Role Playing the Dar Chapter 8 : Chapter 8

Chapter 8: He Has a Cowlick, Huh

The manga didn't continue from her confrontation with the boss but switched to Yiming's perspective.

Li Li realized her appearance was indeed different from what she had expected—completely different.

She thought she would always appear as one identity, but the mangaka deliberately altered her character.

Her unchanged outfit, with slight modifications, beca two distinct personas.

It wasn't that they didn't look alike; the differences were subtle, like the two attitudes shown on the title page.

One seed like a villain, while the other had a cold face, her thoughts unreadable.

Her appearance segnt also differed from her expectations.

Her infiltration of Qing Tong was barely shown; it was only implied that soone was helping Yiming during his desperate escape.

She didn't officially appear until Yiming escaped the building.

Last ti, sunglasses hid her face, but this ti, without them, Li Li saw her expression in the manga for the first ti.

The mangaka gave her expression a close-up when Yiming said he would take her with him and grabbed her hand to escape.

Incandescent lights glowed in the distance, and the night breeze lifted her bangs, revealing her black eyes.

Her face showed astonishnt as she looked at Little Corgi's back, the distant lights seemingly adding starlight to her dark pupils.

The scene took up two-thirds of a page.

In the next panel, the youth, forced to flee with the brown-haired boy, slightly lowered her head, bangs falling, her lips curling into a faint smile.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but Li Li felt this smile wasn't so sharp.

Li Li, outside the manga, blinked.

"Was that my expression back then?" Li Li studied it closely, then nodded. "Hmm, I look pretty good."

Her intention was to play a big-shot role intrigued by the protagonist Yiming, so she subtly made small moves.

But when this scene appeared in the manga, it felt sowhat different from her original plan.

She saw all the reader comnts scrolling:

【He has stars in his eyes!】

【Another one conquered by Little Corgi, a full-page close-up, such a big display, he'll join the protagonist group later, right!】

【The new character fell for him at first sight?】

【I love this feeling of an iceberg lting!】

Using an app to read manga allowed for real-ti comnts, much like bullet comnts when watching videos.

However, because they were distributed on fixed manga pages, they often obscured the original manga's images and text.

But Li Li needed feedback to adjust her acting plan, so she would watch the manga with bullet comnts enabled.

Aside from these comnts, throughout the entire plot, the mangaka didn't draw her smiling again.

It was mostly drawn from Yiming's perspective, to the point where as she watched, she felt sothing was a bit off.

Only after reading the reader comnts did she realize where the problem lay.

【Cold-faced cool guy! Is that it!】

【Little Corgi finally has a cool guy sidekick, this is the classic plot!】

【Wow, he's even the sharp-tongued type, Little Corgi shedding, hahaha!】

【This is definitely sourced from the forum! Copying comnts!】

【The new character is so cute hahaha, sharp-tongued and deadpan, and he has a cowlick!】

Whether it was a cowlick or not, Li Li didn't care.

She recalled the mont: “I was smiling the whole ti back then!”

“It’s the editing!” she finally realized.

The mangaka had forcefully separated her two identities and distinguished their personalities—

Just like the two expressions in the colored illustration!

However, the 'interest in the protagonist' she wanted to convey was also achieved.

Besides this, her entire conversation with Qing Yu Chen did not appear in the update.

Instead, there was a separate shot of Qing Yu Chen controlling Yiming.

The manga conveniently explained Qing Yu Chen's ability, which happened to make Li Li understand why Qing Yu Chen's attitude had changed so drastically.

There was a later scene that Li Li paid so attention to.

In the image, Qing Yu Chen sat on a chair, one hand pushing his glasses, with two speech bubbles beside him respectively.

‘Why would an A-rank expert co to Jiao Huang? And that D-rank mimicry-type youth, where did they get their information?’

‘Soone betrayed us? I must find out who leaked the information!’

So he also thought of her as an A-rank big shot? Li Li found it amusing.

She opened the comnts, and sure enough, the designation for her big shot identity had changed from ‘Sunglasses’ to ‘A-rank Big Shot’. No one doubted her true rank at all.

At this point, the manga update was more than halfway through. Li Li continued reading.

Next was her conversation with Yiming, but the mangaka still hadn't given up on the editing magic.

Originally, the rchandise room was pitch black, and neither she nor Yiming could see each other.

But when presented in the manga, it was rely a distinction between dotted and solid lines.

In the image, the black-haired youth sat cross-legged against the wall.

Black, blood-like marks dripped from his palms and cuffs.

A bloodstain on his forehead stretched from above his left eye down to his jaw.

The black-haired youth seed to be panting, his slightly upturned, obsidian-like eyes looking straight ahead, eting the gaze of the brown-haired youth crouching in front of him.

That outstretched hand tightly gripped the brown-haired youth's wrist, preventing his investigation.

And beside them, it was dim.

The comnts reacted more intensely than before.

【What happened, what happened? How did a person who was fine a few pages ago suddenly beco like this!】

【Who would stab soone right after they debut!】

【I feel so sorry for him, look at his drooping cowlick.】

【Sharp-tongued cowlick, cold on the outside but warm on the inside, my cute point has been completely hit!】

【Battle damage is too good!】

Li Li also thought it was great; she could already see the surging popularity points.

