210. The Lies 【33/170】
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Once upon a time, Grandma openly declared in front of several cousins that her favorite was Lin Nan. She also thought Lin Nan was the most handsome among the cousins, although Lin Nan was convinced her cousin Jiaming was far better looking.
Moreover, Grandma treated Lin Nan’s female cousin differently—whenever the boys wanted something to eat or a trip outside, they could easily extort money from Grandma, but the girl couldn’t. Looking back, it seemed Grandma favored the boys a bit too much.
Back on the third floor waiting for lunch, Lin Nan couldn’t help but remember her cousin Wu Jiaming, who used to trail Wu Guodong like a shadow. They had seen each other at New Year last year, but after a long silence, their relationship had grown colder, devolving into mere small talk. She had no clue if her cousin was studying or working these days.
Even after napping at Chen Yao’s place that morning, Lin Nan was still fighting off drowsiness in bed.
By the way, did Jiaming know her situation now?
Yet another relative visit on the horizon! She’d just crawled out from the awkwardness of seeing Grandma and Grandpa, and now here came the fidgeting restlessness.
She scampered upstairs to the bathroom on the second floor to grab a hairdryer. Once her hair was dry, she returned to her room, took out her laptop and sat cross-legged on the bed, ready to binge-watch some drama to ease her anxiety.
Just as she was about to find something entertaining, her mother barged in with a smile.
“Where’s Chen Yao?” Lin Nan looked up, spotting Chen Yao nowhere in sight.
“He left already.”
“Why did you kick him out?” Her face darkened, unhappily questioning her.
Her mother seemed momentarily thrown off. Clearly, Chen Yao held a prominent position in Lin Nan’s heart if it could elicit such a reaction.
She resigned herself to sitting beside Lin Nan and began to explain, “I just think it’s not great for him to be around you all the time.”
“What’s wrong with that…”
“Given your current situation, if he’s always hanging around, you might mistake your feelings.” Her mother tried to pat Lin Nan’s head but got dodged instead, “He’s gotten so used to looking after you that it might lead to a misunderstanding.”
“What kind of logic is that…” Lin Nan shook her head, “I don’t like him; he’s like a brother.”
Her mom looked at her as if she didn’t believe even a punctuation mark of it.
“In short, you need to spend some time apart, cool off.”
She’d chatted with Chen Yao for nearly an hour and while she recognized he could be a decent potential son-in-law, she worried their relationship might get muddled because of their brotherly history—who needed ambiguity in relationships?
Mostly, she was just terrified Lin Nan might get swept away for no good reason.
Lin Nan tiptoed to the bedroom door for a peek, then hurriedly shut it.
Though upset Chen Yao had left, this was a golden opportunity to do something.
When she turned back, her face was already turning beet red.
“Um, Mom…” She fidgeted awkwardly, head down, and handed her mother a document folder from her bedside.
“What’s this?”
Mom leaned down to pull out the contents.
“I’ve had the surgery… ” Lin Nan nervously fiddled with her shirt hem, lying made her heart race, and her legs involuntarily rubbed together.
Cola glanced at Lin Nan, realizing her nervousness while lying was exactly like her past self.
“Had the surgery?” Mom’s heart skipped a beat, but upon seeing the diagnosis from Luyang Island Hospital, she sighed in relief, thinking, “At least it’s a legit place.” She flipped through the documents and asked, “Where’d you get the money for the surgery?”
“Borrowed it from Chen Yao… I didn’t want you getting into debt again…” Lin Nan spewed out lies, cheeks flushed.
“Chen Yao could lend you such a big sum?” Mom’s surprise was palpable, “How come he didn’t mention it to me?”
“Maybe he… didn’t want to talk about it…”
After all, Chen Yao had no idea Lin Nan had undergone a complete transformation into a woman.
Mom could twist things around—when confronted with Chen Yao later, she’d claim the surgery was done during the New Year.
This whole double deception felt uncomfortable, but Lin Nan knew that once she decided to keep her magical transformation under wraps, she had to bury her truth deeper beneath a pile of lies.
I mean, who wanted to spill the beans and risk being handed over to that character Yang Jiao Shou?
Mom focused intensely on the surgery report. Interestingly enough, while it was for a male dog, the paperwork nonetheless stated Lin Nan’s surgery was a resounding success, with no side effects.
After reading through a few reports, Mom finally pulled out Lin Nan’s female ID card from the folder.
Staring at the ID photo of Lin Nan with her ponytail, she incredulously looked up: “You got the ID sorted out?”
“Uh-huh.” Lin Nan’s face was as crimson as a tomato, “Just need you to inform the school that I’ve changed my gender…”
If the school wasn’t notified, her future diploma would still say “male,” effectively nullifying any legit claim to her past identity.
All of Lin Nan’s previous documents had become useless after her transition. Sure, she could reissue an ID, but there was no such thing as a reissued graduation certificate from elementary school.
Mom still couldn’t quite wrap her head around how Lin Nan had sorted so much out on her own, dazedly asking, “How much did you borrow?”
“Um… twenty thousand, I think?”
Lin Nan answered hesitantly: “Their family is loaded; twenty thousand isn’t a big deal for them… I’ll pay him back in installments when I start working.”
“From the way he acts around you, this is probably a betrothal gift…”
Lin Nan hadn’t thought in that direction at all and was utterly flabbergasted.
“A bit low—we average around fifty to sixty thousand…” Mom murmured, “So you’ve even met his family?”
“Met them, yes…”
That part was true.
“Chen Yao must really care about you if he casually lends out twenty thousand,” Mom unearthed a whole batch of doubts, “And you’ve met his parents without telling me… I thought he was just after your body.”
“Jumping into a lifelong commitment without a word of discussion…”
Lin Nan’s embarrassment spread all the way to her neck and earlobes; she didn’t dare retort, lowering her head, convinced her sense of shame was reaching new heights.
The holes in her lies were enormous, yet her mother seemed to have pieced together some wild narrative.
And her mother seemed rather pleased with herself?
She wouldn’t actually consider Chen Yao as her son-in-law, would she?
Lin Nan suddenly realized that this lie had practically dug her own grave, and somehow she was the one jumping in, waiting to be buried.
Once Mom finished inspecting everything, she stuffed it all back into the folder and suddenly grinned, “Wanna take a bath together tonight?”
“Huh?”
“Since you’ve just become a girl, I’ve got to educate you on some physiological matters,” her mother declared solemnly, “Otherwise, you’ll get tricked and lose your body without even realizing it.”
Um, excuse me, I’ve seen enough animation to know about these things!
