After Lin Xin’s attempt to harass Shang Xiaoxia failed, the entire afternoon was spent strolling through the campus hand in hand with Cheng Shiyin, like a young couple. Aside from the nervousness that made his palms sweat and occasionally forced him to loosen his grip to wipe his hands on his pants, there was nothing else that dissatisfied him.
In the evening, Lin Xin saw Cheng Shiyin home, and they exchanged a sweet promise—”See you tomorrow.”
Afterward, Lin Xin happily skipped to the large department store near the school. After a three-minute session of single-arm dumbbell curls, Lin Xin ended up purchasing a simple 15-kilogram dumbbell. While working on his biceps, he hummed a song and leisurely walked back to the dorm.
Just as he opened the dorm door, a message from Shang Xiaoxia appeared. The message detailed the latest date she had arranged with Wu Lian after a day of push-pull tactics: “Tomorrow at 10:30 AM at XX Amusement World. As for the specific rides, I’ll choose them when I get there.”
The first thing Lin Xin did was forward the message to Cheng Shiyin, then he pinched his chin, troubled about how to tell Shang Xiaoxia the truth—he was a fraud. Lin Xin had no involvement with Wu Lian at all and certainly had no idea what Wu Lian’s approach was.
“Hey? Maybe I can do this!” Lin Xin slapped his right fist into his left palm, coming up with a pretty good idea.
He opened Baidu and searched using keywords like “love,” “confession,” and “tactics,” combining this with his knowledge of anime and common TV drama tropes that make people fall in love. Finally, he wrote the message in Wu Lian’s tone, pretending it was a forwarded message from him.
“Ah, the bridge effect. No wonder we’re meeting at an amusement park full of extreme rides. I’ll have to be careful not to mistake my racing heart for attraction.” Shang Xiaoxia wrote: “The atmosphere, huh? Don’t think the scene is romantic, and that the person walking beside you is your destined lover. I understand…” Shang Xiaoxia read each point carefully and came up with a perfect response plan, eventually sending a simple “Thank you” to Lin Xin.
Seeing Shang Xiaoxia’s reply, Lin Xin finally breathed a sigh of relief. He thought to himself, it’s lucky Shang Xiaoxia didn’t know that he wasn’t even friends with Wu Lian on social media, or his scheme would have fallen apart. If she found out he’d lied, he wasn’t sure how she would retaliate—her methods were far more cunning than anyone else’s.
With his mind finally settled, Lin Xin tossed the dumbbells aside and felt mentally and physically drained. At last, he could lie down and rest. But just as he was about to relax, his phone rang at the most inopportune moment. Lying back on the pillow, he didn’t even raise his head. Instead, he lazily reached out with his right hand, grabbed the phone, and pressed it to his ear while staring at the ceiling. “Hello?”
“Did you get back to the dorm?” The voice of Cheng Shiyin came through the phone, instantly energizing Lin Xin, as if he had been revived like a commercial for a candy bar. He immediately raised the dumbbell in his other hand and started working out while explaining to Cheng Shiyin, “I got delayed by something, but I’m back in the dorm now.”
“Good, good. I hadn’t heard from you in so long, I thought you’d run into some danger on the way back. I was so worried!” Cheng Shiyin’s voice carried a hint of reproach, but to Lin Xin, it sounded more like a spoiled complaint. If it weren’t for the dumbbells in his hands, he would have thrown them at Zhang Yun, who was sleeping, just to wake her up and share this concern with Cheng Shiyin.
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,” Lin Xin playfully apologized, using a teasing tone.
Cheng Shiyin, unable to resist Lin Xin’s flirtatious tone, responded in a similar teasing voice, “You’d better not!”
“Okay, I promise. We’ll make a pinky swear. One hundred years, no changing!” Lin Xin laughed.
“Anyone who lies turns into a little pig,” Cheng Shiyin said playfully.
Their conversation was so childish it felt like they were kids in kindergarten. Back in the dorm, except for Shang Xiaoxia, who hadn’t yet returned, the others had all been lulled into sleep by the broadcasting exercises. But Lin Xin’s 15-year-old cousin, who had stayed overnight at Cheng Shiyin’s house, was something else.
