Chapter 38 - Role Playing the Dark Horse Character

Chapter 38: The Nonexistent Past After hearing about Yi Ming’s dire situation from her roommate, Li Li continued tidying her desk before logging onto a manga website on her computer. The cover of the new chapter featured an unfamiliar man. He had blond hair and green eyes, his bangs meticulously combed back, wearing a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. His face was mature, with deep-set features that gave off the aura of a cultured scoundrel. In his left hand, he held a scalpel, and in his right, he cradled a skull, half-veiled in shadow. A somewhat fanatic smile played on his lips. He wore a white lab coat, and though there was a name tag on his chest, the writing was too blurred to be legible. However, upon closer inspection, Li Li recognized him as the disheveled neighbor from the previous chapter. This was Le Shan. “You really can’t tell,” Li Li remarked with a detached expression. A person meticulous to the point of fanaticism at work yet usually looking scruffy; this sudden change in style nearly made her fail to recognize who it was. Just this face on the cover had already garnered comments from readers saying it was exactly their type. This illustrated how Le Shan was indeed an important supporting character, and given the white lab coat and scalpel, Li Li, having been spoiled before, naturally associated him with someone trying to dissect Yi Ming. She continued reading, with the main perspective still being Yi Ming's. After two fruitless days of searching, Yi Ming and Yu Xiao realized something was seriously wrong. They had nearly scoured Four-Way City and even clashed with bounty hunters. This part was skimmed over, ending with Yu Xiao noticing red blood stains under a wing of a white dove he was feeding in the square. Written on it were two characters: ‘Twin.’ “That must be a signal from Tang and the others!” Yi Ming immediately recognized Tang’s handwriting. Because of Tang’s healing ability, she wasn't worried about her own injuries and could indeed leave a blood-written message like this. Yu Xiao, suddenly struck by a stroke of luck, dumbly stood by: “But we don’t know where ‘Twin’ is.” This triggered Yi Ming’s memory of the time they got separated from Tang and the others, when the bounty hunters chasing them mentioned an informant. “Let’s go to the Ability Guild and find the informant!” Yi Ming declared. On the third day, they finally made progress. They arrived at the Ability Guild just as Le Caile was about to leave. By chance, they hadn’t run into Li Baige. Le Caile, a trustworthy merchant willing to talk as long as he got paid, saw their young faces and cheerfully said, “What a coincidence, someone inquired about this a few days ago, and I can give you the intel right now.” Then he named his price. This amount happened to be all the money the two boys had between them. They exchanged glances, gritted their teeth, and paid up. Outside the manga, Li Li clenched her fists for once. “Damn you, Le Caile, charging me so much for intel and yet giving a discount to the corgi?!” Despite it being currency in the manga’s world, she still felt the sting, “Is this the difference in treatment between the protagonist and the antagonist?” What a swindler! Le Caile, evaluating by his clientele, counted the money with his pudgy hand and repeated the address he had given Li Li to Yi Ming and Yu Xiao: “‘Twin’ is in the outskirts. If you see people in blue robes, you’re not far from their base.” With the intel in hand, the duo traced their steps back to the square and headed toward the outskirts. But passing through the square, Yu Xiao noticed a pigeon fixatedly staring at him. He bent to touch it, but it flew away. Yu Xiao then chased after it. By the time Yi Ming reacted, Yu Xiao was nowhere to be seen. The suddenly abandoned little corgi’s face was full of question marks. He kept looking back for his friend, took a deep breath, and said, “It's okay, I'm used to it.” Then he set off alone in search of the Twin Research Institute. Li Li glanced at the comments, unsurprised by the cries from Sunfish fans: ‘Darling, we just praised you, and now you’re messing up again?’ Sunfish often have no clue what they’re doing, and Yu Xiao is just the same. His tendency to falter at crucial moments is truly remarkable. The next scene transitioned to the evening, where Yi Ming found the location of the Twin Research Institute. It was a concealed door installed on a dilapidated wall. If Yi Ming hadn’t noticed the unusual thickness of the wall, he might have overlooked it entirely. He touched the door and sighed with relief: inside was still metal. Like before, Yi Ming used his ability to open the door, cautiously crouching as he descended the stairs behind the door. Inside the door was a different world; the outside was dilapidated and desolate, but inside, even the walls were solid metal, coated with some gray substance. The incandescent lights lit up the entire passageway, including the underground platform it connected to. In the scene, Yi Ming cautiously descended the stairs, inching his way inside to explore. The underground research station was designed like a series of small boxes, each requiring a door to exit one to enter another. There were three levels: nine small rooms on the first layer, eight on the second, and nine on the third. In total, there were 26 rooms, each with identical dimensions of four meters. In the manga, Yi Ming evaded patrolling figures while exploring the first level underground. Upon descending the stairs, he found himself in the central room and discovered only there that beneath it lay a massive metal framework. It seemed to be connected to something. Li Li pondered this setup, feeling a sense of familiarity. But for now, she couldn’t recall more, so she continued reading. Upon reaching the second level, Yi Ming intended to check the central room first, but after descending the stairs, he found himself in a western corner room instead. Unfamiliar with this area, which had no researchers present, he saw only a room filled with white objects. Gray frameworks, gray wind chimes, and gray statues. This room gave Yi Ming a bad vibe. He approached the nearest gray statue and lightly touched its surface. In a thought bubble, the word ‘human bones’ appeared in his mind. The walls here were entirely covered with bone ash, and the room was filled with bone ash products. Yi Ming straightened up, looking at the endless gray and white expanse, his eyes reflecting a tinge of sympathy. At that moment. “These are all failures.” A shadowy figure stepped forward from behind him. Yi Ming turned around, eyes wide and pupils constricting, as his gaze seemed to reflect a man with gold-rimmed glasses glowing ominously, and a malicious smile at his lips. “Hope you don’t end up accompanying them.” The next page abruptly switched back two days earlier, to when Tang and Mo Mo were still in the square. Li Li took a deep breath, reviewing the earlier scenes before muttering, “How many experiments has Le Shan conducted, and how many people has he killed?” She paused for a moment of silence, then continued reading. Two days prior, although Tang had met the neighboring uncle, she inexplicably felt a surge of vigilance. The previous chapter had focused primarily on Tang and Le Shan, omitting Mo Mo. In this chapter, the manga artist depicted Mo Mo. Bow-headed and trembling furiously, Mo Mo drew the reader's attention. Le Shan noticed Mo Mo’s odd behavior, misunderstanding her intentions: “Little Tang, is your friend sick? She’s shaking so much. Uncle Le has medicine, and for old times’ sake, he won’t charge you. How about coming over to Uncle Le’s place?” Tang silently cradled a white pigeon that had perched beside her without saying a word. In the panel, she deftly cut open her finger with sharp nails, creating a trail of blood. ‘Twin...’ Mo Mo clutched her head, her dialogue bubble shaking to convey her intense fear: “He’s the director of Twin!” As soon as Mo Mo spoke, Tang swiftly jotted down a message while pulling Mo Mo to escape. Yet, in the next frame, they lay defeated at Le Shan’s feet. After that, the scene shifted back to Yi Ming’s perspective, by which time he had been fixed to an experimental table, bound not by metal but by biological material. His clothes had been changed, a blue cloth draped over him. Unable to break free from the restraints holding his limbs. Meanwhile, Le Shan wheeled a cart over, positioning a spotlight over Yi Ming’s head. “What are you going to do?” Yi Ming asked, as a hair fell from his head and slipped into the shadows. “As you can see, dissect you,” Le Shan replied. Wearing a mask, his bangs combed back meticulously as they were on the cover. The room, like the others, measured four meters in height, width, and length, but contained many pieces of equipment. The room was filled with researchers just like Le Shan, their eyes glimmering with excitement. They were all fervent researchers, with Le