You Remind Me of a Friend

"Pfft—!!!"

That spit-take of milk was absolutely earth-shattering.

It sprayed evenly across Jiang Ping's desk in a fan-shaped arc.

Luckily, Chen De dodged quickly. Otherwise, that newly bought hundred-thousand-yuan school uniform would have scored its first victory.

"Cough, cough, cough—"

Jiang Ping frantically pulled out tissues.

He wiped the desk while coughing violently, his face turning bright red from holding it in.

Chen De sat beside him, holding a carton of strawberry milk.

The wicked grin on her face had yet to fade.

Honestly, seeing one of her old best friends get wrecked by a single sentence felt fantastic.

The thrill of a successful prank was simply beyond words.

The classroom was noisy, but the crowd that had gathered earlier had long since dispersed.

To everyone else, this was just a pretty new female classmate and an idiot who had spilled milk while drinking it.

No one noticed the disaster over here.

"You... cough, cough... don't talk nonsense!"

Jiang Ping finally caught his breath.

"When did I say anything nonsensical?"

Chen De tilted her head, determined to take this torment all the way.

After all, she was wearing a girl's body now.

As long as she wasn't embarrassed, Jiang Ping would be.

"I'm asking you very seriously, Classmate Jiang."

Chen De spoke in a voice so sweet it was sickening.

Qubi immediately let out a muffled retching sound from inside her backpack.

"Ugh—Chen De, can you stop being so disgusting?"

"I'm about to throw up last night's cat food."

"Shut up. This is tactical suppression."

Chen De viciously snapped back in her thoughts.

After wiping the desk clean, Jiang Ping crumpled the tissues into a ball and accurately tossed them into the trash can at the back.

Then he turned around and stared at Chen De as if she were an alien.

"Classmate Su Xi, you're very cute, but I don't have that kind of intention yet."

"What kind of intention?"

"I mean... the intention of dating early!"

Jiang Ping declared righteously.

Chen De rolled her eyes so hard internally.

My ass.

Who was it last month that dragged me to the field to watch the freshman girls do cheerleading?

And now you're pretending to be some upright gentleman?

"Oh? Then what did it mean when you kept staring at me just now?"

Chen De decided to press her advantage.

Jiang Ping scratched his head, and his expression suddenly became a little strange.

"I... I just think you look familiar."

"Huh?"

"You really do look familiar."

Jiang Ping frowned as he looked Chen De up and down.

"You really resemble a friend of mine."

Chen De's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

No way?

Since when had this guy's intuition become so accurate?

Could he really see through this one-meter-fifty-three loli shell and glimpse her battle-hardened macho soul?

"Your friend... what did he look like?"

Chen De asked cautiously.

Jiang Ping stroked his chin and fell into thought.

"Like... around one-seventy-five, I guess... No, that's what he claims. In reality, he might not even be that tall."

Chen De's face darkened.

What did he mean, might not even be that tall?!

I'm a man who rounds up to one-eighty!

"He has short hair... his personality is pretty annoying... Wait, that really doesn't sound right?"

"And his hair color is a bit like yours too, just darker."

The more Jiang Ping spoke, the stranger it became.

Cold sweat began to form on Chen De's back.

It was over, over, over.

Had this guy secretly awakened some kind of superpower behind her back?

"And then?"

Chen De dryly prompted him.

"And then..."

"It's just that your eyes feel a little like his."

Jiang Ping said it with great seriousness.

"Especially that wicked grin you had just now."

Chen De's smile froze for a moment.

Crap.

She was about to give herself away.

She quickly took a deep breath, frantically adjusted her facial muscles, and put on a fragile, innocent expression.

She had spent half an hour practicing this move in front of the mirror last night.

"When did I have a wicked grin?"

Chen De blinked her watery blue eyes, her voice soft and sweet.

"You must have seen wrong."

Jiang Ping stared at her, stunned.

