Crossdress Ch34part1

The cake Wen Sinian gave was sea salt coconut flavor. Xu Yan thought maybe Wen Sinian also thought the camellia one tasted better.

It was just a small piece of cake, shouldn’t be a big deal.

The skewers were done cooking, and the six members of their group gathered around the small table to eat.

Xu Yan really wasn’t very hungry. After finishing that piece of cake, he couldn’t eat anything else and just sat quietly by the side, waiting for the others.

The sea breeze was strong. His loose pant legs were blown around wildly. When the fabric stuck to his legs, the faint outline of chains underneath became vaguely visible.

Startled, Xu Yan quickly tugged at his pants with his hands, pulling the fabric away from his body.

Xu Wenwen, sitting next to him, noticed him repeatedly tugging at his pants and asked curiously, “These clothes are so expensive, are they uncomfortable to wear?”

Xu Yan lifted the fabric around his thighs and replied, “Maybe they just don’t suit me.”

Xu Wenwen said, “This outfit’s brand probably costs tens of thousands. Yours is even this season’s newest release, didn’t expect that from you, Yanyan. Got some hidden flex, huh?”

Xu Yan said quickly, “No, no, it’s fake!”

Xu Wenwen leaned in to scrutinize his pants more closely, nearly scaring the soul out of Xu Yan.

Wait, did she notice something…?

After a few seconds, Xu Wenwen sat upright and declared, “This material is definitely genuine. Stop lying to me. Where’d you get it?”

Xu Yan pressed his lips together and muttered, “Someone gave it to me.”

Xu Wenwen’s face lit up. “Ohhh~ I get it. Your partner gave it to you, huh? Then your partner’s got some real money. Still won’t tell me who it is? I’ve been dying of curiosity! Can’t you give me just a little hint?”

Xu Yan had made up his mind not to say anything. He turned his head slightly and looked at Shen Nanli with a pleading expression.

Shen Nanli understood immediately and jumped in to change the subject: “Hey, have you guys tried the cake yet? It’s really good! Didn’t expect Senior Wen to be so generous, he gave every group some. There’s just one small piece left. If no one wants it, I’ll take it.”

Sure enough, Xu Wenwen was distracted. “Save me a piece! I haven’t had any yet!”

She ran over to get the cake, and Xu Yan let out a quiet sigh of relief.

It was only 2 PM. There was still an hour before their scheduled meetup time.

A few other groups of students, restless after eating, were already playing around on the beach, some playing volleyball, some gathered to play cards, others taking photos by the water.

Xu Yan found an empty chair and sat down, looking out at the endless blue sea. His whole being seemed to turn blue and translucent along with the ocean.

He felt peaceful. Leaning back into the chair, he squinted comfortably in the breeze, his soft light brown hair fluffing in the wind.

A message popped up on his phone. He lazily half-opened one eye to check.

[Year]: Did you take it off?

Xu Yan pouted and sent a photo of his pants.

The wind acted like invisible hands, brushing and rubbing, pressing the thin fabric tightly against his long legs, outlining the shapes underneath. Beneath the cloth, faint lines appeared, curved and winding.

It was the leg chain, still obediently in place.

Even through the pants, a heated gaze could slowly trace over it, as if it could pierce the fabric and glimpse the enticing sight beneath.

[Year]: Good baby.
[Year]: Want a reward?

Xu Yan got curious and replied eagerly.

[Yanyan]: What reward?

[Year]: I’ll tell you later.

His curiosity was piqued. Xu Yan was about to send another message asking what kind of reward it was exactly when he suddenly heard voices behind him.

Turning around, he saw, it was Li Huaiche’s group.

The computer science department had about a dozen people attending. Everyone in Li Huaiche’s group was from the same class. Xu Yan only recognized Zheng Yao, he had seen him before at Wen Sinian’s studio.

Zheng Yao spotted him and waved enthusiastically. Xu Yan smiled politely and waved back.

