A Familiar Face and a Growing Panic

“Not to your liking?” Jiang Chen suddenly asked.

“No!” She hastily shook her head, scooping a spoonful of porridge towards her mouth. The scalding heat instantly numbed her tongue, bringing tears to her eyes.

The sudden sting intensified the turmoil in her heart.

‘What if her parents found out? How would she even begin to explain?’

‘Could they accept their son, whom they had raised for twenty years, suddenly becoming like this? Just imagining their shocked and disappointed expressions made her feel a suffocating tightness in her chest.’

Then there was Jiang Chen.

‘Had he already noticed something? Those subtle, almost imperceptible glances, those occasional lingering gazes…’

‘If he knew, would he be disgusted? Or would he see her as some mutated species escaped from a lab?’

Her stomach felt as heavy as if she’d swallowed a brick; she had no appetite whatsoever.

The overly long strands of hair on her forehead hung down, almost falling into the bowl and blurring her vision.

Unconsciously, she used her fingertips to gather the stray lock of hair, tucking it behind her ear. This revealed the delicate curve of her pale ear and the slender line of her neck.

This subtly feminine gesture did not escape Jiang Chen’s notice.

Jiang Chen settled into the chair opposite her. He watched her nearly stir her porridge into a mush before unhurriedly opening his own portion.

“By the way,” he said, scooping a spoonful of porridge and blowing on it. “I’ve already requested leave for you with your Counselor and all your professors. Just rest well in the dorm for the next few days. If you have time, you can check the progress in the work group; Han Yan and I will keep an eye on things. No rush.”

“Mmm, alright.” Zhou Yi responded absently.

“Lin Wei,” Jiang Chen abruptly changed the subject. “She was asking about your team collaboration case in the group chat again this afternoon.” He paused. “I told her to come ask you directly.”

“You told her to come find me?”

“The part you’re responsible for—”

“Oh… alright.” She mumbled in response, her heart pounding frantically.

‘In her current state, even looking in a mirror required courage. How could she possibly face outsiders?’

“However…” Jiang Chen’s tone shifted. “I told her you were still running a fever and to contact you in a few days.”

Zhou Yi secretly let out a breath of relief.

“Speaking of which, this Lin Wei, I always feel like she looks familiar.”

“Isn’t that… at the sports meet, she came looking for Han Yan, so you would have seen her once already.”

“That’s true,” Jiang Chen nodded. “But I feel like… I might have seen her somewhere even earlier.”

“Really? Maybe we ran into each other on campus; I didn’t pay attention.”

“Not on campus.” Jiang Chen mused. “It was more like… on a bus? I can’t quite remember, but the feeling is very similar.”

“Is that… is that so?” Zhou Yi’s fingertips, gripping the spoon, trembled.

“And it wasn’t just her,” he continued. “There seemed to be someone else, who… looked quite a bit like you.”

Boom!

Something seemed to explode in Zhou Yi’s mind.

‘That’s impossible!’

‘That was the simulator! It was virtual! It was game plot that only she knew about!’

‘How could Jiang Chen possibly have any memory of it?!’

“A b-bus?”

She heard her own dry voice crackle. “Uh… Brother Chen, are you sure you’re not mistaken? I certainly haven’t seen her. Maybe Lin Wei just has a common face? Haha…”

She let out two dry laughs, finding even her own forced amusement awkward.

Jiang Chen observed the barely concealed panic in her clear eyes, and his initial suspicion solidified into a near certainty.

Yet, he maintained a placid expression, merely stating, “Perhaps. I might have gotten it mixed up.” He then lowered his head, scooping a spoonful of porridge from his own bowl, using the action to conceal the fleeting smile in his eyes.

‘Indeed, this ‘illness’ was ostensibly exclusive to Zhou Yi.’

‘While it still presented a myriad of paradoxes and unresolved mysteries, he felt he was getting closer to a core truth.’

“Mmm… this, this porridge tastes alright. Brother Chen, you should eat quickly too, don’t just talk…” Unable to meet Jiang Chen’s gaze, she hastily scooped up a large spoonful of porridge.

Disregarding the scalding heat, she haphazardly shoved it into her mouth, mumbling incoherently as she swiftly changed the subject.

Jiang Chen watched her ostrich-like posture, her face almost buried in the bowl, and her rapidly reddening ears. He decided not to press the issue further.

Graciously, he scooped a spoonful of porridge into his mouth, eating at a leisurely pace.

After a moment, Jiang Chen put down his spoon, wiped his mouth, and stood up, slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

“Eat slowly. I’m heading to class now.”

“Mmm.” Zhou Yi maintained her head-down posture, eating porridge. Only when she was certain Jiang Chen had left did she release a sharp breath, slumping entirely in her chair.

‘Oh my god, that was more exhausting than running three thousand meters.’

‘Jiang Chen… he shouldn’t have discovered anything, right?’

‘Don’t panic, don’t panic. She hadn’t done anything particularly outrageous.’

‘Besides, Chen Hao and Li Yanze, the two people who should have recognized her most easily, hadn’t recognized her either, had they?’

‘What did that imply? It meant that even though that guy Xiao Liang was usually unreliable, the core function of “heavily censoring the real world” hadn’t failed!’

‘She… she probably didn’t look like a real girl yet, did she? At least, she felt that if one looked closely, they could still discern some of her original features.’

‘At most… her contours had softened a bit, her skin had improved? Her voice might become a little finer in the future, and her chest… hmm, it had developed just a tiny bit?’

‘She was still far from being a true girl! Yes, far from it!’

‘It seemed… there really weren’t any flaws?’

‘Who knew that no one outside recognized her as truly being Shen Shaowei?’

This self-reassurance allowed her taut nerves to relax by a mere millimeter.

‘Perhaps she was just scaring herself. Jiang Chen might have genuinely just said it casually.’

‘The bus incident was probably something he’d mixed up, or perhaps he’d dreamt of someone who looked similar?’

‘Alright, alright, stop scaring yourself.’

‘The most pressing matter now was how to conceal these alarming changes on her body.’

‘A mask absolutely had to be welded to her face.’

‘If that wasn’t enough, she’d continue to feign lingering cold symptoms, speaking only a single word if she could manage it.’

The persistent throbbing pain in her chest and the undeniable fullness constantly reminded her of the harsh reality.

‘Loose clothing could only fool people from three meters away at most. The moment she made a slightly larger movement, or wore something a little more form-fitting, it would be directly obvious.’

‘Continuing like this was simply not a solution.’

‘She had briefly estimated in the bathroom just now; it seemed to be fluctuating between an A and B cup.’

She picked up her phone, her hands trembling as she searched for “how to conceal breasts.”

The results were varied and colorful: some recommended loose clothing, others mentioned sports binders, and there was even the outrageous “suggests facing yourself.”

‘How utterly refined.’

‘Forget it, a binder was probably the most reliable option.’

She began searching for “binders.”

Just typing out those two words required a surge of courage.

The product images that popped up made her cheeks burn.

Lace trim, bows, various suggestive skin tones and pinks…

‘Help, could she really wear these outside?!’

She gritted her teeth, quickly swiping past the gaudy options. She clicked on the plainest, all-black basic style. Perfect, this was it.

Her fingertips were still trembling as she added it to her cart.

Before paying, she inexplicably added a large black hooded hoodie to her order.