Back in her apartment, she sat down again in front of the surveillance screen and checked the stairwell one more time. The zombies were moving more now. She could see them gathering in the lower areas and pushing upward in uneven little waves. The sound from the broken stair door and the shouting had clearly made things worse for the residents who had come to rob her, but Bai Li did not feel sorry for them at all. They had walked into this with their own hands. She leaned back in her chair and let the quiet settle around her again. The apartment smelled faintly of food, medicine, and the calm stillness of a place that had not been breached. She picked up her phone and saw a message from Yan Cijin waiting there. Bai Li read it once and replied almost at once, telling her not to worry. The nuisance had been handled. A few pests had come by, but nothing serious. Yan Cijin did not need to come over. She could stay home and care for Lili and Yan Laojin, and Bai Li would handle the rest in her own way. As she sent that message, Bai Li’s face remained calm. She was not trying to sound fearless. She simply was. The people who had tried to force their way into her life would soon learn that there were many ways to shorten a life, and one of the easiest was to be stupid in front of Bai Li.

Bai Li watched the surveillance for a few more minutes before being bored and leaned back in her chair, opened her phone, and decided that since the day had already been disturbed enough, she might as well spend a little time on something that would actually keep her from getting irritated.

She opened Weibo first. The screen lit up with all the familiar noise of the internet, and Bai Li’s eyes moved over it in a lazy, practiced way. She liked reading random posts sometimes because it gave her a very direct view of how people behaved when they were not standing in front of her with fake courage and greedy mouths. On Weibo, everyone was trying to be funny, dramatic, smart, pretty, or important all at once. There were hot searches, fan clips, random daily complaints, food photos, celebrity gossip, and a lot of people acting like their one opinion was a national event. Bai Li scrolled slowly and saw a post about a girl group comeback, then one about somebody’s cat climbing a curtain, then a long post from a fan explaining why a certain actress in a Thai GL drama had the best eye acting in the whole industry. That made Bai Li pause for a second, more from curiosity than anything else. She tapped into the comments and found a whole little world of people talking with complete seriousness about Thai GL novels, Thai GL dramas, GL comics, and all sorts of related content. Some people were discussing story tropes. Some were comparing couples. Some were dropping screenshots and laughing over favorite scenes. Some were arguing about which adaptation had the best chemistry, which actress had the best soft smile, and which novel had the best slow burn.

Bai Li leaned a little closer to the screen and kept reading. One person had posted, "Thai GL always knows how to do the eye contact scenes. The tension is insane." Another replied, "It is because they understand lingering looks better than half the industry." Someone else said, "The older sister type x sunshine type pairing is always the best. The soft one is cute, but the one that acts cold and then melts first is god tier." Bai Li blinked once, then kept scrolling. Another comment thread was full of people recommending novels with lines like, "If you want the sweetest feel, read this one," and, "If you want pain before the fluff, this is the one," and, "This author writes the clingiest little baby girlfriend ever." Bai Li did not know most of the titles, but the energy in the comments was entertaining enough that she kept reading. A lot of people were discussing favorite couple dynamics with shocking detail, the kind of detail only fans could produce. There were comments about the "too proud to admit love" type, the "always teasing but secretly obsessed" type, the "soft omega who pretends to be calm" type, and even the "tall alpha who acts fierce but melts when touched" type. Bai Li looked at those descriptions and almost laughed because they were far too close to people she had already met in her own life. It made her think of Yan Cijin and the way she smiled when she was pretending to be annoyed, the way she tilted her head when she wanted to get a reaction, and the way she always knew exactly how to make Bai Li lose her calm for one second.

She kept going deeper into the posts. Some fans were posting excerpts from novels, then another set of people would comment underneath with dramatic sighs, heart emojis, and lines like, "I need a wife like this." Bai Li’s mouth twitched at that. Another thread was full of people discussing the difference between Thai GL writing styles and Chinese GL writing styles, with several long comments about how Thai stories often leaned into soft romance, repeated eye contact, and full emotional openness, while others said Chinese GL novels often had a stronger sense of longing, restraint, and hidden tension. Bai Li found the discussion surprisingly interesting. She scrolled through fans talking about favorite tropes like school setting, office romance, bodyguard and boss pairings, cultivation world couples, enemies to lovers, and fake marriage. One comment said, "The best GL stories are the ones where both women are strong in their own ways. Not just pretty, but actually powerful." Bai Li paused at that line and read it twice. That one she liked. Another person replied,

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TO BE CONTINUED.