Late at night, An Han sneaked out to a secluded corner of the school playground. In the empty darkness, he clutched his phone tightly and practiced voice mimicry.
Perhaps due to his natural talent, while ordinary people might take months to master this skill, An Han had already grasped the basics after watching just a few tutorial videos and practicing for only an hour.
However, his imitation voice sounded overly airy—like the falsetto used when singing high notes—making his speech sound extremely unnatural. If he accidentally lost control of his vocal cords even slightly, his voice would instantly crack.
"This just won't work for actual conversation," An Han frowned.
He rewatched the voice mimicry tutorial carefully, but all the technical jargon flew right over his head. Even with explanations, everything remained confusing and unclear.
In the tutorial, skilled practitioners could make their fake voices sound indistinguishable from a real girl's natural speaking voice. Yet An Han's attempt came off as stiff and artificial.
After several more unsuccessful tries and seeing no improvement, An Han took a sip of water and decisively gave up.
"Anyway, single-syllable words like 'hmm' or 'okay' won't sound too weird. As long as Long Xing doesn't listen too closely, it should be fine."
"After this, I'll never cross-dress again."
"If Long Ge hadn't started suspecting me, I'd never have worn women's clothes in the first place…"
"It's definitely NOT because I'm eyeing the mission reward."
He'd figured it out by now—the system missions offering the best rewards were usually the most troublesome ones.
Not only were they extremely difficult, but they also tended to cause all sorts of lingering side effects, constantly putting him in even greater danger.
But damn, those rewards smelled so good…
Stretching lazily, An Han strolled back toward his dormitory.
Evenings in the dorm were always the noisiest. As soon as he stepped inside, he saw Long Xing pumping iron with dumbbells, grunting loudly; Chen Junjie was yelling into his headset, fingers clattering furiously on his keyboard; Wang Sheng, as usual, was the quietest of them all, silently immersed in his game with headphones on.
An Han glanced at Long Xing's bulging biceps and the fierce-looking tattoos snaking across his arms, and his heart sank even further.
One punch from this guy could make Long Xing kneel and beg him not to die.
Although after two years of living together, An Han knew Long Xing wasn't actually some underworld thug—in fact, he was kind of a big softie—his intimidating muscles and tattoos still gave off an overwhelming aura of menace. At the cafeteria, just standing in line was enough to scare everyone else away from the front.
"Where'd you go?" Long Xing asked, looking up.
An Han grabbed his water cup from his desk and replied casually, "Just took a walk outside. It's too stuffy in here with the AC running all day."
Just you wait! Once my physical stats max out, I'll never have to fear you discovering that your "first love" was actually me in drag!
After taking a sip of water, he turned toward Wang Sheng beside him.
Wang Sheng was playing CS:GO. He claimed to be "Global Elite" rank with a 2700 rating—An Han had no idea if that was good or not, but he knew Wang Sheng was pretty skilled.
After watching for a moment, An Han mischievously poked Wang Sheng in the side.
The sudden jab threw Wang Sheng completely off balance, and he was instantly headshot by his opponent.
Wang Sheng looked up at him, tone flat and unbothered: "Don't mess with me."
He was long used to An Han's antics.
"I'm just testing your resistance to distractions," An Han declared solemnly.
"He's just asking for it," Chen Junjie called out from behind.
An Han turned around, affectingly raised a delicate little finger, and in a high-pitched, girlish voice cooed, "Hey there, big boy~ Come get me!"
"Piss off!" Chen Junjie snapped.
Seeing Chen Junjie thoroughly grossed out, An Han felt even more pleased with himself. Humming smugly, he climbed onto his top bunk, pulled out his phone, and opened WeChat.
Earlier that morning, Long Xing had added him as a WeChat contact, and An Han had deliberately changed his WeChat gender setting to female. Yet so far, Long Xing hadn't initiated any conversation.
This made An Han a bit anxious—had he slipped up somewhere? But thinking it over, he figured Long Xing was probably just shy.
After all, the girl persona he'd created was supposed to be introverted and bashful—just like during their first meeting, when "she" was too shy to utter a single word.
Holding his phone, An Han pondered how to start chatting with Long Xing as a girl—when suddenly, a message popped up.
"Hi, are you there?"
He froze for a second, then peeked down at Long Xing sitting at his desk.
Seriously? It's 2021! Who the hell still greets people with "Are you there?!"
Normally, if he saw a message like that, he wouldn't even bother replying.
"It's me—Long Xing, the guy who helped you climb over the wall the other night."
At least Long Xing wasn't completely clueless—he quickly added a clarifying note.
After a brief moment of consideration, An Han stuck to his quiet, reserved girl persona and simply replied: "Mm."
"She replied to me!" Long Xing excitedly showed his phone to Chen Junjie. "She must like me!"
"Just because she sent one character?!" Chen Junjie rolled his eyes. "For all you know, the person chatting with you might actually be An Han."
"No way!" Long Xing turned to look up at An Han on the top bunk—only to see him lying sideways, thumbs flying across his phone screen. "He's playing a game."
Chen Junjie shook his head helplessly. "The photo you took clearly looks exactly like An Han. Why won't you just believe it?"
"She just happens to look like him, that's all."
"Fine. Let's say there really is some girl on campus who looks exactly like An Han. You've already posted her photo on the school forum, the department group chat, the student union group—hundreds of people must've seen it by now. Yet not a single person recognizes her? Doesn't that seem weird to you?"
Up on his bunk, An Han—who'd been pretending to play a game—jerked his head up in disbelief.
Wait a minute! Are you guys insane?!
You posted my cross-dressing photos everywhere without my permission?! That's a violation of my portrait rights, you know!
If I get exposed now, the whole school will find out someone dressed as a girl just to flirt with their own roommate!
The level of public humiliation would be absolutely catastrophic!
Fuming silently, An Han desperately wanted to leap down and slap both of them—but for now, all he could do was keep up his online act as a shy girl and send Long Xing another message:
"I saw my photo on the forum."
Long Xing immediately panicked. "It was my roommate who posted it! I'll make him delete it right away."
Feeling slightly reassured, An Han pretended to be upset online and sent a "Hmph!" sticker.
Just then, Chen Junjie—who'd been coaching Long Xing on how to chat with girls—suddenly turned around with a teasing grin. "An Han! That girl uses the exact same sticker pack as you!"
"???"
Damn it! I slipped up!
An Han bit back his anger and snapped, "What the hell does that have to do with me?!"
So what if we both use Nanase Kotoko's sticker pack? Loads of people use it—it's totally normal to run into someone with the same one!
He tried to calm himself down—when suddenly, another message from Long Xing appeared.
"Want to hang out sometime?"
Here it comes!
An Han immediately perked up. He first typed a polite refusal, then played hard-to-get, and finally—after some persistent coaxing from Long Xing—reluctantly agreed.
They settled on meeting the day after tomorrow, at night, under the broken streetlamp on the playground.
This is absolutely my last time cross-dressing!
I'll eliminate this risk once and for all!