I'm a man

The chat started commenting bluntly when they saw the scene:

[Ew... no matter how many times I see Stone River Village NPCs die, it still makes me sick.]

[Don't even mention it. The first time I saw someone die, I nearly threw up until I was dehydrated.]

[How could a newbie see this without their knees going weak? Won't they get caught in no time?]

[The fact that she hasn't dropped to her knees already means she's handling it pretty well... shame about that face, though. If she survived, she could definitely do well off livestream tips.]

[Oh, quit it. Which of the top earners isn't genuinely skilled? Some pretty face with nothing else going for them would've died ages ago.]

[Didn't the streamer turn around? Why hasn't he reacted at all?]

[Scared stiff, probably? Didn't you see him stop walking?]

Li Xian stood still. Under the viewers' gazes, each charged with a different emotion, he turned his head back expressionlessly, quickly untied the red bridal veil covering his face, and draped it over his head instead. Then he immediately started running toward the fork in the road, even faster than before.

Li Xian's extraordinary composure sent question marks flooding across the stream.

[???]

[Streamer, please act scared, or I'm going to start being scared of you.]

[He's a newbie, right??]

[His profile says zero instances cleared. A genuine newbie?]

[Not even a scream?? What does she do in the real world?]

[...Guts fish at a supermarket?]

With the chat assigning him a profession without his permission, Li Xian actually seemed calmer than the villagers. His performance triggered several more notifications in his head, and his tips soon reached 100 points. Meanwhile, the villagers couldn't even spare the time to run back to their own homes, piling into whichever house was closest, shoving and shouting:

"The village chief didn't say it would rain today?!"

"Forget that, get inside!"

"But the bride-"

"The village is only so big. Where could she run? Stop wasting time! You might have a death wish, but I don't!"

The rain grew denser, landing on the veil over Li Xian's head before sliding off.

The rain was still light, and the smooth fabric of the wedding dress and veil kept it from touching his skin. Once it got heavier, though, there was no telling.

Li Xian's thinking was clear: he needed somewhere that would shelter him from the rain without letting the villagers catch him.

But after he rounded the corner, tiled-roof houses still lined both sides of the road. The village layout also grew more complicated, with more and more forks in the road. Inside every house, two or three residents stood beside tightly shut windows, smiling and waving to Li Xian, beckoning him inside.

The whole scene was deeply unsettling. Li Xian was the only person running through the deserted roads, while the villagers, separated from him by nothing but a wall, kept waving to him as though luring a living person into the underworld.

"Come inside, quickly..."

"You'll die if the rain gets on you..."

"We won't hurt you..."

"Come... in..."

The villagers weren't speaking loudly, yet their voices somehow wormed their way into Li Xian's mind. He hurried between the countless tiled-roof houses. Just as the veil above his head was about to give way to the growing downpour, he finally emerged from this "residential area" and found an open stretch of ground. Across it stood a row of dilapidated tiled-roof houses beside the river.

Overall, these houses were no different from the other villagers' homes. The only differences were their badly weathered walls and the weeds of varying heights spreading out from their corners. They looked as though no one had lived there in a long time.

Li Xian crossed the uneven ground and made straight for the nearest dilapidated house. After quickly checking through the window that no villagers lived inside, he pulled open the door and slipped in.

The instant he crossed the threshold, the rain outside suddenly turned torrential, as though it had timed his arrival. Li Xian hurriedly held the veil over his head with one hand and reached with the other to shut the wooden door, which hadn't closed all the way.

But the fat raindrops struck the ground and splashed onto the hand Li Xian was about to close the door with.

Alarmed, Li Xian immediately tried to shake the raindrop off his wrist. But it seemed stuck to his skin. Just like what had happened to the sedan bearer, it quickly spread into a thin line and crawled up his wrist.

Worse still, notifications that Li Xian's Mental Value was dropping kept ringing in his ears.

[Contact with unknown substance detected. Mental Value -1]

[Contact with unknown substance detected. Mental Value -1]

The man who had first noticed the stream sighed regretfully at the sight.

"He's done for. Once the rain touches you, death is guaranteed."

A fine sheen of cold sweat broke out on Li Xian's forehead as he frantically searched his mind for a way out.

For now, only his Mental Value was falling. Once that water actually burrowed into his body, his 25-point health bar probably wouldn't last even a minute.

