Chapter 11

"Hm?"

Hearing his name, Qin Su pushed the door open and answered in puzzlement. He gently closed it behind him and looked at Jiang Lu, waiting for him to continue.

"!"

The sudden sound of Qin Su's low, cool voice and the soft click of the door made the excited Jiang Lu's whole body jolt. As if caught doing something guilty, he slapped his tablet facedown on the desk.

Qin Su's gaze fell on the back of the tablet at Jiang Lu's odd reaction. Putting it together with the manga's update and Jiang Lu's past behavior, he had a rough idea of what had happened.

The Qin Su Jiang Lu had just called out to... was probably the one in the manga.

After two seconds of silence, Jiang Lu recovered enough to swallow and stiffly turn his neck toward Qin Su. Meeting Qin Su's indifferent gaze from above, he blurted out without thinking, "Well, um... hahaha, good afternoon."

"..."

As soon as the words left his mouth, Jiang Lu curled his toes in embarrassment.

That had been... so awkward!

"...Good afternoon." Jiang Lu clearly hadn't recovered yet, so Qin Su didn't ask any questions. He nodded slightly and went to his desk. Without sitting down, he searched the bookshelf for the books he needed for his afternoon class.

"..."

Watching Qin Su quickly turn his back to him and run his long, slender, well-defined fingers along the neatly arranged books as he searched, Jiang Lu secretly patted his chest.

Fortunately, Qin Su hadn't asked any questions. Otherwise...

Jiang Lu looked at the tablet lying facedown on the desk, his expression conflicted.

He had never expected that the new Alpha character he had recently grown so fond of in the manga Interstellar Legend... would be named Qin Su.

Not only was the name pronounced exactly like his roommate's, even the characters were the sa... wait, Qin Su was also 190 centimeters tall and had black hair and black eyes!

More importantly, though there was a huge difference between a static two-dimensional image and a three-dimensional person... he hadn't thought much of it before, but ever since his roommate Qin Su's details had matched those of the bigshot Alpha in the manga, Jiang Lu had secretly observed him and belatedly realized that his roommate's build, stern features, and bearing were exactly like those in the manga!

The more Jiang Lu thought about it, the stranger his gaze grew as he looked at Qin Su. Several times, he opened his mouth, only to stop short of speaking.

Hiss...

In the little time they had spent together, he had never seen Qin Su read manga or novels.

Hey, Qin Su, do you read manga? There's a guy in one with the exact same name as you. Make sure you read and memorize the whole thing, so you won't be completely clueless if you transmigrate into it!

Just imagining Qin Su lowering his eyes to give him a chilling look made Jiang Lu shudder and shake his head fiercely.

Transmigrating into a book and all that... sounded like a ridiculous joke. Only someone like him, who was obsessed with manga and novels, would believe the worlds in them were "living" parallel worlds.

Qin Su never read them. He looked like a staunch champion of materialism and definitely wouldn't believe any of it.

If he said that... Qin Su would think there was something wrong with his head, right?

"Is there something you want to say to me?" Qin Su finished finding his books and turned around to see Jiang Lu drawing his neck back and shaking his head to himself. He clearly had something he was dying to say.

"Huh? Ah... no, nothing." Jiang Lu gripped the back of his chair with both hands and shook his head like a rattle drum, not daring to speak.

"...All right. Goodbye." Qin Su didn't press him. With little time to waste in the dorm, he took his books and left for his apartment. Aside from the time taken up by his required class at two that afternoon, he needed to spend the rest of his time in the real world not only putting the finishing touches on yesterday's "pheromone" formulation, but also ordering several custom-made outfits.

Jiang Lu said, "Goodbye..."

Watching the dorm door close softly, Jiang Lu waited quietly for over ten seconds. Only after making sure Qin Su wasn't coming back did he shout at the top of his lungs, "Aaaah, what am I supposed to do now?!!!"

Still torn and desperate to get it off his chest, Jiang Lu made a post on a manga forum:

[Honest question: I just found out I have a friend with the exact same name as my fave. What should I do? Waiting online, urgent!]

[Floor 0: You guys might not believe me, but I swear on my guaranteed graduate school admission! My roommate's details and those of a bigshot character in a manga are practically cast from the same mold (in every way)!!! So here's the question: if I tell him and get him to "study" the manga in case he transmigrates into it, will he yell at me? (Important warning: my roommate looks just like that bigshot character from head to toe, and he's super "not to be messed with"!)]

[Floor 1: Guaranteed grad school admission? You're really putting that on the line.]

