I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 279
Chapter 279: Oh! Poor Mr. Tom
The most striking impression I got from the comic exhibition here at the Science and Technology Museum is its vast area.
The venue is large, the stage is grand, and even the scale of the various vendors and shops set up here is considerable. Moreover, perhaps due to the significantly high ceilings between floors, standing inside, one can clearly feel a considerable distance from the ceiling.
To enhance the atmosphere, the staff deliberately installed some colored glass above, and the colorful sunlight combined with the surrounding lights illuminates the entire venue, eliminating any sense of it being a “small comic exhibition.” It feels more like a large-scale comic exhibition with a second-dimensional vibe.
Compared to the Honeydew exhibition I attended previously, which seemed relatively small, the Honeydew booths were also small. They resembled the kind of large tents used by various clubs when organizing activities inside a university campus, with some books and snacks placed around but lacking tables.
“Huh? Isn’t that young lady over there one of the employees of Jialan Company?”
“What young lady? What’s Jialan Company?”
“Wasn’t this comic exhibition originally a collaboration between Tongmeng Network and Jialan Company to sell merchandise? Isn’t that why you came?”
“No, the girl from Tongmeng Network who’s into jumpstyle dancing is coming today. I’m planning to ask her for an autograph.”
“Anyway, it’s the singing of that young lady just now… Wow, it was simply too beautiful. I heard it from outside the door, and it truly felt like celestial music. When I came in, it seemed like it was almost over. I opened the QQ group, and sure enough, there were many people discussing the situation at our venue.”
Walking along the spacious path of the comic exhibition with Xiao Mo and Xiongxiong, it seems that the performance just now was a bit “too intense.” Plus, our attire is quite conspicuous, and many people around us cast longing glances.
“That young lady should be the Dendro Archon we just heard, right?”
“Was that her real voice or the work of an Autotune? I got completely enchanted, it doesn’t seem like a voice that should exist in this world.”
“Well… shall we go up and say hello to them?”
“You can go if you want, but I dare not. Usually, these kinds of people have appearance fees in the millions.”
“……”
In theory, comic exhibitions are a world of various exotic costumes. For example, those several Kamen Riders in front of me, the Ultraman on my left, the “Hulkbuster” standing proudly on a nearby open space posing for photos, and even the “APEX Legend”: Pathfinder, Gibraltar, Wraith…
However, since everyone is an adult, more or less taller than 1.5 meters, if everyone’s clothes are unusual, then they become normal. But someone like me… a child, still wearing child-sized clothes, stands out conspicuously.
Aside from genetics, a person’s height is indeed greatly influenced by society and family. In our generation, during junior high school, most people were around 1.4 to 1.5 meters tall. Junior high to high school is the period of boys’ growth.
By the time they reach the second or third year of high school, a boy who is around 1.7 meters tall is considered relatively tall, while a boy who is 1.8 meters tall is the type who is perennially seated at the back of the classroom to listen to lectures.
At least for a child coming from an orphanage like me, that was the situation back then.
In those days, people generally didn’t have much to eat, and there wasn’t much specific understanding about nutrition. They only knew that having something to eat was already good. Many parents would give their children a bun for breakfast, a bowl of noodles for lunch, and rice for dinner. People believed that one should eat rice and flour, there was no concept of balanced diet or supplementing calcium or protein.
In my generation, sometimes when the orphanage was short on funds, they would go to a nearby small farm for lunch. They would buy a large pot of tofu pudding from the farmers and add a lot of sugar to it, serving it as lunch for the children in the orphanage. Everyone would line up with their bowls, each getting a bowl of tofu pudding.
Various factors have led me to subconsciously believe that… typically, boys during adolescence are around 1.7 meters tall, and for girls, reaching 1.6 meters is considered quite tall. I never expected that nowadays, boys are toweringly tall, and the girls, too, exude a mature vibe.
