NOVEL NEXT Ch. 106
Chapter 106: Why Be a Dog When You Can Be Human (2.5-in-1)
[Hahahahaha Little Corgi, wake up! The pretty sister in front of you is your other brother!]
1L OP
Just when I thought Heige was already peak chaos, he always shows me he can be even more chaotic.
Poor Corgi hahahahaha, this isn’t some pretty sister, it’s your brother coming for your life!
2L
Dying of laughter, how can this be so funny? Little Corgi, open your eyes wide! Where’s your instinct radar? Why does it always crash and burn with Heige?
3L
I’m cackling like a rooster.
Did Heige get itchy hands from not beating Corgi for a while?
Just finding excuses to throw punches hahahahaha!
Look at Corgi’s aggrieved little eyes, I’m dead.
This isn’t some cruel society—it’s the iron fist of brotherly ‘love’!
4L
Good grief, I haven’t checked in for a few days, and Extreme Black’s plot has already reached this point?
The forum’s got me totally lost, but Corgi getting beat up here feels familiar.
Flowing plots, unchanging Corgi beatdowns.
And Heige, always either kicking butts or on the way to kick butts.
Bigshot, which house are you hitting tonight?
5L
Hahahahaha Yiming praising Heige’s beauty, praising Li’s face? So hilarious, oh grass.
Heige, how many Corgis do you eat in one sitting?
For a moment, I hallucinated a big bad wolf and a trembling Little Corgi hahahahaha!
6L
Yiming, touched? Your brother turned into your sister!
7L
Replying to upstairs, Yiming doesn’t dare move, doesn’t dare move!
8L
Little Corgi doesn’t dare move, but Flipping Fish is super touched.
This chapter’s too funny.
Did Flipping Fish and Heige unintentionally play daddy to each other?
What a naming genius, Fish. Dog son? Not bad hahahahaha!
Little Corgi was late to the party, or he’d have retorted on the spot: Yu Xiao, how could you curse someone?
9L
How could you curse...
Hahahahaha I can’t hold it in.
Little Corgi’s fully embraced being a dog hahahahaha.
Also, don’t Heige and Flipping Fish have some kind of chemistry?
They’re on different wavelengths but somehow sync so well.
That cannon fodder standing aside was totally lost, unable to keep up.
10L
His name is Feng Jiuqu!
Dying of laughter, when I read the manga, I felt Feng Jiuqu was that meme.
[Just squeezed in, still an outsider.jpg]
11L
Feng Jiuqu: What are you guys talking about?
12L
Feng Jiuqu: Tried to understand, couldn’t understand, gave up understanding.
13L
Laughing, but no matter what, Heige’s super reliable in a crisis.
That part where they infiltrated to save Crying Bird had me sweating.
I thought they were done for.
Six S-ranks, what a deluxe lineup.
The imperial family wasn’t playing!
But the moment Heige appeared, instant relief.
Safety level up up!
14L
Wasn’t it the same with Yue Shan? In danger, Heige’s the safety guarantee.
Just when there’s no danger, Heige’s the dangerous one.
[Heige version Yue Shan beating Yiming.jpg]
[Shura sister smilingly beating Yiming.jpg]
[Jiao Huang Heige looking down on Yiming as low-rank while beating him.jpg]
15L
After all, Heige’s pretty ‘jolly’ hahahahaha.
I was wondering if Dan Dog broke character.
Why’d he randomly ask Sang Feiling who’s prettier, him or Red Crane? He’s not a looks-obsessed character.
But good grief, Heige, you’re the master player.
What’s this about outshining hahahahaha!
16L
To be fair, Hundred Faces Heige’s fashion sense is solid.
Dan Dog with a little braid is too cute, right? It’s like my heart’s melting.
If he isn’t Dan Dog, stealing my master’s Dan Dog, I...
17L
Red Crane: I came out just to outshine you.
Red Crane: Are you polite?
18L
No, no, no, upstairs, I feel the expression of Princess Wuyu in this chapter fits better.
[Screenshot of Princess Wuyu with a blank expression after Heige said you’d welcome it.jpg]
19L
Polite Ge, politely greeting, then politely kicking the dojo.