The cousin had been lying on Cheng Shiyin’s bed reading romance novels, and Cheng Shiyin hadn’t noticed when she returned. The cousin was completely absorbed in the sorrowful mood of the story.
Lin Xin’s cousin, who had been lying on Cheng Shiyin’s bed reading a romance novel, was in the middle of the scene where the male and female lead break up because of a misunderstanding. Tears were streaking down her face as she felt the sting in her heart. But then she overheard her cousin on the phone, playfully flirting with someone she didn’t even know. The sudden shift in atmosphere was jarring and she couldn’t ignore it. So, she decided to close the novel and take a small revenge on her cousin, who was wrapped up in her sweet moment, just to let her feel the “power” of being single.
“Who are you calling, daughter?” Lin Xin’s cousin lowered her voice, pretending to be Cheng Shiyin’s mother. Though it didn’t sound anything like it, only a fool like Lin Xin would naively respond, “Hello, Auntie, I’m Cheng Shiyin’s friend.”
However, Cheng Shiyin wasn’t using speakerphone to chat with Lin Xin, so the ridiculous remark was only heard by her. The cousin didn’t understand why Cheng Shiyin suddenly burst into laughter, thinking that the boyfriend on the other end of the line must have told her a joke. She decided to keep making her presence known, saying, “You’re only a junior, you can’t have a boyfriend yet. Wait until after you start working.” As she spoke, she pretended to grab the phone from Cheng Shiyin, staging a one-person play where a mother and daughter were arguing, continuously saying, “Mom won’t allow you to have a boyfriend.”
Although Cheng Shiyin was impressed by her cousin’s acting, the increasing volume began to disrupt her conversation with Lin Xin. She turned to her cousin, who was still “fighting with the air,” and said, half-jokingly and half-seriously, “I don’t have a boyfriend anymore, but I do have a girlfriend.” She pointed to her phone screen.
“Mm-hmm!” Lin Xin eagerly agreed, raising his voice in support of Cheng Shiyin’s words. But this brief moment of joy lasted less than a minute before Cheng Shiyin pulled him out of his happiness and back into the depths of despair.
Her cousin, still naïve and trusting of whatever people said, couldn’t tell if it was the truth or just a joke. Before Cheng Shiyin had finished speaking, she suddenly put up a defensive stance, as if saying, “Don’t come near me!” This made Cheng Shiyin laugh even more. The moment her cousin tried to sneak out of the room, Cheng Shiyin realized the situation was escalating. She quickly explained, “I’m just joking, and why are you so scared? Even if I like girls, I still have to choose someone, okay?”
Her cousin relaxed upon hearing the explanation, but Lin Xin was once again crushed by reality.
It was just a joke, after all.
Lin Xin quickly did two sets of arm exercises before finding a way to comfort himself: he was a man now, not a woman, and he wasn’t gay. It was possible that Cheng Shiyin, who liked men, could develop feelings for him.
As for the fact that Cheng Shiyin thought he was a woman, he decided to ignore it for the moment.
Before long, the two of them were back to their usual, unbearably sweet, cringy conversation style.
Zhang Yun and He Xiangtong had been sleeping peacefully, but suddenly, they were disturbed by the image of Nezha from One Hundred Thousand Cold Jokes, with a sweet face and muscular body. The next moment, the sweet face was gone, replaced by Lin Xin’s face, as he playfully used Zhang Fei’s deep voice to complain, “Ah, you’re such a pain~”
Both Zhang Yun and He Xiangtong startled awake, exchanged a glance, and immediately recognized the shared fear in each other’s eyes. They shivered and looked at Lin Xin. What they saw in real life was even more terrifying than in the dream:
Lin Xin, holding his phone in one hand, was sweetly chatting with some unknown “warrior” on the other end. In a tone like a child who had been bullied, he described the hardships he had been enduring lately—from his legs shaking with exhaustion to just having cut his finger while flipping through a book. The poor injured finger was now being used to help lift the 15-kilogram dumbbell, along with his other fingers.
Cheng Shiyin, who couldn’t see what was happening, could only hear Lin Xin’s complaints, so she comforted him. But Zhang Yun and He Xiangtong were disgusted by the whole scene. They could do nothing but mutter under their breath, “Ugh, crybaby.”
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152