NOVEL NEXT Ch. 111
Chapter 111: The Little Corgi Protection Association Sends Strong Condemnation!
Last time was dusk, gradually turning to night.
This time, it starts at night.
In the quiet stillness, they walked one behind the other.
After casually chatting about irrelevant things, Li Li glanced at the sky and got to the point.
Li Li walked ahead, pausing for a moment before saying: “You told me a lot about the Prophet last time. You really admire him, don’t you?”
“Yeah, he’s the person I respect most,” Yiming nodded decisively.
He said, “If it weren’t for Buyan, I might still be an illiterate wanderer, or maybe I’d already be dead.”
“He taught you a lot,” Li Li sighed softly.
“How to handle things, how to protect myself, what morality and kindness are,” Yiming scratched the back of his head. “Compared to those, learning to read doesn’t seem like much.”
He looked at Li Li’s back, a trace of confusion in the depths of his eyes.
“Pretty good,” Li Li said noncommittally.
The manga had briefly depicted the scene of Yiming meeting Shuang Buyan: a man with pale golden hair reaching out to a frail Yiming in the corner of a garbage heap, pulling him from the mud.
She recalled it and suddenly said: “When you learned he died, were you sad?”
“Very sad,” Yiming said. “I didn’t get to tell Buyan how truly, deeply grateful I was.”
He still didn’t know why Li Li was saying this, but he had a bad feeling.
“Then, would you want him to come back to life?” Li Li turned, looking into his clear blue eyes.
“Resurrection?” Yiming froze.
“What if he didn’t die?” Li Li added.
Her face bore a faint smile as she quietly looked at Yiming.
Yiming’s instincts told him this question was crucial, but he couldn’t grasp its significance.
Finally, he said: “Let’s not make such assumptions.”
“Why?”
He said earnestly: “It’s an insult to their sacrifices.”
Whether it was the Prophet Shuang Buyan or the others from the Former Ability Guild, they fought to the end, never giving up even without hope, passing down the spark of hope.
Assuming they didn’t die is not only meaningless but deeply disrespectful.
Coincidentally, Li Li thought the same.
She also knew how Yiming would choose.
Yiming was gentle and kind, but he wasn’t someone who’d blind himself with illusions.
He had believed Li was alive because Li Li had given him hope.
Otherwise, like at the end of the Jiao Huang Arc, he would have accepted Li’s death and moved forward.
Yiming wouldn’t dream of something impossible like “Shuang Buyan’s resurrection.”
“Why ask me this?” Yiming asked warily, feeling this wasn’t a topic to joke about. “You…”
He had meant to ask directly but hesitated, then said: “You still haven’t told me your name.”
Li Li ignored his question and continued: “Suppose one day you find the Prophet standing before you again, saying: Surprise! I’m actually alive.”
“Please don’t make such jokes!” Yiming interrupted.
Realizing his tone was harsh, he took a breath, looked up at Li Li, and said: “This is really disrespectful to him.”
Li Li nodded, her smile shifting closer to her usual one—bright and unreadable.
“But what if I insist on making this joke?” she said.
Yiming looked at her, his gaze disapproving: “It’s meaningless.”
“Alright, fair enough,” Li Li said softly.
Good. Yiming had successfully blocked his own chance to learn the truth from her.
She thought carelessly, turning her head to look at the forest ahead and the bright moonlight above it.
Yiming sensed something was wrong but didn’t know what.
He could only stubbornly ask: “Why are you telling me this? Did something happen? Did you meet someone like Buyan?”
But Li Li smiled, her tone light: “Because it’s fun.”
The previous quiet atmosphere vanished with her words.
She turned back, her smile flawless, as if the sadness Yiming thought he saw was an illusion.
She stepped closer, tilting her head slightly: “You clearly don’t believe it, but after I kept bringing it up, you started treating the assumption as real.”
“Why is that? Because of this face?” A hint of malice crept into her smile. “You’re really interesting. Do you believe in a dead person or not?”
Yiming took a step back.
His lips trembled, and his fingers twitched unnaturally.
Her narrowed eyes opened, and in those crimson pupils, he felt a suffocating pressure.
He had only felt this kind of targeted malice from one person.
As if treating him like a toy, as if everyone was a prop for amusement.
That lofty figure, mocking the efforts of the weak, dismissing them as worthless.
“Heige…” His voice trembled as he spoke.
That Dan, who seemed like Heige’s lackey, this black-haired girl who would take Dan away, and now those crimson pupils, eagerly watching him.
It was Heige.
Before coming to Ranmu City, he was certain Heige wasn’t a good person.
But after arriving, he actually thought this person might have their own reasons.
Heige had never changed, always acting purely on whim.
