“Senior, where are your clothes?”
At the bathroom doorway, Gu Mianmian held a basin of freshly washed clothes and froze on the spot.
Lin Ci froze as well.
He glanced down at his lower body wrapped in a bath towel, then looked up into Gu Mianmian’s eyes.
The air went quiet at once.
A few seconds later, relying on twenty-two years of straight-male instinct, Lin Ci reached out to cover his lower body.
Right after, a cool sensation washed over his chest.
His expression changed, and he hurriedly crossed both arms over his chest.
“You get out first!”
Gu Mianmian did not move.
Her gaze landed on Lin Ci’s dripping-wet long hair, then slowly traveled downward, finally stopping at the stretch of shoulder, neck, and collarbone.
Being stared at like that made Lin Ci’s scalp tingle.
His voice rose.
“Gu Mianmian!”
“So… sorry.”
Gu Mianmian finally lowered her head.
Flustered, she hugged the laundry basin and stepped backward.
She retreated too hastily.
Her lower back accidentally bumped into the corridor wall.
Several pieces of clothing slipped out of the basin and scattered across the floor.
One of them was the underwear Lin Ci had just bought.
“…”
Lin Ci was speechless.
Gu Mianmian’s head dropped even lower.
This life couldn’t go on.
Lin Ci yanked the pajamas hanging behind the door and pulled them on in a rush.
The hoodie reached the tops of his thighs and hid most of his figure, yet it could not hide the slight swell on his chest.
He looked down at his chest.
His face turned green.
Until yesterday, he had still been a 182-centimeter sunny, cheerful guy.
From today onward, he had become a 168-centimeter woman with long, straight black hair, a slim waist, long legs, and an extremely striking face.
If word of this got out, people would almost certainly tell him to go straight to the hospital and have a psychiatrist check his head.
“Senior.”
Gu Mianmian’s voice came from outside the door.
“I picked up all your clothes.”
Lin Ci’s face darkened.
He gritted his back teeth.
“Just leave them by the door.”
“Okay.”
After that, there was no more sound outside.
Lin Ci leaned against the door panel and lifted a hand to wipe his face.
The girl in the mirror was still looking at him.
Soaking-wet black hair clung to her cheeks.
The corners of her eyes carried a naturally cool look.
Before showering, he had specially wiped the bathroom mirror clean, wanting to confirm whether he was dreaming.
Facts proved this really was not a dream.
The chest was real.
The waist was real.
Even the little mole on the collarbone was real.
The little brother being gone was also real.
Lin Ci stared at the mirror and badly wanted to curse someone out.
Last night he had stayed in the lab until three in the morning.
Back in the dorm, he had collapsed and fallen asleep.
When he woke, two masses that did not belong to a man were pressing on his chest, and his pants were ridiculously tight.
At first he even thought some pervert had kidnapped him.
Until he rushed into the toilet and pulled down his pants.
In that instant, only four words remained in Lin Ci’s mind.
Heaven wants me dead.
His phone still held his identity information.
His bank cards still worked.
Facial recognition, however, immediately flagged him as an unknown user.
Even more ridiculous, in the school’s academic affairs system, his student-status gender had been changed to female by some unknown force.
A university counselor managed hundreds of people and had no memory whatsoever of what this invisible STEM guy looked like.
That morning, seeing the file listed a girl, and coinciding with maintenance on the fourth-year men’s dorm building, the system data had been used to stuff him straight into this Room 302 of the foreign-languages department’s girls’ dorm.
And his roommate was that most antisocial junior in the class, Gu Mianmian.
Lin Ci finished dressing and pulled open the bathroom door.
Gu Mianmian was squatting by the door, folding the clothes on the floor one by one.
She was very thin and small.
An old hoodie hung loosely on her body, the cuffs washed pale.
Heavy bangs drooped down, covering most of her face.
From this angle, Lin Ci could even see the half of her chin that was exposed.
A little too pale.
And that stretch of neck.
Hearing the door open, Gu Mianmian’s hands stopped.
“Give them to me.”
Lin Ci held out his hand.
Gu Mianmian did not look up.
She silently passed the clothes over.
Their hands touched.
The slightly cool sensation made Lin Ci instinctively grasp her wrist.
“Why are your hands so cold?”
Gu Mianmian jerked her head up.
The thick bangs were blown aside a little by the air.
She stared at Lin Ci holding her hand.
The tips of her ears slowly turned red.
“It’s nothing.”
“Nothing my ass.”
Lin Ci let go of her and bent down to touch the laundry basin she had set aside.
