Nana Toki turned her head; a slender, pretty girl stood by the curb, hands on hips, glaring like a drawn blade.

A thin hiss slipped between Nana’s teeth, steam from a kettle.

Wasn’t that the leading lady herself?

Nana eyed Chen Yiyi, and her brow twitched like a startled sparrow on a wire.

It wasn’t fear of Chen Yiyi; it was the prickle before rain, that hush before a storm breaks.

In novels there’s a law carved in old stone: when a side character meets the leads, bad luck flocks like crows.

Like Nana running into Chen Yiyi on the shopping street; bizarre things sprout like mushrooms after rain.

For example, the heroine awakening powers and one-punching her into the afterlife, quick as lightning.

System: "....."

No way. Even with the author’s wildest fireworks, that’s too much, right?

Even the System couldn’t help a snark, like a cat’s flicked tail: please don’t be delirious, Host.

Anyway, Nana Toki hates sharing air with the leads, like oil refusing to mix with water.

Trouble is trouble, and it sticks like wet clay under the nails.

Chen Yiyi saw Nana turn, and she went blank, mind freezing like the surface of a winter pond.

When their gazes locked, a winter moon seemed to rise; her body dropped into a subzero ice pit, and a shiver ran like a cold eel.

Is this person really Suo Sen?

"Got business?" Nana stood with hands in her pockets, a lazy stray cat on a wall.

Chen Yiyi snapped back to herself, shook her head, snow shaken from a pine bough.

She hurried up in two quick strides, jabbed a finger at Nana’s nose like a spear. "Why are you here?"

By the clock and the trail of last night’s wolves, Suo Sen shouldn’t be here at all.

Chen Yiyi knew those people’s methods; after a night in a den of dogs, someone like Suo Sen doesn’t walk away unscathed.

This woman was too calm, the surface smooth as a lake with no ripples.

She remembered clearly; she’d seen Suo Sen hauled into the bar on this street by a pack, leashes tight as ropes.

No way nothing happened; that silence smelled like smoke after a fire.

"Why I’m here? Not your business."

Nana almost laughed, a blade of grass between teeth; since when did she file itineraries with the leading lady?

"You—!" Chen Yiyi choked, her face darkening like a storm cloud rolling in from the sea.

"You took my notebook, didn’t you!" She glared, eyes like knives drawn from their sheaths. "Hand it back, now!"

She’d only come to help a hotel owner, a favor like straightening a crooked picture.

But running into Nana here, she could tie up loose threads, knot the cord while the wind was still.

"What notebook?" Nana smiled, a crescent blade glinting. "Never saw it."

"Impossible! I put it in myself; you couldn’t have missed it!"

With no one around, Chen Yiyi lifted the curtain and spoke plain, like opening a window to the rain. "Suo Sen, hand it back, or you’ll reap bitter fruit."

She let out a cold laugh, frost at the corners of her mouth. "Your school rep’s already at rock bottom; you don’t want everyone targeting you. Return the notebook, and we’re even."

"Well now." Nana’s mockery curled like smoke. "Even? Leading Lady, your hide’s thick as rhino horn."

"You blew the plan; you framed me; and you still say ‘even’? Isn’t that shameless mud on your face?"

Her words fell like pearl-tipped needles; Chen Yiyi’s face darkened shade by shade, dusk swallowing the sky.

In the end she ground her teeth like millstones, anger biting like wolves at a fence.

"So what? At school, they believe me, not you—Suo Sen, the sellout who betrayed them!"

"Really?" Nana lazily pulled out her phone, the motion soft as a leaf floating downstream. "How about now?"

"You—!" She saw the recording app, a red dot glowing like a coal; her words snuffed like a candle in wind.

"You set me up!"

"Hey, you can eat trash, but you can’t spit trash," Nana said, tilting the phone like a mirror to her face.

"You came to me; that mouth is yours. What’s that got to do with me?" Her smile was a thin blade in shade.

"Delete it!" Chen Yiyi lunged, claws out for the phone, feral as a street shrew kicking up dust.

"No can do." Nana’s hand flew on reflex, a backhand like a whip cutting the air.

Crack—Chen Yiyi hit the ground, porcelain dropped on stone, shock ringing like a bell.

"Tch... your face is thick like a shield; my palm stings," Nana said, scoundrel’s rule: hit first, cry first.

"You... you hit me..." Chen sat hard, disbelief glazing her eyes like frost, hand cupping the red welt, a stunned deer in headlights.

Nana Toki: "....."

Is this the silly roe deer ripped from the book?

I hit you already; you ask if I dared. Please, like asking if rain is wet.

Next you’ll say, even my family never hit me, right?

"But... but my family never laid a hand on me!"

Nana: "....."

Fine. You win. This author’s brainholes burst like fireworks over a river.

System: "Alright, Host, stop aggro farming; weren’t we going to find Yuzuki?"

Don’t rush. It’s rare to bump into the leading lady; we should ‘communicate,’ cultivate ‘feelings,’ or my conscience will itch like ants.

System: "....."

Please act human; leave others a path like a bridge over water.

"By the way, have you seen a girl with a shoulder-length golden bob pass by? Wearing a maid dress, airheaded like a sunlit dandelion."

The thought snapped like a twig; if Chen was here, maybe she’d seen that sugary fool.

System: "Host, do you even have shame? When you were slapping people, where was this gentle tone?"

None of your business.

System: "....."

"Why... why should I tell you?" Chen wiped her tears, water glimmering like dew, and sat on the street with red eyes.

The shrewish fire had blown out; in its place, pure grievance like a wilted flower after hail.

Nana: "....."

Seriously? She flips faces like Peking Opera masks, fast as wind.

One moment kill-or-be-killed, the next a fragile Lin Daiyu, tears like rain on willow leaves.

What play are you acting?

"Hey, what are you two doing?"

While Nana wondered what brew the leading lady kept in her gourd, a voice she disliked rose like smoke from a smoldering pile.