Chapter 5 : Even as a Girl, I Still Have to Face the Start of School!

As the girl dragged her suitcase through the crowd, the late-August cicada song, wrapped in a heatwave, rushed to meet her.

The heat haze rising from the asphalt road distorted the halos of light.
She raised a hand to shade her brow.
The four large characters for “Lin’an University” shone brilliantly under the scorching sun.
The girl gazed at the surging crowd and suddenly stopped.

She had imagined this day many times.
‘Xu Zhi would be standing under the sycamore tree by the gate, dappled sunlight falling on his brow, and she would run up, treading on the late-summer heat, and jump up to pat his shoulder.’

‘”Hey! Blind Xu! You promised to treat me to a meal, don’t you dare try to worm your way out of it!”’

The line, long since rehearsed in her mind, rose from her throat but stopped at the tip of her tongue.
The girl subconsciously bit her lip.

‘Who could she say those lines to now?’

The flow of people at the registration area was like a rising tide.
Parents bustled about, carrying paper bags plastered with logos.
Someone’s rolling suitcase ran over her canvas shoe.
Everyone’s face was brimming with a bright smile.

The girl dragged her suitcase through the crowd, like a small beast, separated from its pack and lost in a strange jungle.

“So old and still need their parents to bring them…”

She suddenly kicked a loose stone by the roadside, muttering in dissatisfaction.

‘She wasn’t envious at all, really.’

But then she couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if her mom had brought her.

‘Perhaps that headstrong woman would have arranged everything for her without taking no for an answer.’

‘Forget it, Bai Ling. You can’t even remember that woman’s face clearly, can you?’

“Junior! Need some help?”

A tall boy suddenly popped up beside her.
He had a student council ID hanging on his chest and flashed a friendly smile, revealing two rows of teeth under the blazing sun.

Startled by the senior’s sudden appearance, the girl’s back instantly stiffened, and she couldn’t help but take a few steps back.

But once she registered what was happening, she shot a glare at the senior who had popped out and startled her.

“I’m a guy! Are you blind?!”

‘Seniors who eagerly offer help to cute junior girls during registration are usually just looking for a way to get their contact info, hoping to spark a relationship later on.’

‘She used to be a guy, how could she not understand this kind of thing?’

The boy’s outstretched hand froze in mid-air.
The girl had already grabbed her suitcase, turned, and plunged into the crowd.

The crowd carried her along towards the registration desk.
A charm on some parent’s suitcase brushed against her calf.
The girl suddenly raised a hand to wipe the sweat from the back of her neck.
Her fingers swept through her long black hair, releasing a faint fragrance like osmanthus.

‘Speaking of which, her official information still listed her as male.’

‘She might be assigned to a male dormitory, starting a four-year life of living day in and day out with a few guys, just as it was originally supposed to be.’

‘But now?’

The girl unconsciously toyed with the ends of her hair.
‘Looking like this, she probably wouldn’t survive a single day in a men’s dorm.’

‘Maybe I should just rent a place off-campus?’

The queue moved like a game of Snake.
Before she knew it, it had pushed the girl to the front of the registration desk, where a senior in charge of registering new students was clattering away on his keyboard.

“Name, acceptance letter.”

The senior jabbed a dot of ink onto the registration form with his ballpoint pen.
He was too busy to even look up.

“Bai Ling. Here’s the acceptance letter.”

The girl’s clear voice was like a wind chime tinkling in the summer breeze.
She pulled out the letter in such a hurry that her phone charger, headphones, and other small items tumbled out and spun on the desk.

“Bai Ling… Female Dorm, Building 12, Room 606.”

His thumb, stained with red ink from the stamp pad, pressed the proof of accommodation slip onto the desk and pushed it towards her.
“Take this to the dorm manager to get your key. Remember to pay the two-hundred-yuan deposit.”

‘Eh?’

‘Female dorm?’

‘Shouldn’t my student record say male? Did he make a mistake?’

The girl was about to speak, but the question forming in her throat was cut off by the noise from behind her.
The senior was already shouting for the next person, ushering her away.

The girl stood there in a daze, holding the proof of accommodation.
Outside the registration area, the blazing sunlight fell on the small slip cut from an A4 paper.
The red official seal gleamed under the sun, so bright it hurt her eyes.

‘Do they not even check student records during registration anymore?’

‘What if other students with androgynous appearances, boys who look like girls or girls who look like boys, get assigned to the wrong dorms?’

‘Thankfully, apart from the ‘male’ gender on her ID card, she was a girl through and through in every other aspect. Otherwise, that senior would definitely be punished, right?’

‘No matter how you look at it, assigning a male student to a female dorm has to be a huge screw-up, right?’

“Excuse me, coming through!”

An uncle dragging a large woven bag brushed past her, startling her so much that she loosened her grip, and the slip of paper fluttered to the ground on the wind.

The girl bent down to pick up the accommodation slip, but a hand suddenly appeared and picked it up first.

“Hm? You’re in Building 12 too?”

The owner of the hand had tips of her hair highlighted in a sunset-orange hue.
She tilted her head, looking from the slip of paper to the girl.
“Wow! Room 606, you’re my roommate!”

“My name is Cheng Zhi Qiu. You can just call me Chengzi.”

The girl, Chengzi, handed the accommodation slip back to Bai Ling and extended her hand.
“All my friends call me that.”

“I’m Bai Ling. You nearly scared me to death!”

The girl also extended her hand to shake hers.
The silver bracelet on Chengzi’s wrist suddenly slipped down, clinking softly as it hit the back of their joined hands.

‘Even though she had been inexplicably assigned to a female dorm, thankfully, she was now a girl through and through.’
‘The good news was that she wouldn’t have to rent a place for now. The bad news was that if the fact she used to be a boy was exposed, it would probably be a much bigger deal than just a campus-wide announcement.’

“Did you also come to register by yourself?”

The girl’s gaze flickered between the silver bracelet on Chengzi’s wrist and the orange tips of her hair.
She didn’t seem to have any parent-like figures helping with her luggage.
A huge suitcase trailed at Chengzi’s heels like a pet following a player around in a game.

“Yeah, carrying all this luggage by myself is exhausting.”

As if by magic, Chengzi produced two ice cream cones from somewhere.
“Want one? It’s a matcha swirl.”

“Oh, thank you…”

The moment the girl took the ice cream, a cold sensation spread from her fingertips to her heart.
The cold feeling gave her a strange urge to devour it.

“My dad’s probably still slogging away at overtime right now.”

Chengzi tore open the ice cream wrapper with her canine teeth, the silver hoop in her ear swaying.
“He was supposed to drive me here, but a few days ago he said something urgent came up, and I haven’t seen him since.”

“That’s really unlucky…”

The girl licked the ice cream.
The sensation of the cold cream sliding down her esophagus was a bit addictive.

The two girls ate their ice cream while sheltering in the shade of a camphor tree, chatting aimlessly and watching people come and go in the summer heat.

In the mottled shade of the camphor tree, the patches of light filtering through the leaves looked like shattered glass scattered on the ground.

“Oh, right!”
Chengzi suddenly threw her finished ice cream wrapper into the trash can.
“Need help carrying your luggage?”

She struck a pose as if showing off non-existent biceps, flashing the girl a confident smile.

“That won’t be necessary. I’m actually pretty strong…”

the girl said, staring at the dappled sunlight on the ground.