(1)
Everyone she met was kind, and everyone seemed to have a trove of stories to share.
The most fun part back then was pretending to be an adult, telling others stories she’d heard from someone else as if they were her own.
Thinking of this, An Jing suddenly felt embarrassed, her toes curling slightly.
Because during that period, she, who loved excitement, wasn’t content with chatting with just a few people using a male account.
A child’s heart is always simple—she wanted everyone to revolve around her.
So, she did something a bit complicated for her young self.
That was to pretend to be a young woman.
And to make it more convincing, she even used another account to prove she was indeed a “girl.”
Her ordinary daily life suddenly had something to look forward to.
At that time, her eldest sister’s father, the person An Jing called Uncle Jiu, had a very good relationship with her.
He was a young father—though to her childish self, he seemed quite “old.”
Because his workplace was close to the school, An Jing would run over to play as soon as school was out.
Uncle Jiu often worked overtime alone, so he was always happy to see her come to play.
When others left work, he would specifically set up a computer for her to use.
She didn’t play games much; she just chatted.
At that time, she pretended to be a grown-up girl whom she thought was very old—sixteen years old.
But many people online still treated her like a child.
However, this didn’t bother her; the feeling of being pampered was exceptionally delightful.
She chatted with everyone daily, fabricating bits of her life, both true and false.
Playing that gentle girl became a bit boring after a while.
So she started creating more drama, like creating a sub-account to pretend to be her boyfriend, then another to be her best friend…
It has to be said, An Jing might have been a genius in this regard; she even managed to chat with four or five accounts simultaneously without ever being exposed.
Years later, actually just late last year, having become very familiar with everyone, she finally decided to do something more to attract attention.
So, she staged a big breakup drama.
Of course, she acted it out with her own accounts.
Then, because the New Year was approaching and she had to return to her hometown island, she didn’t go online for over a month.
The “being hurt and breaking up” drama hadn’t even finished when it abruptly ended due to the server shutting down.
It hadn’t even been a full year, but now she felt like those were childish, silly things she did when she was little.
Adolescents always change a lot. Both physically and psychologically.
In just one short year, they can become completely different from before.
***
(2)
“…Was I ever that silly?”
An Jing covered her face, moving the mouse in a daze, scrolling through the groups she had once joined.
Some she even created herself.
At first, they were always lively, but slowly, they grew quiet, until complete silence.
The world of the internet seems to move ten times faster than the real world.
Becoming very familiar in just an hour, only to grow distant again in a few short days, and after a few months, it’s as if you never knew each other at all…
Wandering through this increasingly lively, constantly developing, and ever-changing online world, every person you meet feels like a close friend, and also like a fleeting passerby.
Suddenly, An Jing stopped.
She saw the QQ group with the same name as the chat room.
She didn’t know when she had added her to it.
When she clicked on it, the last message was from five months ago.
But it was so deserted, as if no one had spoken there for five years.
There were strangers on the list, but more often, they were familiar faces.
Several of them were even very close to her, especially one guy who had expressed his liking for her.
At that time, An Jing was very flustered.
Because she had been lying.
Something like pretending to be a girl would be discovered one day.
So that dramatic breakup was actually an attempt to find an excuse to disappear from that chat room.
However, the truth was she had overthought it. In the online world, often, people just leave without saying goodbye—there’s no real ending to anything.
The cursor in the chat box was blinking.
The boy who once pretended to be a girl had truly become a girl, and was indeed almost the age she had initially fabricated.
Only one year short of sixteen…
An Jing felt a bit dazed.
She subconsciously moved the mouse and sent a “head knock” emoji to the group.
It was her favorite one to use back then; to her, this emoji was as cute as a girl’s playful gesture.
The nickname displayed in the group was still her old online name—presumably, the group owner, who was already in her thirties, had changed her note.
Then her face began to burn.
During those few years in the chat room, she had changed her online name many times, slowly settling down until she consistently used this one, rarely changing it.
Taken alone, it was quite a girlish name.
But in reality, it was taken from the name of a female character in the popular novel “Shen Mu” (Divine Tomb) and used for herself.
And at that time, she was a bit too forceful in pretending to be a girl, always liking to call herself “this princess,” so much so that—
The group owner even named her “Chu Yu Little Princess” in the notes.
Although the room was empty, and she was just facing a computer without a camera.
She still felt as if she had been stripped naked and thrown onto the street.
—She wished she could dig a hole and crawl into it.
“Damn… I was so stupid back then…” she muttered angrily, wishing she could slap her past self a couple of times.
A Foolish Act
Playing the part of a girl just to get attention, how could she have done something so stupid?
An Jing, who often prided herself on being a true man, felt her face burning with shame.
