Chapter 37: Qing Lin is a Girly Boy!

“According to the meteorological observatory, there will be several strong rainfalls in the coming days…”

The torrential rain warning from the radio, mixed with the faint sound of static, echoed in the taxi.
The downpour blurred the signs of the convenience stores on the roadside into hazy blocks of color.

The taxi driver, Old Zhang, pulled the car over and pulled up the handbrake.
He wiped his face and rushed into the nearby food stall in the downpour.

His friends had already ordered the late-night snack, and it smelled fragrant.
He greeted everyone and sat down.

He was a warm-hearted person.

But when he picked up a charcoal-grilled lamb kidney and was about to put it in his mouth, he suddenly turned his head and saw a figure swaying in the downpour in the alley across the road.

The person was hunched over, leaning against the wall.
His long hair, which had grown wild from lack of care, was stuck together in strands and hung down his chest.

‘Still out in the rain in such a heavy downpour. Is he a beggar?’

He couldn’t be bothered with the lamb kidney anymore.
Maybe that figure was a beggar.
The surrounding shopkeepers had all found him dirty and hadn’t let him in to take shelter from the rain, so he could only sway in the downpour.

Old Zhang hurriedly apologized, casually grabbed his friend’s umbrella, and rushed across the road.

He was a warm-hearted person and couldn’t bear to see anyone suffer.
With him and his friends around, they could at least let this beggar take shelter from the rain under the plastic canopy of the food stall.

Not to mention, they could also give him something hot to warm his body.

“Hey! Brother, are you okay?”

But when he rushed into the small alley in the rain and saw the beggar’s appearance, Old Zhang suddenly shivered.

The ashen face was dripping with water.
Rainwater had collected in his sunken eye sockets, like a melting wax statue.
His hand on the other person’s shoulder felt bone-chillingly cold.
The temperature was colder than a hairtail that had been frozen in a cold storage for half a month.

“I’m… fine…”

The beggar-like person’s hoarse voice was like rusty gears grinding.
It was as if he hadn’t spoken or seen anyone for a long time.

He threw Old Zhang’s hand away with surprising force.

Old Zhang staggered back.
A flash of lightning happened to light up the beggar’s wrist.
Under his pale skin, the dark green blood vessel patterns were like frozen tree roots.

Then he staggered into the alley, and the rain curtain soon swallowed his swaying figure.

Old Zhang stared blankly at his palm.
His rain-washed skin still had a sticky feeling, as if he had touched a bloated corpse.

Drivers who worked at night would always encounter some strange things that couldn’t be explained.
But this time, Old Zhang was really scared.

The downpour was so heavy it was like a waterfall was hanging from the roof of the dormitory building.
The bean-sized raindrops hit the window glass with a “pitter-patter.”

Bai Ling rested her chin on her hand and stared blankly at the water stains.

Since being sent back to the dormitory by Xu Zhi, the rain had been getting heavier and heavier.
She had heard that there would be frequent downpours recently.

September was the season for typhoons, but unfortunately, she had never liked downpours.

On the computer screen, the players and NPCs in the main city of the game were bustling about.
It was just that the dynamic weather system in the game had also just switched to a downpour.

This scene was quite a reflection of reality.

Thunder suddenly sounded outside the window, startling the girl so much that she shivered and nearly knocked over her water cup.

The reason she didn’t like downpours was that she had been afraid of thunder since she was a child.

“Which handsome guy dropped you back today? I saw you get out of someone’s car!”
Chengzi’s jasmine-scented shower gel suddenly attacked from behind her chair.
“The modified wheels on that SUV are so cool!”

“Fess up!”

This girl had just come out of the bathroom, still steaming.
The undried water droplets on the tips of her hair dripped onto Bai Ling’s shoulder with her movement.

“It was Xu Zhi! We’re just friends!”

While pulling Chengzi’s arm away, Bai Ling’s toes were also curled up, hooking the edge of her slippers.
“I’m playing a game! Don’t mess with me!”

“Tsk, tsk! You said you didn’t know him before, and now you’re friends. Are you going to be his boyfriend in a couple of days?”

Chengzi smacked her lips and ran off to harass Su Jiu Li.

