I Became the Most Popular Character by Acting as a Villain in the Manga

Chapter 97

Yuan Lan was still in the collection room next door, applying makeup to the human specimens.

I closed my eyes and lay on the bed. My earlier claim that "my body is still weak and needs rest" wasn't a complete lie to Yuan Lan. I was indeed a bit tired and wanted to take a short nap.

A special ability user's excellent hearing allowed me to hear some sounds of bottles and jars clinking from behind the wall.

Listening to the sounds, I could almost picture the scene behind the wall in my mind. Just as I was feeling a bit drowsy, I suddenly opened my eyes.

Wait a moment, something's not right.

The sounds I was hearing didn't seem like they could be made by a single pair of hands.

Could someone, while applying makeup, tap an eyeshadow palette with a brush and put down a bottle of foundation or toner at the same time? What kind of scene was that? Was that even applying makeup?

I pondered for a moment and came up with a perverse guess. I didn't want to get out of bed to look, but I was a little curious.

I asked Xiao 6: "What is Yuan Lan doing?"

"Isn't he applying makeup to the human specimens?" Xiao 6 said, a little puzzled, while opening Yuan Lan's activity log to check the situation over there. It was shocked, "Oh my god! He's so perverted! He's using his special ability to make two human specimens apply makeup to themselves! They're even looking in the mirror while doing it!"

I hadn't guessed wrong. I could now take a nap in peace (?).

It was a good thing I didn't go to see for myself, otherwise I would have had to pay a hefty price for a pair of unseeing eyes. Sometimes, being too curious wasn't a good thing.

"I'm going to sleep for a while," I said.

This was a hint for Xiao 6 to remain quiet.

After being bound to me for so long, Xiao 6 had developed a certain tacit understanding with me. It showed me an animated sticker of a mouth being zipped shut and went off to surf the internet in the high-dimensional world.

Because Yuan Lan was next door, I didn't sleep deeply, just a light slumber.

I didn't know how long it had been, but when Yuan Lan controlled the human specimens to walk out of the door, I woke up.

But I didn't open my eyes, wanting to know what Yuan Lan would do while I was asleep.

My feigned sleep was no different from a normal person's sleep. My eyeballs wouldn't move up, down, left, or right, my eyelids wouldn't tense up unconsciously from the strain of pretending to be asleep, and the frequency of my breathing remained unchanged.

I heard the sound of a light being turned on, and I could feel a bit of light through my eyelids.

It should be Yuan Lan turning on the bedside lamps on both sides.

Perhaps because they were suspended by puppet threads, the sound of the human specimens walking was very light. Along with Yuan Lan's footsteps, they bypassed the foot of the bed and kept approaching me.

"Hmm... your sleeping face is as cute as expected." Yuan Lan's unique, gentle, and somewhat cloyingly sweet voice sounded softly, as gentle as a feather brushing past my ear, and he said with a smile, "A sleeping doll, wouldn't it be just right to put it in a coffin?"

I: "..."

Still not giving up on that stupid coffin of yours?

I felt Yuan Lan's light breathing gradually approach me. It must be him bending down to look at me.

Suddenly, a hand gently grasped my throat.

I thought to myself, oh, I've been discovered. Yuan Lan wouldn't kill me for the time being.

This kind of action was probably meant to scare me, to see me open my eyes in a panic.

"Little Xuechao, if you continue to pretend to be asleep, I'll strangle you, okay?" Yuan Lan's voice was still gentle and sweet, but the five fingers holding my neck tightened a little. He didn't use too much force, but it was still enough to make one feel a slight discomfort.

I opened my eyes. The first thing I noticed wasn't Yuan Lan who was close to me, but the two human specimens suspended right above me.

Three pairs of eyes were looking at me at the same time.

I realized that when Yuan Lan leaned over to get close to me just now, he had also made the two human specimens get close to me. Because Yuan Lan's presence was too strong, my attention was all on him, and the human specimens didn't breathe and didn't make a sound while being suspended by the puppet threads, so I had overlooked them.

