Yue Qing doesn’t trust you anymore. Li Li thought.
The crow took flight again, circling away from the wing-horse carriage.
The other side had two high-ranks, and she had no intention of tempting fate to the extreme.
An Heyu didn’t know the Qu clan’s hereditary ability, so she felt she needed to tread carefully.
If Yue Qing invited that person, it meant he believed they could kill Heige.
What if their ability countered hers?
Though she often acted impulsively, seeming reckless and fearless, she wouldn’t do something with certain death.
She needed to find a way to get information on the Qu clan’s ability first.
As she pondered, the crow soaring in the sky caught a scream.
Her ability activated, and a phantom followed the sound’s source, transforming into a crow perched on a treetop.
This was Four-Way City’s civilian residential area.
Through the phantom’s eyes, Li Li saw a scene of blood.
Someone ran screaming in the night, while others drew curtains to avoid calamity.
Blood splattered on residential walls, and a flash of purplish-red hair passed through her vision.
In the quiet night, these fragmented sounds wove a haunting melody.
The person in the wing-horse carriage with Yue Qing was undoubtedly a high-ranking Qu clan noble.
If they weren’t traveling alone, could this person slaughtering in the civilian district also be a Qu?
Bloodline inheritance with zero loss had a prerequisite: the recipient must have no ability.
If they had an ability, the ritual would fail.
It was precisely because of this that if the An clan hadn’t met with disaster, An Huyu would never have remained without an ability.
Instead, he should have inherited his elders’ abilities and become a powerful ability user.
Aside from the method of bloodline inheritance, naturally awakened abilities within the same family often bore similarities.
Just like Yue Qing and Yue Lan, both wielded ice-based abilities, but Yue Lan’s additional power could freeze space, while Yue Qing’s specifics were still unclear.
If this purple-red haired person in the civilian district bore the surname Qu, then their ability could serve as a reference for Li Li to speculate about the abilities of high-ranking Qu clan nobles.
The main body and its phantom swapped positions, and the black bird perched on the treetop transformed into a human figure.
The corner of her navy-blue clothing fluttered in the night breeze.
A smile played on her lips as she adjusted the sunglasses covering most of her face.
In the next instant, her figure vanished from the spot.
...
“Help, save me!”
He Shasha had encountered a demon! She was willing to call him a demon!
This evening had started as a perfectly ordinary one.
She returned home from work and prepared to have dinner.
Compared to the constant troubles of ability users’ lives, the lives of ordinary people were somewhat easier.
After all, they had no abilities and thus weren’t targets for plundering.
But similarly, they lacked money and power—those things were firmly grasped in the hands of ability users.
The mundane daily life of ordinary people seemed far removed from ability users, but once they were caught in the crossfire, they had no means to resist the arrival of death.
Just like now.
Tonight, someone knocked on He Shasha’s door, and she opened it.
This was the most catastrophic mistake of her life.
It was the child from across the hall, fifteen years old, crying with a face full of tears.
The moment she opened the door, the child threw themselves into her arms.
He Shasha was so preoccupied with clumsily comforting the child that she didn’t notice the door across the hall opening, revealing a wall splattered with red and a crimson-stained floor.
“They got out?” A stranger’s voice came from across the hall.
Only then did He Shasha look up.
The moment she saw the horrific scene across the hall, her pupils dilated in shock.
A man with long purple reddish hair, its ends tied with a blue ribbon, dressed in a gaudy black outfit, stepped out from the pool of blood.
“Why didn’t you escape farther?” the man said.
In the next second, the body of the child clinging to He Shasha exploded.
“Aaahhh!”
She had to escape farther.
He Shasha ran desperately, half her vision already dyed red.
She sprinted through the neighborhood streets, but no one responded to her cries for help.
Gasping for breath, He Shasha looked up and saw a familiar neighbor standing behind a second-floor window.
They had chatted just that afternoon about the rising prices in Four-Way City.
She instinctively let out a joyful smile.
But the neighbor, with a look of terror, yanked the curtains shut, cutting off her line of sight.
And behind her, the sound of that demon’s footsteps drew closer.
She had to escape farther.
She stumbled but didn’t dare stop, using every ounce of strength to run toward the security booth at the neighborhood entrance.
