Chapter 41: Your Photo Album, It’s Pretty Intense
Ti ticked by, second by second, and the number of blue-robed people lying on the floor of the room grew.
Yiming panted heavily, sweat dripping onto the chanical floor, forming small water marks.
How much ti had passed? Yiming didn’t know.
His hands trembled, the veins on his overused arms darkening, his fingertips turning a decayed black.
He hunched over, looking at the glass.
Behind the glass, the white-coated researcher lounged leisurely, legs propped on a coffee table, flipping through docunts.
The blue green eyes behind the gold-rimd glasses didn’t spare him a single glance.
Utterly indifferent.
After hearing the dull thud of a body hitting the ground, the researcher’s gloved fingertip tapped the paper, pulling two sheets at random from a stack.
"No. 23178, No. 142771."
The researcher’s voice echoed into the glass chamber, careless, as two blue-robed people stepped forward from the onlookers.
Yiming gritted his teeth, forcing himself to focus.
These were two D-ranks.
He couldn’t afford to be careless.
In reality, Li Li wasn’t looking at the data of these "failed products."
What she was actually flipping through was Momo’s experintal plan.
One white moonlight like Li was enough—any more would devalue it—so she had to eliminate this unprofitable plotline for her.
Of course, her own dislike of it was another reason.
As she read, Li Li’s gaze paused briefly.
Within the range of her ability, she could project illusions at any designated coordinates.
Though she couldn’t see inside, what her illusions saw, she could see.
She was sitting here, putting Yiming through training, but in truth, three or four blue-robed illusions were wandering inside the "Cube."
And Tang was within the sight of one of her illusions.
As a rare healing ability user, Tang hadn’t been treated as a disposable asset by Yue Shan, so she wasn’t in the sa place as Yiming and Momo.
She had likely taken advantage of the chaos and Li Li’s deliberate oversight to knock out the on-duty blue-robed person and sneak out.
The black-haired, erald- green eyed little girl moved like a nimble black cat, crouching low and advancing slowly among decorations and shadows.
When a blue-robed person approached, she hid under a cabinet with bone-ash statues, curling up motionlessly.
Li Li had her illusion act as if it hadn’t seen her, controlling it to pass by Tang and continue forward.
Two more rooms to go, Li Li thought, making her illusions’ movents appear more natural, without any hint of guiding or herding.
At the sa ti, she recalled a piece of crucial information she’d gotten from An Heyu that had caught her attention.
Tang’s father, Tang Zeng, and Yue Shan knew each other.
That ant Tang Zeng must have known what kind of person Yue Shan was.
Both forr mbers of the Ability Guild—Tang Zeng a traitor, Yue Shan expelled—had sohow ended up as neighbors.
Was Tang Zeng really okay with raising his daughter next to a research-obsessed maniac like Yue Shan? What was he thinking?
Li Li’s intuition told her this was information ant to be revealed in this arc, but with Yue Shan gone, the only one who could leak it was her, the fake Yue Shan.
So she adjusted her gold-rimd glasses, glancing at Yiming inside the glass, who was still fighting.
After he took down two ability users of the sa rank, she spoke slowly: "Keep going. No. 14273, No. 12872, No. 18231."
Yiming wouldn’t kill, always holding back, so she had to push him to his limits.
Anyway, she was here.
Yiming wouldn’t actually die.
She’d gone through the sa herself—her direction couldn’t be wrong.
Li Li was confident her training thod was absolutely effective.
At the very least, she’d make Yiming reach C-rank here.
No rank-up, no leaving.
Li Li had already arranged for the manga to go on hiatus.
This was Yiming’s three-year cliff, five-year training arc.
"Fight them with everything you’ve got. Don’t worry about dying pointlessly—there’s a healing ability user in the institute. You won’t die until the experint is over," she said, casually introducing Tang’s existence. "Fight as if you’re on the brink of death."
As expected, Yiming caught the key point instantly.
He whipped his head around, dodging a blue-robed person’s attack while shouting, "Where is she?! Where’s the healing ability user?!"
Li Li propped her cheek, setting the docunts on her lap, striking a conversational pose.
"You know her well?" she said. "The traitor’s daughter."
In the manga, Tang Zeng was only described through that letter and Tang’s mories, with no ntion of him knowing Yue Shan.
Tang Zeng must have loved Tang deeply, so Li Li couldn’t understand why he allowed Yue Shan to get close to Tang.
I admitted I wasn’t a good person in the broad sense, but Yue Shan wasn’t even human.
Yiming wasn’t clear about the Forr Ability Guild’s affairs, so this traitor only existed as fragnts of words on letter paper to him.
“You’re related to that Tide?” The only thing Yiming could think of was the content in Tang Zeng’s letter where he repented to the organization ‘Tide.’ “No, you can’t be with Tide. You’re their enemy!”
Obviously, he didn’t believe the organization Tang Zeng sought help from would have a scum like Yue Shan.
Li Li didn’t answer this question and shifted the conversation back to the purpose of her words.
“Really nice, knowing his daughter made a new friend. Tang Zeng would surely be happy in heaven.” She acted as if she were just a neighborly uncle sighing, and after revealing that ‘Yue Shan’ knew Tang Zeng, she looked away and pushed up her glasses. “No. 29173, do your best.”
How long the manga would be on hiatus depended on when Little Corgi ranked up.
After that, Yiming brought up the topic several tis, but Li Li ignored him.
