Chapter 40: Affinity? Points?

Chapter 40: Affinity? Points?

Bai Li stood still by the window for a brief moment, her fingers unconsciously tightening around the edge of the curtain as she looked outside. Even though she had prepared herself mentally for this day again and again, the moment it truly arrived still carried a strange unreal feeling that no amount of prior knowledge could completely erase. Down below, the scene unfolding in the apartment complex was already beginning to lose its normal shape. What had been an ordinary afternoon only moments ago was now breaking apart in front of her eyes in the most abrupt way possible. A man near the pathway suddenly threw himself at another person with such violent force that both fell hard to the ground. A woman nearby screamed and stumbled backward, dropping the grocery bag in her hand, oranges rolling across the pavement while another figure, one that had clearly begun moving in a way no normal person should, rushed toward the sound.

For a moment Bai Li was genuinely startled, not because she did not know this would happen, but because seeing it with her own eyes felt completely different from imagining it. The strange jerking movements, the sudden bursts of aggression, the confusion spreading among ordinary people who still had no idea what was happening, all of it made the entire scene feel disturbingly real in an instant. Her first reaction was almost disbelief, as though some part of her still wanted to question whether her eyes were truly seeing the beginning of the apocalypse or whether this was some terrible misunderstanding. But then the cold reminder inside her mind arrived almost immediately, steady and unmistakable, leaving no room for doubt.

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