Chapter 217
Chapter 217 You are Ling Mo?
Summer Jincang’s arrival didn’t bring any noticeable changes to their lives.
Because Summer Xinyan hardly ever let him through the door.
And because of that, the closest he could get was watching his sister being led astray by that guy with the surname Ling, but there was nothing he could do about it.
Perhaps life’s helplessness felt just like this.
While Summer Jincang tirelessly tried to insert himself into the lives of Summer Xinyan and Ling Mo, Summer Xinyan wasn’t idle either.
She was investigating various trends online.
Now that things had moved from the shadows to the light, she needed to start preparing for the worst, and the most crucial part was to understand their online impact with Ling Mo, which could provide her with a general direction for further development.
However, to her surprise, most of the discussions about them online were—
【Ling Ge is so handsome! I’m in love!】
【Wuwuwu, why can’t I find a boyfriend who’d protect me like that? I’m so jealous!】
【I heard Ling Mo is not only amazing in the game but also super impressive in real life. Why are there such outstanding men in the world?】
【Do you really need to hear that? Is there anyone who hasn’t seen Ling Ge sparring with Young Master Xia? Wow, to be honest, if it weren’t real, I’d think it was just a movie!】
……
Summer Xinyan couldn’t help but feel a bit… cough, a certain flavor.
How should she put it? While she was always thinking of finding a suitable girlfriend for Ling Mo to take herself out of the equation, the key was suitability, not just any woman; those comments she saw online… she truly wouldn’t look at them in reality.
Even her past self wouldn’t.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have remained single until death.
Forget it, better to be picky than settle.
—Of course, aside from a sea of discussions about Ling Mo, there were also quite a few about her, but those were even more unbearable. Besides “Four Chasms Steamed Goose Heart,” she couldn’t think of any other adjectives to describe it.
Most of those discussions were thanks to Fatty’s videos.
Fatty’s videos mainly featured major scenes, and as long as it was a dungeon they participated in together with Ling Mo, their figures were pretty much guaranteed to be in the big scenes.
The vast majority of viewers didn’t pay attention to the actual player strength; they only wanted to see the visual impact comparable to movie special effects. Therefore, players with flashy skills naturally had an advantage in such situations—even if their abilities were utterly useless.
And with someone like Ling Mo, who had both visual impact and actual strength, it was only natural he attracted a fanbase.
Moreover, there had even been a show-off incident about him in reality—a basketball match and a sparring video with Summer Jincang.
It was quite like climbing up on the back of Summer Jincang, after all, in that video, Summer Jincang had ultimately made a critical mistake. Viewers wouldn’t care how their true strengths compared; they mostly only cared about the results.
Moreover, if it really came down to comparing strengths, Ling Mo had indeed surpassed Summer Jincang by now.
—This was another reason Summer Jincang felt quite stifled.
However, excluding all the useless information, the attention on their pair wasn’t too much; most people just wanted to figure out how they got their SSS rating.
Generally speaking, hidden gazes are slightly more than what’s exposed online, but at this rate, it wouldn’t be too many.
Overall, it was worth keeping an eye on, but there was no need to be overly anxious.
Another point worth mentioning was that there were no discussions online about the two anonymous figures at the top of the rankings, or rather, there were no topics dragging them into it. Thinking carefully, one could surmise it was Summer Jincang’s doing.
This also gave Summer Xinyan a slight change of heart toward him, which made her facial expression a little friendlier during their subsequent meetings.
She almost made Summer Jincang cry with gratitude.
Indeed, efforts do bear fruit; now his sister had begun to accept him anew.
Before long, he would be back by her side. By then… the guy with the surname Ling wouldn’t have a good time.
Ling Mo was unaware of Summer Jincang’s sinister intentions.
During this time, aside from building rapport with Summer Xinyan, he was also making some of his own little moves.
Since the game could influence reality, he naturally gave a hint to his friends in the school club.
Although Haonan and the others were improving, it was nowhere near the exaggerated speed of the first tier. By now, a noticeable gap had already formed between them. Once this gap was reflected in reality by the game pod, it became even more apparent; they all thought that little bit of improvement was solely through their regular training.
This truly represents the reality for most players, as most people experiencing abilities and knowing about the game anomalies beforehand are in the minority. Those who treat the game purely as entertainment aren’t so desperate to enhance their strength, making their physical improvement in reality slow to the point where they think it’s just the norm—some even felt they could improve their physical quality dramatically with casual training, which was just ludicrous.
So, before the Cataclysm arrived, the players who independently discovered the game’s anomalies could be said to be incredibly rare.
In fact, when Ling Mo first hinted at Haonan and the others, they also didn’t believe it, as the claim sounded too far-fetched—until Ling Mo casually bent a metal rod in front of them.
Of course, Ling Mo wouldn’t be foolish enough to share this with anyone who wasn’t in the know. Even within the same club, the ones he chose to signal at were his most trusted friends. What they would specifically do afterward was beyond Ling Mo’s limitations, after all, Haonan and the others weren’t fools.
This was a necessary network expansion; to make sure Haonan and the others could help him in the future, he had to drag them all into this circle.
From another perspective, Ling Mo was also helping them.
At the same time, Ling Mo started paying attention to any news and rumors related to ability-related crimes. Xinyan had mentioned that abilities would erupt nationwide in the first half of next year, but this process had actually started quite early, just as Fatty pointed out; many online messages were not baseless.
To grasp the initiative firmly, he needed to catch the underlying rules.
However… he hadn’t expected that this matter would find him instead.
In late December, under the cold winds and drizzly weather, with hardly any pedestrians on the street, Ling Mo was returning home after investigating a location rumored to have ability-related crimes. He was chatting on the phone with Xinyan: “Are you hungry yet? I brought you a cup of milk tea, and I’ll be home soon. Is there anything you want to eat? I can get you…”
But before he could finish, the surrounding environment suddenly shook, and the originally empty street transformed into a narrow alley.
In front of him stood a punk, wearing an expression that could only be described as asking for a beating.
“You are… Ling Mo?”
