She was escorted all the way to the car.
Once the door was shut, the sound of the rain was completely blocked out.
Bai Tao inspected herself from head to toe in disbelief.
Sure enough, not a single drop of rain had touched her.
She stared at Jing Wang’s shadow, which had returned to its normal shape at his feet.
“Wang, can I ask you a question?”
The bashfulness from moments ago was long gone from Jing Wang’s face.
He wiped the rainwater from his left shoulder with a tissue.
“No.”
Bai Tao pressed her palms together and rubbed them.
“Please?
Pretty please?”
Jing Wang’s gaze met Bai Tao’s for just a second.
Though not a single drop of rain had fallen on her, her eyes looked surprisingly dewy.
The air suddenly fell silent.
Jing Wang scratched the back of his neck in frustration.
“Just one.”
A smile played on Bai Tao’s lips, revealing faint dimples.
“You’re the best, Wang.”
“Why can your shadow turn into a shield to block the rain for us?”
Jing Wang looked at her with contempt.
“I give you one chance, and you ask a question like that?”
Then, he remembered something.
‘Oh, right.’
‘She’s a commoner who hasn’t had a Heslington education.’
‘It’s normal for her not to know.’
‘But she’s a special admission student at the Beast School, for crying out loud.
Shouldn’t she at least preview her lessons?’
‘I really don’t know who let her in.’
Her burning gaze remained fixed on the side of his face, unblinking.
“I’ll only explain this once.”
His chest rose and fell slightly.
He started the car, his long, slender fingers gripping the steering wheel with one hand as he turned onto the main road.
“When all nobles come of age and have their coronation ceremony, they differentiate a tertiary gender and acquire a spirit body.”
“After an ordinary noble differentiates, they can only manifest features of their spirit body on their own person, and the enhancement is limited.”
“But me,” he tapped his index finger impatiently on the steering wheel, “and the other four members of F5, we possess 3S Spirit Bodies.”
“Therefore, we have Beast Mimicry.”
“But generally, unless we need it, the Beast Mimicry won’t come out easily.
It stays hidden in a medium that connects it to us.”
“For example, my medium for my Beast Mimicry is my shadow.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is.” Bai Tao nodded.
“So you called out something that awesome just to block the rain for you?”
Jing Wang was silent for half a minute before replying:
“Yeah.
You got a problem with that?”
Bai Tao waved her hand.
“Then just now…”
Jing Wang narrowed his eyes.
“Didn’t I only agree to answer one question?”
It’s a buy-two-get-one-free deal.
Don’t be so stingy.” Bai Tao rubbed her hands together again, putting on her innocent face.
“…Last one.”
Bai Tao carefully organized her words.
“Do the spirit body and its master…
share sensations?”
The light turned red, and Jing Wang nearly failed to brake in time.
Luckily, they were wearing seatbelts, or Bai Tao would have been launched forward.
He steadied his ragged breathing and simply let out a soft “Mm.”
Bai Tao propped her chin on her hand, recalling Jing Wang’s flustered state from earlier.
“So, to what extent do you share sensations?
Just now, where did I touch your…
Oof!”
A glob of shadow had crept over from the driver’s side at some point and was now clamped firmly over her mouth.
“No more questions.”
The memory of her small hand’s warm touch from a few minutes ago surged back through Jing Wang, making his chest burn.
His jawline tensed as he forcibly suppressed the fire within him.
The naturally downturned corners of his eyes were uncontrollably tinged with a faint shade of pink.
‘This bean sprout…
it’s one thing for her to be stupid, but does she have no sense of shame at all?’
‘No wonder she just touches people wherever she wants.’
‘And she just had to touch…
there…’
‘No way.’
‘He wouldn’t admit it.’
‘He would absolutely not admit that this stupid bean sprout could cure his illness.’
‘There must be something wrong somewhere.’
By the time the car returned to the dorms, the sudden downpour had subsided.
Bai Tao pulled the same trick again, saying she needed to go to the library and getting out of the car early.
She planned to wander around the school.
With 10,000 in assets, she had to keep up the hard work.
Bai Tao opened the “Sparring Partner Part-Time Job” post she had saved earlier and unhesitatingly added the poster’s KK QR code.
The moment her request was accepted, before she could even fill out her profile, a message came through from the other party.
[Manager: Sorry, we’re only hiring men.]
[Manager: It’s not gender discrimination, but a woman’s physical constitution just can’t meet the boss’s requirements.]
[Manager: This is a high-risk job.
This is for your own health and safety.
Please understand.]
Bai Tao felt like she had been struck by lightning.
Defeated before she even started.
The pay for this sparring job was negotiable!
How could she let this slip by?
‘Every opportunity has to be fought for, tooth and nail.’
[Peach Oolong: What woman?
I’m a pure-blooded man.]
[Manager: But your KK nickname…]
[Peach Oolong: What?
You discriminate based on nicknames now?
A big guy like me can’t like drinking peach oolong?]
[Manager: Of course not, of course not, sir.
In that case, please fill out this form.]
[Manager: [Survey Link Sent]]
Bai Tao opened it.
Thankfully, it only asked for a name and relevant experience.
She unhesitatingly filled in “Tao Bai” in the name field.
For experience, she wrote, “At 16, I was undefeated across the land,” and “Back then, I’d walk around with my hands in my pockets, because I didn’t know what an opponent was.”
[Peach Oolong: I definitely won’t let you down.
This interview, or whatever, the sooner you can arrange it for me, the better.]
[Manager: Understood, Mr.
Tao.
May I ask if you are a student at Heslington?]
[Manager: We need to categorize the applicants.]
To be on the safe side, Bai Tao replied immediately.
[Peach Oolong: No, I saw the posting elsewhere.]
[Manager: Alright, in that case, meet at the main gate of Heslington tomorrow at 2:00 PM.
Someone will be there to meet you.]
‘In other words, I have to wait for the ride outside the school.’
‘That’s easy enough to solve.
I’ll just climb the wall.’
[Peach Oolong: OK, no problem.]
Well, she’d told a lie.
Now it was time to back it up.
Bai Tao stopped in her tracks and set a new course on her navigation app for the nearest campus store.
She wandered around, carefully budgeting her 10,000 to buy all the necessary gear for her transformation into a man the next day.
She passed a hair salon and a clothing store, but looking at the little money she had left, she decided it wasn’t urgent.
‘I can pin my bangs up with a hairclip, and we have to wear uniforms on weekdays anyway.’
‘Spend where you must, save where you can.’
Perhaps because it was her first time applying for a job, Bai Tao didn’t sleep well that night.
She packed all her gear into her bag, deftly climbed over the wall at the school gate, and snuck into a public restroom to change.
She was already 170 cm tall, so she could pull off men’s clothing.
She carefully tucked all her hair into a hairnet and put on a wig styled into a standard handsome-guy haircut.
After confirming that everything was in order, she put her own clothes back into her bag and went to the main gate to wait for her ride.
After a drive of nearly two and a half hours, Bai Tao arrived at a place called “Yunpo Mansion.”
She looked up at yet another bulletproof-grade gate.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
‘Yunpo Mansion.’
‘If I’m not mistaken, isn’t this where F5 lives?’