But just as Chengzi had left, the half-demon assassin on the screen suddenly jumped in front of the snake demon swordswoman, Qing Lin, her fluffy fox tail swaying left and right behind her.

“Ciallo～(∠・ω< )⌒★！”

She made a peace sign.

“Big sis, where did you learn this move?”

Bai Ling furiously typed on the keyboard, and the snake demon swordswoman, Qing Lin, lightly tapped the half-demon assassin’s forehead with the back of her hand.

“Big sis wants to be cute occasionally too!”
The half-demon assassin stuck out her tongue.
“Let’s go! Big sis will take you to run a dungeon!”

“Duan Yue is ditching today.
Don’t slack off on your DPS.”

For some reason, the human knight, Duan Yue, was not online today.
The two of them had to wait to be matched with a random teammate to enter the dungeon.

Fifteen minutes later, a black octopus boss, covered in flames, crawled out of a sea of fire.

The screen full of lava special effects, which looked scary to a snake, made the snake demon swordswoman want to turn and run.
The firelight made her cheeks hot.

The boss battle settlement screen popped up in the blink of an eye.
Qing Lin’s DPS bar was pitifully short, like a matchstick next to the half-demon assassin, Ye Yuan’s dazzling golden output column.

“I said you were a brat, and you really are a stinky brat.”
The half-demon assassin pinched Qing Lin’s model’s face, and the game engine made the character’s cheeks look like a Q-bounce jelly.
“Look at your DPS! Is this the data your class should be doing?”

“Your DPS is even lower than that healer’s!”

“It’s just that I haven’t updated my equipment for a long time!”

While typing her defense, Bai Ling also pulled over the air conditioning blanket to cover her slightly cold shoulders.

“I?!”
The half-demon assassin was suspicious.
“Young man, do you have to be so cute?”

The girl’s keyboard-tapping movements suddenly stopped.
Qing Lin’s sword tassel froze in the pixelated maple leaf rain.

The static in her headset was mixed with the light laughter emoticon sent by the half-demon assassin.

‘Crap, why has the sky collapsed again?!’

She, who had been mistaken for a real girl by Xu Zhi, didn’t want him to know that she had been a boy half a month ago.
Recently, when chatting with Xu Zhi, she had been deliberately imitating a girl’s tone of voice.

As a result, after imitating and imitating, she had slipped up here.

When she had been interacting with this half-demon assassin, Ye Yuan, in the group chat, she had always used her former male identity.

“Could it be that the famous hentai artist, Qing Lin, is a girly boy?”
The half-demon assassin suddenly twitched her fox ears, her fluffy tail sweeping around Qing Lin’s feet again and again.
“Do you have to make big sis so excited!”

“Big sis will teach you how to draw human anatomy～”

“Get lost! You’re the girly boy!”

The veins on the back of Bai Ling’s hand bulged.
The snake demon swordswoman on the screen drew her sword and fiercely poked Ye Yuan’s forehead.

“I’ll sue you for sexual harassment!”

“How about this, since you’re in Lin’an now.”
The half-demon assassin said,
“We’ll meet up at the comic convention this weekend?”

“I…”

“If you don’t come, I’ll tell the group that the famous Qing Lin-sama is actually a girly boy!”

“Fine!”

Bai Ling gritted her teeth and replied.
The comic convention this weekend, wasn’t that just two days away?

What should she do now? With her current appearance, anyone who wasn’t blind could see that she was a girl, right?

Bai Ling didn’t expect that after her identity was exposed to Xu Zhi, it would be exposed to a netizen again.

“Eh? You’re going to a comic convention?”
Chengzi, who was munching on an apple she had snatched from Su Jiu Li, came over again, just in time to see the words Bai Ling had typed.
“Then how about you cosplay this?”

Her fingertip poked at the plain white, wide-sleeved dress of Qing Lin in the game interface.

“I happen to know a very good props master, the kind who used to be with a film crew.”

Su Jiu Li, who had come over with Chengzi, suddenly spread the book in her arms on the table.
With two fingers, she pulled out a props master’s business card from the pages.

“For the eye makeup, use snake vertical pupil contacts.
For the scales, use a special metal material… I can prepare a set for you tomorrow!”

“Get lost!”

The girl slammed her laptop shut, the hinge making an innocent creak.