Role Playing the Dark Horse Character

Chapter 45: Pendant Earring (Extra Update)

The ‘cube’ rotated, affecting Tang and the others in the ‘scrap’ storage room as well.

The box trembled, and Tang and Momo struggled to steady themselves.

In front of them, the blond, blue-green eyed researcher stood leisurely, as if rooted to the ground, utterly unaffected.

Both girls were deeply wary of this person—wary and afraid.

While Li Li was engaging Yiming in her ‘talk therapy,’ a similar session unfolded here.

The phantom delivered the same grim verdict: Momo and Youyou would either die together, or Youyou would die, and Momo would live on.

“Kill me, and it can end.”

On the shaking ground, Youyou mouthed silently from within the nutrient tank.

“No!” Momo clung tightly to the nutrient tank, opening her eyes—Youyou’s eyes—and looking at him. “We promised to live together. Just hold on, okay?”

She gripped the tank tightly, as if reliving the moments when they had huddled together in this mad, inhumane research facility.

“I found someone powerful who can save us,” Momo said, unsure if she was convincing Youyou or herself. “We survived having our eyes gouged out and being at others’ mercy. Just hold on a little longer, okay?”

“I’m so scared without you, Youyou!”

The eyeless boy in the nutrient tank gave a helpless tug at the corner of his mouth.

“But I want you to live.”

Even so, his wish was clear to everyone—the ‘redemption’ he sought.

Tang pursed her lips.

She didn’t blame Momo but turned to the researcher who had appeared out of nowhere, her emerald-green eyes filled with solemnity.

“Why are you telling me this?” Tang couldn’t fathom this person’s motives.

At her words, the blond, blue-green eyed researcher pushed up her glasses, her smile unchanged, as if nothing here could touch her heart: “You could say I’m very interested.”

No, it was actually because of her own desires and the bold claims she’d made in front of Yiming.

Though Yiming hadn’t yet met her demands, Li Li was already preparing to fulfill her promise.

Early-death white moonlights couldn’t be mass-produced.

With her, Li Li, here, neither of these two would die.

No one could steal her white moonlight script!

At that moment, the shaking stopped.

Simultaneously, the wall adjacent to the box changed.

A tightly shut door creaked open.

Tang and Momo instinctively turned their gazes toward it.

Beyond the door was pitch black, but as they looked, white lights flickered on.

They saw a familiar figure, hanging behind the door, face pale and rigid, unmistakably dead.

Yet this familiar figure was, at that moment, standing in the same room with them, arms crossed, watching them with mild interest.

It was Yue Shan—dead Yue Shan.

So who was in the room with them now?!

In an instant, Tang stepped back, while Momo, after initial shock, suddenly showed a look of delight.

“You really came!” Her brown eyes, unactivated by her ability, shimmered with tears.

She let go of the nutrient tank and stepped forward.

Clearly, she had guessed this ‘Yue Shan’ was fake and had a candidate in mind.

Momo had originally aimed to lure her, Li Li confirmed.

With Yiming now trapped by her mechanisms, she shifted her focus to the phantom here.

“Your schemes are quite clever,” Li Li remarked.

Momo had likely heard something from Hua Yizhi, which was why she convinced Yiming to come to Four-Way City, in turn drawing Li Li out.

Momo had used Yiming, but she achieved her goal.

Whether her intentions were genuine or not, Yiming would never abandon her.

Momo’s plan was nearly flawless, and she had indeed succeeded, because Li Li was here to help them.

Being outmaneuvered wasn’t exactly pleasing, but Momo was truly out of options.

Li Li had no intention of punishing her for her desperate will to survive.

No need.

So she casually raised her hand, a flash of crimson glinting in her disguised blue-green pupils.

The next second, she snapped her fingers.

“But your struggles are indeed quite interesting.”

As her voice fell, her ability activated, and illusion swept through the entire space.

“I’ll reward you.”

Endless darkness enveloped the box.

Blackness filled everyone’s vision, yet within it, faint starlight twinkled.

It was as if they had ascended into the night sky, arriving in the boundless cosmos.