But she also had to admit that those years of role-playing had indeed enriched her otherwise dull life.
The most crucial thing was that doing so would most likely expose her identity.
After all, she had never seen a boy bleed from his butt while sitting on a chair since she was little…
If something like that really happened, she wouldn’t even know how to explain it.
“So starting next Monday, during school hours, you’ll have to wear—”
“Huh?! No way?! So if it never comes, I just keep wearing that… whatchamacallit?”
“Xiao Jing, listen to me first.”
Yu Minghui turned around and took out two packages that looked like tissues from the TV cabinet drawer.
“Girls generally need to prepare two things: one is a pantyliner, and the other is a sanitary pad.”
“Is there a difference…?”
An Jing asked blankly.
“Pantyliners are for emergencies, relatively small and thin. You wear them when your period is about to come, just in case—after all, it’s not always precise.”
Yu Minghui spoke seriously, like a teacher, without any hint of joking.
“Sanitary pads are for when your period truly arrives. They have greater absorbency, and there are many types. Night pads are longer to prevent side leakage, and day pads will make you feel a bit lighter.”
An Jing twitched her lips, her head already starting to ache.
Those female characters in anime or games never had such troubles.
The girls in those fictional worlds always made people feel wonderful, so much so that An Jing occasionally had the thought, ‘it wouldn’t be so bad to continue being a girl.’
But now, she was back to reality.
In reality, even the most pure and flawless beautiful girl still had to go to the bathroom.
“Those are too complicated. Just use these two more common types for now, and then adjust based on your needs later.”
Yu Minghui placed the two packages of feminine products on the coffee table.
“Next, I’m going to teach you how to use sanitary pads and pantyliners. First—let’s look at the sanitary pad. It’s very simple to use, just tear here, and then…”
“Ah? You have to stick this on your butt? Won’t it hurt when you tear it off?”
An Jing blurted out.
Zhu Ying couldn’t help but cover her mouth and burst out laughing.
She wanted to explain something but was laughing too hard to speak.
“…You kid, are you missing a screw in your head?”
Yu Mingfei rolled her eyes impatiently.
“Stick this on your butt, how could you even think of that!”
Even Yu Minghui couldn’t help but raise the corners of her mouth, “Of course not like that…”
Zhu Ying beside her was already shaking with laughter.
“Nonsense!”
Yu Mingfei’s eyes were practically rolling into the sky.
“Like this…” Yu Minghui suppressed her laughter and began to demonstrate in front of An Jing.
“Assume this is underwear. You just stick it on like this. Make sure it’s stuck well; if it’s crooked, the effect will be worse. If it feels very damp and not dry enough, you should replace it promptly. When walking, be careful not to take too large steps. When sitting, sit properly. When sleeping at night, you can’t lie flat; you have to sleep on your side, and turn over occasionally.”
“Why?”
“…Idiot.”
Yu Mingfei crossed her arms, shaking her head helplessly.
“Because… it will leak out,” Zhu Ying finally joined the conversation, saying with her uncontrollable laughter.
“Won’t it leak out more easily if I’m on my side… Ahhh—this is so troublesome!”
An Jing gripped the meteorite around her neck.
“Meteorite, quickly change me back, please!”
“And then, Xiao Ying, I’ll trouble you to look after Xiao Jing at school.”
***
(3)
“Hahaha, I told you our little princess isn’t that old!”
“Isn’t it because you old farts raised the average age? Otherwise, why would our little princess need to pretend to be old to chat with us?”
“Exactly, I’m calling out ‘Past as Smoke’!”
An Jing’s typing hand stopped. In the chat box, “Actually, I’m a boy” remained, un-sent.
Actually, she was indeed a girl now; she wasn’t lying…
Just then, her phone suddenly rang.
An Jing picked it up blankly and heard a young man’s slightly hoarse voice from the other end, “Hello?”
“Hello? You are…?” she subconsciously replied.
“Hahaha, Chu Yu, you really are a girl! I’m Faded Blue Melancholy!”
“Eh?”
At this moment, another message popped up in the group:
“I called Chu Yu, and she really is a girl, and her voice is very cute!”
“Wow, what kind?”
“How good does it sound?”
“You’re hogging it, aren’t you!”
“I want to hear too!”
“Awooo—Little Princess, give us the number!”
“Purple Gold Dragon, have some shame, she’s only fifteen!”
“What’s there to be afraid of, I’m only seventeen too!”
“Besides Chu Yu, who’s the youngest?”
“Blue, I think he’s the same age as Chu Yu.”
“Wow—”
An Jing’s freshly made resolve and courage instantly drained away.
The weird shit we do as kids is just sometimes… unexplainable. I remember impersonating a minecraft YouTuber in a random server when I was a kid. Why? Idk.