Zheng Yao walked over, and Li Huaiche followed. The two sat down beside Xu Yan.

“Junior, long time no see,” Zheng Yao greeted warmly. “You’re here for the extracurricular credit too?”

Xu Yan replied, “I still need two more credits this semester. This activity should be enough.”

Li Huaiche looked a little confused. “Wait, you guys know each other?”

Zheng Yao explained, “Junior visited our studio before. I even helped fix his computer, on Wen-Ge’s orders.”

Xu Yan nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”

Li Huaiche scratched his head. “So that 20k setup you mentioned before… was for Xu Yan?”

Before he could finish, Zheng Yao quickly covered his mouth. “No no no, you remembered wrong. Xu Yan’s repair was, like, 200 max. That 20k one definitely wasn’t his. Don’t assume stuff!”

Li Huaiche obediently shut up, though still skeptical. “But didn’t you say you suspected Wen-Ge was dating someone? So was the 20k one for his girlfriend?”

Xu Yan sat beside them, quietly listening, glancing at Li Huaiche, then at Zheng Yao, trying to make sense of what they were talking about. He didn’t know anything about a 20k setup, but he had heard Lin Xingxian mention Wen Sinian having a girlfriend before.

If more than one person suspected it… maybe it was true.

Zheng Yao: “…That’s not his girlfriend!”

Li Huaiche wasn’t convinced. “Didn’t Wen-Ge send cake to every group today? And it was camellia-flavored, when has he ever eaten sweets? Must be his girlfriend’s favorite flavor.”

Zheng Yao looked puzzled too. “Now that you mention it, we’ve seen that brand of cake in the studio fridge before, but not that flavor. Then it mysteriously disappeared. None of us ate it, and Wen-Ge definitely didn’t. It was weird.”

Xu Yan (silently): “…”

Actually… he was that little ghost.

Just then, Zheng Yao’s phone rang. He didn’t even try to avoid them and answered right there.

“Hello, Wen-Ge.”

“Sure, that’s easy. I can do it from my phone.”

“No problem, give me a sec.”

After hanging up, he started tapping on his phone screen.

Xu Yan craned his neck to peek but couldn’t make sense of the tiny characters.

Li Huaiche asked, “What does Wen-Ge want?”

Zheng Yao, not looking up: “Trace an IP.”

Xu Yan had asked Zheng Yao to do that before, to trace Year’s location.

Li Huaiche looked confused. “He needs your help for that? Wen-Ge can trace IPs and even spoof them so well that you can’t trace them back.”

Zheng Yao was surprised. “Wait, spoofed IPs can’t be traced? I didn’t know that.”

Li Huaiche: “You know nothing. I saw him do it myself during a competition. He turned a Beijing IP into one from Haishi, and it stayed stable the whole time. No way someone with your level could trace that.”

Zheng Yao was devastated. “Then why’d he even ask me to do it? He could do it with a few taps!”

As they got into a heated technical discussion, neither noticed Xu Yan’s face had gone noticeably pale.

He couldn’t follow the jargon, but he understood the conversation clearly.

And more than that, he thought back to the Haishi IP address he’d seen for Year… Could that have been faked too? Did Zheng Yao fail to trace it properly?

“Senior,” Xu Yan suddenly thought of something and asked tentatively, “When you guys went to the competition in Europe, didn’t Senior Wen drop and break his phone?”

Li Huaiche and Zheng Yao both nodded.

“It broke. I remember it clearly,” Zheng Yao said. “All our phones were taken away during the competition, right? When we got them back, Wen-Ge’s phone had been accidentally dropped by one of the staff. He originally planned to get it fixed there, but repairing it would mean losing everything on the phone, including photos and WeChat messages, so he didn’t let them repair it. He brought it all the way back to the studio and fixed it himself.”

