At nine-thirty at night, I went back to Vanilla Vocational School, still wearing my Rem cosplay outfit.
In the dorm, all five of my roommates were there for once. There were even two extra girls. They were probably from another dorm, here to buy snacks. I saw the shelf and all kinds of snack wrappers by the door.
“Xiaoxue!”
Jiang Yuqing was playing cashier in the dorm. The moment she saw me, her face lit up with surprise and delight. “Wow, you really wore that all day? Weren’t you hot?”
“Not really. It was pretty cool outside.”
I walked into the dorm and greeted the two girls by the door. “Hi.”
“Ah... so you’re that... Xiaoxue? The one the guys were spamming all over the QQ groups before?”
One of the girls was holding two packs of Qinzui Shao and sizing me up from head to toe. “So pretty...”
The other girl who came with her looked confused. “What QQ groups?”
“Some anime groups.”
The girl answering clearly didn’t want to explain. She turned around shyly and grabbed two more packs of mini steamed buns from the shelf. “How much for all this?”
Jiang Yuqing smiled. “Three yuan.”
“What about mine?”
“Yours... two, five, six... nine yuan total.”
“Xiaoxue, can I ask you something...”
After scanning the QR code with a beep, the girl who bought the two packs of Qinzui Shao leaned close to me. “Those guys who rent you... are they all as gross as those anime-obsessed otaku? Like... do they make you call them onii-chan, or Master, stuff like that? Is there any of that?”
“Not really...”
I smiled. “Most of the time, I’m basically a human trash can and a tool. I listen to them complain about life and society. Sometimes I help make up numbers for basketball, or hand out flyers.”
There was some onii-chan stuff, like today. Though it wasn’t that cringey.
“No way?”
The girl stared at my chest. “Those guys rent you just to vent and complain? That’s insane.”
Yeah. It really was that insane.
I nodded.
Today, I went around Shenbin Forest Park with Liang Zhiming. We tried all kinds of rides. The glass bridge, the mountain cable car, even the roller coaster. In the afternoon, we went to the aquarium to see penguins, then the zoo to see tigers. Almost the whole time, Liang Zhiming was the only one talking, nonstop.
He kept going on about how much he’d suffered because of Wang Qian, how much he’d given, and how teachers, classmates, and roommates all looked down on him because of their situation.
As for me, all I could do was comfort him from the side, or act cute to distract him. What else was I supposed to do?
“This is making me want to rent you too. One hundred yuan for two hours, hehe. We’re both girls, so when the time comes, can I maybe...”
Before she could finish, the girl beside her cut in.
“Alright, alright, stop embarrassing yourself here.”
She grabbed the other girl by the wrist and walked out of the dorm with a look of disgust. “What, am I not enough for you? You’re already thinking about cheating? Come to my bed tonight. We’ll have a long heart-to-heart...”
“Uh...”
Zhang Qi, who was sorting goods nearby, watched the two girls leave with a blank look. “Why were those two so... yuri-coded?”
“Normal. In Jianwang 3, a lot of in-game couples are girl-girl too.”
Jiang Yuqing looked completely used to it. “That bunch of old widows is practically turning me gay.”
I looked around the dorm entrance, which had already been remodeled into a mini convenience store, then went to my desk and started taking off my wig. “If you guys do this, doesn’t the dorm supervisor say anything?”
“She gets a cut. What’s there to say?”
Zhou Mengya, the finance manager of our little shop, had already changed into pajamas. She was lying face-down on her bed with her chest pressed to the sheet, playing on her laptop, her pale little feet kicking in the air. “As long as money can solve it, it’s not really a problem.”
“Exactly. Right now, everything’s ready. We’re just missing Xiaoxue.”
When she saw me taking off the wig, Jiang Yuqing hurried over. “Wait! Let me take a picture!”
“Huh?”
I looked at her in confusion. “What for?”
“A photo with Xiaoxue, obviously!”
She pulled out her phone, stood beside me, and threw up a few peace signs.
“Xiaoxue, smile!”
“Yeah, just like that. Don’t move!”
Click, click.
“Mhm. As expected of the number one campus beauty at Xiangzhi. You’re this cute even without beauty filters. Now I can use this to deal with those guys.”
After saving the photo, Jiang Yuqing looked blissful. “Next time some blind idiot confesses to me, I’ll send him this picture and say this is my girlfriend.”
My face went dark. “So I’m being used as a shield again?”
“Relax. Those guys know their place.”
No, what I was worried about was this: if one of the guys you reject rents me on Hualimao later and asks you out through me, I have no idea how I’m supposed to handle that mess.
“By the way, why’s Xiaorui so quiet?”
After taking off the wig, I looked toward Chen Xiaorui’s bed. “Xiaorui?”
The girl on the top bunk was curled up under her little blanket, gloomy as ever, like a cabbage. Her whole face was buried in the pillow.
“Same old story.”
Jiang Yuqing shrugged. “I told her before, she should just break up with that boyfriend already. Their values obviously don’t match.”
“Xiaorui?”
I opened the little bag I brought back, took out the leftover slice of cream cake from today, climbed the small ladder to Chen Xiaorui’s bed, and switched to a maid voice. “Milady, would you like to eat the cake first tonight... or eat me first?”
“Pfft...”
The girl on the bed rolled over, looking caught between laughter and tears. “Xiaoxue, what are you even doing?”
“Cake.”
I climbed onto the bed and sat down in a duck-sit, then held the cake out to Chen Xiaorui. “Want some?”
“Ah...”
Chen Xiaorui looked hesitant. “But I’ve been planning to lose weight lately.”
I tilted my head. “Then later we can go exercise on the track together.”
“No, no, no, don’t act cute at me...”