20L
Princess Wuyu: Polite, your mom?
21L
Tonight, besides Little Corgi, the most pitiful victim of Heige, Princess Wuyu!
...
[So, is this combat power still worth collecting?]
1L Original Poster
The gap from A-rank to SS-rank is too big, right? Real or fake?
2L
The opponent is a princess...
And Bigshot Heige killed three S-ranks at once this time, something a normal S-rank couldn’t do.
3L
I lean toward Bigshot Heige being an outlier S-rank like Lin Ruye, because if he were really SS-rank, he wouldn’t have had such trouble killing Lin Ruye at the end of Ranmu City.
In the Ranmu Arc, he could’ve directly challenged Lin Ran.
The difference between S and SS is huge.
Lin Ran slaughtered tens of thousands in three days, while Qu Yan, an S-rank, also killed civilians to pave a bloody path, but it took him over a month.
4L
The princess was probably scared by Bigshot Heige’s madness!
A normal S-rank would be extremely cautious against this luxurious lineup, but Bigshot Heige was completely at ease from the moment he appeared.
I still don’t know what Heige is afraid of.
From his performance, he mourns his deceased friend but doesn’t let it hold him back.
Even if you’re unhappy, I’m still going to do it.
That’s so Bigshot Heige.
5L
I actually feel something’s off.
Princess Wuyu thinks Bigshot Heige feels inconsistent, and I kind of agree.
6L
Was the Lin Ruye at the beginning not so Heige-like?
Last time he disguised as Yue Shan, he was very Heige-like, instantly recognizable as Ge.
7L
Upstairs, I suddenly had a flash of insight.
What if the Lin Ruye at the start wasn’t actually Bigshot Heige in disguise?
Then who was he?
8L
The [Necromantic Prelude] in the princess’s mouth?
9L
Isn’t that Crying Bird’s dead brother?
Appeared twice, once on stage, once for his death.
10L
I also had a wild thought that Ahoge Li got reincarnated from the grave.
They’re both dead brothers.
If Crying Bird quits the chat group, only Little Corgi would be left.
How tragic!
11L
Yiming...
Like he told Yu Xiao, after everything he’s been through, he can’t feel any goodwill toward Heige, but he also doesn’t hate him enough to go looking for trouble.
He was tricked once by Li Baige and once by the Shura lady, but getting him to truly hate Heige to the core probably won’t happen.
Little Corgi couldn’t bring himself to kill when Li had just died and he was at his angriest.
Now, it’s even less likely.
After all, he’s the sunshine protagonist of a shonen manga.
Whether he hates Heige or not doesn’t conflict with Bigshot Heige finding ways to mess with him.
Poor Corgi.
If he knew Shura lady was Heige...
The image is too beautiful, I dare not imagine.
It’s the level where Little Corgi would get PTSD from pretty people!
12L
Wait, isn’t this thread for collecting combat power? Where did you all go off to!
13L
Combat power? Is this worth collecting?
Bigshot Heige is forever the god, just remember that!
...
This manga update was mostly similar to what Li Li experienced, except it added the conversation between Yiming and Yu Xiao after they left.
Then, during Yiming’s talk about Yu Xiao’s cursing, the manga artist inserted a flashback of Yu Xiao and Li Li throwing shade at each other in front of Feng Jiuqu.
Finally, based on recent events, Yiming shared some thoughts about Heige as a person.
Since Hua Yizhi knew that Yiming and Heige’s relationship was orchestrated by Heige, they tacitly hid some things from Yiming, only telling him they weren’t enemies.
The residents of Ranmu City that he saw were grateful to that person for leading them out of Eternal Night.
“I’m very one-sided. I can’t see clearly what kind of person Heige is, but he also hasn’t tried to explain himself to me,” Yiming said to Yu Xiao. “I don’t care what kind of person Heige is. We can’t communicate.”
Yiming would never agree with Heige’s views on life or his so-called might-makes-right approach.
He always believed that force couldn’t compare to sincerity.
In the manga, Yu Xiao, with his round red eyes, said, “That doesn’t sound like something you’d say.”
