The Third Female Lead

Lin Yu turned around, preparing to retrace his steps and take another riverside path home.

He lifted his foot but hesitated, unable to take the step forward. Frustrated, he set it back down, his mind a tangled mess.

Why hadn’t he remembered the plotline for the third female lead yet?

Frowning, Lin Yu glanced toward the dimly lit alley to his right. Despite his foul mood, a thread of concern nagged at him.

She better not be like Tang Manman—cornered in some alley, screaming for help with no one to hear her.

After a moment of thought, Lin Yu shook his head firmly.

No.

He recalled that in that adult manga, each of the four female leads had different storylines.

The "damsel in distress" trope had already played out with Tang Manman.

She probably wasn’t in any danger.

Hah.

If anything, he might be the most dangerous variable in her life.

With a cold laugh and some self-reassurance, Lin Yu exhaled sharply and turned to leave.

Walking under the bright streetlights, he hadn’t gone far when an inexplicable sensation prickled at him. His instincts flared—something was wrong.

But it was too late.

Before his brain could even process it, his body had already reacted, his head turning instinctively to the right.

One glance was all it took. His scalp tingled as if electrified, a wave of dread crashing over him.

It was that familiar, soul-deep terror.

There, in the shadowy depths of the alley, sat a girl in a trench coat, slumped against a car door. Her head drooped slightly, as if she’d fallen asleep, uncaring of the grime and damp beneath her.

Even from this distance, too far to make out her face, Lin Yu was certain.

This woman was undeniably the third female lead from that manga.

She had to be.

That eerie, puzzle-piece familiarity couldn’t be mistaken.

The dim, sickly glow of the streetlight, the dull red taillights against the dark car, the wet, grimy pavement, and the girl’s posture—identical to his fragmented memories.

Every detail fit together with uncanny precision, like the opening scene of some meticulously staged play.

After the initial shock and spine-chilling horror, Lin Yu could only feel an overwhelming exhaustion, so deep it threatened to buckle his knees.

Was there really no escaping this?

He shook his head with a bitter, self-mocking smile.

"Escape" wasn’t even the right word—more like he’d walked right into it.

His gaze flicked back the way he’d come, a question surfacing in his mind:

If he’d kept walking straight or entered the alley earlier, would he have avoided her?

Or maybe he’d still have run into her—just not here, not at this angle, where the whole scene looked like some grotesque jigsaw puzzle.

With a heavy sigh, Lin Yu stared at the girl leaning against the car in the alley.

This time, the buried memories of that manga didn’t flood back all at once. Instead, only fragments surfaced.

But even those scattered pieces were enough for him to piece together the original plot.

In the original plot, this was also where the delinquent encountered the third female lead for the second time. With his lower head controlling his upper head, and still fuming from being scolded by her earlier, he didn’t hesitate to drag the unconscious third female lead to a hotel.

What followed was rather predictable.

The delinquent took advantage of her unconscious state to assault her. During the act, the pain jolted her awake, and she began resisting violently—only to be subdued by a few rough hits from him.

After that, the plot took a bizarre turn.

By the next morning, the third female lead neither reported the crime nor put up any further resistance. Instead, it was as if she and the delinquent had entered some kind of twisted relationship, diving straight into a series of shamelessly explicit scenes...

It didn’t make much sense, but then again, it was par for the course.

After all, how much logic could you expect from a cheap pornographic comic? As long as it was titillating enough, that’s all that mattered, right?

As Lin Yu sorted through the fragmented memories of the third female lead in his mind, he soon stumbled upon a particularly... interesting scene. (Scratch that.)

No, he quickly realized it was a scene that made him sick to his stomach.

This kind of plot was disgustingly common in NTR-themed smut.

The gist of it was that while the two were in the middle of their "happy time," the cuckolded boyfriend would call, and the female lead would desperately try to suppress her moans while talking to him—a classic NTR trope.

Nothing worth dwelling on.

However, this particular scene revealed one crucial detail:

Unlike Tang Manman and Xia Muzhu, the third female lead actually had a boyfriend.

Which meant Lin Yu needed to stay even further away from her.

So then...

Should he just turn around and leave now?

Staring at the girl lying deep in the alley, Lin Yu hesitated.

In the original plot, the biggest threat to the third female lead was himself.

But if he walked away now, what if some random creep showed up and did exactly what the original delinquent was supposed to do?

That... was a real risk.

Lin Yu studied the girl, unsure whether she was merely asleep or fully unconscious, his mind tangled in conflict.

...

Wait—no!

Lin Yu suddenly snapped out of it.

What was he even afraid of?

Earlier, he’d avoided the third female lead because he refused to be a puppet of fate, desperate to escape its invisible strings.

But now that he’d already run into her, there was no need to keep dodging her like some kind of curse.

Besides, she already despised him—she’d even yelled at him before.

There was no way she’d suddenly throw herself at him just because he woke her up out of kindness.

Hell, he didn’t even need to wake her up at all.

Why not just call the police and let them handle it?

With that thought, Lin Yu relaxed. He reached into his pocket, only to freeze when his fingers brushed against soft fabric instead of his phone.

Damn it!

He’d forgotten—his phone was still at the repair shop!

Now what?

Lin Yu rubbed his chin, stumped.

Maybe... borrow one from a passerby?

He glanced around, but the brightly lit main street was completely deserted—no cars, no pedestrians, no one to ask.

Were there any shops nearby?

His eyes swept the area again, but all the storefronts were dark.

Maybe because of the cold rain, everything had closed early tonight.

Sighing, Lin Yu turned his attention back to the girl in the alley. After a moment’s hesitation, he finally stepped forward and walked toward her.

Just wake her up when it's time, then leave—simple as that.

Nothing's going to go wrong.