Nan Zhi had no sense of secrecy at all. She hadn’t even revealed it yet, and this guy already knew.
Maybe she had let something slip somewhere. For example, she had been acting all secretive and mysterious around him lately, doing a lot of seemingly inexplicable things, which made him suspicious.
It was also possible that when she was confirming things with the shop owner on her phone just now, he saw the chat log.
Only when Nan Zhi asked did she find out that he knew everything about today’s actions — the matter of the price, the birthday, even the matter of picking up the money.
Nan Zhi could understand the part about the price. Back then, she hid it from Grandma because Grandma didn’t really know how to use smartphones, and couldn’t use Meituan-type \[apps for food delivery or services], and when she worried about money, she could only ask her, “how much was it?”
Whatever she said, that was the price.
Song Qing was different. Worried about the price, he went straight online and checked — everything was perfectly clear.
She actually overlooked this point. Someone who had gotten used to being thrifty would always check the price before doing anything.
Song Qing would definitely look it up.
As for the matter of picking up the money, she couldn’t quite understand. She asked Song Qing, and Song Qing said it was the shadow that sold her out.
At the time, they were under a streetlamp. She had deliberately chosen that spot, afraid it was too dark for Song Qing to see. Because the light was directly overhead, it shone straight down — the shadow was small and blurry, so she hadn’t paid attention. But just like that, Song Qing saw the shadow of her taking out money and throwing it down.
Nan Zhi: “……”
Alright then.
He’s not so easily fooled.
Since the matter was exposed, Nan Zhi simply and openly asked him, “Did you have fun today?”
Song Qing sat in the wheelchair, covered in dim light, his expression serious as he nodded slightly, “Very happy.”
Nan Zhi was satisfied. Whether in the light or the dark, in truth, her purpose was only one — to make him happy. So if he was happy, that was good.
Nan Zhi stepped forward, placed the cake on the coffee table in front of the sofa, untied the ribbon, and stuck eighteen candles into the cake.
Originally, the lights weren’t turned on too brightly. Now she turned off two more, leaving only one floor lamp next to the coffee table. The room became darker, but the atmosphere also became more intimate — just like in the old days, having birthdays in a worn-out house by candlelight.
In front of the coffee table, because the two cats had gotten used to each other, they would now fight over food. Afraid they’d ruin things, the two of them now had a division of labor when doing things — Nan Zhi went to turn off the lights, while Song Qing sat by and guarded, not letting the cats onto the table while waiting for Nan Zhi to come back.
Nan Zhi came back quickly, carefully took out a party hat from a paper box inside a plastic bag, assembled it into a round shape, placed it on his head, then lit the candles and turned off the lights completely, letting him make a wish in the half-lit, half-dark living room.
His wish was very simple — just let it always be like this.
After making the wish, while eating the cake, he even got a bit smeared on the face. Nan Zhi said, birthdays all go through this kind of process. Though the two of them were very full, they each still had a slice. The two cats also licked the plate.
Cats can’t eat cake — they just licked a little symbolically, then it was taken away.
The remaining more-than-half of the uneaten cake was carefully repackaged and temporarily stored in the fridge, to be eaten later as dessert to fill the stomach when they felt like it.
The cake was eaten, the gift was also given — sure enough, it was a prosthetic limb. She had already found a rehabilitation training center. The person needing rehab was filled in as his name and phone number, so someone had already contacted him.
The thing about a prosthetic — it needs to be adjusted and custom-made on-site. It couldn’t have just appeared out of nowhere for him. So what he saw were the photos she took when she went.
The environment was pretty good. The teacher who was scheduled to make the prosthetic — even though he had just entered the field, he’d already heard the name. Very skilled, very famous. In short, he had no objections at all.
At ten o’clock, Nan Zhi said the birthday wasn’t over yet. It had to reach twelve o’clock — only after today ended would it be considered finished.
Before then, he could make some requests. As long as it wasn’t too outrageous, too unreasonable, anything was fine.
Song Qing had no requests. Nan Zhi insisted that he say one, so he had no choice but to say: just let it be like usual.
He really liked the usual state of the two of them — curled up on the sofa, each busy with their own thing. As winter grew colder, Nan Zhi’s side of the blanket pile grew thicker too. Occasionally, under the blanket, she’d bump into him, show him her drawing, and ask, “Does it look good?”
She even had him design the appearance of the prosthetic — glowing like futuristic tech, cute-cute with Xiyangyang and Meiyangyang \[喜羊羊与美羊羊: characters from the Chinese cartoon Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf] drawn all over it. There were all kinds, some with a classical style.
Ever since she had him draw a leg and foot, when she had nothing to do, she’d goof off drawing socks and shoes for him.
