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“Don’t blame yourself for this, Prince. After all, there are too many girls out there who like you. There’s just no way you could possibly return all of their feelings,” Yu Lian said gently.
“But…” Prince frowned. The problem was that he- or rather, she - was a girl, and it remained a fact that she had lied to all those girls…
“But what?” There was a slight note of coerciveness in Yu Lian gentle voice as she asked.
“Err…” His face paled. Did he really have to come clean with them? Is today the day that the truth got revealed?
“Prince, what is it that you’ve been lying to everyone about…?”
“I…” He hesitated, then came to a conclusion. They might feel betrayed - Gui, especially - but he wanted to come clean. Continuing to deceive them would be unfair, and at this point, he doubted that they’d change the way they treated him - or her. They knew each other well enough that gender shouldn’t matter. “I’m a girl.”
He forced the words out before Yu Lian could interrupt, though he could see her mouth already moving to form words.
The others stared at him in surprise, dumbfounded.
The silence was broken by two people speaking at once - Lolidragon and Yu Lian.
“I see, so that’s what you want to do.” Lolidragon mused, before her rare pondering expression changed to a sharp grin. Her relish was almost tangible, and Prince could practically imagine her eating popcorn as she watched the events unfold.
At the same time, Yu Lian spoke up. “I thought it was impossible to switch genders in Second Life ?”
Ignoring Lolidragon for the moment, Prince answered Yu Lian’s question. “Ah… you see, it’s my brother’s fault, really!” He started, then backtracked. “Technically, it is impossible, but I was the first person to log into Second Life . Lolidragon, back me up!”
Under their combined gazes, Prince felt rather cornered. Doll,Yu Lian and Wolf-dàgē looked appropriately shocked, while Lolidragon was just enjoying the show. On the other hand, and Gui’s expression was carefully blank.
“Ehh?? Why are you bringing me into this all of a sudden?” Lolidragon asked frantically, glaring daggers at Prince.
“Well, it’s because you’re-” Lolidragon leaped towards him at speeds he didn’t think were possible for a game that had a 99% realism level. Before he could continue speaking, she clamped her hands over his jaw, stopping him in his tracks.
“ Careful with what you say! ” She PMed him.
A sheepish expression appeared on his face, as she quickly made excuses to the rest of the party. “-because I’m the first person that you met in Second Life , haha…” She laughed weakly.
“ Right, sorry! ” He PMed back.
Doll seemed to eat her tale up. “Oh, so that’s how it is!”
The others appeared more sceptical, but didn’t challenge the story when Prince nodded along.
“I see.” Yu Lian said, reasonably, being the most ‘normal’ person in their party. “Thank you for confiding in us, Prince. We won’t let this leave the party.”
The rest of the party chimed in, affirming Yu Lian’s statement, save for Gui. Gui, whose brain was whirring away so quickly that the gears turning in his head were almost audible. The situation, apparently, had necessitated the emergence of the Gui with 200 IQ.
“Gui?” Prince asked, hesitantly.
“So that was why, at the beginning of the game…” Gui spoke aloud. “I see…”
“I’m sorry for deceiving you.” Prince said, bowing his head to avoid the inevitably crestfallen look that he expected Gui to give him once he snapped out of ‘thinking’ mode.
“And I, you.” Gui said, unexpectedly, though he still sounded somewhat dazed.
Prince’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Well…” Gui started, then looked around at the people surrounding them.
While they were doing their best to appear as though they weren’t listening, sensing that it was a personal matter (minus Lolidragon, who had somehow procured pocky and was cheerfully munching away), it was impossible to disregard their presence.
To combat this, Gui opted to speak via PMs. “ In the beginning, I thought it was amusing that you thought I was gay, so I decided to act like one for you alone. Your reactions were really quite entertaining. ”
Prince shrank at that admittance. Act …ing…?
Gui continued hastily, not wanting to hurt his feelings any further. “ But that was only initially! I… I thought on it extensively after Lolidragon asked me a question and… ” He took a deep breath, then said his next words firmly, with great conviction. “ I firmly believe that who you are now is the true you, just as the person I am right now is the true me. Everything else is of no importance - be it gender, appearance, or even the facades we assume in real life… none of those are important. ”
“ Then does that mean… ” Prince started.
