The steady rain drenched the city.

“……”

When the vibration of my phone woke me, I stretched and went out onto the dorm balcony. The sight of the torrential rain left me with mixed feelings.

This kind of weather meant I probably didn’t have to go running.

The problem was that I’d only just gotten used to the rhythm of morning exercise. My body was also at the stage where it had just recovered and needed more training. The rain had come at a rather inconvenient time.

“Whoooosh…”

A chilly morning breeze lifted my skirt. Cold air rushed beneath it, and the sudden sensation between my legs made me instinctively take two steps back.

“Maybe I should just go back to sleep…”

At that moment, I was wearing only a thin nightdress. On my feet were the blue-and-white striped cat-paw thigh-high socks sent from the Cat South-North clothing shop. Beneath my skirt, I had on white panties. Other than that, I wore nothing.

To sleep more comfortably and let my chest develop normally during the night, I hadn’t even put on a bra.

“If I don’t have to go running at this hour… I’ll set another alarm.”

I rummaged through the small cabinet beside my desk and found the umbrella Grandma had stuffed into my suitcase before the start of term. I placed it on the desk, then sleepily climbed the stairs back to my little bed and pulled up the covers.

Well… I’d made so much money over the past few days. Taking one day off to reward myself shouldn’t hurt.

With that thought in mind, I hugged my Yoshinon plushie and quickly fell asleep again.

Half-awake and half-dreaming, I seemed to have another strange dream.

I dreamed of the universe beyond the Kuiper Belt of the solar system. I dreamed of the mysterious prophecy of the Maya civilization. I dreamed of beautiful flashes of light within the Milky Way.

I seemed to see the starry sky on the day I was born.

Vast and hazy.

“When darkness falls, I call for dawn.”

“To remember the days that have passed, I place my memories on a silver plate.”

“Gemstone tears draw near, all to guard your final whisper.”

In the dream, an unfamiliar voice seemed to be singing softly the entire time.

The melody felt like it belonged to another lifetime.

…

When my phone’s vibration woke me again, I found that half an hour had passed.

Still dazed by that strange dream, I slowly sat up on my little bed. Hugging the Yoshinon rabbit, I sat there with my brain unresponsive for quite a while.

Then music rang out from the loudspeaker outside the dormitory.

“Ah… It’s time for class again…”

Across the room, Jiang Yuqing was the first to be jolted awake by the music. Through my bleary vision, I saw the girl turn over reluctantly. Then she sat up with a bird’s-nest of hair.

“We’ve got a full schedule again! Full schedule! Aaaah!”

“Don’t make so much noise. Let me sleep for three more minutes.”

Zhou Mengya, lying beside Jiang Yuqing, kicked the bed frame in annoyance.

I lifted my little head and looked toward Zhang Qi, who was still resting ahead of me.

She was the most ordinary-looking girl in our dorm.

She was a little short and somewhat dark-skinned. She had short hair and wore glasses because of her severe nearsightedness. She wasn’t particularly pretty, either. Among the girls, she had no striking features at all.

Yet apart from Jiang Yuqing, she was the girl I respected most in the dorm.

Zhang Qi was diligent and loved cleanliness. Every morning, she tidied her bed before doing anything else. Before sleeping, she organized her desk and dealt with her trash.

If she had enough time, she’d even help the other girls collect the tissues and other daily rubbish beneath their beds. Then she’d take it downstairs and throw it away.

Whenever she bought little snacks outside, she immediately shared them with us. If she happened to be going that way, she’d also help us recharge our hot-water cards or fetch water.

In the dorm, she never judged anyone negatively.

Zhang Qi had a wonderful temper. Since the start of term, I’d never seen her lose her temper. She was always polite when speaking to us, had no boyfriend, and never acted spoiled or threw childish tantrums.

Being around her always made me feel at ease. She had the air of a genuinely good person.

Now that I’d become a girl, I’d mostly figured out everyone’s personalities in Room 202 of Building Two, the women’s dormitory at Vanilla Vocational Technical College.

There was Jiang Yuqing, the class monitor and dorm leader from the E-Commerce department. She had a boyish personality, a big-sister presence, and a slight yuri streak.

She could talk about almost anything and got along with practically everyone.

The Zhou Mengya beside her was the complete opposite. To put it bluntly, this girl was a little secretly lewd. She was the experienced one in our dorm.

She could discuss any dirty story or hardcore doujinshi in perfect detail, without blushing or missing a beat. She was also a thoroughgoing egoist, materialist, and absolute rationalist.

As for Chen Xiaorui and Song Huijie, they were more typical girls.

The two of them were almost exactly what most boys imagined girls to be like: a little willful, occasionally prone to tantrums, fond of chasing dramas and reading danmei, and always happy to snack.

The difference was that Chen Xiaorui had slightly better emotional intelligence, while Song Huijie was very blunt and easily got into arguments.

In such an environment, an ordinary, unremarkable girl like Zhang Qi stood out to me like a little fairy.

She was plain, quiet, easygoing, and wore every joy and sorrow plainly on her face.

Suppose a boy suddenly broke into our dorm one day and pulled down his pants in front of all the girls in Room 202.

