Chapter 31: A boy!

“I can’t do this, I can’t…”

Bai Yao was panting heavily, his calves so sore and swollen that he could barely walk.

He was drenched in sweat, looking thoroughly miserable.

Although the Mount Liuping scenic area was well-developed, with wide stone steps leading all the way to the summit and convenience stores serving as rest stops along the path, he still couldn’t handle such high-intensity mountain climbing.

Qiu Ye, on the other hand, followed beside him with ease.

He was eating a grilled sausage he had bought at a shop and hadn’t broken much of a sweat.

“How can a man say he can’t do it? Since it’s useless anyway, you should just snip it off and become a girl.”

“No…”

Bai Yao struggled to even speak.

“It’s very precious to me, okay?”

“The sausage?”

He shook his head, unable to take anymore.

He turned around and flopped onto the steps, propping his arms on his thighs as he lowered his head to gasp for air.

His hair was a bit too long, and sweat dripped from the tips of his strands.

The wet hair stuck to his face, making him feel both uncomfortable and pathetic.

Tired to death, Bai Yao rested for a long while before noticing that his legs had unconsciously pressed together again.

He quickly forced his knees apart and looked up at Qiu Ye with a hint of guilt.

Qiu Ye stood at the edge of the steps with one hand on his hip, gazing at the city below.

He likely hadn’t noticed the behavior.

“Water.”

“Here. Is that our school over there?”

Bai Yao took the water bottle.

He didn’t care that Qiu Ye had already drunk from it; he tilted his head back and finished the remaining half in one go.

Afterward, he let out a long, refreshed sigh.

He finally stood up and followed Qiu Ye’s gaze.

Looking past the dense forest and shrubs, a flat urban area stretched out in the distance.

The buildings and streets looked as small and delicate as Lego blocks.

However, at a glance, Bai Yao only felt a sense of unfamiliarity.

After all, he had basically never left the campus since school started in September.

“Rested enough?”

The corners of Bai Yao’s mouth immediately drooped.

He flopped back down onto the steps in an act of total surrender.

Qiu Ye reached out and yanked him up.

“Let’s go, let’s go. There’s an escalator just ahead that we can take.”

“An escalator?”

Bai Yao was dragged up, looking half-dead.

His legs were so soft he could barely move.

“Or you could pay for the cable car?”

The cable car was understandable, but even mountain climbing had escalators now?

Bai Yao suddenly felt a surge of energy.

He mustered one last burst of strength just to see what a mountain escalator looked like.

He had never experienced one before!

[Exercise for 30 minutes completed. Daily Task finished. Reward: 100 cash. Additionally, your cardiovascular function, physique, and health have seen minor improvements.]

‘Damn! I forgot about this!’

Bai Yao quickly looked down to check his chest.

Perhaps the so-called “minor improvement” was too subtle, as he couldn’t see any significant change in his bust size.

‘Or did the improvement happen somewhere else?’

After climbing the steps for another ten minutes, a bustling rest area appeared before them.

With a look of utter despair, Bai Yao found a place to sit.

He kept checking his arms and legs, trying to find where his physique had gone wrong this time.

Qiu Ye went to buy water and snacks.

This guy’s mouth almost never stopped; he was either talking or eating, yet he never seemed to gain weight and possessed a well-proportioned figure.

“Auntie, can I sit here?”

“Auntie?”

Bai Yao felt a tug on his shirt.

He turned his head in confusion to see a little girl who looked like she hadn’t even started kindergarten.

She had twin ponytails and was looking up at him with wide, round eyes.

‘She’s so cute… Her cheeks are so chubby, I really want to pinch them…’

“Auntie, move over a bit. I want to sit here too.”

‘Where did this brat come from? I hate kids the most!’

Bai Yao only then realized that the title “Auntie” had been used on him.

He looked on in disbelief, took a deep breath to suppress his annoyance, and silently scooted his butt toward the edge of the bench.

‘I’m trembling with rage! Don’t get worked up over a brat!’

With a cold face, Bai Yao leaned against the armrest and played with his phone, glancing at the little girl out of the corner of his eye.