Shan leading the pack. In truth, Le Shan was the most fervent of them all. As Yi Ming used a fine scalpel to cut through the biological material binding him, he tried to buy time, saying, "At the very least, tell me what kind of research my death will contribute to. I don't want to die without purpose." "Extraction," Le Shan replied, his face completely obscured in the harsh light, as though agreeing with Yi Ming’s sentiment. He told him what his death would bring: "As someone with abilities, you should understand what extraction is." "Extraction is the lowest tier of acquiring abilities. During the transfer, abilities degrade, their levels drop, sometimes even the powers themselves weaken. What I aim to do is to purify it, to pass it down with zero loss, akin to bloodline inheritance." "And you will allow us to attempt mimetic ability transfer." Le Shan gestured towards the corner, "Your ability will transfer to and merge with it." "A union surpassing familial ties," he said with a crazed obsession. Yi Ming turned to look and was momentarily unable to mask his fury. Lying there was Mo Mo. ... The manga ended here, with tiny script on the side posing the question: Will Yi Ming and the others survive Le Shan's scalpel? Li Li’s response was, "The protagonist of a shounen manga never dies." Yet she needed to consider the best identity to use for her entry. Li was still on cooldown; bringing out Hei Ge would only attract aggro, making him the big boss again. Li Baige could work but there was no bounty related to Twin, so going as Li Baige would require justification. Revenge? That scenario painted Hei Ge as the noble antagonist. Li Li closed the website, drummed her fingers on the desk, and fell into contemplation. Soon, a smile crept onto her face. "Little Corgi..." she mused, dragging out the nickname. She hoped the little corgi wouldn’t get too hurt; she would go easy on him. ... Time quickly approached nightfall, and amid the system's broadcast, Li Li selected her descent point. The outskirts, where Twin was located. [Pathway opened. Wish you luck in becoming a popular character, bringing fresh allure to the manga.] As she landed, Li Li picked up from her previous exit’s motion, controlling her phantom. Back then, she hadn’t known what method Yue Qing and An Heyu might use to verify if she was the real one, especially since An Heyu seemingly knew about her connection to Li Baige. So, under the cover of the zero-point overlap, she turned the exiting Li Baige into a phantom, while her real form became a raven; this way, if An Heyu tracked her, he would assume Li Baige was the real one. This was her preemptive strategy, though An Heyu's ability wasn’t precise in pinpointing lifeforces and he mistook the nearby raven—her real form—for Hei Ge conversing with the false Li, thus assuming the real Hei Ge was genuine. Thus, Hei Ge became perceived as the true form, ensuring An Heyu’s investigations always pointed to him while the raven stayed a mere illusion. She had orchestrated a perfect doppelgänger show. Before her exit, Yue Qing had been chasing the phantom. Now she nonchalantly waved her hand. “You’ve shown me something nice.” Instantly the phantom, drifting among the icy blades in the city, smirked and vanished to the sound of Yue Qing's frustrated voice. “I praise you, but today someone else deserves more.” These final words from the phantom undoubtedly infuriated Yue Qing further, nearly driving him insane. An infallible plan, drawing out the true form, only to be led on a wild chase like a puppy all night by Hei Ge. Yue Qing gasped for air, turning away. He was readying his trump card. Meanwhile, Li Li, having reached the outskirts, soon located the door from the manga. She remained clad in Hei Ge’s outfit, unchanged. A familiar scene emerged, leaping from the black and white lines of the manga into vivid, three-dimensional reality before her. Yi Ming was likely still delaying, Le Shan conversing with him, without activating his abilities. It was the perfect moment. Just then, An Heyu's contact came through. Of course, this world had communication devices, like cell phones. Before leaving the manga world, Li Li had tasked An Heyu with investigating Le Shan, and now his message had arrived. Li Li recalled saying ‘before tomorrow,’ meaning before midnight. However, perhaps due to unclear wording, this caused a misunderstanding, leading An Heyu to believe it was before midnight, prompting him to hurriedly send a text to the number Hei Ge had