The brown-haired youth, while fending off attacks from ability users, looked up at her, hopping around but not getting high, like an anxious Little Corgi.
On the other side, Phantom caught Tang’s figure again.
Li Li looked at the data, seemingly deep in thought, but actually sharing vision with Phantom.
Compared to before, Tang had grown a lot.
She had found her way alone to the place where Yue Shan kept the ‘scraps.’
Or rather, she finally found this place.
It was a room with many nutrient tanks, filled with green solution.
The surface material was biotech glass unique to the manga world, transparent in color, thin as cicada wings, yet extrely hard.
The creatures in the nutrient tanks mostly looked like monstrous hybrids, neither human nor ghost.
These were what Yue Shan considered ‘scraps,’ though they were once human.
Li Li’s Phantom was inside one of the nutrient tanks, half-opening its eyes to watch Tang sneak in.
After quietly moving for a while, Tang spotted soone familiar.
“Youyou?” She faced away from Phantom, her voice questioning as she looked at the nutrient tank in front of her.
Inside that tank was none other than Youyou, who had been missing for a long ti.
But he wasn’t quite like Youyou, because his pupils were two black voids.
“Kill ,” he said.
At that mont, the system prompt sounded early.
[Update target achieved detected.]
[Opening channel for you...]
[Welco back to reality.]
...
They said the manga would go on hiatus, but in the end, it ca out early.
Li Li lay on her bed, scrolling through her phone for a while.
There were still two days until the update, and the forum was still discussing the previous chapter.
[Yue Shan is a psycho, can he die already?!]
[Let’s discuss, if Little Corgi pulls out all his hair, can he take down Yue Shan to save himself?]
[Flipping Fish! How did you get lost again!]
[Analysis post, the plundering setting in the manga]
[ap38 event photos, including Black-Li ship doujin]
Li Li checked the last one.
It was posted by the Heige coser girl she t at the convention.
After days, she finally finished editing and uploaded the photos.
Seeing this reminded her to log into her rarely used chatroom account.
Her real-life and fandom accounts were separate; she usually used her real-life one and seldom switched to her fandom one.
She had added this coser girl at the convention to get the edited photos.
Sure enough, the coser girl had sent her the refined images.
[Han Zhi: Photos are done! Take a look, sis!
Li Li looked and took a deep breath.
“So good,” she murmured. “Handso!”
Who was this handso guy in the photo?
It was , so no problem.
[Lili: Absolutely stunning!]
Caught up in the beauty filter’s impact, she accidentally used her fandom tone.
Right after sending, Li Li wanted to retract it.
That phrase had been tainted by Yue Shan.
The mont she sent it, she thought of that crazed researcher and his mouth full of “sweetheart” and “darling.”
But the other side was online and replied quickly.
[Han Zhi: Sis, you’re so in-character! I’m just basking in your glow hahaha!]
After Li Li and she exchanged complints, the coser nad Han Zhi sent an invitation.
[Han Zhi: So, I’m part of a local Extre Black and White cosplay group. We’re planning a stage play for ap39. Wanna join, sis?]
[Han Zhi: Sis is the most in-character Li in our hearts, but if you’re busy, no pressure!]
Li Li put down her phone and thought for a bit.
Three in the morning was the easiest ti to impulse-shop or impulsively agree to sothing.
Honestly, she didn’t have much ti for fun.
In real life, she had schoolwork and extracurricular classes.
But undeniably, her first reaction was wanting to go.
In the manga world, she was a notorious SSS-rank wanted criminal, but in reality, she was just a busy college student.
Li Li wanted to leave sothing of herself behind.
If she ever ssed up, there’d at least be so video record for her mom to rember her by.
So she thought for half a minute and picked up her phone.
[Lili: Sure, set a ti.]
[Han Zhi: Aweso! I’m pulling you into the group now!]
The other side moved fast, sending an invite and adding one more line.
[Han Zhi: By the way, the scriptwriter for the stage play is a super amazing doujin artist, and there’s so good stuff in the album!]
This piqued Li Li’s curiosity.
After joining the group and being let in, she greeted everyone and headed straight for the album.
She noticed the album’s na: A Few Doujin.
...
“Wow, amazing job, babe, you actually got that divine coser to join!” Jiang Lan buried her head in the blanket and scread, “Ahhh, I’m so excited, my goddess! How do I talk to her without sounding crude and still co off as gentle, classy, and sophisticated? How do I avoid being greasy and keep it fresh? My goddess! She’s my goddess, ahhh!”
Her best friend giggled over the phone: “Give it so ti, and maybe your goddess will talk to you first.”
Jiang Lan didn’t get what her friend was hinting at in the middle of the night.
She scread for a bit, her face flushing from the stuffiness, before sitting up to check her phone.
Then it hit her: “Oh, right, should we delete those things in the album?”
She clutched her head: “I forgot! Those wild words in the album can’t be seen by my pure and flawless goddess, ahhh!”
Jiang Lan quickly tapped into the group, glanced at the chat, and went to delete posts from the album.
She saw her goddess had greeted everyone in the group first, just casual pleasantries, but to Jiang Lan, it was proof of her goddess’s kindness, warmth, beauty, and grace.
Just as Jiang Lan was about to leave the chat, her goddess sent a new ssage.
Amid the chorus of ‘hello’ and ‘thanks for the welco,’ she saw her goddess’s latest post.
[Lili: Your album is pretty spicy.]
Doujin master Jiang Lan, with 9999 HP, spat blood, collapsed, and ascended on the spot.
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