“ No matter who you might be, male or female, I don’t mind. I like you all the same. ” Gui reiterated.
“Thank you…” Prince said softly.
Their relationship might change following the revelation, but now, Prince had confidence that it wouldn’t shift too much. However, Gui’s words did make him curious…
“ Does that mean that Professor Min is just a facade, then? ” He asked, before he could think of what he was saying.
Gui levelled him with a look that was halfway between surprise and shock, freezing on the spot. Realising his mistake, Prince quickly backtracked.
“Don’t answer that, don’t answer that.” He stammered, drawing the attention of the rest of their teammates. “Please forget that I ever asked that question.”
“So you do … attend XXX University? ” Gui raised an eyebrow, a smirk that was incredibly uncharacteristic of Professor Min - but wasn’t out of place for Gui - forming.
Lolidragon whined as she caught them staring at each other again, a clear indicator of their use of the Private Messaging system. “Stop being so secretive - I want to know what’s going on!”
“Lolidragon…” Prince growled, turning to her.
“ I’ll talk to you later. ” Gui said, the smile remaining plastered across his face as Prince took out his black dao and started to stand. Prince noted his words, but didn’t respond, now tunnel-visioned on Lolidragon’s avatar.
Lolidragon glanced around them, looking desperately for help, but none of their teammates rose a finger. “You guys …” She hissed, then spotted her saviour. Grabbing a bao from the table, she stuffed it into Prince’s mouth, forcing him back into his seat at the same time. “Sit! And eat!” She ordered him.
With the sweet-and-salty taste of the bao spreading across his taste buds, Prince happily obeyed. Though he hadn’t been able to pick up his chopsticks earlier, the weight lifted from his chest upon his disclosure of his secret allowed him to freely eat now.
Lolidragon breathed a sigh of relief. Thank the heavens that Prince was so easily distracted.
“Why did you want to gender-swap anyway, Prince-jiějie?” Doll asked, once the dust settled.
“Oh,” he said, realising that he’d never explained. “My twin brother said that I couldn’t beat him at levelling if I didn’t get guys to power-level and carry me.” His blood was boiling at the thought. “So when I joined Second Life , I asked if I could play as a guy to prove him wrong.”
“Doll understands now!” Doll cheered. “That makes a lot of sense.”
“I apologise again for the deception.” Prince repeated, realising that though he’d said as much to Gui, he hadn’t done so for the rest of the party.
Yu Lian waved his apology off. “Prince, you don’t have to fret over something like that. Everyone conducts themselves differently on the Internet than they do in real life.”
“I guess…”
“Yu Lian makes a good point, your highness.” Gui pitched in, his in-game mannerisms slowly slipping back into usage. “Even I conduct myself differently than in real life.”
“You don’t need to state the obvious, professor.” Prince muttered under his breath, remembering the shock she’d experienced when she’d walked into the classroom to see Gui standing in front of the class.
Wolf-dàgē caught his mutterings. “Professor…? Prince, you’ve met Gui in real life?”
Prince cursed. Right, Wolf-dàgē was the school’s clinic doctor, wasn’t he? He’d forgotten that - and the fact that Beastmen had better hearing than most other races…
“I might… have…”
Doll gasped. “You all know each other in real life?”
Wolf-dàgē turned to her. “I’m the clinic doctor at a University that Gui has recently started teaching at.”
“I don’t know them.” Lolidragon shrugged, and Yu Lian, similarly, shook her head.
“Gui is a teacher?” Doll asked next, the tidbit of information fascinating her.
“I teach literature.” Gui told her. “I’ve only just started, though.” He got out, before sinking back into that thoughtful pose as his expression became more serious.
They stared at him as he pondered. It took a moment, but soon, Gui’s eyes lit up like stars. “Your highness, could you be…?” This time, Gui didn’t finish his statement via PM, a delighted expression on his face. “You were right in front of me, weren’t you?”
Lolidragon and Wolf-dàgē were the only ones who had the remotest idea of what was going on - Yu Lian and Doll simply watched on in bemusement.
