Role Playing the Dark Horse Character-Chapter 139 : Chapter 139

Chapter 139 : Follow up (4)
The animation's storyline progressed, and for those who had already read the manga, this second viewing was akin to getting stabbed all over again.
[When I first watched it, I thought it was a typical shonen plot. Now, looking back, damn, it’s all knives!]
First-time animation viewers remained oblivious, still immersed in the cozy, familial atmosphere of the protagonist group playing house.
As the ending credits rolled, the staff list appeared one by one. Occasionally, sharp-eyed viewers pointed out: [The voice actor for Li and Heige is the same!]
[Right! So impressive! Switching between two completely different voices so seamlessly! It’s like Heige himself crossed dimensions to show up! Waaah, I believe in the 2D world again!]
[??? Isn’t the issue that two unrelated characters are voiced by the same person?]
[To the one above, isn’t it common for voice actors to take on multiple roles? What are you suspicious about? The merch for Li and Heige is completely separate, you know!]
Back when their identities hadn’t been revealed, the popularity rankings and the merchandise made based on those rankings became solid evidence for manga fans to tease newcomers.
After all, who would produce limited-edition merch for one character taking up two slots?
[Damn, thinking about it makes me mad. When I first got into this, I was thrilled hearing about the merch, but then I saw the price—Male god, you’re too expensive, I can’t afford you!]
The expensive ‘male god’ himself, Li Li, continued her domineering daily life in the manga world.
Li City had been fully completed.
Dan followed Li Li and An Heyu to stroll around, and they happened to run into Yiming.
At the time, Dan was wearing an adorable lion-cat ear headband and a white tulle puffy skirt.
His heterochromatic eyes glanced down at Yiming, who wasn’t dressed up: just a plain t-shirt paired with jeans.
Having successfully outshone him, Dan let out a faint, disdainful hum from his nose.
“...” Yiming fully understood Dan’s meaning.
Before, he couldn’t grasp where Dan’s hostility came from, but now he got it.
It felt like he was a stray dog abandoned while the owner bought a fancy new breed.
No, that wasn’t right. Yiming told himself.
He couldn’t let Dan drag him into that mindset.
They were both people, not dogs.
“If you say so, he probably would too.” Yiming opened his mouth, but the words took a turn before they came out, morphing into, “Li—where’s my brother?”
Dan’s heterochromatic eyes sharpened, and Yiming stared back without flinching.
It was as if sparks were igniting in the dry air, the self-proclaimed dog and the one called a dog but refusing to accept it clashing head-on.
“Heige picked this out for me.” Dan shook his head boastfully, making the fluffy ears on his headband wiggle.
“...” Yiming checked himself to see if he had anything similar, then realized if post-beating wound medicine and bandages counted, then yeah, he did.
So he switched tactics and said, “A few days ago, Li told me and Tang a bedtime story.”
Even though it was a horror story, and the next day Tang was fine while both Yiming and Li Li herself had dark circles under their eyes.
“After all, Li is my brother.” Yiming said in a calm, matter-of-fact tone.
First round: Yiming’s victory.
But Dan didn’t admit defeat.
He glanced at Yiming and said, “You’re not Heige’s good dog.”
“I’m a person, not a dog,” Yiming repeated.
Then Dan flashed a slight smile: “That’s why Heige came to me first.”
As if that wasn’t enough, he continued, “Have you ever seen Heige floating? I’ve been seeing it every day lately.”
Dan seemed to think that seeing Li Li in a different form was solid proof of his unshakable status.
Yiming’s shocked expression didn’t need words to convey the answer—obviously, he hadn’t!
“Is Li often without a physical form now?” At the same time, Yiming’s mind started racing, spiraling into wild, terrifying guesses. “He must not be fully recovered! Showing up in a physical form to meet us is just to put us at ease... Li’s hiding his condition again!”
In that moment, recent interactions with Li Li flashed through his mind.
Through his filtered lens, the expressions of the physical Li Li became ‘a painful facade maintained just to reassure them, while every second was torment and injury.’
Even Li Li’s tired look from being scared by her own ghost story and not resting well became ironclad evidence for his theory.
Yiming’s blue eyes began to well up with tears.
He let out a whimper, calling out “Li” in a sobbing tone.
