Bai Li did not remember every detail from the novel. That would have been impossible. She was not a machine, and that story had contained too many words and too many scenes for every one of them to stay in her memory. But she did remember the beginning. Vaguely, clearly enough. She remembered that it had started in a hospital. She remembered the female protagonist being trapped there with a few colleagues, cornered by men who wanted to take advantage of her because of her beauty, and she remembered that the female protagonist had later escaped by finding the interdimensional market on the rooftop and drawing a rare mythical mystery box. That box had given her powerful abilities and let her survive. Bai Li did not need a perfect memory to know the shape of that story. And when she had seen Yan Cijin yesterday being surrounded by those men in the hospital room, looking pressured and cornered, her suspicion had become almost certainty. That was the moment she knew. There was no other way to explain it.

Still, once she had found out, she had not made a huge scene in her mind over it. Even if Yan Cijin had been the female protagonist in the book, in this world she was still just a person. She was Bai Li’s neighbor. She was alive, breathing, scared, stubborn, and real. Not a character on a page, not some idea made of ink and plot, but a human being standing right in front of her. There was no reason for Bai Li to act like she had just seen a fictional figure walk out of a novel and into her apartment. Yan Cijin was real, and that was the only thing that mattered. Besides, after that realization, Bai Li had barely had time to sit with it. One disaster came after another, and she had been too busy surviving to indulge in the thought for long. So now, finally, after getting home, she could sit here quietly and actually talk about it with the system. She could put a name on what she had seen. She could also confirm that her instincts had not been wrong.

When the system finally responded, it did so after a brief pause. "Are you sure, dear?" Bai Li went still for a moment, then narrowed her eyes slightly. Was the system testing her? That was the first thought that crossed her mind. Maybe it wanted to see whether she was guessing, or whether she had actually pieced it together properly. Bai Li was not the kind of person who liked half answers, so she replied right away, her tone firm and certain. "Yes. I am sure. She is the female protagonist." There was no hesitation in her voice at all. This was not a guess anymore. This was a conclusion. A small silence followed again, and then the system voice came back, this time sounding much more energetic than before. "Congratulation darling!! For figuring out the female protagonist’s identity! A new status has been unlocked! Status: Affinity. Current affinity is +5." As the system spoke, a panel in front of Bai Li’s eyes shifted slightly, and a new section appeared showing the affinity points. Right there, clear as day, was the number +5. Bai Li looked at it for a second, then let out a short hum of approval. "hMM... +5? Not bad..." She was not overly excited, but she was satisfied. It was a good start. It meant that her recognition of Yan Cijin had triggered something in the system, and that alone was useful information.

Just as she was thinking about that, there was a knock on the heavy security door outside. The sound was enough to pull her out of her thoughts instantly. Bai Li stood up, crossed the living room, and went to the door. She leaned in, looked through the peephole, and confirmed that it was Yan Cijin before opening it.

..

..

The security door she bought required three steps to open from the outside, but it could be opened quickly from the inside for people outside, which was one of the first things Yan Cijin noticed the moment she stood there and looked at it. The apartment had already gone through a huge renovation, and Yan Cijin knew that before she even walked in, but seeing the heavy metal door up close still made her pause for a second. It was not just a normal door. It looked solid, thick, and serious, the kind of thing that did not belong in a place where people were supposed to feel relaxed. It gave off the feeling that Bai Li had really thought through everything, not just in a casual way, but in the kind of practical, careful way that made it obvious she had been preparing for danger long before danger actually arrived. Yan Cijin stood there for a moment, her eyes going over the door and then drifting around the entryway, and she could not help but think that Bai Li had really prepared thoroughly. That thought stayed in her mind for a second longer than it should have, because the more she looked, the more it became clear that this apartment had been set up by someone who did not believe in luck. It had been set up by someone who believed in survival.

Then Bai Li opened the door and spoke first, polite and calm like she always was on the surface. "Come in, thank you for your help," she said, letting Yan Cijin step inside before closing the door again right away. The moment the heavy door shut, the outside world felt far away for a second, like the chaos had been pushed back behind layers of metal and silence. Yan Cijin stepped in and looked around again, and even though she already knew Bai Li’s place had changed a lot, she still could not stop herself from feeling a little impressed. The whole apartment gave off this very protected, very prepared kind of feeling, and Yan Cijin had to admit that Bai Li was the kind of person who never did things halfway.

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TO BE CONITNUED.