Even drawings of him in a maid outfit.
Unlike back at Uncle and Auntie’s place, where their daughter laughed at him, Nan Zhi purely accepted and appreciated it — with no sense of mockery, maybe even with a bit of a kink.
She just liked boys in girls’ clothing.
Whichever idol she liked, she’d draw that idol in women’s clothing — wearing fishnet stockings, high heels, etc.
Once, she posted her drawing to an idol. Unexpectedly, the idol really wore the women’s clothing, fishnet stockings, and high heels from her drawing.
Exactly the same as the clothes in the illustration — even purposely posed in the same pose as her drawing. That kind of “collab” directly sent both the idol and her to the hot search.
Nan Zhi already had quite a few fans, and she instantly gained hundreds of thousands more.
She didn’t dare look at comments about her. She had him help — read them first before showing her.
As her popularity rose, the hate comments naturally increased. Some scolded her like, “This level of skill can get popular? Even drawing with your feet is better.” Others accused her of setting up a child prodigy persona.
Stuff like, “She was already drawing at a high level in elementary school.” In fact, it was marketing accounts that deep-dug her past, discovering she had started posting when she was just a grade schooler — all just trying to ride the wave of popularity.
It had nothing to do with her. She didn’t even know. Until the whole internet was full of comments like:
“Lao Si is amazing! Turns out the big boss I like is a grade schooler?? Everyone’s evolved, why didn’t y’all take me along??”
Only then did she curiously click to see who the “big boss” was — and it turned out to be herself, which scared her half to death.
Because among the comments, there were meme-style ones, but also ones full of pure malice. The kind of words used — truly unimaginable — to be directed at a young girl.
She clearly just drew some pictures, didn’t do anything wrong, didn’t break the law, didn’t hit or curse at anyone. She couldn’t understand why some total strangers would fabricate sex rumors about her, using venomous language to say she was clinging to rich men, that capitalists were forcing idols to wear women’s clothes because of her, and so on.
Even when she casually posted something about her daily life, there’d be people breaking it down word by word, and analyzing it with the worst intent, concluding that she was vicious, impolite, and so on — to the point she didn’t dare say anything anymore.
Every time Song Qing took the tablet from her hand and temporarily took over her account to read the comments, he’d delete all those before she could see them, only leaving the nice ones.
She wasn’t a celebrity. She didn’t need to accept that kind of malice.
Only then did he finally understand — why she wasn’t lacking food, wasn’t lacking money, owned two or three houses, and was a well-known artist — yet still wasn’t happy.
Fame and fortune are a double-edged sword.
The more famous you are, the more people will hate you.
She was still a “chuquan” artist \[出圈: lit. “stepped out of the circle”; refers to someone whose fame has spread beyond their niche community]. Everything she did could easily go viral again.
Not long ago, she drew a big cat and a little girl. The little girl stretched out her hand toward the big cat.
She suddenly grew curious — how would netizens interpret this picture? So she added a caption:
【What do you all think the little girl wants to do to the big cat?】
The comments said all sorts of things. One day, someone even drew a figurative interpretation.
The little girl went over and sank into the fur beneath the big cat’s neck, feeling so comfy that red hearts floated up from her body.
After there was that fellow artist coming to support, more people followed.
Someone drew a picture of the little girl vigorously rubbing the big cat’s fur. Then another where the little girl pulled on the big cat’s ear. Then the little girl bent down under the big cat’s belly and pinched the cat…
There was even a netizen who drew a picture of the big cat getting neutered.
The joke drawings became more and more numerous. The hashtag 【What does the little girl want to do to the big cat】 once again climbed the hot search. Countless artists joined in, and later on, the hot search evolved into 【What has the little girl done to the big cat】.
Some netizens compiled a collection of all the artists’ drawings — more than ten images of the “atrocities” the little girl had done to the big cat — which brought a group of artists out of their own niches and into broader public awareness.
Now she had around three to five million followers across major platforms. She went viral very quickly, after all, she had gone viral in the past.
Even someone like Song Qing — who usually only used Douyin to scroll through cooking videos — came across her drawings and the 【Little Girl and Big Cat】 series.
That was how she got exposed. Her personal art style was very distinct. He knew it was Nan Zhi just from a glance.
At first, Nan Zhi didn’t want to admit it. Later, she just gave up pretending and said it was her.
“What’s wrong with a girl having a few of her own hobbies?”
Mouth tough, but in reality, she deleted more than a hundred pictures overnight, going from drawing how to teach people to draw boys’ chests to drawing cats and dogs.
Of course, maybe she was still salty about her alt account being exposed. So while rushing a deadline, she deliberately took time out to draw a picture of him dancing in a crinoline skirt — the kind aristocratic European girls like to wear.