Perhaps it was due to the stereotype that "female ghosts have stronger resentment and are more terrifying," but both human specimens were female.

Their faces were very young, probably only around twenty when they died. All of their exposed skin had been carefully covered with foundation. They might have even been moisturized, turning from a lifeless grayish-yellow to an extremely fair and somewhat supple complexion, just without any color.

They wore artificial eyes, with large areas of red eyeshadow as a base around their eyes.

The eyelids and lower eyelids were done with a bluish-black chameleon eyeshadow. Their skin from under the eyes to the cheeks was covered with quite realistic-looking blood vessels, and the sides of their necks also had bluish blood vessels drawn on. Their lips were painted a somewhat dark red, and the corners of their mouths were turned up, making them look like they were smiling strangely.

At first glance, it was indeed quite frightening.

Yuan Lan introduced: "They should both have an impression of these two. I brought them with me to play for a long time, for more than half a month, I think."

I thought to myself, is more than half a month considered a long time?

"Especially her, Mu Xinyue should have a deep impression." Yuan Lan casually patted the head of one of the human specimens and said something terrifying with a smile, "She was secretly poisoned to death by Mu Xinyue."

Bai Xuechao: "???"

What? Did I mishear? Secretly poisoned to death by Mu Xinyue?

Perhaps the shock and confusion in Bai Xuechao's eyes were too obvious, so Yuan Lan smiled and explained to him: "Her body is very soft, so some days I would sleep while holding her. After Mu Xinyue found out about this, on the third day, she 'accidentally ate' a new species of mutated plant, and before she could go to Mu Xinyue to be saved after being poisoned, she was poisoned to death."

"Mu Xinyue thought she had done it perfectly, and seeing her try so hard, I cooperated and pretended not to notice this." Yuan Lan sighed as if helpless and said, "This girl's jealousy is so strong."

After hearing that, Bai Xuechao felt his head go numb and asked with some hesitation: "When you say sleep, you mean...?"

"What are you thinking? It's just simply sleeping." Yuan Lan's tone was innocent. "Don't some people sleep with dolls? My situation is the same, okay."

Oh, so it was just simply sleeping, that's good, that's good...

Good my ass!

If this girl had slept with Yuan Lan, and Mu Xinyue had killed her out of jealousy, I could still understand. But if just sleeping with Yuan Lan would make Mu Xinyue jealous, then right now...? Was Mu Xinyue's jealousy that strong? Or was the point of Mu Xinyue's jealousy not sleeping with Yuan Lan, but being held by Yuan Lan while sleeping?

Could this be something Yuan Lan made up to trick me?

I directly asked Xiao 6: "Is what Yuan Lan said true or false?"

Xiao 6 said: "Eh, if it's this kind of past plot detail, I need to watch the system replay. I can only answer you after a while."

"Are you scared?" Yuan Lan asked with a smile.

I said: "No." Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novel⚑fire.net

Even if Mu Xinyue really wanted to kill me, I had ways to deal with it.

I continued to Xiao 6: "Tell me first, does Mu Xinyue have a setting of being very jealous?"

Yuan Lan seemed a bit unwilling to give up: "Really not?"

I repeated: "No."

"Yes," Xiao 6 said. "Strongly jealous, and also love-brained."

Well, this was probably true then.

I said: "Even more love-brained than you?"

"I'm not love-brained, I'm just more universally loving——" Xiao 6 held up a small red heart and said, "Loving one after another, an omnivore who will ship anything, isn't that just human, oh no, system nature!"

On this side, Yuan Lan said: "Alright, then let's get back to these two puppets."

He controlled the two human specimens to make a face-cupping gesture and asked: "How about it, this makeup isn't bad, right?"

I didn't continue talking to Xiao 6, nor did I want to comment on the makeup of these two human specimens. I glanced at Yuan Lan and changed the subject: "I have a question. Even if I was really asleep just now, I should have woken up when you put your hand on me, right?"