“You’re too much,” Yiming said, taking another step back, hardly daring to look at that familiar face.
He couldn’t stop trembling, consumed by anger.
“What have you done with Li’s face?!” A layer of mist clouded his blue eyes.
No mistake—this person didn’t care about life or death, treating others’ fates as a joke.
Nor did they care about disturbing the peace of the dead, even brazenly usurping a dead person’s identity for their own game.
“And what about Li Baige? Who is Li Baige?” Yiming looked at that smiling face, feeling a wave of dizziness.
He saw the person in front of him raise a hand, pointing at themselves in his blurry vision, saying in a cheerful tone:
“That’s me, mid-rank.”
Familiar mockery.
Yiming realized that perhaps Heige had indeed saved Ranmu City, freeing it from the nobles’ grasp.
But that was merely a side note in Heige’s game.
This person’s goal was never to save anyone.
Heige had only helped Tide on a whim, and they had believed it was genuine!
“Do you think this is funny?” Yiming couldn’t understand.
Li Li said carelessly: “Isn’t it?”
“You hate me, but you always believe me without hesitation because of a dead person’s identity. How interesting,” Li Li wanted to continue, but Yiming had had enough.
“Enough,” Yiming said, taking another step back. “I don’t want to hear any more.”
He seemed to wipe his eyes, then turned and ran in the opposite direction, leaving Li Li standing there, slowly closing her mouth.
Li Li’s nonexistent conscience twinged twice, but she quickly suppressed it.
She watched the direction Yiming left, her form shifting.
The black long dress transformed into the original black trench coat, a choker at her neck.
The red pattern at the corner of her eye faded, leaving a red scar by her eyelid.
She returned to the appearance she had when she first entered the manga world.
Then she calmed her expression, remaining silent.
Li Li thought she truly admired people like Sang Feiling because she was just a selfish person.
A hypocritical do-gooder.
That’s what she called herself.
She couldn’t shine for ideals like they did; everything she did was for herself.
…
[Update target achievement detected.]
[Opening channel for you…]
[Welcome back to reality.]
…
In the real world, after the manga artist resumed publication, Li Li first checked the update volume.
Sipping tasteless boiled water, she lit the desk lamp and read late into the night.
Counting the pages, Li Li confirmed: “This is two weeks’ worth of updates.”
As expected, the manga artist was grinding out drafts even in the hospital.
“System, do you give the manga artist any subsidies? Like, maybe a cheat or something?” she asked, feeling a bit of kindred pity.
[I support self-reliance,] the system replied, unusually responsive.
For a moment, Li Li genuinely felt the manga artist might be more pitiful than her, even more than the characters she created.
So tragic, the manga artist, without even a single cheat!
At least she had a one-week system shop cheat to start with!
Don’t underestimate drawing manga—your hand can literally break!
After her pity, Li Li started reading the manga.
This update picked up right after the last one, as Li Li expected.
The artist used An Heyu’s memories to fully explain the end of the Illusory Reality Arc, including An Heyu’s pledge of loyalty.
The manga depicted this scene across an entire page.
Below, a noble half-kneeling amid ruins, and a commoner on a high platform smiling down at him.
The light was split by the open ceiling into a single beam, encompassing them, while beyond it lay a landscape of ruined debris.
[Holy crap! So that’s how Red Crane came about!]
[Thank goodness the pretty boy is alive! I said it’d be such a waste for that face to die!]
[Heige boss, please, take me in, I’ll be your dog too!!!]
[Aaaaaaaah!!!!]
[Help! My underwear! Where’s my underwear!]
[Your underwear flew into my face, aaaaah!]
After this memory, the manga continued with the aftermath, and as Li Li predicted, included her conversation with Yu Xiao.
[Yu Xiao baby, why do you suddenly seem like a stranger?]
[Split personality? Dual personality? Or like the experiment with Momo and Youyou, one body, two souls?]
[This vibe—does Heige boss know this ‘Yu Xiao’?]
[First time seeing Heige boss this awkward. They were probably really close before, but this ‘Yu Xiao’ forgot.]
[Aaaah, why did he throw up? What’s with this sudden twist!]
[Anorexia…]
[Even knowing he can’t keep it down, he still tries a sip. What’s the deal between this ‘Yu Xiao’ and Heige boss?]
[Okay but, that wet hair flip got me. So hot, woof woof woof!]
It didn’t stay serious for long before the comments turned into a chaotic underwear-flying scene again.
Since it was two updates’ worth, after this plot, the manga artist depicted the tense stalemate between Tide and the princess, as well as the scene where Li Li stepped in and used her ability to send Qu Ting away.
It also included Li Li’s conversation with the princess and her ambiguous words to Sang Feiling.
And finally, her talk with Yiming.