As for how he knew it was himself: when Nan Zhi drew him, she would always capture his distinguishing features — like his short hair. Even though his head was full of pearls, you could still tell it was short hair. His facial features also looked a bit like his.
And the hair tie on his wrist. He often helped Nan Zhi tie her hair, so he always had her hair tie on his wrist.
Sometimes it had lace. Sometimes it was plain. Sometimes it had little fuzzy animals on it.
She would even add text, deliberately emphasizing: 【Boy】.
The comments below were all things like “Wah! So pretty! A boy that makes people want to love him!”
Hardly any hate comments — at least when he looked, there weren’t. He didn’t know if it had been cleaned up on purpose or what.
He also wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but sometimes he felt like Nan Zhi was doing it on purpose — drawing male idols, manga characters, and popular anime guys in women’s clothing, and putting them in all sorts of stockings.
Not only were they not scolded as perverts — there were tons of people saying “So pretty,” “Love this,” “More please.”
People even said things like:
“Stockings were originally worn by boys.”
“Stocking models who don’t show their face are all boys.”
“Boys wearing stockings is the natural order of things.”
— All kinds of statements like that, just like telling the “him” from back then:
Stockings were originally designed for boys. So of course boys can wear them. It’s rightful and proper. It shouldn’t be something to be scolded for.
Actually, he’d already let go of those things long ago. He didn’t really feel anything anymore. But still, seeing other people get treated kindly while wearing the same kind of clothes — a warmth would rise in his chest.
At least in the future, if another boy couldn’t afford clothes and wore something pink, or wore stockings, he wouldn’t get laughed at by people.
—
At eleven in the evening, Song Qing said he wanted it to be like usual. And it really was like usual — sitting in the corner of the sofa, knitting a scarf and watching a drama, not making any other requests.
In the end, it was Nan Zhi who couldn’t bear to watch anymore. She went around his room and downstairs, added a bottle of shampoo and body wash for him.
She even bought him some soap. His had long since run out, but since he still had body wash, he hadn’t thought to buy any.
In his opinion, body wash could be used to wash hands too.
This person — unless absolutely necessary, if he didn’t have something, he just wouldn’t buy it. And now that he could use her leftovers, he was even less likely to buy anything.
Ever since he moved in, he hadn’t really bought himself anything. He just used whatever she didn’t want — daily necessities too.
As it happened, she also had a lot of shampoo. Brands that didn’t suit her, she gave them all to Song Qing.
She wasn’t giving Song Qing anything fancy. He would use shampoo to wash his hands after finishing the body wash.
This guy really had no standards at all.
He was using that old towel, and she finally couldn’t take it anymore and threw it into the trash bin.
This time, she threw it into the one next to the toilet — if it was the regular trash bin, he would fish it back out, wash it, and continue using it.
Originally, it had been used for washing the face. Later, it became for wiping the butt.
She bought a new replacement, but he thought that for wiping the butt there was no need to use anything good, and continued using that one.
More than a month — Nan Zhi watched that towel get more and more torn. She really didn’t want to endure it anymore. She even gave it two kicks, covered it with some tissues to destroy the evidence, and only then called it done.
Of course, she also hung the new one on the rack for him, so he could use it as a replacement.
She also restocked some other things for him — tissues, that cup of his with the chipped corner, toothbrush, all the things that needed replacing were replaced.
The cats stuck to him. Especially since winter came, they particularly liked getting on his bed. He was at least a little germophobic, changing the bedsheets and quilt covers every two or three days. Sometimes when it rained and he didn’t have time, the two sets he had weren’t enough. Nan Zhi went upstairs and brought another set down for him.
After working around for half the day, without realizing it, the time had already reached 11:56 PM.
Nan Zhi deliberately returned to the living room, staring at the time as it passed minute by minute.
11:58. 11:59. 12:00.
“Eighteen years old.”
She closed her eyes, as if she saw a tree. The fruit on the tree changed from raw green to a soft, red, overripe look.
The fruit was ripe.
“Finally an adult.”
Song Qing sat to the side, still knitting the scarf. He was getting more and more skilled — the yarn ran through his pinky finger, pulled through by the needles, woven into something longer and longer. Soon he could finish and cast it off, then package it up to sell to someone.
He was still focused on making money when he was caught off guard by Nan Zhi’s muttering.
This wasn’t the first time she’d said something like that. In fact, she’d said things along those lines quite a few times recently, in the same inexplicably cryptic tone — sometimes even several times a day.
Song Qing gave her a strange glance, really unable to figure out — Why did him being eighteen and an adult make her even happier than him?