After calling Su Baixue to confirm she was safe, Su Cui glanced at Su Baixue's location tracker and completely relaxed.
She put away her phone and looked at He Li, who was unconscious before her.
From He Li's incident, she had followed the vine to find the pregnant woman's hideout. Su Cui had considered calling the police, but the gang leader surnamed Yu only fell when the hacker released all the evidence online, and even then he never got caught—just fled abroad. Thinking of this, Su Cui hesitated.
From her observations since arriving in this world, Su Cui didn't believe she was the only one who noticed the abnormality in that residential complex.
Nor did she believe that in the seven-plus years from Su Baixue's high school to after she graduated in the later part of this harmony novel, no one had discovered this drug den.
Yet this dark corner still existed steadily.
This was just one of the background settings designed by the harmony novel's author to satisfy tropes like power and wealth.
The settings in harmony novels are very loose.
The four conglomerates in the book that seemed to control the economic lifeline, plus two major transnational gangs—this was basically impossible to appear so concentrated and blatantly in reality.
The settings of these influential figures only served to revolve around the female lead in City A.
After what happened on Christmas Eve, Su Cui understood that in this book world, the key plot characters revolving around Su Baixue would definitely appear.
They were born to have disharmonious relationships with the female lead—this was unavoidable.
There was an invisible hand that would lure Su Cui away from Su Baixue to ensure their meeting. But at the same time, with Su Cui's interference and the influence of people around her (Li Guizhi, Qin Yang), the outcome after their encounter could change.
But could the final ending be changed smoothly?
Su Cui wasn't sure.
So far, those she had contacted and could confirm she could change were only third-tier extras and the mid-level daily scumbags from the inferior high school Su Baixue was supposed to attend.
For example, Zhao Pengfei—the school bully, classmate, and thug from the inferior high school in the original text.
But the high-level perverted scumbags were the real key characters of the harmony novel. These people were obsessed with Su Baixue's storyline, and their plots hadn't yet fully unfolded.
Su Cui hadn't directly clashed with any of the key characters in this harmony novel.
She was only protecting from the shadows and trying to deviate Su Baixue's encounters with these people.
And He Li himself was an anomaly straddling the line between key characters and non-key characters: a mid-level daily scumbag who unexpectedly rushed into later plotlines.
This proved He Li had a lot of screentime.
It also proved He Li was indeed one of the key plot characters that ran through almost the entire novel.
If Su Baixue had gone to the inferior high school as in the original, she would have met this person later in college. Now that she went to City A High, she met him earlier.
He Li—no matter how you tried, you couldn't avoid him; they were bound to meet.
Just like Wei Yun, whom Su Baixue was destined to save when he collapsed by the trash can.
This was the characteristic of key plot characters.
*
The night was dark and the wind high.
He Li woke up groggily. He found himself tied up, his mouth stuffed with a disgustingly smelly sock. He struggled in terror.
Then he looked up and saw Su Cui sitting nearby.
It was dark; he couldn't see her face clearly, but he felt the outline was familiar.
Su Cui had sat by the river for a long time, thinking about many things and making a decision.
Her limbs had been chilled by the night wind.
She had to use He Li to test the extent to which key characters could be changed.
This challenged some of her principles.
The blade in her arms was very sharp. Su Cui repeatedly reached into her arms, gripping the handle, but always hesitated.
When she first transmigrated into this book world, aside from Su Baixue, most people seemed like paper figures or NPCs in a game. But after everything that had happened here, she could no longer simply regard these living characters as paper figures.
If it were the real world, she would have handed He Li over to the police.
But this time, the police could help her.
What about later?
He Li was just a small-time player. He dealt drugs, committed domestic violence, had no bottom line, and would eventually do all kinds of evil. But for now, Su Cui could completely suppress him in terms of strength.
What about the future?
The twin psychopathic killers had over a hundred lives on their hands, yet they were still alive and well until the end of the novel, let alone the other high-level perverted scumbags.
The police in this world could help her only to a very limited extent!
In this book world that amplified desires and sins, some justice could only be carried out by Su Cui herself!
Su Cui smiled bitterly and muttered to herself, "In reality, I wouldn't even dare kill a fish... Well, fish are too hard to handle. Chickens and ducks are..."
She took out the knife, gripped it, raised it, and cut He Li's neck.
"No problem."
Her old, hoarse voice dissipated in the howling wind by the river.