Because she had other errands stacked like dominoes for the afternoon, Luo Shanshan left after a brief chat with Nana Toki.

"Yu Xi is coming to school tomorrow." Her voice tinkled like a small bell.

Before leaving, Luo Shanshan clasped Nana Toki’s hand with both hands, her reminders looping like a string of prayer beads.

"I know, geez." The reply flicked out like a cat’s tail.

With a look like brushing dust off jade, Nana Toki yanked her paw back and rubbed it on her clothes like wiping grit.

The motion cut like paper, small but stinging.

Yet Luo Shanshan didn’t mind; her smile bloomed brighter than flowers, soft as sunlight on water.

After an afternoon together, you could see she was easing into Nana’s prickly weather like a boat finding the current.

"I’m heading out!" Her words lifted like a kite tugging free.

"Mm, go." The answer dropped like a pebble in a pond.

After seeing Luo Shanshan off, Nana Toki wandered the street like a leaf in a slow stream.

Finding nothing worth her spare hours, she followed the System’s implanted memories home, like tracing a map burnt into wood.

The home matched the memory, a simple two-story block like a worn shoebox.

She lived on the second floor, a perch like a sparrow’s eave.

The original host’s parents had died early, leaving life tight as a drawn belt.

Most expenses were pinched like fingers over a candle flame.

For such a pitiful girl to be doomed by the heroine felt cruel as frost on new grass.

Nana Toki sighed, a sound like wind slipping through reeds.

She climbed the stairs; the handrail smelled of mold, damp as moss after rain.

Plastic bottles and bags littered the landing like husks after a storm, and spiderwebs bridged the rails like silver nets.

A faint stink hung there, sour as old water.

Luckily, Nana’s standards for food and shelter were low, like a traveler under a coarse cloak.

She pulled the key from her pocket and snapped open the peeling iron door, paint flaking like fish scales.

She kicked off her shoes and walked in, claiming the space like a quiet queen.

"Let’s see... is there anything to eat?" Her words drifted like a hopeful kite.

In slippers with a hole like a missing moon, Nana skitter-skittered toward the kitchen like a mouse.

With faith that even a poor kitchen holds food like hidden coins, she combed the place for minutes like a sweep of rakes.

Yes. Silence fell like a curtain.

"Only dried noodles?" Her disbelief sat heavy as a stone bowl.

After flipping the kitchen like a deck of cards and finding no meat, Nana felt exasperation prickle like nettles.

Even slum beggars probably ate better than the original host, like dogs with bones.

"Hey, hey! People in the slums aren’t necessarily worse off than her." The System’s voice popped in like a pebble knocking glass.

"You reincarnated into a supporting role, not the heroine; high standards won’t manifest," it hissed like steam.

Nana Toki: "..." Her silence pooled like ink.

Come to think of it, that was true, bitter as tea dregs.

Cannon fodder should live their cannon-fodder fate, thin as paper.

Compared to the destiny-blessed heroine-sama, she was still small as a moth, eating noodles in a tattered house.

"But! I refuse!" Her defiance flared like a match.

Covering one eye like a dramatic mask, Nana declared, "I’ll become the strongest woman in this world!" Her voice rang like a sword.

System: "..." Dead air spread like winter fog.

The silence was pin-drop quiet, cold as winter mist.

Seeing her pose, cringy as an off-season festival mask, the System wanted to shut down and flee like a startled hare.

What do you do when your host catches chuunibyou like a fever? It fretted like a hen.

Normal people wouldn’t strike a pose even modern grade-schoolers avoid, awkward as tangled kite string.

"Then... tonight I’ll just put up with it." Her concession fell like a sighing leaf.

With no one to play off, she dropped the act fast, like a stage light dimming.

She rubbed her flat belly like smoothing paper, grabbed the noodles, and reached the stove like a measured march.

"Let’s eat first." The words were warm as broth.

System: "..." Its unease crawled like ants under bark.

Was Nana neurotic, or simply unreadable, a river with many currents? The System wondered like an owl.

Energy, madness, and ice—contradictions coiled like snakes in her.

It couldn’t find the true her, elusive as moonlight.

Alone, she could be goofy and bright like fireworks; faced with malice, she turned cold like a blade.

What kind of person was the host, really? The System stewed, thick as porridge.

While it puzzled, Nana had already boiled the water, steam unfurling like white banners, and was about to drop the noodles.