Yiming admitted, “I can’t stay calm when it comes to him.”
He couldn’t forget the pain and despair of that time, or the way the puzzle pieces he’d hoped for shattered and fluttered down.
“Don’t see him again,” he said.
Otherwise, he’d recall that rainy day from that unforgettable face.
The manga ended with Tide declaring war on the princess.
Hua Yizhi and the others saw this as a great opportunity, a chance for Tide to rise again in the Empire.
They believed there were many ability users or ordinary people in the Empire who shared their aspirations, but Tide had always operated in secrecy, making it hard for those people to find them.
This time, the originally invincible princess’s forces were cut down by half in a single night by Heige.
Heige himself stayed in Ranmu City, and they had also settled there.
Hua Yizhi and Rao Yue believed that, although Heige verbally refused to be their leader, just like last night and before, he would step in to help.
Moreover, Tide had waited too long.
They needed a decisive victory to boost morale.
The opponent was the imperial princess.
Meeting someone from the Imperial Family outside Floating City was rare, making this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
So they chose to step forward.
When Li Li saw it, she didn’t have much resistance.
She wouldn’t act again anyway, since there was no benefit.
The princess wouldn’t tell her what she wanted to know, and saying more would only lead to more mistakes.
Besides, she knew the Tide people wouldn’t really come to her begging for help.
When Tide and the princess started fighting, she might even get a rare chance to rest.
...
In the real world, the summer vacation was still ongoing.
Stage play editor Jiang Lan had finished writing the script, and these days they had started rehearsals.
“The pressure’s huge. It feels like I’m facing Li herself,” said Lulu, the coser playing Yiming.
During a break, several cosers nodded in unison at her words.
“Too alike, in every way!” Jiang Lan wished she could nod fast enough to leave an afterimage.
“As expected of my goddess! Even the ahoge is so accurate!”
At that, Li Li, holding an iced milk tea, gave a slight smile.
She wasn’t sure why the ahoge on her head never stayed down.
A breeze would make it flutter and sway.
Could it be her pillow wasn’t good enough? Or was it her sleeping posture?
“Help, that smile has Heige’s charm!” Heige’s stan, also the coser playing Heige, Luo Han, clutched her heart, then flashed an inspired look.
She put her cosplay prop, the silver-white mask, on Li Li.
Now Li Li became the Ahoge Li version of Heige, still smiling while holding her milk tea.
Luo Han nodded at the sight and said to the others, “In the manga, Heige disguises as Li. In reality, I see Li disguising as Heige. Look, how vivid and lifelike. You use my face for cross-dressing, so I’ll use yours.”
“What’s this called, mutual harm?” Jiang Lan laughed, clutching her stomach.
Li Li, in a thoughtful pose, said, “So, is something missing now?”
“The skirt?” Tang’s coser raised a hand. “Shura sister’s high-slit skirt!”
Lulu, hearing this, jumped on the manga meme, “No need for a skirt! You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen!”
The blue-eyed Little Corgi she brought along raised its head cooperatively.
“Woof woof woof!” It barked cheerfully.
The cosers burst into laughter.
After laughing, editor Jiang Lan felt their random setting was quite sad and pulled out her notebook, rapidly jotting down a burst of inspiration.
According to her, her fanworks kept getting banned, so she had no account now.
She was going for an artistic, fresh vibe.
In short, she was about to write angsty fanfiction.
“Come on, manga artist! Let’s see who can write the angstier story!” said the veteran fan creator, who’d been emotionally wrecked by angst.
In no rush to continue, they kept chatting.
“Actually, I heard some news recently, not sure if it’s true or fake,” Lulu lowered her voice, whispering to the group as if sharing a secret.
Her behavior sparked Li Li’s curiosity.
She also lowered her voice and asked, “What news?”
Lulu didn’t hold back and said directly, “The manga artist is hospitalized.”
“?! True or false!” The cosers couldn’t believe it.
“I always thought the manga artist was a robot. Robots get hospitalized? For parts repair?” said An Huyu’s coser.
“Normal. With that update schedule, it’d be weird not to get hospitalized,” Jiang Lan, overhearing, chimed in while typing rapidly.