"You obviously just—"

He stopped halfway through his sentence.

He stared at Chen De for two seconds.

Then he shook his head.

"Forget it, forget it. Maybe I played games too late last night and started hallucinating."

Jiang Ping waved a hand.

"You're completely different from him."

Chen De let out a breath of relief.

"How am I different?"

"He's a rough guy. You're a little girl."

Jiang Ping said it as though it were only natural.

"And he doesn't act cute."

"I don't act cute either!"

Chen De nearly jumped to her feet.

"What was that 'Hey, Jiang Ping' just now if not acting cute?"

"That was... that was normal talking!"

"Normal talking doesn't involve tilting your head and blinking."

Chen De's face instantly flushed red.

Qubi's gleeful voice came from inside her backpack.

"You brought this on yourself."

"Shut up."

Chen De muttered quietly.

Jiang Ping didn't hear her clearly.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing."

Chen De hurriedly changed the subject.

If they kept going on about this, she was afraid she would pull out the Pure White Dagger and physically send this guy on his way.

"That friend you mentioned earlier, where did he go?"

Jiang Ping's expression darkened slightly.

"He went abroad."

"He suddenly said he was leaving yesterday. We didn't even get to meet."

"It was pretty sudden."

Chen De looked at him.

Jiang Ping really did sound a little disappointed.

"Were you two close?"

"Yeah, pretty close. We'd known each other for five or six years."

Jiang Ping smiled.

"Even though he argued with me all the time, he was a pretty reliable guy."

"He just left too suddenly."

Chen De lowered her head and looked at the strawberry milk in her hand.

"Will you miss him?"

She asked the question almost without thinking.

Jiang Ping paused.

"I guess so."

"We've known each other for so many years. Suddenly having one less person around to argue with feels strange."

"But there's nothing to be done. Everyone has their own ambitions."

After saying that, he glanced at Chen De again.

"Why did you suddenly ask that?"

"We've only known each other for two hours. Aren't you getting familiar a little too fast?"

"Just asking."

Chen De bit down on her straw.

Just then—

"Ring, ring, ring—"

The class bell rang right on time, breaking the strange atmosphere between them.

Hurried footsteps sounded from the hallway.

The classroom, which had been like a marketplace just moments ago, instantly fell silent.

Chen De turned away and opened her textbook.

As the final dismissal bell of the afternoon rang—

Chen De let out a breath.

She was exhausted.

The moment class ended, people surrounded her and asked all sorts of questions, making it feel like a variety show interview without any appearance fee.

Why had this group never been so enthusiastic when she was Chen De before?

All she had done was switch into the body of a beautiful girl.

Humans really were creatures that judged by appearances.

Chen De casually picked up her backpack and headed for the door.

As she passed Jiang Ping, she glanced at him.

He was looking down at his phone, his thumb flying over the screen.

He seemed to be messaging someone.

As for who it was, she couldn't see.

Chen De had originally wanted to sneak another look.

But she quickly realized—Su Xi and Jiang Ping had only known each other for one day. Peeking at someone else's phone was crossing a line.

She held herself back.

She touched the strap of her schoolbag and left the classroom without looking back.

She had just reached the corner of the hallway.

The zipper of her schoolbag was pushed open from the inside, and Qubi peeked out with half an eye.

"How was it? How did your first day feel?"

"I feel like I owed the entire class a debt of gratitude in my past life."

Chen De quickened his pace down the stairs.

"Everyone wanted to ask about my height, my hair color, and whether I had a boyfriend."

"I answered those three questions no fewer than twenty times today."

"I suspect they were using a rotating interrogation tactic."

"That's called social enthusiasm."

"How is that any different from an interrogation?"

"Interrogations don't treat you to strawberry milk."

P.S.: I have a standing stockpile of twenty chapters.

I don't know how to lose, okay.

Also, this isn't a gender-bender marriage story! Not a gender-bender marriage story! Not a gender-bender marriage story!