Prince thought back to the one and only class she’d had with Professor Min. His appearance had scared her half to death, and she had stood there dumbfounded in the doorway - because she had been late - meaning that he had probably taken note of her for that reason.
“I-” Prince started.
Gui cut him off. “I’ll see you in the real world,” he said, unwavering certainty and warmth in his voice, “It’s only fair that we settle things there, is it not, Prince?”
Those words filled him with trepidation, but Prince agreed. It was only fair. “Alright.”
-
The moment that Feng Lan walked into the classroom, she knew that Gui - or as he was in the real world, Professor Min - had guessed correctly when it came to her identity. She had been careful to be on time, waking and hurrying her brother along on the way to school.
He had protested, but then she had brought out her ultimate weapon - the threat of not cooking for him for the next few days. Yang Ming had caved quickly after that.
Yet despite her efforts to not stand out, his gaze had been fixated upon her since she walked into his class. Yun and Jing - once she arrived, a little bit after Lan had - had picked up on this pretty quickly.
“Don’t say a word .” Feng Lan hissed, staring them down.
Whatever expression she must have been making must have been intimidating enough, because they zipped their mouths shut almost immediately.
“Got it.” Yun squeaked, even as the feeling of Professor Min’s eyes boring holes into her intensified.
She got through most of the class without much more trouble - as soon as Professor Min started teaching, he’d focused himself on the material rather than her, and had adopted the calm professor-like demeanour that had made her question whether he really was Gui yesterday.
It finally came to a head when he called out to her, right before class ended. “Student Feng Lan, could you stay back briefly at the end of class?”
She flushed red as her friends, and her brother, looked at her curiously. Even so, she nodded, and once everyone else had packed up and filed out of the room, Professor Min’s expression finally relaxed.
“You froze yesterday because you recognised me, didn’t you?” Gui asked, rhetorically.
Feng Lan crossed her arms. “You already know the answer to that.”
“Hmm…” Gui hummed, looking her up and down.
“What? Disappointed?” She snarked, defensively.
“Never.” He said, so quickly that it was impossible to deny the veracity of his words. “It’s just… I didn’t think I’d ever be graced with your presence in real life, your highness. Your expressions are so similar - I don’t know how I didn’t notice it sooner.”
The affection in his voice took her off-guard. It was one thing for Gui to profess his love for Prince, and an entirely other thing for him to profess his affections for Feng Lan . The only thing she could do was default to their usual banter.
“You- you-” She stammered, her blush betraying her. “You’re really itching for a beating, aren’t you, you stupid bard?”
If anything, he stared at her with even more adoration than before. “There’s the Prince I know.”
“Aren’t you angry at me?” Feng Lan asked, plaintively. How could Gui still act like this, even when confronted with her and her deception in its entirety? “I deceived you.”
“And like I said before, I like you . Gender and appearance are no matter.” He said softly. “As for anger… I am a little angry, yet I don’t dare to be angry. I deceived you as well.”
“But- but weren’t my lies more impactful that yours?”
“Were they?” Gui asked simply.
He was patient, giving her time to turn his words over in her head. She had lied about her gender, but Gui had lied about his very behaviour when they first met. Though his affections had developed into actual feelings later on, could it not be argued that Prince, in his own right, had similarly developed a personality of his own over time?
The logistics and weighing up of morality was making her head hurt.
“See?” Gui said, after the silence had stretched for some time. “Why don’t we say we’re even, and call it a day?”
“You make too much sense.” Feng Lan grumbled.
He laughed at that, the first signs of levity she’d seen that day. “I am smart enough to be your professor, after all, despite only being a few years older than you.”
“Hmph. You certainly don’t act like it in-game. When I see you in-game, I…” She trailed off, remembering their typical in-game interactions.
“...Feel like beating me up?” Gui finished. “It might draw suspicion if you do so in school, but I’d be glad to let you tonight.” He said with a too-bright beam.
“ You -”
How could he say something so audacious in real life? Her cheeks reddened for the n th that day, Gui’s actions beyond Second Life continuing to surprise her.
“Didn’t I tell you before? No matter who you are, I don’t mind. I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, my beloved highness. In-game or in real life, your highness is as beautiful and noble as ever.”