"Are you dwelling on this?" Yuan Lan said, "Little Xuechao thought you were very successful at pretending to be asleep, right? Actually, as soon as I saw you, I knew you were already awake."

He hooked his lips slightly: "This is a skill I developed after observing many humans, you know."

I looked at Yuan Lan and found his choice of words quite strange.

Humans, this tone made it feel like Yuan Lan was excluding himself from humanity, how cheesy.

My gaze moved back to the human specimens, ready to find some fault. Yuan Lan had made me uncomfortable just now, so I couldn't let him be comfortable either.

Seeing me look at the specimens again, Yuan Lan controlled the puppet threads to move the two human specimens to the side of the bed, letting them stand on the ground. He had them walk back and forth by the bed as if for display. After I sat up, he even had them raise their hands to greet me, followed by a blown kiss.

The movements were very smooth. Other than not being able to speak, they really looked as if they had come back to life.

But the shortcomings were also very obvious.

Both of these human specimens were suspended by puppet threads. The extremely thin puppet threads came out from under their skin and disappeared into the void above.

Although these puppet threads were very thin and translucent, when there were many of them, they were still easy to spot.

I deliberately asked: "Can't you hide your threads well?"

"Unfortunately," Yuan Lan didn't show the slightest sign of being defeated. He even, intentionally or unintentionally, explained the reason to me, "My puppet threads can only be implanted into living bodies. If the puppet threads are not implanted, one end must be suspended outside as a point of force to control the puppet. However, both ends of my puppet threads can be moved at will."

A scene came to my mind.

When Yuan Lan controlled Ji Chuanze and Xia Xiaoxi to dance, he didn't implant the puppet threads, but let one end of the threads hang outside.

Yuan Lan changed the subject and asked with great interest: "Little Xuechao, do you have any suggestions on how to hide these threads?"

I said: "You can think of a way yourself, can't you?"

Yuan Lan replied in a praising tone: "But I think Little Xuechao's ideas are more genius, I'm very interested."

I thought for a moment and said: "First, leave the minimum number of puppet threads you need to control their movements, and retract all the others."

Yuan Lan didn't ask what I wanted to do. With a faint smile on his face, he directly retracted most of the puppet threads, leaving only seven. He rested his chin on one hand, seemingly considering something, and then removed the two threads on the hands of the human specimens.

The two human specimens repeated the actions they had shown me before: walking, raising their hands to greet, and blowing a kiss. There were no problems at all, but their limbs were obviously much stiffer.

However, in this way, the dead feeling about them became more obvious, and they became much more terrifying.

I also took this opportunity to find out that Yuan Lan, without implanting the puppet threads, could control a person's entire body with just five puppet threads.

If judged by the standards of string puppetry, five could be said to be very few. Generally speaking, a string puppet needs more than ten strings, and some can even have up to thirty.

But special abilities couldn't be judged by common sense, so it was normal for there to be so few.

"And then?" Yuan Lan asked.

I said: "They don't need to walk."

Yuan Lan understood and removed two more puppet threads. Now there were only three left.

"That's enough," I said. "The lights in the dining room shouldn't be too bright. Change it to a candlelight dinner, and you probably won't be able to see these few puppet threads. Let them float out, the effect should be pretty good."

Yuan Lan chuckled a few times and said: "Little Xuechao's thoughts are quite similar to mine."

I sneered: "Are you disappointed?"

"Not at all," Yuan Lan said. "In a situation where the puppet threads must be exposed, using light to hide them is the simplest and most effective method. It's normal for us to think of the same thing. And although our ideas are similar, there are also differences."

He said: "I was thinking of leaving five puppet threads and, during the game after dinner, choosing a dimly lit place to scare them one by one when they are alone. But Little Xuechao is a bit more malicious, you want to make them unable to even eat their dinner properly."

After speaking, a wicked smile appeared in Yuan Lan's golden eyes. It seemed he had decided to change the timing to what I had said.

