A woman who calls herself an 'advisor to the Li Research Group.' She gives Qiu Che a card the system won't record, and says one thing: Eight years ago, I was in a place much like yours now.
Background / motivation / observation stance
A woman in her forties, dark-grey suit, low ponytail, wearing no visible Skylex. She called herself a field consultant for the 'Li Research Group.'
She was the first person Qiu Che had met who might truly be on his side—but in this city, the word 'might' came at a steep price.
In the New Capital, what a person wears, what they are connected to, what has been recorded about them is very nearly who they are. None of that shows on her—and that fact alone carries more information than anything she says.
She speaks sparingly: no build-up, no small talk, no "are you all right?" She says the thing, stops, and does not tidy up your feelings for you. Most people find her cold on first meeting; spend longer with her and you realize it is because all her effort goes into leaving nothing extra behind.
She never sets a meeting in the same place twice, and never uses the same reason. The time she gives is exact, and once it passes she does not wait.
Dark-grey suit, low ponytail, and heels worn down unevenly on the left and right—the wear pattern of someone who carries their weight to one side.
She met Qiu Che at a branch library and got straight to the point, saying something Skyvault could never have told him: those 8 'blind spots' in his mind that he couldn't explain why—she knew them all.
She also told him that the module the system wanted him to install had another function. At the end she said one thing: 8 years ago, I was in a position much like yours now.
Qiu Che broke the rule and used the card that could only dial out once a week to contact her. She didn't pretend anything: what she could answer, she would; she wouldn't fake knowing.
She told him that people like him had a category—Same-Type Forerunners—and he wasn't the first. She gave him a time and a place: 6/16 18:30, an 'entrance' would align. As for what became of the people who walked through that entrance, she didn't say.
In the New Capital, what a person wears, what they are connected to, what has been logged about them is very nearly who they are. None of it is visible on her.
No Skylex, no visible connection markers, a dark-grey suit and a low ponytail—an outfit that lands in the 'no distinguishing features' column of any surveillance summary.
She picks meeting places on the same logic: a branch library, a transfer level, the upper floor of an old market. What they have in common is mixed footfall, coarse logging, and a low refresh rate on the cameras.
She never meets twice in the same place.
She speaks sparely. No lead-in, no small talk, no asking whether you are all right. What needs saying is said directly, and when it is said she stops, without tidying the other person's feelings for them.
Ask her something she cannot answer and she says she cannot. Ask something uncertain and she makes clear which part she knows and which part she is inferring. She does not feign understanding, which in this city is rare enough to be unsettling.
The card connects once a week. The limit is not there to be difficult—every connection leaves a unit of weight somewhere, and once a week is the ceiling she has calculated.
When she gave Qiu Che a time and a place, she did not say what would happen after he walked through. What she does not know, she does not invent.
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