At night, An Han ran to a corner of the track. In the empty, deserted space, he hugged his phone and practiced a fake girl voice.

He was probably unusually talented at it. A skill that took normal people months to learn, he picked up after watching a few videos and practicing for just an hour.

But his fake voice was too hollow. It sounded like a falsetto when singing high notes. It felt especially awkward in normal speech, and if he failed to hold it right, his voice would crack on the spot.

“No good. I can't use this for actual talking at all.”

An Han frowned and carefully watched the voice training tutorial again. But he couldn't understand any of the technical terms in it. Even with explanations, it still left him completely lost.

The expert in the video could make a fake voice sound no different from a girl speaking normally. But An Han's just sounded forced and affected.

He tried a few more times. Still no progress. So he took a sip of water and decisively called it quits.

Anyway, single-syllable replies like “mm” or “okay” wouldn't sound too out of place. As long as Long Xing didn't listen too carefully, it should be fine.

“After this, I'm never crossdressing again.”

“If Brother Long hadn't started suspecting me, I wouldn't be doing this in the first place...”

“It's definitely not because I'm drooling over the mission reward.”

He'd figured it out by now. In system missions, the one with the biggest reward was usually the most screwed-up trap.

The difficulty was one thing. Worse, it tended to leave all kinds of aftereffects, pushing him into even more dangerous situations.

But damn, the reward was tempting.

After stretching lazily, An Han slowly headed back to the dorm.

Evenings were usually the noisiest time in the dorm. The moment he walked in, he saw Long Xing grunting as he worked his arms with dumbbells. Chen Junjie was cursing into his headset while his keyboard clattered nonstop. Wang Sheng was the quietest one there, silently gaming with headphones on.

An Han glanced at the huge muscles on Long Xing's arms, then at the fierce tattoo on him, and felt even more intimidated.

One punch from this guy could make Long Xing kneel and beg him not to die.

Even after living together for two years, An Han knew Long Xing wasn't some gangster. If anything, he was kind of a doofus. But the tattoos and muscles were just too intimidating. Usually in the cafeteria, if Long Xing stood there grabbing food, nobody dared squeeze forward.

“Where'd you go?” Long Xing looked up and asked.

An Han picked up the cup on his desk and answered casually, “Just walked around outside. The AC's on in the dorm every day. It's too stuffy.”

Just wait. Once I max out my physique stat, I won't be scared of you finding out your first crush was me in girls' clothes.

He took a sip of water and turned to look at Wang Sheng beside him.

The game Wang Sheng was playing was CSGO. Apparently he was some kind of Global Elite, with 2700 points or something. An Han didn't really understand how good that was. He just knew Wang Sheng was pretty damn good.

After watching for a bit, An Han suddenly poked Wang Sheng in the waist with a mischievous grin.

That one poke instantly threw off Wang Sheng's aim. The moment he met the enemy face-to-face, he got headshot and dropped.

Wang Sheng looked up at him, his tone flat. “Don't mess with me.”

He was already used to being harassed.

“I'm testing your resistance to interference,” An Han said with a straight face.

“He's just asking to get screwed,” Chen Junjie shouted from behind.

An Han turned around, deliberately putting on a girly act. He lifted his fingers in a dainty pose, pinched his voice, and beckoned. “Then come on, handsome~”

“Fuck off!”

Seeing that he'd thoroughly grossed Chen Junjie out, An Han felt even more pleased. Humming to himself, he climbed onto his bed, pulled out his phone, and opened WeChat.

Long Xing had added him that morning. An Han had even deliberately changed his WeChat gender to female. But up until now, Long Xing still hadn't taken the initiative to message him.

That made him a little nervous. He wondered if he'd slipped up somewhere. But thinking about it now, Long Xing was probably just shy.

Still, the girl he was pretending to be also had to be the shy type. After all, the first time “she” met Long Xing in girls' clothes, “she” had been so shy that “she” couldn't say a single word.

An Han held his phone and thought about how to chat with Long Xing as a girl. Then suddenly, a message popped up.

“Hello, are you there?”

He froze for a second and peeked toward Long Xing at the desk.

Seriously? It's already 2021, okay? Who still uses that kind of opener?

Normally, if he saw a message like “you there,” he wouldn't even bother replying.

“I'm Long Xing, the one who helped you climb over the wall the other night.”

At least Long Xing wasn't dumb. He immediately added another line.

After thinking for a moment, An Han stuck to his quiet, withdrawn persona and replied with a simple “Mm.”

“She replied to me!” Long Xing said excitedly, holding up his phone to Chen Junjie. “She's definitely got a good impression of me!”

“A one-word reply means she likes you?” Chen Junjie rolled his eyes. “For all you know, the one chatting with you on WeChat is An Han.”

“How is that possible?” Long Xing turned to look at An Han on the top bunk, only to see him holding his phone sideways, his thumb tapping rapidly at something. “He's gaming.”

Chen Junjie shook his head helplessly. “The photo you took is obviously An Han. Why won't you believe it?”

“She just looks like An Han, that's all.”

“Fine, let's say there really is a girl at school who looks a lot like An Han. We already posted her photo on the forum, in the department group, and in the student union group. At least a few hundred people have seen it, right? And not one person recognizes her. Isn't that weird?”

Up on the top bunk, where he was pretending to game, An Han's eyelid twitched. He looked up in disbelief.

Wait! Are you guys insane?!

You posted my crossdressing photos everywhere without my permission? That's a violation of portrait rights, you know?!

If I get exposed now, won't the whole school know someone dressed as a girl to flirt with his own roommate?!

Wasn't this social death a little too massive?

An Han felt a breath of anger lodge in his chest. He couldn't let it out. Even though he wanted to jump down right now and slap each of them across the face, all he could do was keep playing the shy girl online and send Long Xing a message.

“I saw my photo on the forum.”

Long Xing immediately panicked a little. “My roommate posted it. I'll make him delete the post right now.”

That reassured An Han a bit. Pretending to be angry online, he sent a “Hmph!” sticker.

Chen Junjie had been coaching Long Xing on how to talk to girls. But at that moment, he suddenly turned around and teased, “An Han! This girl uses the same sticker pack as you.”

“???”

Fuck! I got careless!

Holding back his anger, An Han snapped back irritably, “What the hell does that have to do with me?”

So many people used Nanase Kurumi stickers. Running into someone with the same one once in a while was totally normal.

He comforted himself like that, only to see Long Xing send another message.

“Want to hang out sometime?”

Here it comes!

An Han immediately perked up. First he typed out a polite refusal. Then he played hard to get. Finally, after Long Xing kept pressing, he reluctantly agreed.

They set the time for tomorrow night. The place was under the broken streetlamp by the track.

This is absolutely the last time I crossdress!

I'll deal with this problem once and for all!