“Zhang Shaoqing!”

Ning Chu’s clear, neutral, childish voice had no force behind it at all when he yelled. Even with his big, watery eyes glaring in anger, he looked more like a wronged kid throwing a tantrum.

What a waste that he isn’t a girl.

Seeing that hurt, angry look, Zhang Shaoqing instinctively felt guilty. He sheepishly glanced down at the phone lying on the floor, its screen gone green, but still stubbornly said, “Can’t you just get it fixed? Why get so mad over something this minor...?”

“I don’t have any money! Would it kill you to be a little quieter when you come in?”

Ning Chu shot him another glare, then bent down and picked up his phone, heart aching. Green covered most of the screen, and the touch function had stopped working entirely. The inner screen was clearly wrecked.

There was no undoing what had happened, so Ning Chu could only let out a quiet sigh.

“It’s fine. I’ll pay to get it fixed.” Zhang Shaoqing folded his arms and leaned against the wardrobe door, completely unconcerned.

“Then what am I supposed to use for the next few days...?”

He frowned, rummaged in his pocket, then slapped his own phone down on Ning Chu’s desk. “Use mine!”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean, ‘huh’? Just don’t delete anything of mine. I can make calls on my watch anyway.” Zhang Shaoqing looked thoroughly annoyed as he picked up the broken phone and stuffed it into his pocket. “I’ll get it fixed tonight. Use mine for now.”

“Fine...”

Zhang Shaoqing’s way of handling things left Ning Chu with no real grounds to argue.

With that head of dyed blond hair, he always looked like some careless delinquent. But when it came time to take responsibility, he was pretty much a man.

The little spat left things awkward between them. Ning Chu kept a straight face and opened a simple game, but less than two minutes later, Zhang Shaoqing sidled up again with a grin.

“Ning Chu, Wen Yang agreed to break up with Lingling.”

“Oh.”

“He’s got plenty of girls chasing after him, so he doesn’t care about losing just one. Besides, they’d only been together for a few days.”

“Mm.”

Ning Chu answered coolly, but the corners of his mouth lifted despite himself.

That meant the novel’s opening scene definitely wouldn’t happen now!

If plotlines could trigger a butterfly effect, this might even keep the later events from happening, too.

Then there’d be less chance of him turning into a girl!

As soon as the thought crossed his mind, a sharp cramp seized Ning Chu’s lower abdomen. He sucked in a breath, his body curling up on instinct as he clutched his stomach with both hands.

“Hss—haa...”

“What’s wrong?”

The sudden turn of events caught Zhang Shaoqing off guard. Wang Jie, who’d been playing a game, quickly got up and hurried over.

“N-no, I’m fine.”

Ning Chu curled into a ball in his chair. His tear ducts gave way, and tears streamed down his face as his body trembled. He bit his lower lip, trying to stifle his cries of pain.

“I’ll see if there are any painkillers. Take one first!”

“What’s going on? Acute gastroenteritis? Should we take him to the hospital for an IV?”

His two roommates panicked. Wang Jie was getting ready to call an ambulance while Zhang Shaoqing rummaged through everything, looking for the first-aid kit they kept in the dorm.

The wave of pain soon ebbed. A sheen of cold sweat had appeared on Ning Chu’s forehead. Weak and drained, he rested his forehead against the desk and let out a long breath.

The sudden pain made him think of the plot he’d just thrown off course.

He suspected the pain he’d felt today was punishment for changing the novel’s plot.

The mild cramps that had started that morning were because he’d stopped Wen Yang’s date the night before. The sharp pain just now was punishment for Wen Yang breaking up with Lingling and completely derailing the novel’s opening scene.

But this little bit of pain wasn’t going to break him!

After a few minutes, Ning Chu weakly lifted his head.

“I’m going to take a shower.” His tear-filled eyes turned toward Zhang Shaoqing behind him. “When my food delivery arrives, can you grab it for me?”

Seeing him with red-rimmed eyes and tears still hanging from his lashes, Zhang Shaoqing froze for a moment, then awkwardly turned his head to avoid Ning Chu’s gaze. “You’re okay now?”

“I’m fine. It just hurt for a moment.”

Hearing how casual and unconcerned Ning Chu sounded, Zhang Shaoqing wondered if his roommate had a masochistic streak.

“You sure you don’t need to get checked out at the hospital?” Wang Jie cut in, concerned.

“I’m sure!”

He’d been in that much pain just now, but now he had no intention of getting checked out—and was even kind of happy about it?

Zhang Shaoqing watched Ning Chu walk over to the wardrobe, take off his camouflage jacket, and slip out of his pants, revealing a small butt that stretched his boxer briefs taut and a pair of long, pale legs.

Zhang Shaoqing saw this every night when Ning Chu showered, but this time, something felt different.

Was that butt a little rounder and perkier than before?

At least his sexuality was perfectly normal, and he already had a girl he liked.

He quickly glanced over, then turned back to his desk. But another question suddenly popped into his mind.

Did Ning Chu really have no leg hair at all?

It wasn’t that he wanted to look at a man’s legs. He was just curious whether Ning Chu had leg hair.

Zhang Shaoqing looked back again, only to find Ning Chu had picked up his change of clothes and was holding them against his chest, meeting his gaze.

“What?”

“Hurry up in there. I need to shower after you.”

Zhang Shaoqing quickly came up with an excuse, but his gaze drifted to Ning Chu’s chest.

“Got it.”

Ning Chu noticed where his gaze had landed. He frowned and looked down at the two rather prominent little bumps on his chest, then instinctively raised his arms to cover them with the clothes he was holding.

It was normal for a man’s nipples to show through, but for some reason, he felt guilty—and worried someone would laugh at him.

He changed into a pair of slippers and hurried toward the balcony.

“What’s with him?” Only after they heard the bathroom door close from the balcony did Wang Jie bring it up. “Could he really have eaten something bad last night? Wouldn’t that make you the culprit?”

“What are you talking about? What’s that got to do with me?”

Zhang Shaoqing cursed as he tried to pass the blame. “The three of us are fine, and he’s the only one with food poisoning? At this rate, I’d believe you if you said he was about to give birth.”

“About to give birth? Sure, why not.”

The dorm door opened, and Wen Yang stepped inside. He looked completely baffled by the commotion. “What’s going on? You guys sound lively. What happened?”

Meanwhile, in the bathroom, Ning Chu hummed a hopelessly off-key tune beneath the shower, eyes closed and face tilted up as he enjoyed the warm water soothing him.

After he completely wrecked the novel’s original plot, some punishment from who-knows-where had fallen on him, too.

Maybe someone didn’t want him doing this—the god who’d brought him here.

“If I keep messing up the plot like this, I won’t have to become a girl~”

And I won’t have to get fucked, either!

Being a man in a place full of beautiful women and monster girls, then getting married, having kids, and living out the rest of his life in peace—that didn’t sound like a bad choice, either!

“A win for now!”

Happily lathering himself with body wash, Ning Chu’s hands suddenly stopped at his chest.

“Uh... why does it feel like I’ve got two extra lumps of soft flesh on my chest?”