Chapter 456: – Countryside
The bathroom on the second floor was right next to her cousin's bedroom. Lin Jin sat on a chair with her legs crossed and was on her phone for over ten minutes when she saw her cousin walk in wearing loose pajamas.
Well, it was okay. At least he didn’t have a habit of sleeping in just his underwear.
Her cousin seemed to be quite the homebody. Except when he was sitting in front of the computer, he usually liked to play mobile games, some Honkai Impact 3rd, Kantai Collection, and that type of anime games. Lin Jin didn’t really play mobile games, since she usually played games like Dota and found those types of games awkward to play on a phone.
After her cousin finished showering, Lin Jin could only grab her change of clothes and head into the bathroom to shower.
The bathroom here was very small, barely enough room for one person to move around. There was no room to stretch at all. But although it was small, it was quite well fitted. Showering took her thirty minutes, then she changed into the clothes she would wear tomorrow, dried her hair, and directly returned back to the bedroom.
Her cousin had already set up a floor bed. His bedroom was pretty small, but if he pushed the bed to the side, he could make just enough space on the floor.
"For the quilt and pillow, I asked my mom to get it for you." Her cousin clearly wasn’t too willing to share the same bed with Lin Jin. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be so eager to help.
"Okay." Lin Jin plopped down on the bamboo mat laid out on the floor, yawned and leaned her back against the bed. She lowered her head, preparing to go on her phone for a bit.
"You really don't have any men's clothes?" Her cousin sat at the head of the bed. He looked down at Lin Jin beside him, scanned her outfit up and down, and asked, "You’re not even going to take off your wig when you sleep?"
"Isn't it not time to sleep yet?"
Since her cousin always thought Lin Jin was just crossdressing, he assumed her hair and everything must be fake.
"Well, isn’t it almost? Isn't the wig uncomfortable?" Her cousin said in doubt. "When I did cosplay in college, wearing a wig was both hot and itchy. It was so uncomfortable I wanted to die."
"My mom brought this wig over from Guangzhou. The quality’s quite good."
Her mom's one lie required a pile more from Lin Jin to cover it up. Fortunately, Lin Jin was quite good at improvising and she made up with an excuse without even thinking.
"This wig isn't uncomfortable at all, it’s just a bit annoying to take off. So I’ll just do it when it’s time for bed. Besides, I still might need to go out later. If I'm in women's clothes with short hair, people will point and stare."
"Really?" Her cousin didn't doubt her words at all and just asked with great interest "How about letting me try on your wig?"
The f*ck? Didn’t she just say it was annoying to take off?
"No." Lin Jin refused without any hesitation, not even offering a reason.
"You're so stingy." Her cousin pulled his legs onto the bed and opened his mobile game "If you're bored, you can play on the computer. I don't usually use the computer much. If you want to eat some snacks at night, go find my mom. Let me know if you want to go out to buy something. My house’s door needs a key to be opened."
"Okay." Lin Jin nodded and continued to read her novel with her head down.
Lin Jin felt a bit bored, but fortunately, today's itinerary was acceptable. Except for the strong resistance she encountered at her grandparents' place, it was surprisingly easy to fool her uncles here.
But right now, her uncles just thought she was really good at crossdressing. If they knew she had completely become a woman, who knows if they could accept it.
Lin Jin rested her chin on one hand, feeling a bit uncertain about these things.
"Oh right, do you want to go for a walk at night?" Her cousin suddenly looked up and said. "They recently built an amusement park nearby. If you want to go, I can accompany you."
An amusement park?
What the f*ck? It had already gotten that upscale? Since when did people in the village have so much money?
"Let’s go check it out?" Lin Jin was a bit curious.
"Sure, let me change." Her cousin stood up, turned his back to Lin Jin, and began taking off his clothes.
It seemed like her cousin saw her a bit as a girl, right?
If he saw her as a guy, he wouldn't turn his back towards her, right?
Lin Jin frowned as she watched her cousin undress and change into a shirt and shorts. He then turned around with an indifferent expression and glanced at Lin Jin: "Let's go."
"Mm." Lin Jin stood up and followed her cousin out of the bedroom.
Her mom and her group got together with a bunch of old neighbors and were gathered around playing mahjong in front of her uncle's house. Besides those middle aged people, there were also a few kids running around the table, probably the grandchildren of the neighbors.
"Going out?" Her mom, who was currently playing mahjong, noticed Lin Jin and her cousin coming out.
"Yeah, taking a stroll."
With her hands in her pockets, Lin Jin glanced at the seven or eight people sitting around the table. These middle aged folks had more or less helped her family when she was little, so she politely nodded, which could be considered as greeting.
Since leaving her hometown village at around the age of five, Lin Jin hadn't had a good chance to walk around the place. Later, whenever she returned, it would usually be because there was some urgent matter or just returning during Chinese New Years to pay New Year greetings and stuff. There was never time to wander around. This time was the most leisurely yet, though Lin Jin felt it might not be as leisurely tomorrow.
Almost everything around her hometown had been rebuilt. Aside from the houses, only the fields behind the village remained in their original state. But those fields seemed to have basically no one farming them. The large field, with seemingly no end in sight, had only a few small patches on the edges still planted with something.
The pond beside the fields had been filled in and turned into a not large textile factory. The roads had also been repaved. The roads that used to collapse every year had now been replaced with asphalt and looked quite smooth too.
Following her cousin’s steps, Lin Jin looked around left and right. Although her memories from when she was five weren't very deep, somehow, seeing the surroundings still made her subconsciously recall how these scenes looked back then.
There was an ancestral shrine and a temple in the village. Walking into the ancestral shrine in the dim light, she found that while the exterior remained the same, the inside had been renovated. It wasn’t a very elaborate renovation, but it was noticeably prettier than it had been back then.
And the amusement park her cousin mentioned was right next to the ancestral shrine. It was originally just a vacant lot piled with rubble, but now it had become a decent small amusement park with a merry go round, bumper cars, and whatnot. It looked quite interesting.
"It's only seven but they’re actually already closed?" Her cousin very unhappily pursed his lips. He turned to Lin Jin and said, "How about we go to the street to buy some snacks? We’ll eat them later?"
"That works."
Lin Jin didn’t really know what to do tonight, so she just went along with her cousin's suggestion.