“I thought the manga artist was an iron man,” Luo Han said. “They actually get sick and hospitalized?”
Lulu said, “I’m not sure, but we’ll know if it’s true by checking if the next manga update is delayed or shortened.”
At that moment, the cosers exchanged glances.
“Hope the manga artist is okay!” They wanted their updates!
“The manga artist can be whatever, but updates can’t be short!”
Li Li didn’t know whether to lament the manga artist’s tragic fate of landing in the hospital from drawing or to marvel at this group being like capitalist devils.
As for whether the news was true, like Lulu said, they’d know by the next update’s status.
...
[Preparing for transmigration.]
[Channel opened. Wishing you to become a highly popular character, bringing new spirit to the manga.]
As Li Li expected, the Tide people informed her before taking action and didn’t bother her again.
She told An Heyu to take Dan out, meaning for An Heyu to handle it himself.
Now that Mother Hen and the clingy tea were gone, Li Li was alone on the balcony, basking in the sun, enjoying a rare moment of leisure.
So leisurely she almost wasn’t used to it.
But this time was for her to catch her breath.
She had no plans to do anything for now and was even scheming to act like “though I took down three S-ranks, I’m actually injured and need to recover,” hinting at the test subject’s physical issues in the manga.
She couldn’t always be Tide’s errand runner.
That was too classless.
Unless necessary, Li Li only wanted to be the one who appeared with a sky-shaking boom, not the babysitter slogging through the whole thing.
But while she slacked off, someone else was slacking with her.
Soon, another person joined her on the balcony.
Yu Xiao dragged a chair over, sat down, and turned to ask, “Good Samaritan, you’re not going to Tide’s side?”
It was the infamous slacker, Flipping Fish.
“Why would I go?” Li Li said in a lazy voice.
Flipping Fish nodded obediently. “I think so too. I’d only get in the way if I went.”
Then, Yu Xiao looked at Li Li innocently. “Because I’m dumb, I’d only hold people back and be completely useless.”
Li Li found the words familiar.
After thinking, she recalled it was what she’d said to block Yu Xiao last time.
“You’re dumb, only holding people back, completely useless,” she had said back then.
This fish was using her own words against her, not missing a single one.
Who knew how long he’d held onto them.
Pretty petty, this guy.
So Li Li smiled slightly. “Congrats on finally knowing yourself correctly.”
Joking? Her getting blocked? Never!
She didn’t want Yu Xiao slacking off when she was working, but wasn’t she slacking off now too?
The slacker duo, one lounging on a chair and the other sitting upright, suddenly reached a perfect harmony of spirit.
Long live slacking.
But Li Li felt Yu Xiao probably wasn’t just here to slack off.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come to her side to be lazy.
Sure enough, after a while, Yu Xiao spoke, “I mentioned you to Yiming yesterday. You two knew each other before, huh.”
He was probing into her relationship with Yiming, Li Li thought.
“Knew him,” Li Li said, her expression unchanged.
“I don’t think you’re the type to kill innocents indiscriminately, but why did you kill Yiming’s brother?” Yu Xiao said in the most innocent, obedient tone. “Yiming was really sad. He’s never hated anyone so much. You’re the only one.”
Li Li thought if there really was a Heige, those words would stab right in the heart.
“So many whys,” Li Li closed her eyes and said. “Why don’t you ask Shuang Buyan why he didn’t tell Yiming he was in the Former Ability Guild, only mentioning some prophecy after he died?”
Yu Xiao’s mouth half-opened, smoothly replying, “That’s not the same, is it?”
“Yeah, it’s not,” Li Li agreed. “After all, one was killing, the other was protecting.”
Perhaps having his own thoughts on this explanation, Yu Xiao paused before saying, “Then why are you helping Tide?”
This time, he didn’t use the “Good Samaritan” title.
“Because it’s fun,” Li Li opened her eyes, looking at Yu Xiao. “You didn’t think I was trying to save people, did you?”
She scoffed, then continued, “As if.”
Yu Xiao looked at Li Li for a while, then said, “I heard you’re often accompanied by crows. Do you like crows? Or birds?”