I’ve asked Li Denghua and Zhou Xiaofei before, at least at their age… even for those children from families either poor or with busy working parents who choose to let the school “supervise” them, in the morning, they would have at least a few eggs, a glass of milk, and two large meat buns.
For lunch, there would be vegetables and meat, and after school, they could even go to the cafeteria to get a glass of milk. This was the regulation at Starlight Elementary School, and I reckon other schools wouldn’t be much different.
“Why are all these peers so tall… Are people of the same age in other worlds also this tall?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“Then why did you make me so short, Xiao Mo?”
“I didn’t, Nuo’er’s body is only my creation. I have no control over its growth. Right now, Nuo’er is just in the infancy stage. I estimate that in about two thousand years, she will enter her teenage years. If Nuo’er wants to have a pair of large breasts and a perky butt… it’ll probably take about five or six thousand years.”
“Five or six thousand years! That’s completely devoid of anticipation!”
As the recent plot of the game reached a crucial moment, there were many girls cosplaying as the Dendro Archon Nahida. It seemed like every few steps, I would encounter one. However, these girls were all taller than me, and whenever they saw me, they couldn’t help but come closer…
“Such a small Nahida!”
“How adorable, Dendro Archon! Can I take a photo?”
“Lumine, is she your sister?”
At this point, Yin Xiamo could only explain helplessly, “She’s my girlfriend,” and then took a group photo with these Dendro Archons.
It’s precisely because of these dedicated Dendro Archon cosplayers that I understand how crucial the grass-green shoes, which Xiao Mo helped make to match the character, are. In the game, the Dendro Archon is beloved by many foot fetishists because she wears ankle socks.
However, wearing them like this in real life would quickly dirty the soles of the shoes after a few steps, and during photoshoots, one can’t even show the soles of their feet, thus losing the “foot fetishist delight” attribute.
In contrast, I, wearing shoes of the same theme color, didn’t have this concern. But this does make my character somewhat “unfaithful” to its original design. It all depends on personal preference.
Later on, probably noticing that many people were taking photos with us, various other cosplayers passing by also requested to take photos with us. Even though the distance from the central stage to the Jialan booth that Xiongxiong mentioned was less than two hundred meters, it took us nearly twenty minutes to walk there. Wherever we went, a large crowd would gather around us.
Fortunately, most of the people who came to take photos with us were girls. For example, there were characters from Arknights like Exusiai and Lava, as well as popular cosplays from games like King of Glory’s Diao Chan. There were also some characters from relatively “unpopular” games, such as the Saratoga from Azur Lane, Liv from Punishing: Gray Raven, etc.
“Come on, perform your secret move, Divine Meow Sword.”
“Liv, hehehe, my Liv, with small feet, so fragrant…”
Because I don’t play many games personally and I’m not as knowledgeable about anime as those professional content creators, I don’t recognize many characters. So when I encounter characters whose names I can’t even recall, I can only faintly survive by acting cute, then let Xiongxiong step in to chat with them and take a group photo together.
What’s even more awkward is that I don’t know if the anime “Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear” is not that famous, but most cosplayers seem to think that Xiongxiong hasn’t cosplayed any anime characters, but just casually dressed as a bear and came out, making Xiongxiong feel particularly embarrassed.
“Getting old, it’s all about the young people nowadays.”
After finally getting away from a bunch of cosplayers, on the way to the booth, Xiongxiong sighed, “Even though Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear anime aired in 2020, it feels like it’s become something like a magical girl anime.”
Hmm… actually, the popularity of magical girls is higher than that of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear. And different countries have different popular elements in anime, right? I remember some anime being very popular in certain countries but not getting much attention in others. Different cultures have different levels of acceptance, so it’s normal if some works don’t resonate with everyone.
“We’re here.”
In the comic exhibition that resembled a pedestrian shopping street, under Xiongxiong’s guidance, we arrived at a booth with an elf logo that I had seen once before in a café.
