Chapter 62: Open Auditions
Maybe because his little sister had been gone from his life for a long time, Li Mu’s memories of her were overly sweet. He had naturally forgotten about her bad habits and annoying behaviors.
So when he heard Xiao Jing curse, he was a bit surprised.
But when he thought about it more carefully, back when his sister first started middle school, she went through a rebellious phase. She learned a lot of bad words from her classmates and wore edgy clothes with skull designs… Once, she even swore at home and got chased by their parents for two streets. After that, she behaved much better.
Still… if he was taking a shower just now, didn’t that mean the Xiao Jing inside his body had seen everything?
That strange thought popped into his head again, but soon Li Mu just stopped caring.
Yu Fan had also been seen naked, by both him and Xiao Jing.
And if his own sister had seen him naked… well, even though it hadn’t happened after they grew up, it had happened when they were kids.
He quickly wiped off the water from his body, changed into his big sleep shorts and a loose T-shirt, picked up his dirty clothes, and walked out of the shower room.
He looked around carefully. Not seeing the student who had shouted earlier, he relaxed a bit and walked back toward his dorm room.
But as soon as he entered, he heard his roommates chatting.
“I just heard a girl in the shower room!” Chen Zhihao was excitedly telling the others. “And it’s a man and a woman bathing together!”
“What the heck? That crazy?”
“Did you see what the girl looked like?”
“See what? She was in the shower, come on,” Chen Zhihao said. Then he turned his head, and saw Li Mu walk in with a dark, unhappy look on his face.
“Oh right, the guy’s voice sounded a lot like Li Mu’s,” Chen Zhihao added cheerfully. “If I didn’t listen carefully, I’d have thought there were two girls in there!”
Li Mu went straight back to his spot, his head pounding.
He really needed to find a way to move out of this dorm. It had only been two weeks, and his body was already becoming more and more like a girl’s.
And just listen to what those guys had said earlier, ‘no wonder some people like men.’
He looked down at his lower body, deeply worried.
If he really turned into a girl one day, even if he found his parents, would they even recognize him anymore?
“Hey, Brother Mu,” Zhao Pan suddenly said.
“What?” Li Mu crossed his legs and looked over at him.
Just two weeks ago, he had made fun of Zhao Pan for being too feminine, and now he looked even more feminine than Zhang.
The worst part? Zhao Pan had a girlfriend. He didn’t.
“Can you help cover for me during roll call tonight? I’m sneaking out to play.”
Now that’s rare.
Zhao Pan was usually quiet and shy. Sneaking out at night was something totally out of character for him.
Seeing Li Mu’s surprised look, Zhao Pan scratched his head and said, “My girlfriend came to see me.”
“Mm.” Li Mu nodded. “You handle roll call yourself.”
“......”
Tomorrow was the open audition.
Li Mu let out a soft sigh, slowly climbed into bed, and pulled the blanket over his head.
Since Lin Xi can no longer wander around in the dorm, the dorm's temperature no longer turns cold. They had to turn the air conditioner back on in the dorm… Xiao Jing, being inside his body, didn’t give off that eerie cold air like Lin Xi did.
To be honest, after getting used to that icy cold air, Li Mu found it hard to adjust to normal air-conditioning.
…………………………………………
The Next Day, Afternoon
Li Mu still hadn’t figured out a good way to hide his girly voice after being possessed by the ghost. He felt really troubled inside, but on the outside, he kept a straight face as he followed Yu Fan toward the dance room on the top floor of the school’s main building.
Li Mu had never been to the dance room before, but walking there felt very natural, like he already knew the way.
When he pushed open the glass door to the dance room, he saw that there were a few tables and chairs set up in the middle. In front of the tables were speakers and microphones. Behind them, many students were busy rehearsing.
“How much money do you get if you make it into the Top Ten Singers?” Li Mu quickly walked up to Yu Fan and asked.
“First place gets over a thousand, I think. Even the last place gets a hundred. The top ten singers get to perform on stage at the New Year’s celebration,” Yu Fan answered calmly, hands in his pockets, not looking nervous at all.
Since Yu Fan was one of the most popular boys in school, his appearance got the attention of a lot of girls. Li Mu quietly took two steps back and started observing what was going on.
Hmm… about a quarter of the girls were secretly looking at Yu Fan. Some were even talking about him out loud. A few brave ones went straight up to him to ask for his contact info.
Damn it, I’m jealous! Good looks and a nice personality really do make a difference.
Li Mu leaned back against the dance room's wall bar, crossed his arms, and occasionally glanced at the girls’ legs.
A lot of the girls auditioning were from the next class. For some reason, girls from that class liked to wear tight leggings, and all those long legs were kind of dazzling.
In the past, Li Mu would have been totally obsessed with those long legs. But now… he didn’t feel much at all.
Mine look better anyway.
The auditions hadn’t started yet. Li Mu silently looked at Yu Fan, who was slowly getting surrounded by more and more girls, his eyes filled with a tiny bit of jealousy.
And this guy still complains about not having a girlfriend? If he picked any one of these girls and said something nice, he’d have a girlfriend instantly!
This is like holding a mountain of gold and still saying you're poor!
Li Mu kept his face expressionless, watching everything coldly. He let out a quiet sigh in his heart, wondering what had blinded these girls, that they could actually like a black-hearted guy like Yu Fan.
“That guy who came with Yu Fan is pretty handsome too! Just looks a bit cold,” one of the girls nearby said.
Li Mu’s ears twitched slightly, but he kept his cool and continued listening.
“He looks kind of girly, like a pretty boy.”
“But he is good-looking!”
Right? Of course he is!
Before, he might’ve only been called delicate-looking, not quite as handsome as Yu Fan, whose face could basically belong to a movie star. But now, after his face had become more feminine, he could also pass for a celebrity… though more like a K-pop idol.
No matter what, hearing girls call him handsome made Li Mu feel secretly happy inside.
“I want to draw a comic of him and Yu Fan together. Don’t you think they look good as a couple?”
“???” The corner of his mouth twitched.
“Yeah! The cold one as the 'bottom' and the warm, sweet one as the 'top'!”
Where the heck did these fujoshi come from?!
Just as Li Mu angrily started scanning the room to find the girls who said that, the dance room door suddenly opened again.
He turned his head and saw three music teachers walk in.
Since the vocational school didn’t offer music as a major, there were only a few music teachers. It was said that one of them was actually an intern from a nearby university.
“Quiet, quiet, get ready to start the auditions. Everyone gets 30 seconds on stage. That includes a self-introduction and singing without music,” said one of the teachers.
Then, a student standing beside the teachers picked up a microphone and shouted, “First up, Lin Xi!”
“Lin Xi! Is Lin Xi here?”
“......”
Li Mu felt a sharp pain in his heart.
The sign-ups for the Top Ten Singer competition had happened right at the beginning of the semester. Lin Xi had also signed up at the time.
But after her suicide, the school didn’t really pay much attention to it. Maybe some students had heard that a girl jumped off a building one night, but they didn’t know her name.
Li Mu lowered his head, feeling even more down.