Li Huaiche added, “Yeah, yeah, I remember that too. After the phone broke, his face was terrifyingly cold. The staff member kept apologizing and looked like they were about to cry. Must’ve had something really important stored in it. Plus, he probably wanted to reply to his girlfriend, he disappeared for seven days, after all, had to check in.”

Zheng Yao glanced at Xu Yan and said, “I still kind of doubt Wen-Ge has a girlfriend, honestly. I mean, if they’ve been together that long, how come no one’s ever seen her? Don’t couples usually hang out a lot in the honeymoon phase?”

He spoke confidently: “What is this, an online relationship or something?”

Xu Yan’s eyes suddenly widened. He stammered, “O-online relationship…?”

Zheng Yao said, “Only thing that makes sense. Even that box of Patchi chocolates, probably just bought some for the studio while he was at it…”

Zheng Yao kept talking, but Xu Yan could no longer hear any of it. His mind was completely filled with overlapping images of Wen Sinian and “Year.”

The two silhouettes gradually merged, completely identical from head to toe.

Though their personalities were drastically different… they shared the exact same face.

Xu Yan’s fingers trembled slightly. Zheng Yao and Li Huaiche had returned to their group, leaving Xu Yan alone in his chair, dazed as he stared blankly at the sea.

All the previous coincidences no longer seemed inexplicable. All the excuses he had used to comfort himself no longer held up.

If…

If Year really was Wen Sinian, then those photos he had sent, wearing skirts, wearing leg bands, and chains,

Xu Yan wanted to bury his head in the sand like an ostrich, to avoid this utterly horrifying truth.

But they were still at a school team-building activity. There were students all over the beach, he couldn’t let anyone notice his strange behavior.

Clinging to one last shred of hope, Xu Yan took a deep breath and closed his eyes before opening his alternate account.

Just seeing the chat log with Year made his vision spin. Even the English letters of the contact name started to twist and distort in his eyes, eventually rearranging themselves into the name “Wen Sinian.”

Panicked, Xu Yan rubbed his eyes hard. The screen still said Year. No mistake.

His breathing turned shaky as he sent a message:

[Yanyan]: I want to ask you something. You have to tell me the truth.

The reply came instantly, as if the other person wasn’t busy at all today:

[Year]: Baby can ask anything you want.

[Yanyan]: Are you still in school right now, or are you already working?

[Year]: What do you think?

Xu Yan lied to himself: He’s always in meetings and working all the time…

[Yanyan]: You’ve already started working, haven’t you?

[Year]: Guess again.

Xu Yan’s vision suddenly went dark. He had never asked Year this question before, because Year had always made it seem like he wasn’t a student.

[Yanyan]: You… you’re not still in school, right?

The person on the other end seemed to be in a totally different mood.

[Year]: Just about to graduate.

Xu Yan nearly forgot how to breathe.

He was doomed.

Even their graduation Years matched up.

Xu Yan blinked rapidly, on the verge of tears.

[Yanyan]: Why didn’t you ever tell me you were still a student?

[Year]: Because baby never asked.

[Year]: …Or did you just never care about me enough to ask?

Xu Yan had no energy for that tangent. He continued questioning.

[Yanyan]: You know which school I go to… what about you? Which school are you from?

[Year]: Wanna guess?

[Yanyan]: Don’t tell me… it’s actually the same school as mine…

[Year]: Baby is so smart

[Year]: Don’t recognize me?

Xu Yan’s brain almost shut down. He took a few deep breaths, trying to keep from hyperventilating as his heart raced uncontrollably. He rushed to reply:

[Yanyan]: No. I don’t know you. I have no idea who you are.

Suddenly remembering something, he asked again for confirmation:

[Yanyan]: That night, why were you at the school gate? Don’t you live on campus?

He held his breath, staring at the screen and waiting.

The reply came quickly.

[Year]: I don’t live on campus.

[Year]: I had dinner with friends that night. I was waiting outside to see if you’d reply.