In the illusion, Youyou seemed to leave the nutrient tank, a pair of eyeballs gradually forming in his empty sockets.

At the same time, Momo’s eyes became hollow again, as if she had lost her sight.

Amid this sudden change, Li Li’s voice remained as nonchalant as ever.

She said: “I’ll rewind your states to before the experiments. Any objections? I know you don’t have any.”

This was the information she had gleaned from that stack of documents—the original appearances of the two before the experiments.

Now, she overlaid them with a false facade, perfectly matching their pre-experiment states.

Of course, she had no intention of listening to their input.

She only needed to ensure these two didn’t die.

With her ability’s rank suppression, the illusion-to-reality conversion had a hundred percent success rate.

Following the clear snap of her fingers, the false became real.

The phantom vanished as she moved to meet the final act of this drama.

…

Yiming had already broken through three boxes.

He tore a massive hole in the metal wall, moving swiftly through the ‘cube,’ his deep blue pupils constantly scanning for that person’s figure.

All the metal mechanisms were dismantled by him.

His ability had risen to C-rank, and when his hand touched the metal spikes, they bent and melted, becoming his aid.

The ‘cube’ trembled, manipulated by the one behind the scenes to set countless obstacles for Yiming.

Yet he broke through them all, growing more adept.

Finally, he found her.

In a new box, he spotted the figure of the blond, blue-green eyed researcher.

Upon seeing him, she unhurriedly pushed up her gold-rimmed glasses.

The smile on her lips was infuriatingly vivid.

Rage hardened Yiming’s fist.

He roared, charging at her, shouting her name.

“Heige!”

He had sensed his enemy’s presence in her utterly unconcealed demeanor.

That was why he was so furious.

“What do you take our struggles for!” he demanded, his overstrained metal arm smashing toward that figure.

“A game for your amusement?!”

But he struck only a phantom.

His fist’s gust stirred a ripple, and the phantom dissipated into the air.

The next second, a faint sound of wind came from behind.

A hard elbow struck his spine, sending him crashing to the ground, rolling three times.

When Yiming struggled to lift his head again, the blond, blue-green eyed researcher smiled, and with a wave of her hand, six scalpels pinned him to the floor.

Effortlessly, as if Yiming posed no threat to her at all.

Li Li flexed her fingers and, in response, merely smiled and said: “Of course.”

It was as if a mask was firmly glued to her face.

As she spoke, she removed her white gloves.

At the same time, her attire and appearance became illusory, like a wave rippling.

When the wave settled, everything had changed.

A silver-edged mask covered her left eye, her blond hair turned black, and her blue-green eyes shifted to a deeper, crimson red.

She had become Heige.

“The strong make the rules; the weak adapt to them.” Her crimson eyes narrowed slightly, and she smiled. “You’ve shown me a decent drama.”

She spoke with complete detachment, yet continued to stomp on his triggers, dancing on them: “But, as you are now, you still can’t do anything.”

His response was a guttural growl from his throat, teeth clenched, like a wild dog baring its fangs at its enemy.

Her words yanked him back to that rainy day, to his most powerless, agonizing moment.

And the person before him, just like back then, effortlessly trampled on what he cherished.

“Don’t touch them!” His voice was hoarse.

Yet, compared to his disheveled state, Li Li was far more composed.

When she first arrived in the manga world, she was just an ordinary person, struggling to keep up with Yiming.

Now, she could use her ability and physical skills to overpower him.

This was the result of countless days and nights pushing herself to improve in the manga world.

“Making demands of me?” She raised an eyebrow, casually waving her hand.

The scalpels pinning Yiming vanished, and he charged again, brimming with fury, desperate to defeat the person before him.

But the gap was too vast.

His swung fist was easily blocked, and even his follow-up kick was caught by the ankle and thrown aside.

“Angry? Then remember how you feel right now, your situation.”

Her voice remained unhurried amid the dust, as if her earlier moves were effortless, as if Yiming’s attacks were useless.

His back slammed into the wall, crashing through to the next box.

Through the dust, she walked in slowly, as if on a leisurely outing.