This booth stood out conspicuously among the surrounding simple shops because it had five large tents all in grass-green color, arranged side by side, with a small green flag inserted in the middle.
By the way, has Jialan always been themed around green? Their logo is a grass-green elf, and they sell computer cases, motherboards, and coolers in green styles as well. Moreover, the country is said to be primarily based on agriculture and animal husbandry, with forests, greenery, and vast grasslands all over the archipelago. It feels quite different from the mechanical style of “cyberpunk.”
Speaking of which, wouldn’t it be nice to live in a place like Xiongxiong’s country? Perhaps influenced by the elf clan model, my mind conjured up the image of the grassy plains of the archipelago nation—
Endless grasslands stretch out before us, with cows and sheep grazing peacefully. On one side are bountiful fields filled with crops like strawberries, tomatoes, and grapes, while on the other side are fish ponds where fish and ducks swim. We sleep in a simple yet cozy little house, wake up to the warm sunshine every day, go out to water the strawberries, tomatoes, and some vegetables, pick a few bunches of grapes, collect a couple of duck eggs from the pond, then return home to cook some porridge together. That’s how we start to enjoy our day.
If people in Xiongxiong’s country live like this every day… then their company’s long-standing “non-competitive” attitude can be understood.
“Lisa… Sister Lisa!”
Leading us to this shop with grass-green tents everywhere and elf flags hanging, Xiongxiong quickly found “Lisa” chatting with a young man inside one of the tents.
This woman has a distinctly foreign appearance, like someone from Europe or America, with fair skin and looks to be in her early thirties. She has golden hair and wears mature European-style clothing that’s currently popular over there. Her figure is very voluptuous, exuding an air of elegance.
“Hello, cutie. Good morning.”
Seeing Xiongxiong, the woman referred to as “Lisa” snapped out of her reverie, then noticed me and Yin Xiamo next to Xiongxiong.
“These two… are the little performers from earlier, right?”
Lisa’s voice is very mature, her Mandarin is very standard, reminiscent of the café manager Ouyang Xue, but her maturity carries a sense of “confidence” and “care.”
Especially when speaking to me and Yin Xiamo, it feels like the way she looks at us is similar to how a kindergarten teacher looks at the children in her class.
Although being called “little one” made me a bit unhappy, considering that anyone addressed as “auntie” by Xiongxiong, whether in this life or the past, should be older than me, and besides, I do indeed look like a child in the eyes of others now, so I could only maintain a calm demeanor and say to Lisa, “Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Yin Nuo’er, and this is my good friend, Yin Xiamo.”
“I can tell that your relationship is very good,” Lisa said gently with a light smile, then turned to Yin Xiamo, revealing a subtle expression.
“Not like ordinary friends, huh?”
“Oh?”
Yin Xiamo was somewhat surprised. “You can tell?”
“Oh my… Over ten years ago, I used to work as a counselor at a school in Newcastle. The children there… oh, especially the girls, have a similar look to yours.”
With that, the woman named Lisa stood up.
“I can feel that you are suppressing your feelings for her. This is not a good thing, of course, nor necessarily a bad thing. On the contrary, the lovely one next to you needs to be more cautious. She is brave, sincere, and full of responsibility, a lifelong partner worth cherishing.”
What was this?
I gave Xiongxiong a look as if to say, ‘What is your auntie talking about?’
Xiongxiong responded with a look that said, ‘You wouldn’t understand, and neither do I.’
“I see,” Yin Xiamo said thoughtfully after listening to Lisa’s words.
“I understand.”
“What do you understand now?”
I couldn’t help but exclaim. “Don’t think about strange things!”
As the saying goes, when Xiao Mo starts to have wild thoughts, I’m the one who suffers. Although my body is weak and small, my advantage lies in my exceptional endurance. If I’m not engaged in vigorous activity, I can work for two or three hours straight without feeling tired.
However, this also becomes a disadvantage for me in bed. Whenever Xiao Mo starts thinking about something else, a few hours later, our bedsheets have to be washed. So I have to suppress her strange thoughts and redirect her attention.