Chen Xiaorui waved both hands quickly. “Oh my God, Xiaoxue, your work habits are kicking in. I’m not a guy. Don’t use that on me. It won’t work.”
“Huh?”
“Alright, alright, stop looking at me like that. I’ll eat it, okay? Now get down. You’ve been out all day surrounded by stinky men, and now you’re climbing onto my bed!”
“Waaah...”
“What do you mean waaah? I’m not gay. If you want to act cute, go do it to Yuqing!”
“But we already announced our relationship in front of the whole class before, waaah... Does this mean I got dumped again?”
“Wow, now you’re blaming me for it? And when you say waaah, can you at least put some feeling into it? You’re flat-reading it, you know?”
“...”
After successfully handing the little cake to Chen Xiaorui, I jumped from her bed onto mine, then climbed down the ladder.
Our dorm was laid out like this now: after entering, the bed closest to the door on the right belonged to the short girl Zhang Qi. The middle bed on the right was mine. Chen Xiaorui’s bed was the last one, near the bathroom.
As for the left side... our e-commerce class monitor Jiang Yuqing slept in the middle bed, just like me. Chen Xiaorui’s “archenemy,” Song Huijie, was in the bed matching hers, next to Jiang Yuqing and close to the bathroom. The last bed, near the door and window, was the “VIP seat” of our dorm’s finance minister, Zhou Mengya. That girl was amazing in a weird way. Very rational, very sensitive to numbers, with a strong engineering-guy vibe.
Because the low divider panels between the beds had big gaps, I could easily move over from Chen Xiaorui’s side.
On the other hand... because there were no full dividers, when we slept at night, Chen Xiaorui and I were head-to-head. Since her living habits were kind of messy, a lot of personal items would occasionally end up on my side, like washed and dried little panties, skirts, bras, socks, and so on.
So climbing onto Chen Xiaorui’s bed right after coming back from outside counted as a tiny little revenge on my part.
“Xiaoxue, are you really still going out to exercise?”
Seeing that I was actually taking off the maid skirt and white thigh-high garter stockings, Chen Xiaorui looked worried as she sat on her bed eating cake. “It’s almost ten already.”
“I’ll just run around a bit and come back.”
Right in front of the girls, I changed into sportswear and sneakers. Then I took the Rem cosplay outfit to the sink, put it in my bucket, added some detergent, and filled it with water.
If I let it soak for a while, I could wash it when I got back from exercising.
“I’m heading out.”
“...”
There were way more people at the campus sports field at night than during the day.
And for some reason, the moon was especially round tonight. I could even vaguely see a lot of stars.
“What time is it?”
“Nine-fifty something. Come on, one more lap.”
Just like the past few days, I finished warming up, and a few minutes later, I joined the crowd of students doing their night run.
“Have you decided?”
What I didn’t expect was that the guy who stuffed the martial arts club recruitment form into my hands yesterday popped out from who knew where again. With the explosive speed boys had, he quickly ran up beside me and matched my pace. “Want to join our martial arts club?”
“You really are...”
A little helpless, I tried to keep my breathing steady as I spoke. “I’ll think about clubs later. I don’t have money right now.”
“I know. You’ve been making money with that rental girlfriend thing lately. Your Rem cosplay photos got reposted in at least five QQ groups I’m in.”
The guy’s expression stayed calm. “I can talk to the club president. Recruitment day’s already over, but freshmen can still join without going through the normal process or paying club fees.”
“No, that’s not it...”
I turned my head and looked at the guy, who was almost half a head taller than me. “Why are you so determined to get me into the club?”
The guy went silent for a moment. “If I put it politely, it’s because after watching you these past two days, I noticed your way of exercising is pretty unstructured. I want to give you some proper guidance. If you join the martial arts club, a lot of experienced seniors can help you.”
“So there’s an impolite reason too?”
“There is. The impolite version is that, as a perv, I want to see you wearing the sanda training outfit, short sleeves and shorts, running and working out with everyone. Then I want to see if I can use my title as the sanda club captain to get closer to you later. That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to trick you into joining.”
“You’re pretty honest.”
For a moment, I didn’t know what to say, so I forcefully changed the subject. “What should I call you, senior?”
“Lu Tianxing. Lu as in sika deer. Lu as in Kaname Madoka’s Lu.”
Maybe because he knew I wasn’t going to make a decision tonight, the guy smartly stopped bringing up the club. “What about you? What Xiaoxue?”
“Ji Xiaoxue... ah, no, Bi Xinxue.”
“Sounds nice. But I think Lu Xinxue sounds even better.”
“If I recorded that and posted it on Weibo, I’d gain at least a thousand feminist haters.”
I rolled my eyes at him. Seeing that I’d exercised enough, I slowed down and went to the long bench by the field to rub my legs.
“You heading back?”
The guy calling himself Lu Tianxing followed me over.
“What?”
As I rubbed my legs, I said provocatively, “Since you know I’m working part-time on a rental girlfriend app, don’t tell me you’re actually interested in a scheming girl like me who plays other people’s girlfriend every day?”
“Yeah, I am. I’ll just treat it like you’re out there practicing your skills.”
“I...”
He left me so speechless I could only pull a towel from my pocket and wipe the sweat off my face, trying to ease the awkwardness a little.
“Alright, you win. But for now, I still don’t plan on joining any club, and I’m not interested in actually being anyone’s girlfriend. I think being on my own is pretty nice.”
“It’s fine. I wasn’t confessing or anything.”
The guy shrugged.
“If you ever feel like joining a club, come find me anytime. I’m in Class 1 of the Nursing program at the School of Medicine. Our building is right across from your Computer Science school.”
“Oh, thanks.”
I put the towel I’d used for wiping sweat back into my pocket, then walked past him.
“When I get sick someday, I’ll definitely come mooch some cold medicine off you.”
