Chapter 52: Fatty: Could I Be the Protagonist?

The frost-white moonlight soaked through the sycamore leaves, weaving a mottled silver net on the bluestone road.
Bai Ling leaned against the sycamore tree, panting.
The Suzhou-embroidered winding lotus on the hem of her cheongsam was soaked with night dew, and the bone-chilling coolness spread from her calf.

“Phew~ I should have shaken them off…”

The girl casually wiped away the dew on her shoulder.
At this moment, she had already changed into a cheongsam—it was one she had snatched from Guan Qing’s wardrobe.
That woman had actually filled the entire mahogany wardrobe with all kinds of cheongsams, from ink-black with gold embroidery to moon-white Hangzhou silk.
There were even Shanghai-style cuts from the 1930s.

‘Does this woman like wearing cheongsams that much?’

“Next, I should go find Xu Zhi, knock him out, and take him to the demon market.”

But…

“Where should Xu Zhi be now?”

The river fog swept over the tips of her shoes, and the whistle of a cargo ship came from the distance.
The girl looked at the outline of the tall buildings on the opposite bank and suddenly realized that she neither knew where Xu Zhi was nor could she contact him.

Her phone was probably now lying behind the water tank of the public toilet by the river, covered in dust, along with her cosplay costume.

She didn’t know if it was still there.
If it was lost…

‘I’d have to pay the props master, right?’

“If I have to pay, I have to pay…”
The girl unconsciously caressed her waist.
There was no pocket.
Wearing a cheongsam for the first time gave her a strange sense of unease.

‘Wait, now is not the time to think about this!’

‘I have to find Xu Zhi quickly!’

‘But how can I find him?’

The river wind lifted the slit of her cheongsam, and the scales on the outside of her thigh appeared in response to the stress, glowing with a faint blue phosphorescence in the mist.
A familiar voice suddenly came from an open window of the residential building above her.

“Defend! There are so many people at A, why are you still stubbornly holding B?!”

The humming of the outdoor air conditioning unit mixed with the sound of keyboard tapping.
The fat man’s oily nose was almost touching the screen.

On the computer desk, which was piled high with instant noodle bowls, half a pack of damp potato chips was curled up at the edge of the Razer mouse pad.
The Hatsune Miku figure in the corner was pointing a fluorescent glow stick at a “XX Contract” poster.

“Still camping there, you six-fingered bastard! The A bombsite has been breached, and you’re still camping!”
The fat man’s throat trembled as he roared, and his fingers rubbed sparks out of the WASD keys.

The night light cast his shadow on the corkboard, which was full of team emblems.
There was also a manga poster with “In commemoration of Qing Lin-sama’s debut” written on it.

As a qualified otaku, staying up all night to play games was a compulsory course.
Today, the fat man had also started to play games after coming back from the comic convention’s group event and chatting in the group for a while, in the hope that he could escape the golden sea of suffering today.

But after staying up for half the night, it was indeed effective.
He was indeed about to escape the golden sea of suffering—he was one game away from falling into silver.

It was already the match point.
The enemy had already planted the bomb at the A bombsite.
After the defending teammates had traded four for four, only the fat man was left to deal with the last enemy.

The fat man’s eyes were fixed on the screen.
As long as he won this clutch, he could enter overtime!

Before this, they had been suppressed by the other side.
It was not easy to get back on their feet and chase the score.
They had finally hit the other side’s morale.

As long as they followed this rhythm, their chances of winning in overtime were very high!

“A short! A short! The chicken is crowing, he’s at A short!”
The voice of his teammate’s frantic call came from the headset.

The fat man suddenly slid his mouse, his arm’s muscle memory flicking and sweeping.
The flame from the Vandal’s muzzle on the screen lit up his pupils, and the bullet trajectory was like a rain of bullets on the figure that flashed out from the corner.

“Nice!!!”

The cheers of his four teammates almost overturned the voice channel.
The fat man leaned back and slumped into his gaming chair, and the back of the chair hit the Asuka life-size pillow, making it sway.
Sweat slid down his triple chin and into his “Fat Otaku’s Happy Water” printed T-shirt, splashing oil on the “Qing Lin-sama Limited Edition” badge.

Next, all he had to do was defuse the bomb…

The fat man inadvertently glanced at the window and suddenly froze.

The window screen was suddenly lifted by the river wind, and the city’s neon lights plated the silhouette of someone squatting on the windowsill with a golden edge.
The red patterns on the hem of her plain white cheongsam bloomed into a red lotus in the airflow, and the scale-patterned embroidery flickered with her breath, like flowing demon fire.
The girl’s waist-length black hair brushed across the fat man’s windowsill, which was piled high with figures.
The “Ayanami Rei” figure that had been knocked over by the tips of her hair was teetering on the corner of the table.

“Defuse the bomb, for god’s sake!”
The sound of someone smashing a keyboard came from the headset.
The fat man was frozen like a meat sculpture, his Adam’s apple rolling as he swallowed his saliva—that girl was looking at the standee next to his screen with her amber-gold pupils.
On the acrylic standee, the self-portrait of “Qing Lin-sama” was making a heart gesture at her.

