Chapter 1126

NO. 31: You'd better care a little more.

After the Chrysanthemum Appreciation, the appearance of the Boundary Gate District changed completely.

Commuter pain trains, subway screens, banners at entrances and exits, along with countless Uma Musume-themed merchandise specialty stores, were all transformed by the protagonist.

She was a brown-haired little girl with a white shooting star across her forehead.

Her bright, lively smile was incredibly photogenic, much like the imposing victory outfit inspired by military uniforms—truly a natural-born promotional wind vane.

Beforehand, toward everyone, proving you have the strength and courage to pursue freedom, afterward. jpg

Leading the charge, ten thousand horses without light—result obvious at a glance; even the coffee Aomo summoned with a wave could be delicately sketched into a spirited latte art portrait.

Only… perhaps the latte artist lacked skill, or perhaps the latte artist harbored bias.

Aomo always felt the lines floating in the brown revealed an air less of spirited vigor and more like a smug, teasing little imp.

So he picked up the spoon and lightly tugged at the edge, distorting the face on it, making it look like the face of some feline creature.

【Poke, it's Hakimi】

Watching Bi Ze spew out trash talk comments in his own post, Aomo laughed and cried at the same time, giving a like to this local's unresonant stale joke, then immediately turned his gaze back to the gradually dusky cityscape.

Autumn skies always darken earlier; this was only six in the afternoon, yet the distant scenery was already a dusky yellow suitable for placing an Ultraman there.

Unfortunately, the Ultraman he could contact the fastest is currently still rather irritable—hard to say whether it's because he can't forget the taste of being buried underground, or because all the students in the central region are searching for his deeds.

Indeed, for that five-thousand-year-old brat, being fawned over by countless people should be as sweet as nectar; Tresen, as a gathering place for quality girls, could even highlight a soft, fluffy experience for him—even if he isn't carbon-based life, he could largely understand earthlings' joy of petting cats.

But obviously, anything in this world should have its limits.

Just as Aomo once limited Sai Luo and Jie De's outings with 'this world has many fans of you two'—Sai Luo still fears trouble.

And precisely because fear arose, isn't there value in choosing this way of punishment?

Half a day later, then another day, Aomo patiently awaited further developments, and during a rare idle moment, flipped through Qiu Chuan, the chairman's, and the association officials' dynamics, pondering the industry's current direction.

"Quite subtle……"

Gazing at the announcement congratulating the new Triple Crown achievement, which wasn't as grand as he'd imagined, he couldn't help but murmur softly to himself.

Amidst the noisy chatter and footsteps of people coming and going by his ear, a clear doubt suddenly came through.

"What's subtle?"

"……" Upon hearing this, Aomo raised his head, seeing the woman with a neat, tidy hairstyle and attire, aside from wearing a mask, completely like an extreme east university student with red pupils; after a brief silence, he subtly said, "All kinds of meanings are quite subtle, Miss Xi."

"I don't want to dress like this either," Xi said, pulling off her mask, then grabbing the opposite chair and sitting down, her face showing considerable annoyance, "But Shu Jie hears I'm going out and gets happy as if something, not knowing where she dug out this outfit to force me to try."

"Like a veteran extreme east university disciple," Aomo briefly commented, "yet also very suitable for you."

"Really? I said how she'd think to prepare such clothes—turns out it's student attire."

Having come over, or perhaps in recent years, Miss Xi obviously doesn't understand the extreme east university uniform style from at least ten years ago.

"I guess she actually also prepared similar-style clothes for Nian, just hasn't found the chance to give them yet."

"Ah, anyway, in her eyes, I and Nian are both kids."

She angrily slung the strap of her shoulder bag onto the chair's angular corner, then picked up the bag and rummaged for things, while Aomo silently held his coffee, glancing at the several round cartoon badges hanging on her bag.

All are cartoonized familiar faces, including yesterday's Chrysanthemum Appreciation protagonist, clearly listed.

Making her seem even more like a university dead otaku girl chasing the Uma Musume subculture.

Doesn't Miss Shu understand too much?

Yesterday was indeed when she and Ling teamed up to mess with the other……

Calculating this way, probably only Zhong Yue is a complete outsider to the circle—this big brother did……

Aomo unconsciously felt pity, but turning back, he thought this also counts as a good thing, after all, the subculture circle is truly too chaotic.

No matter how said, he finds it hard to imagine Zhong Yue elder brother being able to engage with abstract topics.

Thinking of this, he even decided to turn back and send a word of advice to the other party.

In this world, some circles, even if known, need not be forcefully joined, lest one creates things that are both internally draining and draining to those around.

This is a key point, worth noting down.

Just as he finished typing the memo content in the terminal with practiced ease, he saw a stack of paper on the desktop, biased toward oil painting in coloring, heavy and solid.

"Oh~" he exclaimed.

Not because it easily reminded him of GBF's art style, but because of the physical manuscript itself.

Honestly speaking, nowadays, aside from going to specialized stores to seek, it's truly rare to see such paper-based coloring manuscripts.

Even doujinshi themselves have electronic editions 'snatching' physical copy sales; in the real-world constructed doujin exhibition, it's already the most primitive display stage, truly the stubbornness of the old-timers.

Although the appearance of the transmigrator group has, to some extent, revived these old-school choices, it remains but a drop in the bucket.