[Floor 2: I don't believe it unless there's a photo (doge).]

[Floor 3: Clout chasing?]

[Floor 4: Come to think of it, is this friend actually you?]

Jiang Lu replied to the thread:

[Floor 5: Sneak a photo? No way! It really isn't me!!! And I'm not clout chasing. It's the truth!]

Even if he had a hundred times the courage, he wouldn't dare sneak a photo of Qin Su and post it online. Besides, if he had that kind of nerve, he would have told Qin Su all the "crazy" things on his mind as soon as he discovered the truth, instead of bottling them up.

[Floor 6: OP, do you have no brains? Does it have to be a "sneak photo"? Didn't you say he's your friend? Don't you have a photo together? Heh, looks like floor 4 hit a nerve. Your friend is you (eye roll).]

Jiang Lu:

[Floor 7: ...You have a point. I do have a photo with him, but... no way! That would violate his image rights. If it gets reposted enough times, I'll win myself a shiny pair of handcuffs. Don't try to get me in trouble!]

Whether legally or morally, he didn't dare.

[Floor 8: Seriously, I give up. OP, you won't do this or that. Useless!]

[Floor 9: OP says nothing, just keeps saying he can't do it ()]

[Floor 10: Pass it on, OP can't do it.]

[Floor 11: Speaking of "can't do it"... wait, you don't mean that wildly popular Interstellar Legend, with its weird-as-hell updates and an author nobody knows to this day, do you? Bigshot character... Qin Su?!]

[Floor 12: If it's him... uh, I guarantee OP isn't exaggerating one bit. Really... it's like seeing double. But... OP, are you his roommate?]

Seeing this, Jiang Lu, whose identity had been decoded, pinched the spot beneath his nose hard. Feeling guilty, he hurriedly clacked out a denial he didn't mean:

[Floor 13: It's not me, I didn't, don't talk nonsense!!!]

[Floor 14: Tsk, tsk, tsk, three exclamation marks in a row. That's pretty much a confession. Looks like he's definitely "his friend's" roommate.]

[Floor 15: @floor 12, got a photo? DM it to me? Let me take a look?]

[Floor 16: @floor 15, forget it. And everyone bombarding my inbox asking to see "OP's friend" can forget it too. I don't dare send one, not at all, unless I want to win a shiny pair of handcuffs (smile). "OP's friend" really isn't someone to mess with.]

[Floor 17: OP has obviously read so much manga his brain's gone bad. I'm dying laughing. So what if they have the same name? Do you really believe people can transmigrate into manga? What a joke. So all our country's scientific research projects were for nothing? DM me your contact info, OP. I'll sell you health supplements when you're old (grin).]

[Floor 18: Uh... the person above didn't have to insult him. Whether it's true or not, OP means well. They're friends, so he won't get angry over something this small. Go ahead and do it without worrying.]

After seeing floor 18, Jiang Lu refreshed his inbox and saw quite a few more people asking if he was "Jiang Lu." Frightened, he immediately requested that the post be deleted.

Before long, an administrator deleted the post. Jiang Lu hurriedly changed his username to a string of gibberish and his profile picture to the default.

After doing all that, Jiang Lu let out a long breath.

Thinking of the last reply before the post was deleted, Jiang Lu fell into thought.

Because he had notified Assistant Jiang in advance, Assistant Jiang was already waiting at the apartment with a group of people when Qin Su arrived.

Qin Su needed to be wearing clothes and shoes that fit his current build as closely as possible when he returned to the Comic World in eleven hours and fifty minutes. That left only eleven hours to complete the work, so plenty of people had come to achieve the best possible results Qin Su wanted.

Fortunately, Qin Su's apartment was large enough that it didn't feel crowded.

Qin Su had already asked Assistant Jiang to convey his custom requirements. He first had his measurements taken, then sat down to have an exact, life-size replica made of his feet.

As everything proceeded in an orderly fashion, Qin Su saw a familiar caller on his phone screen and answered. "Sis."

"Have you gained or lost weight?" The clothes delivered a few days ago based on his previous measurements had still fit, yet he needed to be measured again now. Seeing Assistant Jiang's message during a short break, Qin Dai went straight to Qin Su himself for the gossip.

"...Lost weight."

After spending the past few days working almost nineteen hours straight each day, apart from six hours of brief rest, Qin Su had noticed that he had lost some weight.

Although he hadn't lost much, judging by the campus forum he had read over ten hours ago, the natives of the Comic World would scrutinize him from head to toe. They had even checked him all over for a "logo."