left. [Apologies for the slight delay; things were tight, so here’s what I know for now. Le Shan is classified as Grade A Domain Type, ability【Rubik's Cube】. Current residence in the western outskirts. Once a member of the former Ability Guild, he was expelled by the Prophet twelve years ago for rampant human experimentation, unrelated to the changes six years ago. Following a bloodbath among the former Ability Guild's leadership, he and former members Yue Qing and Qing Yuchen established a supply chain. Yue Qing needed rapid resources for a noble family, thus having great demand for abilities. Le Shan required abilities for his research, along with funds and subjects with abilities. Qing Yuchen needed money and protection, providing the subjects. - Crane] Li Li’s brow relaxed as she noted Le Shan’s ability name. Finally, she realized why the design felt familiar—the underground Twin research facility was structured like a Rubik’s Cube! 26 small boxes with a vacant central framework. From just this structure and ability name, Li Li inferred much. She felt as invigorated as her first entry into the manga world, hurried yet wholly understanding who the boss, Hua Yizhi, was. Past adversaries had little detail in the manga, yet now she relished the thrill of comprehensive intel. She truly admired An Heyu’s efficiency. Then, without pausing, she swiftly replied. [What about survivors from the experiments twelve years ago? - Ge] An Heyu’s response was prompt. [Adopted by the Prophet but most didn’t live long. - Crane] Li Li softly curled her lips into a smile. Her script was complete. Li Li advanced to where Yi Ming once stood. The silver moon hung quietly, clouds blown by the wind slowly revealing the concealed moonlight. Illuminating her silver-white mask, reflecting in her crimson eyes. Meanwhile, An Heyu sent another message. [Thanks for your honesty, Hei Ge. - Crane] Clearly, he had concocted another conclusion, but this time it aligned with her careful provocation. Li Li stowed the phone and slowly raised her hand. Tracing a circle with her fingertip, she knocked on the door using the back of her hand as she laughed, "Knock, knock." She was being polite, after all. Ability, Illusory Reality. In the blink of an eye, the ground crumbled, the deceptive scene laying over reality turned real upon covering it! “Boom!” The ground cracked and collapsed into the empty basement below, dust veiling the cold moon once again. Amidst the dust, a low voice hummed a tune and a black silhouette leaped down from above. Black boots landed in the central room on the underground first level; steadily, she proceeded towards the stairs leading down, her gaze ignoring the startled researchers, some sitting, some screaming. The door burst open, and a crowd of guards in blue robes rushed into the room whose top had been blown. Their faces were expressionless, like robots with frozen features. Yet now, these emotionless figures seemed to recognize a monstrous presence. The uninvited guest shrouded in dust stood against the bright moonlight, red pupils flickering like flames, her smile terrifyingly twisted. “Is anyone here?” Her voice stretched, ending in an exhilarated rise. Steady steps, deliberate and powerful. Those heavy footsteps were like the countdown of death. And death approached. ... “This is a connection surpassing any familial tie!” Le Shan said, his face aglow as if speaking a great truth. Yi Ming took a deep breath, restraining his anger while quickening his cuts on the restraints binding his wrists. He couldn't fall here. No matter how infuriated, he must think calmly, not act on emotion, stay composed! Without Li to guide his rationality, he had to maintain his own calmness! “How exactly do you merge as one?” He gritted his teeth to prompt further conversation, though he held no desire to truly know. He couldn’t just transform his hair into blades since he knew not how many ability-users were nearby. If his mobility remained compromised, cutting all his hair wouldn’t lead to an escape. Le Shan turned, looking at Mo Mo as though she were a mere object. "Abilities take root in the human vessel and soul. By linking your vessel to it, you two can become one." "How marvelous." Le Shan spoke with rapture, his scalpel tracing patterns in the air as he elaborated, "Twelve years ago, I researched forcibly activating multiple abilities in one person. Just when I thought success was within reach, the Prophet halted my experiments and destroyed my materials. But now I must