The tide of the times is hard to resist, let alone say the transmigrator group isn't all classical faction.

There are also many guys like Bi Ze, quickly accepting the magic staff system, quickly accepting bio-engineered girlfriends, more obsessed with game devices, deep immersion, soul-stirring dreams—can truly be said to have desperately longed for all this before transmigration, and after transmigration, they take to it as sweet as nectar.

Such guys probably, even if attending doujin exhibitions, head straight to the virtual reality stage construction electronic exhibition, rather than going to the real doujin exhibition to play as special forces of secondary dimensional beings (referring to the astonishing number of steps needed to visit all booths at large exhibitions).

By contrast, this Miss Xi, who in Bi Ze's and my otherworldly memories belongs to 'paper person 3Dization,' indeed stands more firmly in reality.

"This is the cover prepared for the original five short stories, plus this one, I hastily sketched." She said, then pulled out from the bag the sole piece mounted in a glass frame; after opening it, one could still see the undried ink.

But the speed and force of the two girls in the picture, first riding a Mercedes then on the track, have already leapt forth.

"Haven't seen what you wrote, can only say it's practice—you won't say like Shu Zi Lao Shi that the art style is too hard, needs softening, right?"

"Did she actually say that before?"

Aomo carefully took over the drawing paper for inspection, yet failed to notice the softening of her gaze due to his movement, merely marveling inwardly at Miss Xi's picture design.

Clearly never having discussed details with her, she seemed to have already seen yesterday morning's match.

Of course, this is also more likely because, upon calculation, the running posture of horse girls comes down to just so much; compared to posture, horse girl artists focus on drawing muscles, expression, airflow, skirt hems, etc.

"I actually think this art style has no problem—Shu Zi Lao Shi over-pursues alignment with reality, thus overlooking the charm of creation itself."

"So Shu Zi Kuai Yin really is your Uma Musume acquaintance?"

"Offline doxxing—acceptable or not, Gong Bi Ru Hua Lao Shi?" Setting down his sketches slightly, he glanced at Xi, who was waving to the waiter to order drinks. Aomo gave a helpless smile. "I suppose, for a group of members who met online, this roughly counts as a club rule."

"Just asking casually," Xi replied, turning back with irritation after placing his order, "You mercenaries may seem legit, but how did you end up taking on doujinshi text work?"

"This is also one of the harsh realities of mercenaries ranking fourth in today's cutthroat industry," Aomo said, wearing a subtle smile as he slowly stirred his spoon, completely ruining the latte art in the cup. "It's not just text work—I signed two commissions yesterday at your company, one concerning the cross-world migration of a certain species."

"Faction? The company forum yesterday was all over it," Xi remarked offhandedly, mentioning something Aomo hadn't planned to look into. "Many think, after the wolf girl from Penguin Logistics, you're now targeting other girls."

"You're joking," this remark caused Aomo's subtle expression to shift slightly, "Leaving aside whether I've ever considered actively pursuing anyone, just based on Ishamara's attitude, it seems clear she's trying to make a move on me."

"Hmm… that's true too."

"Such a meaningful silence and contemplation."

Aomo stared blankly at the girl who had rested her chin on her hand and gazed elsewhere for several seconds before turning back. Based on his understanding of Xi, any evidence leading her to a favorable conclusion likely came from information he himself was unaware of.

But……

I also don't really want to know.

Over the past few months, he has occasionally browsed Rodia's forum.

For fun, gathering information about acquaintances, and also because Rodia Company had hired many transmigrants—longtime staff being transmigrants in his own perception—he viewed this activity as a form of entertainment, quite intriguing.

But he genuinely didn't browse it yesterday.

Yesterday was Bai Ren's affair again, then Mi Yu's difficulties, plus the trap design for Sai Luo, and finally he had to keep writing manuscripts—his only leisure time was watching matches, but those matches ended in minutes, at most followed by ten or so minutes of replay analysis, and a few minutes of congratulating Xi Qi Feng.

Where would he find time to browse the neighboring company's forum?

Though time is tight, there's always some to spare.

But……

I don't want to squeeze it in!

Early this morning, he received a farewell message from the other party—a plain, unadorned goodbye and a very landmine-style farewell that looked quite refreshing.

Admittedly, the premise of the landmine-style farewell was actually normal at first; only after deeper understanding did the problem surface.

Rather than this kind of obvious, scattered minefield.

But Aomo clearly couldn't be bothered to nitpick and categorize the other party's affiliation like that.

Though it looked amusing, it probably wasn't the meaning…… Aomo considered this possibility in his mind, but his actual response still had to be as if facing a formidable enemy.

He also didn't really want to know others' opinions on this event; the urgent priority should be letting the controversy naturally fade.

So when he noticed Xi seemed to have grasped some other information, he subconsciously felt interested, but reason still made him appear less interested.

Fortunately, Xi was similarly uninterested in talking about it.

"What's there to worry about? You should've first explained why you suddenly added a new work!!"

Just inexplicably somewhat agitated, as if awkwardly covering up the previous topic.

But what's there to cover up about this?

Do you still have ties with Ishamara?

Aomo felt doubtful inside, but kept his expression neutral, merely waving his hand helplessly.

"Rather than saying it was an addition, perhaps the original plan simply lacked sufficient material for Bai Ren Bai Ren?"

"I merely suddenly discovered a fresh perspective capable of filling and bridging their generational transition."