The child struggled to climb onto the bench and sat down.

Her feet couldn’t reach the ground, so they swung back and forth in the air…

‘So cute…’

“Auntie—”

Noticing his gaze, the little girl held out her ice cream.

“Do you want some too?”

“…”

Bai Yao really couldn’t hold it back anymore.

Lowering his voice and keeping his expression stiff, he tried his best to sound like a man as he pointed at his face to correct her.

“Look closely. I’m not an auntie…”

“Big sister?”

His fists tightened!

Qiu Ye approached with a grin and chimed in, “It’s big brother, okay?”

“Huh?”

The little girl’s brain seemed to short-circuit as she stared at Bai Yao in confusion.

Under that pure, clear gaze, and with Qiu Ye watching the spectacle from the side, Bai Yao’s face began to burn.

He weakly covered his face, got up, and walked away.

He felt defeated…

Although he had been mistaken for a girl by a dim-sighted cleaning lady before, she hadn’t seen his face then.

But that little girl just now had clearly looked at his face!

Qiu Ye jogged to catch up.

“Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom.”

“Then you’ll probably have to use the women’s room.”

‘No! A child of a few years old doesn’t know any better; it’s normal for them to lack the cognitive ability to distinguish gender. But how could an adult possibly get it wrong!’

Bai Yao glared at Qiu Ye in annoyance and walked straight into the men’s room.

The Mount Liuping scenic area was quite crowded, and the restroom was half-full.

Bai Yao first stopped at the mirror by the entrance to tidy himself up.

He washed his face and wiped away the sweat before turning to look toward the urinals.

Um… he felt inexplicably nervous.

‘What if I really get kicked out for being a girl?’

Bai Yao hesitated for a moment but eventually gritted his teeth and lowered his head, charging into the men’s room.

‘What is there to be nervous about! I’m a man to begin with!’

See!

No one called out to him, let alone kicked him out.

Bai Yao looked up, only to see a man who looked like he had seen a ghost.

The man zipped up his pants in a hurry and rushed out to avoid him.

“Male or female?”

“Male, probably?”

Confused whispers reached his ears.

Strange gazes landed on him, making his skin prickle.

His toes curled inside his shoes from the embarrassment, and his face turned bright red as he ducked into a stall.

‘I’m never using a public restroom again!’

By the time Bai Yao walked out of the men’s room, Qiu Ye had already been waiting at the entrance for quite a while.

“Aren’t you going to buy something to eat?”

Bai Yao felt his defenses crumbling.

He kept a cold face and didn’t speak, heading toward the convenience store with his head down.

“Young lady, that’s ten dollars total. Scan the code here.”

“…”

‘It’s probably because the last system reward made me look prettier that this is happening, right?’

‘And my hair really is a bit too long!’

Bai Yao felt that he had merely gone from having a “background character” face to a “delicate” face…

He found a place to sit and sighed deeply.

He tilted his head back, drank half a bottle of water, and took a savage bite out of a grilled sausage.

Qiu Ye sat down next to him, staring at his phone while playing Mahjong Soul.

“Qiu Ye.”

“What?”

Qiu Ye cried out in surprise, shoving his phone screen in front of Bai Yao’s face.

“Riichi Ippatsu! Look! Thirteen Fan!”

But Bai Yao didn’t understand Japanese mahjong at all.

He pushed the phone away, looked into Qiu Ye’s eyes, and asked with absolute seriousness, “Do I really look that much like a girl?”

“Do I really look old enough to be an auntie!”

‘So you’re more worried about that?’

Qiu Ye turned serious as well, looking him up and down.

Bai Yao quickly sat up straight, wearing a wooden expression and knitting his brows, trying to strike what he thought was his most masculine pose.

Hmm… he just looked adorably stupid.

It was fine to joke around, but Bai Yao was clearly being serious.

This made Qiu Ye rub his chin, carefully weighing his answer.

“Actually, it’s fine. You’re just a bit androgynous, I guess? You look like you’re maybe fifteen or sixteen.”

“Right!”

Bai Yao liked that assessment.

He also thought an androgynous style was quite cool!