556. Exposure 【9/30】
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After finishing her milk tea and pretending to be generous by paying, Lin Nan followed Li Ya out of the shop.
Ever since she became a girl, it had been ages since she had treated anyone to anything.
At first, she would refuse, insisting on paying, but Chen Yao, being the macho guy he is, never let her foot the bill. Gradually, it became a habit.
She knew this pampering was corrupting her feminine identity, but who could resist the thrill of free tickets…?
Perhaps it was because Li Ya, a former classmate who once pursued her, was by her side. Lin Nan adjusted her mindset, trying hard to channel her inner man, and after paying, she felt she had shown some masculinity. How delightful!
The walking street was quite a distance away, so the two headed straight for the bus stop to wait.
Keeping her head down, Lin Nan dared not look at Li Ya but could feel her gaze lingering on her.
“Your clothes are too big. How about I help you pick out a few things when we get to the walking street?” Li Ya suggested.
“No need, I like my clothes oversized,” Lin Nan shook her head in refusal.
Wearing Chen Yao’s short-sleeve jacket gave her the impression of a small girl wearing her dad’s clothes. Honestly, it wasn’t the most comfortable look.
“Aren’t you hot in that?”
Lin Nan shook her head without responding.
When she met Zhu Yong Wen, the temperature was just thirty degrees, and wearing a jacket seemed odd but bearable. Now, however, it had climbed to thirty-five degrees, and everyone on the street was trying to wear as little as possible.
Standing at the bus stop, Lin Nan noticed several people giving her strange looks.
“By the way, why did you ask me out?” Lin Nan looked up at Li Ya. “I was feeling under the weather and wasn’t really planning to go out.”
Ever since she acquired magic, Lin Nan could spin lies without breaking a sweat.
After a moment’s thought, Li Ya replied, “I saw Chen Yao on the road, thought of you, and decided to catch up.”
“Hey, I just realized, Chen Yao’s girlfriend looks a lot like you,” Li Ya suddenly leaned in closer, startling Lin Nan into taking a few steps back.
When she met Chen Yao last night, Li Ya hadn’t seen his girlfriend’s face clearly, but looking at Lin Nan gave her a strange feeling of déjà vu.
It was as if Lin Nan was the girl she met last night…
Lin Nan turned her face away, not wanting to let her examine it too closely.
“Especially the profile. It’s uncanny!”
How is she supposed to explain that?
After pondering for a moment, Lin Nan replied in an obviously true tone, “Chen Yao’s girlfriend is my cousin, of course, we look alike!”
She had used this excuse before, but the challenge lay in delivering it so naturally that it couldn’t be questioned.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Chen Yao’s girlfriend, would you?” Li Ya joked.
This time, Lin Nan reacted intensely, turning to look at her with a serious and slightly panicked expression. She hurriedly explained, “No way! His girlfriend is my cousin!”
Li Ya jumped back, shock written all over her face.
Lin Nan realized she overreacted. Luckily, a bus came rolling in at that moment, giving her the perfect opportunity to change the subject. “The bus is here, and there are quite a few people.”
She glanced around. Due to the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, there were quite a few students waiting for the bus to the walking street.
“Looks like we’ll have to squeeze in.” Lin Nan frowned and hesitantly asked, “What about taking a ride-share?”
She wasn’t keen on cramming onto a bus, and what if some creep decided to make her life miserable? That would scar her for life!
She wasn’t sure how likely such situations were, but it was better to play it safe.
Seeing that Lin Nan wasn’t keen on taking the bus, Li Ya nodded in agreement and continued to observe Lin Nan’s demeanor.
From any angle, Lin Nan looked the part of a girl.
Li Ya was puzzled. The Lin Nan from high school, while a bit introverted, wasn’t this feminine at all. In just two years, she transformed into this?
Moreover, Lin Nan actually resembled Chen Yao’s girlfriend a lot.
She had only caught a glimpse of half her face, but the bits of Lin Nan she tried to hide reminded her startlingly of that girl.
Suddenly, an audacious thought struck her.
Lin Nan had already ordered a ride-share on her phone, but with ride-shares being scarce in the small county, after waiting a minute without any drivers popping up, she was left hoping for the next bus to be less crowded.
Feeling a slight breeze on her neck, she turned in surprise to see Li Ya had leaned closer, practically whispering in her ear.
Instinctively wanting to pull away, Lin Nan heard Li Ya softly ask, “You’re not really Chen Yao’s girlfriend, are you?”
“No!”
“Like, you’re cross-dressing as a girl to be his girlfriend…?”
Lin Nan huffed, “Am I the type to cross-dress?!”
“With you looking this pretty, you must have dressed as a girl before!”
“Quit throwing baseless accusations! I don’t do that weird stuff!” Lin Nan crossed her arms defiantly. “No evidence, no wild claims.”
After a moment of silence, Li Ya pulled out her phone, opened Bilibili, went straight to Chen Yao’s page, and found his most popular “work.”
Finally, she held up her phone and pointed the screen at Lin Nan’s face, grinning as she asked, “Really never dressed as a girl before?”
“…”
Looking at the familiar figure in a maid outfit in the bottom right corner of the phone screen, Lin Nan’s face changed, and she instinctively took several steps back.
No way!
How did Chen Yao expose his identity as a UP master!
The thought of being discovered by a former classmate who once had a crush on her and unveiled her cross-dressing habit? Too flipping embarrassing!
Thank goodness she was technically a girl now.
But if that little tidbit got out, she would never be able to face anyone again!
“When he first started making videos in college, he asked me to support him with likes,” Li Ya turned her phone around, staring at the pixelated maid girl in a slightly unclear corner before looking back at Lin Nan for comparison. “When I saw this video back then, I didn’t think much of it, but now it’s clear as day—it’s totally you!”
“Not me,” Lin Nan turned her head away, using her hand to cover her cheek, “I don’t know who it is, just someone who looks like me. It’s definitely my cousin!”
“Then why are you reacting so strongly?”
“Seeing my cousin in a maid outfit for the first time, how can I not react strongly?”
Lin Nan struggled to explain, but her performance had already exposed everything, and her explanations just sounded like lame excuses at this point.
Finally, she sighed, leaned against the bus stop advertisement, covered her face with her hands, and admitted, “Okay fine, you win… I was dating Chen Yao while cross-dressing, and you were right all along.”
“Eh?!” Li Ya nearly jumped up from the shock.
Though it was an absurd guess, it becoming a reality shocked her heart nearly out of her chest.
So, that bump on Lin Nan’s collarbone, which she said was from a bug bite…
