Chapter 101: Running Into Someone I Know While Dressed Like a Girl
That whole night, Lin Muqing was carried through a bunch of dungeons by her online friend. They even managed to steal a world boss together. It was super exciting. Normally, whenever she saw a world boss, she’d just avoid it.
With her bad gear and low damage, even if she joined the fight, it wouldn’t help much. It’d be like scratching the boss with a feather. Plus, with so many rich players around, there was almost no chance she’d land the final blow. But this time, with her rich online friend and all the other powerful players he brought along, no one even dared to come close during the boss fight.
Long story short, it was thrilling. Even though she wasn’t a pay-to-win player, she got to enjoy the same kind of fun as one.
So if you round it up, she’s kind of a pro now too, right?
[Old Iron: Go to sleep early. I’ll take you again next time.]
[Mumu-chan: Got it! Bye, Gouzi~]
When they had played enough, her online friend sent that message and logged off. She checked the time, it was indeed getting late.
But she wasn’t in a rush. She wasn’t going out with her bestie until the afternoon tomorrow, which meant she could sleep as late as she wanted.
She logged off, shut down her PC, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and got into bed. Just as she was about to scroll her phone a bit before sleeping, she suddenly remembered something.
[Mumu-chan: Hey, did you forget something?]
She sent her online friend a message along with two funny memes.
[Old Iron: ?]
He seemed confused and replied with a question mark. Looked like he really did forget.
[Mumu-chan: Before you logged in, you said you’d send me lewd pics. Funny.jpg]
[Old Iron: "Hehe~"]
Her online friend was quick. Soon after, he sent her a fresh set of lewd images, and they were the high-quality kind, too. Pretty much all of them were her favorite type. Very impressive.
Looking at the pictures, Lin Muqing laughed strangely while rolling around on her bed, clearly excited. The night passed quickly. At one point, she almost got her panties wet for some... strange reasons. Luckily, thanks to her skills, she managed to stop that from happening.
The next morning, Saturday, Lin Muqing didn’t know how long she’d slept. She just knew that for once, she was fully rested. And when she got up, she wasn’t even thinking about breakfast. What mattered now was what to do for lunch.
[Sister Yu: Lunch? Just come straight to the cafe.]
She happened to be chatting with Sister Yu and brought up the topic. Originally, she was just going to cook some noodles and keep it simple.
But after seeing that reply, she gave up on that idea. She quickly got ready and headed out, catching a bus outside her apartment to go to the cafe.
Of course, before going out, she made sure to put on the outfit her bestie gave her. A pair of hot pants and a T-shirt. It was a pretty loose and comfy outfit. As for her hair, she didn’t really know how to style it, so she just let it fall naturally down her back.
On the bus, Lin Muqing held onto a rail with one hand and leaned slightly against it. With the other hand, she was chatting with her online friend on her phone.
Just after she finished chatting, put her phone back in her pocket, and looked up to check the stop, the bus suddenly slammed the brakes.
Luckily, she had already put her phone away and had some dumbbell training experience, so she quickly steadied herself.
But not everyone was as steady as her. For example, a girl standing nearby couldn’t keep her balance.
“Ah—!”
With a surprised cry, the girl, still holding her phone, fell forward and landed right in Lin Muqing’s arms.
“S-sorry! Are you okay?”
After realizing what just happened, the girl quickly pulled herself out of Lin Muqing’s arms and started apologizing frantically.
What she didn’t notice, though, was that the moment she looked up to apologize, Lin Muqing’s eyes went wide with shock.
“I-I’m fine...”
After the shock came a wave of awkwardness, because the girl standing in front of her was none other than her class monitor, Zhang Xiaoling.
As soon as she realized this, Lin Muqing quickly turned her head, trying hard not to let Zhang Xiaoling see her face.
But what Lin Muqing didn’t expect was that not only had the other girl seen her face. She had recognized her too.
“Hey, it’s you!”
“No! That’s not me!”
Hearing the excitement in Zhang Xiaoling’s voice, Lin Muqing replied instantly and quickly turned her head even further away to avoid eye contact.
“I remember you! You’re that cat—mmph!”
“You’ve got the wrong person!”
Just as Zhang Xiaoling was about to say those deadly words, Lin Muqing spun around, reached out, and covered her mouth. There was no way she was letting her say the rest of that sentence. Not here on the bus, where it would be social suicide!
“Mmff?! Mmm!”
Zhang Xiaoling blinked in surprise, stunned for a second. Then she seemed to realize they were on a crowded public bus, and finally stopped struggling. But the excitement on her face didn’t go away at all. She looked just like a fan meeting her favorite celebrity and was clearly dying to talk more.
“Ahem, I’m just a normal person,” Lin Muqing said, pulling her hand away and covering her own mouth to fake a cough, trying to hide how awkward she felt.
Seeing Zhang Xiaoling’s excited expression calm down a bit, Lin Muqing relaxed slightly. Thank goodness, maybe she didn’t really recognize her.
“Mm-hmm!” Zhang Xiaoling nodded enthusiastically, clearly thinking that Lin Muqing was just trying to stay low-key and not reveal her true identity.
“You live around here too?”
“Uh, sort of…”
Then came a string of questions from Zhang Xiaoling. Lin Muqing answered them carefully, afraid that one wrong word would give something away.
The only good thing was that none of the questions were about Lin Muqing. They were all about the cat-eared maid character.
As she glanced up and saw that her stop was just one station away, Lin Muqing silently prayed for the bus to go faster.
But of course, the more she feared something, the more likely it was to happen.
“You know,” Zhang Xiaoling said, “you kind of remind me of a friend of mine.”
“…?”
Lin Muqing turned to look at her with a bit of confusion, and a bad feeling in her gut.
“He’s a guy in my class. His name is Lin Muqing.”
“!?”
“It’s such a nice name! At first I even thought he was a girl. Don’t you think it sounds like a girl’s name too?”
Zhang Xiaoling looked at her again, eyes sparkling with curiosity.
“Uh… yeah, it’s a nice name,” Lin Muqing replied awkwardly.
Talking about that name almost made her heart jump out of her chest. She was so nervous she could barely breathe! And she definitely couldn’t explain anything, because right now, that name did belong to a girl.
“Ahem, this is my stop. See you around, maybe!”
Right on cue, the bus dinged with the next stop announcement and the doors started to open.
Without a second thought, Lin Muqing tossed out that line, turned around, and jumped off the bus.
She didn’t want to stay there even one second longer!