“He invited me to visit.” Li Li, walking back, flashed her signature smile.
“Whatever you’re up to, I’ll let Tide know,” An Heyu said, rubbing his forehead with a practiced, helpless tone. “Just don’t go alone next time.”
Li Li couldn’t help but mentally call him Mother Hen a few times.
They were returning to find Dan, but the first thing Li Li saw was Yiming, his eyes crimson, looking both aggrieved and worried.
“Li!” He hurriedly looked her up and down, circling her like an anxious puppy, as if he had a ton to say.
His frantic behavior was the spitting image of a hyperactive Little Corgi running around.
Li Li glanced at the shaken Yiming, then at Dan, who bounded over triumphantly.
Li Li: Got it.
Then, under An Heyu’s calm, unsurprised gaze, she smiled brightly and expertly directed Yiming to run errands for her.
For example, starting from Li City, going to Jiao Huang to buy squid-pork buns.
Conscience? What’s that? Li Li claimed she had none!
Yiming, ordered around, was thrilled instead, rushing off to Jiao Huang without stopping.
It was a perfect reenactment of the anime scene where Little Corgi gave up the only bed in the Qing Tong dungeon to Li Li.
Watching all this, An Heyu sighed and shook his head: He’d said it before—when things were calm, Heige would stir something up.
He knew this all too well.
“You’ll eat, right?” An Heyu didn’t forget to ask.
“Mm-hm,” Li Li replied with her all-purpose phrase.
In the real world, the anime broadcast was finally nearing its end.
The half-year serialization of
Extreme Black and White
reached the first season’s finale.
Many manga readers revisited the plot, now transformed from black-and-white pages into colorful animation.
In the drizzling rain, the young protagonist, having just lost a newly recognized family member, roared at the culprit, who calmly suppressed all the boy’s efforts.
Animation fans, previously charmed by Li, were furious at this point, their anger reaching its peak.
[Argh, that bastard!]
[Li! My Li! Heige, go to hell!!!!]
[This is the so-called popular character from Extreme Black?! Just a hateful villain!!!!]
The barrage was filled with distraught anime viewers, cursing recklessly.
The top-liked comments in the episode’s discussion section came from manga fans, seemingly earnest.
[Tsk tsk tsk, the cycle begins.]
[No spoilers, everyone. We’re taking screenshots to see who’s cursing the loudest now and who’ll cry the hardest later XD]
[The wisdom of the predecessors is to wait for the newcomers to pick up the umbrella, then go tear it apart, hahaha!]
On the manga forum, some enthusiasts bumped old posts from the Jiao Huang Arc’s serialization, when fans lost it.
A new trending post on the front page was titled: [Digging up graves—you guys dug up all our swollen faces!]
Anime fans who followed the manga to the forum were bewildered by this second-wave frenzy.
After binging the manga overnight, the forum’s wailing threads were flooded with fresh blood.
[I was wrong, I was so wrong! I’ll never curse someone to death again! Male god, please live, waaah!]
[I’m a cutting board. Even if I’m stabbed a thousand times, I’ll be Heige’s dog!]
[Guys, is it too late to delete my barrage?]
The first season of the anime ended with the Jiao Huang Arc, wrapping up its half-year run perfectly, while the manga artist was already busy preparing for the second season and a standalone
Ranmu Arc
movie.
Fresh from wreaking havoc in the manga world, Li Li climbed off her dorm bed, just in time to see her roommate clutching tissues, watching the Jiao Huang Arc anime.
It was a perfectly standard ‘spill blood and guts’ shonen story, yet her roommate somehow turned it into a tearjerker.
Crying as she watched, she finally let out her voice when she saw Li Li wasn’t asleep, sobbing miserably: “Why is it so brutal! Watching it again, every time my male god belittled Little Corgi, he was belittling his past self and he still doesn’t know that what he saved was just an illusion...”
The more she said, the harder she cried, her heart aching.
In the end, she wailed, “Waaah, my male god is so tragic!!!”
Meanwhile, the ‘male god’ herself, Li Li, glanced at her sobbing roommate, then thought about her invincible, cat-teasing, dog-playing life in the manga world. Slowly, she flashed an innocent smile.
“Babe, want some milk tea?” she asked.
Still crying, her roommate said, “Yes!”