After finishing the update, she went to browse the forums.

At this ti, the readers were very active.

There were several hot posts on the front page, as well as various strange posts.

【LT, what's the new character Li's power level.】

【Jiao Huang arc protagonist group completely reshuffled, Extre Black and White is finally starting a normal shonen manga plot!】

【PBC Little Corgi shedding, I counted, he shed forty-five hairs this ti!】

【Li is too good, I'll live stream a wall-climbing performance tonight】

【Shedding Corgi, Cowlick Cool Li, Jiao Huang encounter, off to jail they go】

【flipping fish doesn't need to co back, this protagonist group doesn't need him anymore】

Li Li saw the later posts, her gaze pausing.

Just like the nickna ‘Little Corgi’, readers of Extre Black and White loved to give characters nicknas.

flipping fish's na was Yu Xiao.

Because nine tis out of ten when he was asked to do sothing, he couldn't accomplish it, he was jokingly called flipping fish.

He was the type of useless teammate in the protagonist group, often causing trouble, a plot device.

Including this ti when Yiming received Tang's father's letter and learned about Tang's situation, it was also because Yu Xiao found that letter.

This ti, Yiming had actually planned to co to Jiao Huang with Yu Xiao, but Yu Xiao disappeared sowhere midway.

Yiming, who knew Yu Xiao's unreliable nature very well, ended up coming alone.

This also gave Li Li the opportunity to slip in.

She browsed the forum but found nothing that caught her attention.

It was almost two o'clock now. Li Li felt a bit drowsy, closed her eyes, and turned off her phone.

Although the mangaka's update was a bit unexpected for her, the effect was surprisingly good.

I'll check again tomorrow.

...

“Ah!” Jiang Lan hugged her phone and scread with her eyes closed.

“Quiet down, I’m using headphones, you’re going to deafen !” her best friend, who was on the phone, said.

Jiang Lan was extrely excited: “Babe, have you read Extre Black and White! Oh my god, the newly debuted character is totally my xp!”

Her best friend on the other end said perfunctorily: “It must be so deadpan face again, you’ve liked this type since you were little.”

“Just take a look, take a look, you’re not sleeping anyway,” Jiang Lan urged.

“Alright, alright, I give in to you.”

After agreeing, there was no sound from the other end.

Jiang Lan sat up excitedly, no longer in a hurry to sleep.

She opened her computer and started typing furiously on a blank docunt.

Soon, her best friend's voice sounded again.

“Holy crap, isn’t this a shonen manga? Why are they playing the battle-damaged trope?” her best friend exclaid, “Wait, Yiming has been injured before too, but he wasn’t like this. So it’s this character’s own issue!”

“How is it, how is it?” Jiang Lan said, her hands not stopping.

“Although I prefer the A-rank big shot type, this one is indeed good too…” her best friend’s tone changed, “Mistress, hungry, food. I hear your keyboard sounds over there, you’re writing fanfiction, right!”

“Don’t be impatient, tomorrow, tomorrow,” Jiang Lan giggled.

...

[Current ti is six in the morning.]

[Popularity value calculation starting.]

...

[Total popularity value: 821.]

[Popularity value to survival value exchange ratio is 100:1. The system has automatically exchanged one survival point for you.]

[Wishing you a happy resurrection.]

This day was Saturday. Li Li was woken up by the system's voice, rubbed her eyes, and got out of bed.

It had been decided earlier that there would be a club activity this Saturday. Li Li had signed up.

She prepared and went over.

Although she read manga and stuff, Li Li was also sowhat of a social butterfly.

She would participate in club activities whenever she could.

This ti, the magic club had a campus corner display event.

Li Li organized her props and went over, perford a few simple magic tricks, and then soone else took over.

When she returned to the dormitory, her roommate, who had been writing her thesis outside all night, had also returned.

“Good morning, Lili,” her roommate said feebly, extending a hand from the bed, waving it, and then retracting it.

“Good morning, Yao yao,” Li Li replied.

It seed her roommate was going to sleep in the dormitory all day.

To avoid disturbing her, Li Li packed her things and prepared to take her laptop to the library to study.

Just as she was about to leave, she suddenly heard her roommate, who was on the verge of collapsing from sleepiness, shout with a voice full of vigor: “Wait—”

“Wait!” Her roommate sat up from the bed.

“What’s wrong?” Li Li, with her hand on the doorknob, turned her head.

She saw her roommate abruptly pull open the bed curtain, her ssy hair framing a pair of bright, focused eyes looking at her, scrutinizing her from head to toe.

Seeing that she wanted to look, Li Li turned around in place for her to see, very gracefully.

After a good while, her roommate said in a serious tone: “Lili, I’m going to tell you sothing, don’t be scared.”

“Get ready, you might be about to transmigrate into a book,” she said earnestly.

Li Li smiled: “Babe, go to sleep, you’re not very clear-headed right now.”

After simply fobbing off her roommate, Li Li stayed in the library for a day.

In the evening, when the library was about to close, she once again clicked into the 《Extre Black and White》 manga forum.

A day had passed, and many new posts had appeared.