He was smiling happily, his tone cloyingly sweet: "Little Xuechao, you really are my little genius. We'll definitely get along well~"

Before his voice had even faded, there was a knock on the door.

"Eh?" Yuan Lan seemed a bit surprised that someone would come at this time. He raised his voice and said to the door, "Who is it?"

"It's me." The voice of the person who came was a little quiet because of the door, but the mature female voice was still recognizable as belonging to Mu Xinyue. "Yuan Lan, it's almost six-thirty, I came to go to the dining room with you."

Yuan Lan glanced at the clock and said in a low voice: "It's already this time. We spent too long on makeup."

"Not we," I emphasized. "You."

"Alright, it's me," Yuan Lan complained coquettishly. "If Little Xuechao had been willing to help, I wouldn't have taken so long."

I said righteously: "Because I needed to rest, otherwise I wouldn't have the energy to attend your party."

"Not your," Yuan Lan emphasized. "Our."

"Yuan Lan? Why aren't you talking?" The two of them had been talking in low voices, so Mu Xinyue outside couldn't hear. She knocked on the bedroom door again, "Can I just come in?"

As she said that, she was already pushing the bedroom door open, probably out of habit from doing so often.

I subconsciously glanced at the two human specimens still standing by the bed. At this moment, my thoughts and Yuan Lan's actually synchronized——

Don't let Mu Xinyue find out!

A prank that gets discovered before it even begins is a disgrace!

"Wait!" Yuan Lan shouted, "I'm not dressed!"

The door, which had been pushed open a crack, stopped.

But the direction the crack opened happened to allow a view of the entrance to the collection room. Yuan Lan couldn't send the human specimens back to the collection room because he couldn't avoid being seen.

I also noticed this and quickly scanned Yuan Lan's bedroom, helping to find a place to hide the two human specimens.

The bookshelf that could easily block people was against the wall. The desk was a four-legged European-style desk without a modesty panel. The coffee table was too low. The small round dining table had one leg and couldn't possibly hide anyone, and the chairs were even less likely. Even the bed I was on had a gap underneath. Although it could barely hide someone, it would still be visible as soon as the door opened.

After looking around, the only place left was the leather sofa next to the coffee table. But from the perspective of someone standing at the door, it was placed vertically, with a slight slant, and didn't have a large blind spot, making it impossible to hide someone behind the backrest. It was too late to place the sofa horizontally now. They could only use the height of the backrest to block the view a little and hide someone behind the side armrest.

I pointed at the sofa, signaling Yuan Lan to hide one of the human specimens on the diagonal side of the sofa first, where a person could barely be hidden.

Yuan Lan had the same thought. He controlled the smaller of the two human specimens to fly over. But with only three puppet threads left, he couldn't control her to curl up. Yuan Lan could only add a few more puppet threads to tie her into a small ball, and then very quietly hid her on the diagonal back side of the sofa, before releasing the three puppet threads above so no one would notice.

From Mu Xinyue's height, standing at the door, she probably just couldn't see it, but if she walked a few more steps inside, it wasn't certain.

There was still one human specimen with nowhere to hide.

Mu Xinyue outside the door suddenly asked: "Is Bai Xuechao dressed?"

Because the door was already ajar, her voice came in very clearly. The question was very strange.

Yuan Lan and I looked at each other and simultaneously had a brainstorm.

Yuan Lan thought to himself, the Apocalypse Society had gone to a swimming pool before when they went out to play as a group. Mu Xinyue had seen him wearing only swimming trunks. If he said Little Xuechao was dressed, Mu Xinyue might just come in directly.

I thought to myself, if I said I wasn't dressed, who knew what Mu Xinyue would imagine.

Both Yuan Lan and I were in the room without clothes on, were we crazy!

So the two of them spoke at the same time.

Yuan Lan said: "He's not dressed!"

I said: "I'm dressed!"

Oh no, we're screwed.