"What rotten luck."

A familiar voice sounded in front of Li Xian.

He looked up and found the man he had met earlier in the bridal chamber standing before him again.

The man looked as though he were enjoying the show, adding irritation to Li Xian's already mounting anxiety. Looking up at the man's relaxed expression, he suddenly had an idea.

Li Xian raised his arms and swiftly wrapped them around the man before him. At the same time, he deftly slipped his fingers into the man's sleeve and rubbed the rain-soaked back of his hand against the man's skin.

The watery trail rapidly spread onto the man where their skin touched.

Li Xian looked up. By now, the trail had reached the side of his face and was about to burrow inside through his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.

The instant the watery trail climbed onto the man's body, it evaporated into vapor as though it had touched lava, then rapidly dissipated in reverse. Its farthest tip struggled to crawl into Li Xian's eye, but couldn't outpace its own evaporation and vanished from his face.

Everything happened so quickly that by the time Li Xian registered it, the man had already pulled free of his hands.

Li Xian raised a hand and lightly touched the spot where the watery trail had vanished.

It didn't feel hot. His cheek only itched a little.

Outside the screen, the man who had been certain from the start that Li Xian would die widened his eyes. Then he lowered his head and produced a notebook from somewhere, his name written neatly on its cover:

"Lin Shiming"

A black pen was clipped to the notebook. Lin Shiming removed it, gripped it in his hand, and quickly flipped to the page for "Stone River Village."

"That's not right..."

"Nothing about this situation is right."

Lin Shiming looked up at Li Xian, who was now out of danger, then glanced at the man who could nullify the rain's attacks. He lowered his head again and, like the others, entered Li Xian's livestream through his own light screen.

Messages scrolled past, all evidently discussing this completely abnormal situation.

[Who exactly is this guy? How did he evaporate the rain so easily?]

[Stone River Village's rain is notorious for having no counter. Touch it and you die. A whole group of players got wiped out before because they didn't take shelter in time. What the hell is happening now?]

Although Li Xian also felt the man's abilities defied common sense, this was his first time entering an instance. He wasn't as shocked as the chat and instead quickly accepted the situation.

He stepped back and found the man studying him with an unreadable expression. An idea suddenly struck him.

"Are you the person I'm marrying?"

Li Xian was actually asking a question he already knew the answer to. The man most likely wasn't the "groom" the villagers had prepared for him.

Sure enough, the man immediately answered, "No."

"Then can you..."

"Steal the bride?"

[?????]

[What kind of move is this?!]

[Babe, you've lost your mind!!!]

[Thin lips, eyes showing white on three sides, a calculating look in every corner of his face. You can tell he's coldhearted just by looking at him, so you should marry me instead!!!]

[I can hear your scheming all the way from Zone A.]

Unlike the excited chat, the man receiving this "proposal" remained utterly unruffled.

"You're the little bride those villagers prepared?"

Li Xian nodded.

The man replied blandly, "What a shame. I don't like women."

"?"

That answer was completely outside Li Xian's expectations.

[...Fucking gay bastard.]

[No taste whatsoever.]

Li Xian looked the man up and down again, silently weighing his suspicions.

He didn't look like a player, but he didn't seem like an instance character either.

Watching the sky outside the window grow steadily darker, Li Xian gritted his teeth and replied:

"I'm a man."

The man raised his eyebrows in surprise.

Then, as though to prove his words, Li Xian yanked the wig off his head.

For a moment, the chat was stunned.

[?????]

[I came because I heard there was a hot girl here, and the second I enter the stream, you tell me this is a guy???]

[Holy shit, he's actually a sissy.]

[I don't believe it!!! I'm checking the streamer's profile!!!]

[... ...]

[Fuck.]

[He really is a fucking guy.]

[My heart's broken.]

[Streamer, give me back my first love!!!]

[Am I the only one who's even more excited now?]

After learning Li Xian's gender, the man silently stepped forward and caught Li Xian's chin. The pad of his thumb brushed lightly across Li Xian's lips, then shifted away slightly as he narrowed his eyes and studied him.

Following the man's movement, Li Xian looked at the fingertip that had just wiped his lower lip and spotted a conspicuous smear of deep red.

In an instant, he understood why everyone had so readily assumed he was a woman.

This fucking game had actually put makeup on him.