“I wasn’t thinking about anything strange,” the girl beside me turned around, looking serious.
“I was just considering the various legitimate rights I have as a guardian of a certain little cat.”
“That’s even weirder!”
“Haha…”
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Xiongxiong gestured towards the “elegant lady” ahead of us.
“Nuo’er, Xiao Mo, she’s Sister Lisa. We used to live together when we were kids, she was my neighbor, and we’re also related by blood.”
“Little Yue has become much more cheerful since she came over here to play.”
Picking up a strange “terrifying robot” from the chair in front of her, Lisa said to the young man beside her, “400 yuan, how about it? I might consider buying three.”
“Well…”
The young man hesitated visibly. “I really can’t do 400 yuan, 500 is my bottom line.”
“How about 400 yuan for four, then?”
Lisa still had that gentle big sister tone. “If not, then I’ll pass.”
“Cough cough…”
Hearing this, the young man frowned. “How about… 450?”
“400 yuan, and I’ll buy four.”
Lisa placed the “terrifying robot” back on the table. “If you don’t agree, then forget it.”
“Okay, 400 it is, four of them!”
The young man gritted his teeth. “Are they all of this style?”
“Yes, they’re all of this style.”
“Then wait a moment, I’ll go get you four new ones.”
After the young man left, I, Yin Xiamo, and Xiongxiong subconsciously walked over. “What’s this?”
We saw on the table at this moment a black, red, and white object, shaped like a terrifying robot from “Command & Conquer: Red Alert” — with three sharp feet, holding a Gatling gun in its right hand, and a shield in its left…
Wait, this weapon and color scheme didn’t seem like a terrifying robot. Instead, it looked more like… White Shark No. 14 from the “Spirit Cage: Incarnation,” in a mini version.
What is this thing? Is it a figurine?
“It’s a speaker,” Lisa answered our question, gesturing with her eyes towards another stall not far away.
“The person just now is the owner of that stall over there. Their shop specializes in computer speakers, but this design is rather unique. I chatted with them just now, they initially asked for 900 yuan each, but I haggled it down to 400 yuan.”
Reducing from 900 to 400 yuan?! This is more than just “half-price”!
“Its sound quality is pretty good.”
Perhaps seeing our confusion, Lisa touched the head of this small explosive spider-like robot model, pressed the switch—
“Bluetooth connected!”
The next second, the machine lit up with red and white lights, the mini Gatling gun on its right side started buzzing, and a touchscreen lit up on its head, resembling an energy bar.
“Since you’re all Little Yue’s good friends and members of Mr. Tom’s zero-cost purchase, I’ll buy two extra for you guys.”
Lisa gently slid her finger on the touchscreen on top of the robot’s head, increasing the volume slightly. Instantly, the speakers behind it vibrated noticeably, emitting energetic music.
“Not bad, right? For 400 yuan, you get a speaker with this design. I think it’s pretty good.”
That’s pretty good, but what on earth is “zero-cost purchase”…
“To be honest, we came to see that…”
Summoning up my courage, I stepped forward. “To see the drawing tablet. My friend wants to become an artist and needs a drawing tablet now.”
“You’re all Little Yue’s good friends, why bother with just a drawing tablet? Go straight for the drawing screen.”
Lisa turned around, rummaged through some boxes behind her, and pulled out a super-sized box.
The packaging of this box was very simple, with the words “Hyacinth” and the logo of the Jialan company’s little elf written on it.
“This is a drawing tablet produced by Mr. Tom’s side. The factory price is over 4,000 yuan, and the retail price here is over 8,000 yuan. It’s called the Hyacinth Gen 3 PRO, a 4K drawing tablet display.”
Stuffing the box into my arms, Lisa let out a yawn.
“If you’re going to take it, take the most expensive one. Don’t save money for Mr. Tom.”
“……”
……
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