She stopped before the wall with the hole, and the next second, the mechanical wall shifted, revealing dark gun barrels.

Almost simultaneously, Li Li raised her hand.

The machinery whirred faintly, and the guns aimed at Yiming, who was sliding down the wall.

Fire sparked.

“Bang bang bang!”

Bullets shot out, streaking in straight lines toward Yiming.

He struggled to raise his hand, trying to block the bullets with his metalized arm.

But his arm was too exhausted; as he lifted it, his muscles gave out, and it fell.

He had nothing left to shield himself.

In that instant, time seemed to slow.

The yellow-orange tips of the bullets glinted under the box’s incandescent lights, carrying the aura of death.

The smell of gunpowder filled his nose.

Through the dust, the black-haired, crimson-eyed man stood, smiling, watching his powerlessness with a lofty air.

What can you do? That smile seemed to say.

Who can you kill?

“Clang clang clang!”

At that moment, several long blades suddenly appeared from the side, their bodies crossing in front of Yiming.

The sleek silver blades flashed, and Yiming seemed to see his own face in them—unyielding, teeth clenched, brows furrowed, a blazing fire in his pupils.

The next second, the long blades deflected the bullets and swiftly embedded into the side wall, emitting a sharp, resonant hum.

He was saved?

Yiming struggled to stand, but once the surge of adrenaline faded, the trembling in his calves prevented him from straightening his legs.

Who was it?

At the same time, the black-haired youth in front of him halted.

The guns retracted into the wall with a wave of her hand.

The instigator’s smile slowly flattened, revealing a look of disinterest.

As if she knew what had happened, or as if her excitement had waned, and she was starting to feel bored.

“Let’s call it here,” the black-haired youth said, turning her face slightly, her gaze seemingly directed toward where the blades had come from.

But she quickly turned back to Yiming, a faint smile curling her lips.

“I have something more important to attend to now.”

Yiming glared at her fiercely, his hands pressing against the ground as he tried to rise, only to collapse back with a few unwilling grunts.

A familiar snap echoed in the seemingly vast yet confined space.

Amid the gunpowder’s dust, the man with the silver-edged mask raised his hand lightly.

“I hope the next time we meet, you’ll make me marvel at your growth.” The black-haired youth’s lips curved, her crimson pupils under the silver mask glancing vaguely at Yiming, her address for him rolling off her tongue. “Low-rank—oh, no, mid-rank.”

Heige’s words always infuriated Yiming.

“Wait…” Yiming tried to stop her, pushing against the ground to stand, but he sank back in pain, his smoke-roughened throat unable to produce any sound.

At that moment, in this seemingly sealed ‘cube,’ the sound of bird calls suddenly rang out.

It was a flock of ravens.

The flock swirled around the black figure, her smiling lips obscured by their wings.

In the next instant, both the ravens and the figure vanished before his eyes.

Like a phantom dissipating, or a magician’s trick, mysterious and enigmatic.

Gone in an instant, as if they had never been there.

A sudden surge of strength propelled Yiming to leap toward where the ravens had vanished, but the next moment, he collapsed to the ground.

He bit his teeth in frustration, his vision blurring.

Just then, his turned head caught sight of where the blades had been launched.

Several dark holes marred the mechanical wall.

The blades had pierced through, reaching him and blocking the bullets’ attack.

And now, in the shadowy depths of those dark holes, Yiming suddenly saw a flash of blue.

It was a ghostly, cold blue, like a faint glow in the darkness, chilling yet bright.

It swayed gently, as if watching him.

“Yiming!”

He heard Tang’s voice.

In his fading vision, the blue flickered slightly.

As Tang’s warm healing ability touched his head, the blue swayed once more before vanishing into the darkness.

Was it the owner of that blue who saved him? The thought surged through his dizzy mind.

His enemy had left, the threat was gone, and his companion had found him.

Exhaustion overwhelmed him instantly, and that blue seemed to sink into his mind, lingering.

In his final moment, he remembered—he had seen that same blue before, dark and icy, on a pendant earring.

As the realization hit, his consciousness plunged into darkness.