This time, she hadn’t been thrown mid-plot into the plane like last time; she enjoyed ten quiet days like a lazy summer.

She went to school, sat through class like boats on a calm lake, then hauled Luo Shanshan to raid buffets like cheerful bandits.

Life felt too good, sweet as candied haw.

Of course, Luo Shanshan paid the buffet tab, her wallet opening like a soft fan.

With the original host too poor, Nana gladly basked in Shanshan’s glow like a cat in sun.

She even called it living upright and aboveboard, a banner fluttering over shameless freeloading.

Given the choice between starving for pride and thick-skinned meals, she chose the latter like clay over glass.

Her face was so thick the System was left speechless, quiet as a stunned fish.

"Weren’t we here to clear tasks and stack Merit to send you home, not to savor life like gourmets?" the System grumbled like distant thunder.

By the plot, the next big fog is the heroine’s rise, a drum you should prepare for, right?

"Why should I?" Nana ate buffet rice like snowflakes in a bowl and said, "Why’s the eunuch panicking when the emperor isn’t?"

She knew the later script: in the next fog, the heroine would get separated from the male lead and tortured by Corpse Devourers like wolves.

She didn’t need to worry; she knew those monsters like scars, and with that heroine’s temper, she’d be easy prey like a lamb.

System: "..." Was that your fearless source, thin as sugar glass? It balked like a balky mule.

It felt a need to correct her salted-fish calm, tightening like a bowstring.

"I hadn’t planned to tell you, but seeing you beyond saving, I’ll be merciful," the System said, voice sharp as a blade.

"Remember what I told you: after your arrival, plots change like paths after rain."

"So what?" Nana lifted a glass of juice like lifting a lantern and drank slow.

"Aside from one meeting, I haven’t seen the lady heroine these ten days," she said, cool as shade. "There shouldn’t be much interference."

"True," the System didn’t deny, its tone flat as slate.

"But the premise of the heroine’s torture in fog was the original host’s death, like a domino that starts the fall."

"Huh? What does her torment have to do with my death?" Nana blinked like a startled bird.

Could the Corpse Devourer she meets be me? The thought lit like lightning.

"......." Silence settled like ash.

At the buffet table, Nana’s heart lurched like a drum.

"No way. Did I guess right?" She swallowed meat like a pebble and gaped.

"Yes. In the original, the first Corpse Devourer she meets in the fog is the dead original host," the System said, rising like a siren.

"But since you didn’t die... the plane’s Heaven’s Dao will kill you instead, to push the plot like a herder."

"What?!" The news hit like a thunderclap.

Nana shot to her feet, palms slapping the table like a drum.

Diners flinched like startled birds; even Luo Shanshan jerked, her orange juice quivering like a small sun.

"Yu... Yu Xi, what’s wrong now?" she asked, voice trembling like a reed.

"Host, rest easy," the System went on, words smooth as oil. "Heaven’s Dao won’t force rough intervention."

"At most, it’ll nudge certain places, raising survival difficulty like extra weight."

"At most?" Nana was stunned, her disbelief bristling like quills.

The difficulty set by Heaven’s Dao, and you call it ‘at most’? Are you even people? Her anger sparked like flint.

Suddenly, she remembered the System’s first pre-task from half a month ago, words like a stamp: Fog City Survival (Prologue).

Survival, survival—no wonder it was survival, heavy as iron.

Of course a prologue means I, II, III, IV, V, like pages marching.

And that main quest, Peak Ascendance—how do you ascend while surviving like climbing a wet cliff?

From the start, this bastard System knew what was coming, gears turning like a mill.

This damned System has been plotting against me, threads snagging like thorns.

"Yu... Yu Xi..." While she cursed the treacherous System to crash like a broken engine, Luo Shanshan tugged her sleeve like a child.

Maybe because Nana was agitated, she didn’t notice Shanshan’s voice shaking like a plucked string.

"What is it?" Nana turned, annoyance tight as a clenched fist.

Shanshan’s lovely face was drained pale as paper; even her lips trembled like cold petals.

"Wh-what... is that?" Her finger pointed like a dart.

"!!!" Nana whipped her head toward the direction, motion snapping like a banner.

Through the buffet’s glass, she saw a sun-swallowing black fog surge like the sea, rolling fast toward them.

The big fog had arrived, heavy as nightfall.