18.1

Course Selection

That afternoon, when I returned to my dorm room, I saw Lil’ Second in front of the computer, her eyes aglow as her fingers tapped away on the keyboard.

I put down my bag and asked her, “Writing another draft, Second?”

Don’t look down on Lil’ Second because she seems vulgar. She’s actually an internet writer, and supposedly, she’s pretty well-known on a certain site. Of course, everything she wrote was BL. I haven’t read any of it, and truth be told, BL territory kind of scared me. One night, Lil’ Second was watching gay videos in the dorm room. I glanced over and nearly had a breakdown. Lil’ Second passionately explained that for ordinary people, the first time they saw a gay video with real people could be overwhelming, and she suggested that I simply watch it a few more times… My gosh. It wasn’t enough that I vomited once. She wanted me to vomit several times more? Did she take me for a masochist?

But anyway, while I was in awe of BL and BL fans, it was Lil’ Second who I really admired. I heard that she’d already posted several million characters worth of stories online. I also heard that she couldn’t get to sleep the night before the college entrance exams, so she spent all night writing a BL novella which brought her first slew of readers… Her attachment and dedication to writing was something I, as a fickle1 student, could learn from. Out of curiosity, I once asked her, “Lil’ Second, what does it feel like writing a chapter?”

To this day, I still remember her plucky reply. “Writing these things is like XXOO2. When you first start out, you’re expectant. As you continue posting, you feel excited. And when you finish a story, you feel happy but also kind of hollow.”

Boss and Miss Fourth had been present too. The calm and collected Boss and the formidable Miss Fourth both seemed dumbfounded by Lil’ Second’s description. It took them a while to regain their senses, let alone someone like me. After that day, I didn’t dare look down on Lil’ Second again.

From then on, whenever someone asked us what Lil’ Second liked doing, the three of us uniformly replied: She likes XXOO.

OK, I’ve gone quite off topic. Lil’ Second, who I’d thought had been writing a novel, replied, “No, I’m posting on a forum.”

“Oh.” Of course. A proper geek had to frequent forum boards.

Lil’ Second suddenly turned around and explained to me, “You see, a pervert’s appeared on the campus.”

Just then, Boss and Miss Fourth returned and overheard Lil’ Second’s words. Boss walked over to look at the computer screen. Then she said, “There really is. But are they all the same person?”

I wasn’t interested at all. “I’m not worried about perverts. I’m just worried about my finals.”

Boss turned and gave me a pat on the head. My hair was not yet an inch long, but I was still content with it. However short it was, it was better than having no hair.

Then Boss said, “Right, you don’t have to worry about it. Even if you did, you’d just be worried about female perverts, right?”

Lil’ Second agreed, “Blockhead, you really do look like a young boy right now. One that could cause some to drool a bit…”

I fumed. This was clearly discrimination because of my hairstyle. I knocked Lil’ Second’s head and said, “You’d drool because you’re retarded. That has nothing to do with me.”

Lil’ Second pushed away my hand and smiled gleefully as she announced, “When it comes to dealing with perverts, I have quite the constructive method.”

“What?”

Lil’ Second grabbed her chin and spoke seriously, “Find some boys as grand as Lu Zijian to round him up!”

The three of us were speechless.

This idea was too out of left-field.3