“Qing… Qing Lin?!”

While the fat man was stunned, the bomb exploded.

“It really is you!”
The girl lightly jumped off the windowsill, and the faint green scale tattoo at the slit of her cheongsam flowed in the morning light.

“Let me borrow your phone.”
She flicked away the potato chip crumbs stuck to her cheongsam with her finger.
The tips of her hair brushed against the fat man’s chin, carrying the fishy smell of the river wind.

“The unlock code is 4096.”
The fat man mechanically handed over his phone.
The lock screen wallpaper was the posture of the girl waving a prop sword on the stage of the comic convention yesterday.

“It’s the seventh floor, sis!”
The fat man suddenly convulsed as if he had come back to his senses.
His fleshy palm slapped the gaming desk, making it shake.
“How did you get up here?”

“I climbed up.”
The girl didn’t even look up as she kicked away a can of sugar-free Coke that had rolled to her feet.
“Is there a problem?”

The fat man was suddenly at a loss for words.
According to the girl’s performance at the comic convention yesterday, it didn’t seem impossible for a martial artist to climb up to the seventh floor.

“This anti-human verification!”
The girl gritted her teeth and poked the screen, her eyelashes casting a restless shadow in the facial recognition light array.

Nowadays, social media apps required all sorts of verification to log into an account on someone else’s phone.
Not only was it troublesome, but it was also brain-dead.

What do you mean, phone SMS verification? I’m using a different phone because I lost my phone.
Developer, didn’t you consider that someone might lose both their phone and their SIM card?

The girl was also desperate.
She didn’t even remember Xu Zhi’s phone number.

Who would remember someone else’s phone number these days?

It would take some time for the identity verification to pass.
The girl could only look around the group friend’s room out of boredom.

The window screen was suddenly rolled up by the river wind, and the misty light flowed over the wall full of doujinshi.
The girl’s peripheral vision was suddenly attracted by the limited-edition human knight figure—the paint job was even more exquisite than the cosplay costume she was wearing today.

‘Hiss, I’ve always wanted that figure…’

The fat man keenly caught this gaze and, with an agility that didn’t match his body type, grabbed the figure.
“Group leader, ah no, Qing Lin-sama! Take me as your apprentice, and this will be yours!”

“I can’t teach you.
Goodbye!”

“This is a limited-edition figure!”
The fat man’s fleshy fingers had just touched the greatsword of the human knight figure when the entire outer wall suddenly exploded into fireworks.

The girl grabbed the fat man’s collar and threw him onto the gaming chair.
This 200-plus-jin child made the gaming chair creak pitifully.

Two giants in suits and leather shoes broke through the wall.
The custom-made Armani was stretched taut over their bulging muscles, like plastic wrap.
The beast pupils under their sunglasses glowed red in the dust.

These two were naturally the wolf demon and the tiger demon.

“Tsk, I thought I had shaken you off… I’m borrowing your bed!”
The solid wood bed frame flew and spun in the air with a light tap of the girl’s toes.
The “Qing Lin-sama Support Poster” on the headboard happened to be stuck on the wolf demon’s face.

“Young mistress, the mistress said…”
Before the tiger demon could finish, he was silenced by a flying pillow.
The goose down exploded into a blizzard in the air.

The girl took the opportunity to rush to the balcony.
The moonlight plated the scale pattern on the hem of her cheongsam with a silver edge.
“I’ve said it eight hundred times, I’m just going to buy a sugar—”

“Boom!”

The wolf demon’s straight punch shattered the bed board into Russian blocks.
In the rain of wood chips, the girl had already disappeared.

The moonlight suddenly blew the curtains on the broken outer wall, mixed with the girl’s silver-bell-like trailing voice.
“I’ll return your phone later!”

The tiger demon picked up the knight figure on the ground, which was covered in wood chips, and blew away the wood chips.

He scratched his chest hair, which was exposed by his open shirt, thoughtfully.
“Young mistress’s skills are very similar to the mistress’s when she was young.”

“What about him?”

“That should be the young mistress’s friend.
Just leave him be…”

As his words fell, the two jumped off the destroyed outer wall one after another.

“This…”
The fat man slumped next to the overturned computer case, still clutching the detached greatsword of the knight figure.
He suddenly remembered the novel he had finished reading last night…

During the day, he had discovered that the group leader who had been drawing hentai for them was a good-looking girly boy, who was suspected to be a beautiful girl, and was also very strong.
At night, this beautiful girl group leader had suddenly appeared in his home seeking help and had shown a martial arts prowess that was far beyond human comprehension.

There were also two mysterious men in suits who were clearly not to be trifled with, who were chasing her and seemed to be calling her “young mistress”…

Isn’t this the standard light novel opening where a beautiful girl with a mysterious background suddenly gets involved with the male protagonist and slowly reveals the mysteries of the world to him?

Could I be the protagonist?