thank him, as leaving behind that old mindset led me to the truly correct path!" Yi Ming’s control of the small blade quickened, the scraping masked by Le Shan’s fervent discourse. "By connecting your vessels, the souls can be housed, enabling abilities to transfer with zero loss! If enough are linked, a multi-ability individual, powerful in every ability, can be forged!" Encouraged, the surrounding researchers applauded, the noise drowning Yi Ming’s forehead as a bead of sweat trickled down. "Almost there," Yi Ming thought, nearly able to break free. "It already harbors two abilities—yours will make three. If it holds steady, we can attempt a fourth." Le Shan closed his eyes in ecstasy, placing the scalpel against his chest, "You’re crucial experiment subjects, vital to ushering monumental change in society!" Almost there, almost! Yi Ming sensed the biological strap was now just the width of a pinky finger. But just then, Le Shan's fervor faltered. He slowly lowered his head, the scalpel hovering before Yi Ming's eyes: "So, where should we extract from?" "Eyes? Already used. Arms? Legs? Not quite a fit." Then the scalpel halted over the chest. "The heart, then," Le Shan decided. Only three more slices until the restraint broke. “Stay calm,” Yi Ming reminded himself. The next instant, the scalpel shredded the blue cloth, its sharp edge diving toward the chest! “Boom!” A booming noise echoed down to the third level, freezing Le Shan’s motion simultaneously. Yi Ming, using an ability-forged blade to nearly sever his wrist restraints, stopped. He watched Le Shan withdraw the scalpel, lift his glasses, and chuckle softly, "Hahaha, someone has dared trespass into my domain." Setting down the scalpel, Le Shan turned away, "Let me greet them." Le Shan departed. Yi Ming concealed the severed restraints on his wrist, eyes fixed on the glaring ceiling light. This is an opportunity. ... With the Cube Ability activated, the western column rotated, relocating Le Shan from a room beside the underground third-floor lab to the first floor. Partition walls descended, revealing the gaping hole in the ceiling and the blue-robed figures strewn across the floor. "Remarkable power, indeed," Le Shan remarked, clapping as though in applause. "These things are merely byproducts of my research—obedient, fearless. Ranging from F-grade to C-grade, yet all were dispatched." "Truly impressive, ability-user," he repeated, as though it was the highest praise. Amidst the swirling dust, a shadow approached, its boots thumping steadily nearer, the figure shrinking, lowering, until it emerged from the haze. Le Shan saw a child. A harmless, adorable child of seven or eight with black hair and eyes, soft as a black kitten. A black choker dangled from the neck, clad in a little black coat and dainty Martens boots. "Do you remember me?" The child lifted his head, quietly waiting for a response. Le Shan's actions came to a halt. He stared unblinkingly at the child outside the dust, hands trembling, spine lowering. In this near-frozen atmosphere, he abruptly erupted into laughter. "Hahaha!" "I was wrong, so terribly wrong!" His laughter almost brought tears, "Here to seek revenge, are you, Li? I've no part in the past guild’s affairs. You're merely enacting personal revenge. As expected, you are my creation! Qing Yuchen said you might possess multiple abilities of equal power, yet he dismissed this." "The research from twelve years ago was correct! The Prophet severed my path to success!" His gaze before him turned more manic as he beheld the diminutive figure. "Multiple high-grade abilities, extended life beyond a decade, living longer than that thing..." "What is your serial number? Tell me, what is it?" "My child, my most perfect creation!" But his inquiries went unanswered. The previously expressionless black-haired child slowly curled his lips into a smile. "You don’t remember me, do you?” Le Shan didn't recall the number of people he’d killed. And, naturally, he didn’t remember the experiment subjects known only by their serial numbers. Author’s Note: The available information is that six years ago, the higher echelons of the former Ability Guild were wiped out, including the Prophet. Nearly all perished. The outline has no other surviving high-ups, and the former guild needs only a leader, a faith—anyone could fill that role. So this lie will remain undiscovered. Today's double update serves to make up for the missed day, so the debt is still considerable. So much to catch up on! QAQ