The water at the bottom of the basin was still cold.
“You wash clothes with cold water?”
Gu Mianmian stayed silent.
“Doesn’t the dorm have a water heater?”
“It costs money, Senior.”
Lin Ci froze.
These days, dorm hot water was charged by volume and really was not expensive.
How could Gu Mianmian need to save even that little bit of money?
He suddenly recalled the gossip that circulated in class.
Gu Mianmian had no parents.
She had come out of an orphanage.
Her university tuition was supported by grants and part-time jobs.
She did not like to talk.
Her face was always gloomy.
When others asked her anything, she would only lower her head.
She basically never spoke with anyone.
Over time, no one was willing to pay her any attention.
Some people even said behind her back that the way she looked at people was pretty scary.
Lin Ci had originally thought those people had too much time on their hands.
Looking at it now, this girl really was quite pitiful.
Not only did she dislike talking, she was also very poor.
“Don’t use cold water from now on. Use my card first to get hot water for washing.”
Gu Mianmian pressed her lips together.
“Thank you, Senior. I’ll pay you back.”
“Who told you to pay me back?”
Lin Ci took the clothes from her hands and stuffed them straight into the washing machine.
Gu Mianmian immediately grew anxious and reached out to grab them.
“Senior, these are mine.”
“I know.”
“You don’t need to help me.”
“It’s just convenient. What’s this about helping or not helping?”
Lin Ci pressed the washing-machine switch, then rummaged in the cabinet for a towel and tossed it into her arms.
“Hurry and dry your hair. Don’t catch a cold.”
Gu Mianmian did not catch it steadily.
The towel fell onto her knees.
She looked at that towel and went still.
Lin Ci did not notice her odd reaction.
He was busy stuffing his own underwear into the very back of the cabinet.
This thing was simply a public execution of his masculinity.
“Senior.”
“Mm?”
“Were you always like this before?”
Lin Ci’s hand trembled.
“Like what?”
Gu Mianmian lifted her eyes toward him.
“I mean, are you this nice to everyone?”
Lin Ci closed the cabinet door and answered without thinking.
“Not really.”
Gu Mianmian’s eyes dimmed a little.
The next second, Lin Ci added a sentence.
“Depends on the person. Someone who looks like she’s about to starve herself to death—I can’t just ignore that.”
Gu Mianmian said nothing.
She hugged that towel.
Lin Ci walked to the window and pulled the curtains open.
Sunlight fell into the dorm.
The light made it a little hard for Gu Mianmian to open her eyes.
She raised a hand to block them.
Lin Ci looked back at her and suddenly felt that this girl was actually quite pretty.
Her features were delicate, her nose bridge elegant, her lip color pale.
It was just that she always hid herself behind messy bangs and old clothes, so no one was willing to look twice.
“Hey, your bangs need a trim.”
Gu Mianmian immediately lowered her head.
“I won’t cut them.”
“They block your eyes.”
“I won’t cut them.”
“Fine, don’t cut them if you don’t want to.”
Lin Ci was too lazy to persuade her.
He could barely save himself right now.
What right did he have to meddle with someone else’s hairstyle?
After a while, Lin Ci’s phone vibrated.
He opened it and saw a message from the counselor.
[Student Lin Ci, the academic-affairs system is being upgraded. Come to the administration building at 2:00 PM to re-enter facial information. Bring your ID card.]
After reading the message, Lin Ci’s expression changed.
ID card?
The face he had now and the buzz-cut male college student on his ID card were a hundred thousand miles apart.
How was he supposed to fix this?
He couldn’t exactly tell the counselor that he had slept one night and both his gender and face had refreshed, right?
Gu Mianmian sat on the edge of the bed, quietly watching Lin Ci’s face change again and again.
“Senior, is there some trouble?”
Lin Ci flipped his phone face-down on the table.
“No.”
“But I think your face doesn’t look too good.”
“Nonsense. I was born like this.”
Gu Mianmian stared at him for a few seconds.
“Are you afraid, Senior?”
Lin Ci laughed.
“Oh? Didn’t expect that. You can read faces too?”
“I… I can read people.”
Coming from her mouth, the words carried a strangely gloomy air.
Lin Ci tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Then what did you see?”
Gu Mianmian did not answer at once.
Her gaze fell on the slightly damp ends of Lin Ci’s hair.
The milky fragrance of shampoo drifted through the dorm—not strong, yet hard to ignore.
Gu Mianmian lowered her eyes.
“Senior is different from other people.”
Lin Ci’s heart skipped a beat.
Different how?
Had she discovered something?