In relatively safe civilian neighborhoods, ability user security guards were typically hired.
She didn’t look back, but she heard the sound of shattering glass.
The neighbor who had just met her gaze was now bound by a thin black thread around their neck in the darkness, crashing into the wall and sliding down limply, as if boneless.
In extreme terror, He Shasha couldn’t even shed tears.
Suddenly, a figure appeared on the road ahead.
Wearing a navy-blue, student-like hooded jacket and oversized sunglasses, with both hands tucked into pockets, they strolled leisurely toward her.
They looked young, as if out for a nighttime walk, happening upon this scene by chance.
“Run, run!” He Shasha shouted with all her might, but the youth seemed not to hear, continuing their carefree approach.
She didn’t dare stop.
As she passed the youth, she grabbed their arm, trying to pull them along to escape.
But her wrist was seized.
“…Tch.”
The youth pushed her hand away.
He Shasha turned back.
By now, the purple-reddish haired man was already at the end of the road.
“Run!” Her voice trembled.
She had to escape farther, farther!
But it was too late.
The purple-reddish haired man had already spotted the youth.
“Not bad, another one,” the murderer said.
In the darkness, black threads extended through the air, but the black-haired youth seemed oblivious, speaking in a cheerful tone: “Good evening, what’s your surname, sir?”
“No need for formalities—surname Qu,” the purple-reddish haired man replied casually.
At the same time, the black thread reached the youth’s face!
There was no escaping it!
He Shasha nearly screamed.
Just then—
“I don’t like your name.”
The figure vanished.
The wind rose.
A dagger flipped in the night, slicing a bloody gash across the purple-haired man’s neck.
The wind stopped.
The purple-reddish haired man collapsed, revealing the youth standing leisurely behind him.
The expression behind the sunglasses was unreadable, but the youth’s lips still curved into a faint smile.
With a flick of the wrist, the wind lifted the youth’s navy-blue coat, revealing a leather strap tied around their thigh.
It wasn’t a sheath—this person hadn’t bothered with a sheath.
The dagger slid into the black leather strap, and the coat fell naturally, concealing the glint of silver.
At that moment, He Shasha had only taken a single step forward.
...
Too easy.
Li Li’s lips curled into a smile, but her mind was racing.
Illusory Reality could be activated, but that exchange hadn’t confirmed whether this person’s rank triggered the probability.
More importantly, she didn’t believe a Qu clan noble could be dealt with so easily.
In Yue Qing’s eyes, a noble capable of defeating an illusionist likely had an ability that countered hers, but she hadn’t felt that just now.
Li Li took a step back, adjusted her sunglasses, and looked at the purple-reddish haired man who had collapsed face-down on the ground.
What was that black thing just now? She pondered.
And soon, she understood.
Black threads slid across the ground, as if stitching the wound on the purple-reddish haired man’s neck.
Red bloodstains turned black in the night, as if the severed blood vessels had reconnected.
It was blood. Li Li realized.
The black was blood oxidized in the air.
In the next instant, several black threads appeared in front of the purple-reddish haired man, lifting his body vertically until he stood upright.
With his back to Li Li, the purple-reddish haired man twisted his neck, producing a crisp cracking sound.
“Killing a few people, and you’re the type to play hero for justice?” The purple-reddish haired man’s voice carried a gurgling, bubbling tone.
He turned around, the wound on his neck now fully stitched by the black threads.
“A rare breed, but I like it,” he said, his eyes and mouth curving into crescent moons. “The wails of do-gooders who die trying to help others are the most delightful.”
Li Li, too, wore a smile, her low, hoarse voice slightly rising. “You seem to have misunderstood something. I’m no do-gooder.”
She ignored He Shasha, who had frozen mid-step and gone weak in the knees, her crimson eyes under the sunglasses locking with the purple-reddish haired man’s.
This was a complete psychopath, whose prey included not just ability users but ordinary people as well.
An indiscriminate killer, a member of the chaotic world of Extreme Black.
Then Li Li chuckled, speaking rare truthful words in a light tone.
“And I hate you.”
She had a lead on the Qu clan’s ability.
As her words fell, the illusion vanished, and black threads danced in the air, lunging into the darkness behind!