Zhang Qi would immediately turn around and say something like, “Please don’t do that, Senior.”

Chen Xiaorui would scream.

Song Huijie would scream and curse him as a pervert.

Jiang Yuqing would instantly cover her eyes, then peek through her fingers.

As for Zhou Mengya…

With her personality, I figured she’d walk straight toward the naked man without changing expression or missing a beat. She’d examine his body for a long while, then finally say—

“Hmph. That’s it?”

“Why is it raining so hard?”

Song Huijie had gotten up by then, too. Wearing long underwear and thermal pants, she walked toward the dorm balcony.

“Do we still have to go to morning reading?”

“No idea. Ask our counselor.”

Jiang Yuqing yawned.

“But don’t get your hopes up. I bet the school would make us go even if it were hailing.”

“Do you girls have umbrellas?”

“I do, and Mengya has one too. That should be enough, but…”

Jiang Yuqing looked over at me.

“Xiaoxue, do you have an umbrella?”

“Huh? I do.”

I came back to myself and nodded.

“I should be fine picking up Xiaorui. I think she probably has an umbrella, too.”

“Then it’s settled. By the way, is a typhoon coming? I didn’t hear anything about one in the forecast…”

As Jiang Yuqing muttered to herself, I lowered my head and yawned. Then I set the rabbit plushie in my arms aside, lifted my little feet, and began taking off my socks.

I didn’t know if it was a lingering effect of yesterday’s seasickness, but my head still felt a little uncomfortable. It didn’t seem serious, though, and probably wouldn’t affect my daily life.

I deftly pulled off the blue-and-white striped thigh-highs, then rubbed my ankles and my ten snow-white, soft toes.

Those round-toed Lolita princess shoes with their chunky heels were adorable, but they were still high heels. I’d bounced around in them on a little boat and walked near the beach.

After several hours, they’d done quite a number on my feet.

Especially since I was a girl who had almost never worn high heels. Thanks to my excellent genes, the skin on my feet had always been delicate and tender. I couldn’t adapt to those shoes very well on my first try.

Luckily, the shoes were probably “made with good materials,” just as Wang Lei had said. They were fairly comfortable.

Otherwise, my entire feet might have swollen up by the time I returned to the dorm last night.

“Our counselor said it in the QQ group. All the students in the Computer Science department still have to attend class.”

“Come on, you lazy little bugs and beautiful girls! Get up, everyone!”

At Jiang Yuqing’s urging, I flexed my feet one last time, then climbed down from my bed.

Come to think of it, a girl like me would be perfect if I had the identity of a wealthy young lady who never had to worry about food or clothing.

Take my feet, for example. They were still a little sore from wearing chunky heels all night.

Both my thighs and calves were unbelievably smooth. My skin was fair as snow. The soles and tops of my feet were soft and creamy, while my toes were tender and pink.

They were terribly sensitive, as if they were delicate works of art that couldn’t bear even the slightest hardship.

That meant my body was like a vase in many situations. No matter how hard I tried, I seemed to have a lower limit than the other girls.

It was as if being pretty and having a good figure were all I needed.

“Xiaoxue, your chest has such a pretty shape.”

I climbed down from my bed and took off my nightdress. Jiang Yuqing had just returned from washing her face and looked at me enviously.

“It’s just like the girls in those erotic pictures. All pink and… Ah, I’m dying!”

Even with a male soul, I felt my face heat up.

“Can you be a little more serious? You’re scaring me.”

In the women’s dorm, once everyone became familiar with each other, many girls stopped wearing bras for convenience.

But Jiang Yuqing was the first person I’d met who directly commented on another girl’s chest.

Could it be… that she really saw me as a close friend?

I remembered the scene of selling things with Jiang Yuqing downstairs last night.

“Haha, I’m kidding.”

After hanging her towel from the ceiling of the balcony, Jiang Yuqing went over to Zhou Mengya’s bed.

“Hey, beautiful! Wake up!”

I glanced at the heavy rain outside, changed into my everyday jeans and a long-sleeved hoodie, then pulled out the women’s sandals I hadn’t worn in ages from beneath my bed.

“Xiaorui.”

Once I’d finished, I reached over and shook Chen Xiaorui awake.

“Get up.”

“Ah…”

The girl on the bed looked completely dazed.

“What’s that sound… Is it raining?”

“Yeah. The counselor said we still have to go to morning reading.”

“Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Chen Xiaorui sat up unhappily. She didn’t seem to care that one shoulder strap of her camisole dress had slipped down, exposing most of her pale shoulder.

She glanced toward the balcony.

“Wow, it’s raining that hard… Can I skip morning reading?”

“The student union will catch you.”

“Ah… I don’t want to do morning reading. Why do freshmen have to do it anyway…”

“Alright, alright. Having breakfast in the cafeteria once in a while is good, too. I’ve been buying breakfast for you for so long. Today, we can try some porridge or rice noodles.”

“Ding-dong—”

As I comforted Chen Xiaorui, my phone vibrated on the computer desk and chimed to announce a new text message.

I picked it up, unlocked the screen with my fingerprint, and opened the messaging app.

The new message was from Mom—

“Your grandpa is gone.”