They were practically "studying" him with a magnifying glass.

Even a little extra room in his clothes might become an obstacle to his "disguise as a bigshot."

He couldn't leave the slightest potential "weakness" exposed. On the day he formally met his class, he couldn't let any "audience member" inside or outside the manga notice that his clothes didn't fit him properly.

To keep his family from worrying, Qin Su quickly added, "Don't worry, it's within the normal range."

"Mm." Qin Dai wasn't worried that her brother was lying to her. Xiao Jiang was right in front of him, so if his weight loss had really caused a problem, he couldn't hide it.

"Sis, the wind is really loud over there." Hearing the howling in his earpiece, Qin Su asked worriedly, "Are you all right?"

Assistant Jiang had clearly said his sister was on a plane. What kind of plane would let him hear such a raging wind?

Qin Dai, who was at the center of a storm, was applying cracked stickers with an eerie beauty to her face. At his question, she gave a dismissive sigh. "I'm fine."

She was a perfectly ordinary human, yet it was bad enough that she had been forced to play the boss in a horror unlimited flow rules-horror instance.

On top of that, she had to guard against a group of ghost NPCs "assimilating" her and making her a full-fledged member of the ghostly, sinister instance, while also keeping the players from killing her.

Banishing evil while making a strong entrance had become her normal life. She was now so practiced at it that she could even chat with her little brother while being strong.

"Tsk..." Seeing the commotion beyond the manually generated hurricane, Qin Dai, who had still wanted to say something, frowned slightly. She had only enough time to say a hasty "Talk next time" before quickly hanging up.

Beep, beep, beep—

Looking at the disconnected call screen, Qin Su knitted his brows in concern.

Ever since his sister had taken an interest in "researching evil-banishing" and "researching the truth" three years ago, he had known she was hiding something from him.

Now, Qin Su was considering what "local specialties" he could bring back from the interstellar world to help his sister.

Although... he was currently so poor in the Comic World that he didn't have a single star coin.

But that was all right. It was a military school, after all; whatever else it lacked, it wouldn't lack weapons.

According to what he had memorized about the Fourth Military School, every class of students went through countless real combat exercises before graduating.

He had plenty of strength and ways to fleece the "battlefield."

With only ten minutes left before his required class began, Qin Su finally put down several tubes of the fragrance he had formulated and left the apartment.

Assistant Jiang remained at the apartment to "supervise."

Because of his height, Qin Su usually sat in the back row. Wherever he sat, there was normally no one around him.

But this time, Jiang Lu sat in the row in front of Qin Su.

Their classmates were free to sit wherever they liked, so Qin Su didn't find it strange. He didn't even look at Jiang Lu, absorbed in the teacher's lecture.

But out of the corner of his eye, Qin Su caught his roommate Jiang Lu making repeated false starts, wanting to turn around but hesitating.

At 2:45 p.m. in the real world, Qin Su, who had entered the classroom just as class began, got up as soon as it ended and left through the back door.

This time, however, he deliberately slowed his steps.

The moment Jiang Lu noticed the "source of cold" moving away, he sprang to his feet and rushed out.

Jiang Lu said, "Um, Qin Su, wait a... moment."

Before he could finish, Jiang Lu saw Qin Su stop ahead of him and turn to face him. The rest of his words were almost inaudible.

"Go ahead." Out of politeness, since he was speaking to him, Qin Su lowered his gaze and quietly looked into his roommate's eyes.

Under Qin Su's intensely oppressive gaze, Jiang Lu licked his dry lips, took a deep breath, and threw caution to the wind. He rapidly poured out everything he had gone over in his mind countless times in one breath: "Here's the thing, I found that your details are really similar to those in a manga called Interstellar Legend, so I was wondering if you wanted to read it, just in case some supernatural accident happens in the future, so you won't be unprepared!"

Aaaah, would Qin Su think reading manga had turned his brain to mush?!

After speaking without pause, Jiang Lu worried that Qin Su might misunderstand and think he was cursing him, so he hurriedly added a disclaimer. "Of course, I don't mean to curse you, it's just... just..."

Just what was it again?

Having forgotten what he meant to say, Jiang Lu's mind turned to mush.

"I know." Seeing that Jiang Lu couldn't say anything else, Qin Su interrupted him and answered.

"Ah... huh?" Wait, he accepted it that easily?

"Thank you." Qin Su thanked him sincerely.

It was just that... he was already in the manga.