Chapter 27
The party lasted until 11 p.m. After giving their closing remarks, Bai Nan and Senior Sister Ting returned backstage.
Chen Shu was no longer there; only Xu Xin was leaning against the table.
When Bai Nan saw him, he had one hand in his pocket and was scrolling down his phone screen with the other, a faint smile always on his lips.
Not wanting to disturb them, Senior Sister Ting quietly made a hand gesture and left.
The prop box and costume box that Bai Nan had painstakingly moved were also gone, leaving only the two of them in the entire space.
She hesitated for a moment, her steps toward Xu Xin feeling as heavy as if they weighed down a thousand pounds, making it hard for her to breathe.
The buzzing sound interrupted her thoughts. She looked down and took out her phone. It was her senior, saying that she could return the clothes tomorrow.
The dormitory lights go out at 11:30 p.m. and the doors are locked at midnight, by which time most students have already left.
The way back to the dormitory from the playground requires passing through a grapevine corridor. At this moment, a crescent moon hangs high in the night sky above the corridor, and the pale moonlight struggles to penetrate the dense branches and leaves, casting a pale and gray light on the cement ground beneath their feet.
Bai Nan was a little tired, feeling listless both physically and mentally. Xu Xin observed her expression for a long time, and after opening his mouth several times, he still chose to swallow the congratulations that were on the tip of his tongue.
The two returned to their dormitory in silence.
There were only fifteen minutes left before lights out, but Bai Nan didn't have the energy to wash up. As soon as she got back, she lay down on the bed.
Xu Xin: "Shall I go first?"
She nodded indifferently, and the gray suit jacket in her arms slid to the floor as she lay down completely.
A few minutes later, she leaned against the bed and reached for the suit.
The senior student must have found a high-end suit rental shop. The foreign language label on the dust cover wasn't English. Both the cut and the fabric were better than the ones in her dad's wardrobe.
This was the first time she had ever worn a men's suit, and she accomplished something amazing that she had never dared to imagine before, even stealing the spotlight.
If my parents find out, they'll definitely say, "He's truly my precious son, so promising!"
But she knew clearly that she was Bai Nan, not Bai Di, a woman. Even though she wore this skin, she was still the daughter, the older sister, Bai Nan, born into a family that favored sons over daughters.
She longed to live like a true woman, perhaps as radiant and captivating as Senior Sister Ting, or as lively and cheerful as Li Ling, or even as free-spirited and unrestrained as Chen Shu...
She felt lost and wanted to become herself ten years in the future to see how Bai Nan, at twenty-seven, lived and viewed these issues.
Her phone vibrated and she picked it up to take a look.
Li Ling bombarded the group with messages in the "Top 5 Most Beautiful Girls and School Heartthrobs of No. 1 Middle School" group.
【0: Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!】
[0: @Yan, you look so handsome! (Attached is a photo of Bai Di in a suit)]
[0: Tsk tsk tsk, now your CP fans will be working all night to produce tons of content~]
[0: I was in the stands at the time, I couldn't see anything, what a loss!]
[Wilder: Hehe, if Huang Wang hadn't had something come up at the last minute, would Bai Di have gotten this good thing? @Yan, hurry up and thank @Wang!]
Not long after Bai Lu sent the message, a message suddenly popped up at the bottom of the chat interface: Wang has left the group chat.
The group chat went silent instantly; no one sent any more messages.
Seeing this, Bai Nan suddenly felt that she had been being pretentious. Things had already come to this point, and she was now living in Bai Di's body, even using his new identity to live more freely and wonderfully than before.
So why whine about something that isn't true?
What she should be doing right now is checking on Huang Wang to see if anything has happened to him and if he needs help!
As for herself, she only needs to do what a high school student should do, and let the things beyond her control take their natural course.
Once you've figured it out, just do it—that's Bai Nan's consistent principle.
She called Huang Wang, but no one answered. So she went out to find him.
The advantage of having all students live on campus is that it's very convenient to find each other. Before lights out, everyone is either in their dorm room or in the dorm next door.
So two minutes later, the two were standing face to face by the window at the end of the corridor.
Autumn winds have arrived, but the windows in the corridor are still in summer condition. Seeing that Huang Wang was a little shivering, Bai Nan tiptoed and stretched out his arm to close the window.
It was at this moment that Huang Wang spoke up, saying, "Bai Di, are you worried that I'm cold?"
Bai Nan released the handle, turned around to look at Huang Wang, who was tilting his head back and asking a question, paused for a moment, and then nodded gently.
Huang Wang lowered his head: "You don't need to do that..."
His voice trailed off, and Bai Nan didn't hear what he said next, so she asked sincerely, "Huang Wang, what were you saying just now?"
He stopped speaking and didn't react, just kept his head down in silence. Bai Nan suddenly felt a little panicked when she saw this.
She slowly reached out a hand to put it on his shoulder to comfort him, but before she could touch him, he slapped her hand away forcefully.