“Sort of,” Li Li said vaguely.
The truth was she thought black crows were cool and wanted to look badass.
But that reason was for her to know.
Saying it out loud wouldn’t do.
Besides...
Li Li glanced at the clear blue sky outside.
Maybe it was the nice weather, but the clear sky seemed to calm her mind and body.
It wasn’t an illusion.
She sensed Yu Xiao was showing signs of wanting to have a heart-to-heart.
So Li Li pondered the metaphors birds represent and tentatively said, “Don’t you think flying is pretty great?”
Yu Xiao tilted his head, also glancing at the sky.
“It’s great,” he said. “Soaring freely in the sky.”
“But it can’t touch the world below the sea’s surface. It lives in the sky and dies in the sky.”
“Are you saying fish are better?” Li Li countered.
“Fish are the same,” Yu Xiao kept looking outside. “Fish seem free in the sea, able to go anywhere, but they can never reach the vast sky. In the end, they drown in the sea.”
“Then aren’t all creatures just doomed to die?” Li Li said.
“Yeah, they are,” Yu Xiao turned back, his red pupils seemingly crystal clear.
He said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Isn’t that obvious? Even with the Empire’s advanced biotech, they haven’t figured out immortality.”
“Didn’t expect you to be so pessimistic,” Li Li stared at him.
Not just pessimistic.
She also felt Yu Xiao was a bit mystical.
Did he have some connection to Shuang Buyan? Li Li began wondering how many “good sons” the Prophet had raised.
“Is that pessimistic?” Yu Xiao expertly put on a confused look, then said, “Truly pessimistic people are already thinking about what to do after death. But I don’t want to die yet, so I’m not pessimistic.”
Fair point. Li Li agreed with that.
She’d seen people who, while alive, planned for after death, and others so numb and lifeless they might as well be dead.
Like Lin Ran.
When she was alive, she wanted Li Li to replace her as city lord.
Thinking back, it felt like she was already contemplating post-death matters while still living.
And after Li Li suspected Lin Ran might have heard some prophecy, many of her actions seemed to make sense.
Like walking in Eternal Night, asking Li Li to be city lord on their second meeting, baring her heart on their third, willing to share everything, believing they were close friends.
Of course, it could be Lin Ran’s low emotional intelligence and poor social skills.
But looking back with suspicion, some of Lin Ran’s behaviors were quite odd.
The most jarring for Li Li was that, during their second meeting, Lin Ran said her name was Lin, Double-wood Lin.
But on their third meeting at the Lin residence, she seemed to assume Li Li knew her surname was Lin, not Lin.
Since she wasn’t talking to Yu Xiao, and he didn’t say anything immediately, during this silence, Li Li’s mind started wandering.
Maybe because she’d just thought of Shuang Buyan, when recalling Lin Ran saying “Double-wood Lin,” she felt the pronunciation of “double” lingered, sounding a bit like Shuang Buyan’s “Shuang.”
Her thoughts spiraled.
If “Shuang” was “double,” wouldn’t Shuang Buyan’s name become “Double Buyan”?
“Double-wood Lin” meant woods forming a forest. So “Double Buyan” would be “Not Not Speak”?
What even was this? Li Li found her thoughts amusing.
Why was she nitpicking words for no reason?
But since she’d thought of it, she couldn’t help continuing.
Switch the order: “Speak Not Not” or “Not Speak Not.”
Not speaking, not talking. Talking, Yu?
Yu Xiao?
Li Li was shocked by her own ideas.
How did these completely unrelated things feel like solving a puzzle?
She really wanted to look at Yu Xiao but restrained herself.
The Prophet’s head was cut off by Lin Ran, and the Prophet’s prophecy ability clashed with domain-type abilities.
No matter how you looked at it, Yu Xiao and Shuang Buyan were, at most, playing a father-son script.
But the system only helped her when facing Yu Xiao.
It was wary of Yu Xiao.
There was a feeling, like buying a lottery ticket and sensing you’d win the jackpot.
The odds were slim, but the premonition was strong, even to the point of planning how to spend the money.
