Chapter 20: National Day
The first month after the new school year began, the seven-day National Day holiday arrived.
During those seven days, the school cafeteria was closed, so Li Mu brought his suitcase to class, planning to head straight home with it after school.
Since it was the last semester, all the stuff he had collected over the past two years in the dorm had to be taken home little by little. He had a bit of a hoarding habit, kind of like a hamster. As long as something still worked, even if he didn’t use it much, he’d keep it.
These past few days, it seemed like the feminizing changes in his body had stopped.
Every morning, he would stare into the mirror for ten minutes, then compare what he saw with a photo from the day before. Thankfully, there were no obvious changes to his face.
That said, he could clearly feel his muscles slowly disappearing. His biceps, which used to feel firm when he clenched his fists, didn’t feel as strong anymore.
His stomach, where he could once see faint abs when he tensed, now felt soft and squishy. Without that muscle strength, he wouldn’t have been able to climb the school wall so easily like before.
He hadn’t been sleeping well all week. Maybe it was because he kept worrying about the changes in his body during the day, which led to an overactive mind and too many dreams at night.
He even had dark circles under his eyes now.
On Friday afternoon after class, Li Mu turned his head and looked toward Yu Fan at the back of the classroom with his panda-like eyes.
Ever since Yu Fan had purposely scared him in the abandoned building a few days ago, they hadn’t spoken again.
Also, rumors had already started in the class saying that Yu Fan was actually a crossdresser.
It wasn’t just the trick from before that made Li Mu wary of him. He was also afraid that if he spent too much time with Yu Fan, people might start thinking he was a crossdresser too.
Well, if Yu Fan really did dress as a girl, he’d probably look pretty convincing.
He didn’t have girls gathering around him like before. In fact, some male classmates even started asking him for crossdressing tips, or to show them photos of himself in a dress.
Serves you right! You tricked me into crossdressing, now it’s come back to bite you!
Li Mu secretly enjoyed seeing Yu Fan looking so miserable. He almost laughed out loud.
And then… Yu Fan started walking toward him.
Yu Fan didn’t seem to remember the prank and still greeted him cheerfully.
“Yo! You're so much whiter than before!”
“……”
Yu Fan glanced at the suitcase in Li Mu’s hand. “I’ve got something to tell you. Mind if we walk together?”
“Even if I said no, you would still do it,” Li Mu replied coldly, dragging his suitcase out of the classroom.
But Yu Fan simply followed behind at a relaxed pace, talking to him anyway.
“They took away all my grandpa’s old stuff.”
“Apparently, if my grandpa hadn’t died so suddenly, I wouldn’t even have had the chance to go through his things.”
His voice became more excited and a little strange.
“I think there’s a secret department in our country that deals with ghosts!”
That caught Li Mu’s attention.
If there really was such a department, maybe they could help solve the issue with his body becoming more feminine.
So… what’s the emergency number for that department?
Seeing that Li Mu had stopped and looked at him, Yu Fan scratched his head awkwardly and added.
“But that’s just what I think. My dad was the one who met with those people. I only found out the stuff was gone when I went back and tried to dig up some information for you.”
As soon as Li Mu started to feel a little hopeful, his excitement vanished.
At the bus stop outside the school, he stood on the sidewalk with his suitcase, waiting for the bus to take away the big crowd of students already at the stop.
He didn’t really want to squeeze onto a packed bus with a suitcase.
“Why wait? Want a ride on my electric scooter?”
“No,” Li Mu turned around, his back facing Yu Fan.
He felt like this guy brought bad luck. Nothing good ever happened when he was around Yu Fan.
Yawning sleepily, Li Mu turned back again and saw Yu Fan walking toward the parking shed in the distance.
Although the country had a rule that you must be at least sixteen to ride an electric scooter, most of the students in vocational school were already that age. And since the school was located in the northern suburbs, quite far from the town center, they had set up a parking area near the school gate.
But students always liked to push the limits. They thought electric scooters weren’t fast enough, so they used gas-powered bikes or even motorcycles. That ended up attracting traffic police, who came and gave out fines and took away bikes.
Xu Ze had once crashed his motorcycle and didn’t come to school for three months.
Li Mu kept waiting for the bus, yawning over and over.
A little while later, he heard brakes squeaking and looked up, Yu Fan had pulled up next to him on his electric scooter.
“Hop on, let’s go,” Yu Fan said, picking up Li Mu’s suitcase and placing it in front of the scooter without waiting for an answer. “Hurry up, it’s on the way anyway.”
It was hard to say no to someone that enthusiastic, and honestly, waiting for the bus was a waste of time. So Li Mu got on, sitting behind Yu Fan, grumbling, “How is it ‘on the way’? You don’t even know where I live.”
“I’m the class leader. Two weeks ago, I collected everyone’s home addresses. Your neighborhood is close to mine, so I remembered it,” Yu Fan said casually, handing over a pink helmet. “It’s my little brother’s.”
Looking at the donghua “Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf” character on the helmet, Li Mu seriously started to wonder if Yu Fan’s “little brother” was like five years old, or perhaps a bit effeminate?
Li Mu’s home was in the southern suburbs, and going there from school meant crossing almost the entire town.
But the town was pretty small, so riding with Yu Fan on the scooter only took about 20 minutes to reach his neighborhood gate.
It was a residential area built five or six years ago, far from the town center. Only one bus line stopped there, so if you didn’t have a car, it was actually kind of hard to get around.
Li Mu’s family had bought the apartment five years ago, paying in full, hoping the price would go up.
But the price didn’t rise. Instead, the whole family died in a car accident while on a trip.
Thankfully, Li Mu was a homebody and didn’t want to go out that day. That’s the only reason he avoided dying with the rest of them.
After getting off the scooter, Li Mu didn’t even bother to thank Yu Fan. He just grabbed his suitcase and started walking into the neighborhood.
But after a few steps, he stopped, turned around with a cold expression, and asked, “Wanna come over?”
“Sure!” Yu Fan jumped off the scooter immediately, smiling wide. “I knew our friendship wouldn’t end so easily!”
He locked his scooter to the side and cheerfully followed after Li Mu. “Can I stay for dinner too? Is your mom easy to talk to?”
Li Mu didn’t reply and just kept walking toward his home.
“You’re not scared your parents will say something about you turning girly, are you? Don’t worry. You only look a bit paler and thinner than last week. Just act pitiful and say you’re broke, maybe your parents will give you more allowance.”
Yu Fan kept rambling on, clearly excited about being invited. He finally felt like his sincere effort had paid off.
Li Mu finally saw him as a friend!