Huang Wang suddenly raised his head, tears welling up in his eyes: "I hate you, Bai Di. Why can you do whatever you want? You treat me like a dog when you want to talk to me! And when you don't want to talk to me, you just kick me away! What am I to you?"
He became increasingly agitated as he spoke, and tears finally streamed down his face: "You were the one who provoked me first! Why did you just abandon me like that?! If you only want to be friends with me because I pity you, then please don't bother me again! I don't care about your pity!!"
Huang Wang wiped away his tears, turned and left, giving Bai Nan no time to explain.
The entire corridor became very quiet. His next words were almost a venting of emotions, each word like a needle piercing Bai Nan's veins, making her tremble with pain even when she could only breathe steadily.
She never imagined Huang Wang would see her that way. She thought they were friends because every time she saw him, it was like seeing the version of herself that lacked love. So she wanted to be friends with him.
If you initially noticed him out of pity, after getting to know him you found that they had similar personalities and shared interests. They went to the library together, joined clubs together, did military training together, played ping-pong together... How could they have done these things out of pity?
It was clearly because they were genuinely happy and joyful when they were together that they did it...
Even though she had closed the window, she still felt a gust of autumn wind that made her hands and feet cold.
"Whoosh—" The lights in the hallway went out.
Bai Nan looked back out the window and saw that the girls' dormitory building across the street had also fallen into darkness; it turned out that it was lights out time.
Then she noticed the reflection in the window, in which a fifteen-year-old boy was staring blankly at her, with what seemed to be tears in the corners of his eyes, though she couldn't see clearly.
Gradually, a tall figure appeared behind the boy, almost a head taller than her, completely enveloping her in shadow.
He reached out and gently placed his hand on the top of her head, tracing the back of her head along the whorl of her hair, as if trying to comfort her.
But Bai Nan felt a surge of anger rising to her head, and she slapped his hand away forcefully.
The sound was very loud, even somewhat jarring in the quiet corridor.
The two reflections in the window froze in place. Bai Nan hesitated several times, but the scene between him and Chen Shu kept playing in her mind. She closed her eyes and finally swallowed back the apology that was about to come out.
"Bai Nan, come back with me first, okay?"
Xu Xin wasn't angry. He was always very tolerant of her, even when she threw inexplicable tantrums, he would accept it all.
Bai Nan turned and walked towards the stairwell, wondering what she was angry about. Was she angry that she was so popular after becoming a man? Was she angry that Huang Wang mistook her friendliness for pity? Or was she angry about the intimacy between Xu Xin and Chen Shu?
She didn't know either; her thoughts were a jumbled mess, and she couldn't find a way out.
Since things are unclear, it's best to remain silent.
She washed up in silence, went to bed in silence, and closed her eyes in silence.
Her phone vibrated again. She didn't want to answer it, but her chaotic thoughts kept her awake, so she tapped the screen.
[Wilder: What did you do?! You even made Huang Wang cry! I really don't know what you can't mess up, Huang Wang is so soft-hearted...]
Bai Nan didn't even want to read the rest of the content, so she continued scrolling down and saw a new message.
[Anonymous: Forwarded: After deliberation by school leaders, it has been decided that our school will hold an opening exam over the next two days. The results of this opening exam will be included in the next class placement ranking. All students are requested to arrive in their classrooms half an hour early tomorrow morning to set up the exam room. We wish everyone the best of luck on the exam! @Everyone]
Bai Lu followed closely behind.
[Wilder: Xin-ge, you don't need to remind us, we already know. Our teacher has explained it countless times in the class group, we're sick of hearing it.]
Class group? The class group for Class 1, Grade 11?
Bai Nan quickly returned to the verification page, but after refreshing it several times, no new group invitation appeared.
A jumble of emotions welled up inside Bai Nan, and she suddenly felt like crying, but she couldn't find enough reasons to convince herself, and instead, her eyes welled up with tears.
If it's normal for Bai Lu not to pull her along, and it's understandable that Huang Wang dislikes her, then what about Wang Zhuo? What about Li Si? What about Chen Shu?
Does everyone hate her? Is her life such a failure? Didn't any of the forty students in the class notice she wasn't in the group chat?
Nobody at home likes her, so is the school going to treat her like this too? Where else can she go...?
Just then, a noise came from the opposite bed, and she was immediately embraced tightly by a warm body. The tears she had been holding back for so long finally fell.
"Xu...Xu Xin...Ugh...I...I'm such a failure...Waaah...No one...nobody likes me..."
Xu Xin hugged her shoulders tightly, gently stroking the back of her head with his hand. The hair under his palm was short and stiff, completely different from her usual style.
He still remembered the first time he saw her; he was in Bai Lu's room on the second floor, and she was by the pomegranate tree in the backyard.
The sun was so bright it was hard to open one's eyes. She sat hunched over on a small wooden stool, folding paper money. Sweat dripped onto the paper money, soaking her thin back. But her expression showed no sign of slackness, like a devout Buddhist copying scriptures in a temple.
At that moment, he suddenly had an impulse to get closer to her, to understand her, to know her past, and even more so, to participate in her... future.
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