And Li Li was already calculating whether her disguise had slipped.
It didn’t seem like it.
Otherwise, Yu Xiao wouldn’t have indirectly cursed her and Yiming as dog sons.
Plus, the system had helped cover for her last time, and it was highly likely it would continue solidifying this backstory for her.
Li Li took a deep breath inwardly, her expression unchanged, and said, “Then your big dog goose must be relieved, not having to see you again too soon.”
“Ah,” Yu Xiao let out a short, dazed sound.
“So, do you still want a mascot?” She asked casually, as if making idle chit-chat.
This guess was too shocking.
If true, mentioning Shuang Buyan earlier might’ve made Yu Xiao think she knew his identity.
Either way, she had to figure out if she was overthinking.
At that, Yu Xiao showed a confused look, probably part genuine doubt, part acting.
“I do. An adventure team without a mascot feels like it’s missing something,” Yu Xiao said.
“How about a black cat? Not an artificial creature, but a natural one,” Li Li asked.
She remembered Yiming telling her that Shuang Buyan once wanted to keep a black cat.
Though Yu Xiao found it odd, he still said, “Thought about it once, but gave up.”
It was like Li Li had really hit the jackpot.
Li Li felt she had six points to make and wanted to give Lin Ran a 666 for good measure.
She really wanted to tell Lin Ran, who could possibly react to this wordplay puzzle!
Who’d think someone could hint like this, hinting into thin air?
“Why?” Her mind was a whirlwind, but she kept the conversation going.
“Hm…” Yu Xiao made a nasal sound, then changed the subject. “Let’s stick with the dog goose. It’s got character.”
Li Li started recalling what she’d done in front of Yu Xiao.
Throwing shade at him, kicking him, calling him dumb, shutting him up.
And then, at their first meeting in Jiao Huang City, what had she said?
She’d said, “Don’t go.”
Li Li suddenly recalled Yu Xiao’s expression back then.
Thinking back, it was a kind of stunned look, like genuine emotion slipping through a performance.
And then, Yu Xiao had probed her abilities and her attitude toward Yiming, but never her identity.
The system wouldn’t act without purpose.
If it covered for her, it wouldn’t just be about hiding her gender.
Combine that with Yu Xiao’s shade about her and Yiming being dog geese, and most likely, probably, he’d been completely fooled.
Fooled hard by Li Li and the system together, thinking he’d gained a good big son.
For a moment, Li Li didn’t know if it was weirder to be the fake dad or the fake son.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and kept slacking off, lying flat.
Good timing.
She didn’t want to pin a dead White Moonlight on her character.
A living White Moonlight was better—able to tweak settings, plot, and relationships.
And a Shuang Buyan-style Prophet was bad enough.
She absolutely wouldn’t play good big son to Yu Xiao, the slacker maniac!
Cherishing her last moments of slacking, she was about to get busy again.
Busy fixing the fish.
...
The slacker duo, as the sun set and the sunlight faded, threw shade at each other one more round before declaring disbandment.
Li Li said she wasn’t going to indulge Flipping Fish’s bad habits, no matter who he was.
She wasn’t a real good big son.
She was a counterfeit knockoff.
Respect the old, love the young? No, impossible!
At dusk, she calculated the time, changed into women’s clothing, and prepared to check if Dan and An Heyu had blended into Tide and how they were doing.
But as she approached, she heard Dan’s voice from far away.
“Say that again!” Dan, with his little braid, tightly hugged his rabbit plushie, glaring at the person in front of him.
The person, with brown hair and blue eyes, was Yiming.
“What’s wrong with you?” Yiming was getting a bit angry too.
He was genuinely baffled, saying to Dan with a confused look, “Isn’t being human fine? Why do you want to be a dog?”
Dan stared at Yiming for a moment, then said, “Woof.”
He meant he was set on being a dog.
Yiming couldn’t comprehend. “You really have issues!”
Nearby, An Heyu, wearing a mask, pulled his hood lower.
From a distance, Li Li slowly retracted her steps.
She started wondering if she shouldn’t interrupt their debate about being human or a dog.
But she had to admit, it was kind of funny.