While Lin Nan's changes seemed relatively normal to those around him, in Wu Guodong's eyes, Lin Nan looked as if he'd undergone full-body plastic surgery.
The last time he'd seen Lin Nan, the main femininity had been in his posture and figure, but his face still showed he was male. Now, not only could Wu Guodong no longer tell he was a man, he even felt that Lin Nan's bone structure had shrunk.
Originally, he'd wanted to scold Lin Nan as an elder about his increasingly girlish appearance, but when he noticed the smaller bone structure, he chose to remain silent.
Could it be calcium deficiency?
But calcium deficiency couldn't possibly cause hands and feet to become thinner, or even make him seem shorter, right?
He glanced at Lin Nan's wrist. During their last meeting, this wrist had been about the same thickness as a normal male's, but now seeing it again, Wu Guodong even wondered if it might fracture with a slight tug.
"You're a bit too thin," Wu Guodong said after looking him over, only able to reach this conclusion. "Do you even weigh ninety pounds now?"
"Probably..." Lin Nan wasn't too sure either. Before his feminization, he was certain he weighed over a hundred pounds, but now he really couldn't gauge his weight accurately.
His arms, calves, abdomen and other areas seemed to have less flesh than before, but his chest and hips had noticeably more meat, and his height had also decreased... Although the dorm had an electronic scale, Lin Nan had never paid attention to his weight before.
"You should eat more. Being too thin isn't good-looking or healthy, and you're not a celebrity or actor."
"I know, I know." Lin Nan was playing games, nodding absentmindedly.
Though he said Lin Nan was thin, Wu Guodong couldn't deny that Lin Nan was quite full in the places that should be full...
He tried his best to look away from Lin Nan's hips. Being single for so many years, sometimes he couldn't quite control himself.
"Your mom said your surgery is quite urgent, but why don't you want to go?" He struggled to move his gaze to the computer screen and didn't dare look at Lin Nan anymore. "She's already gathered eighty or ninety thousand yuan and wants to take you for a detailed examination."
Wu Guodong didn't know what disease Lin Nan had, but seeing Lin Nan's changes, he suspected it might be some rare orthopedic condition. Otherwise, how could someone seem to shrink all over after not seeing them for just a month?
"I'm not going. I already told her, wait until winter break." Lin Nan kicked off his slippers and sat cross-legged on the sofa, staring at the TV screen, completely unwilling to deal with Wu Guodong.
"Your mom says winter break is too late, she's afraid your body can't handle it." Wu Guodong was silent for a moment, finally unable to contain his curiosity. "So what disease do you actually have? You can't have cancer at such a young age, right?"
Lin Nan paused, hesitated for a moment, then answered honestly: "I had a medical examination last time, and they said I'm actually female."
"Huh?" Wu Guodong didn't react immediately. This information was so overwhelming that his brain crashed for a moment.
"Meaning, I have a congenital deformity, so I have something like a little..." Lin Nan's face turned completely red as he spoke, unable to continue. He pretended to be absorbed in his game, not daring to look at his uncle's reaction.
He felt that since he'd inevitably become a girl sooner or later, relatives would find out eventually. Wu Guodong was at least a relatively familiar relative, and having one more relative in the know would mean one more person to help explain things later.
Wu Guodong thought gravely for a moment, ultimately relying on his rich life experience to reluctantly accept Lin Nan's explanation.
"It's probably called female pseudohermaphroditism, right?" Lin Nan answered uncertainly.
Although Wu Guodong was from his parents' generation, he wasn't even thirty yet, so he accepted new things much faster than Lin Nan's mother. He quickly looked up the related condition online, then looked at Lin Nan with surprise.
"Isn't this condition a deformity? How did you also get shorter?"
This... how should I explain this problem?
Lin Nan thought for a long time but couldn't come up with a reason, since congenital deformity shouldn't cause bone structure to shrink either.
"Maybe it's... eating too poorly, bad nutrition?" Lin Nan asked in confusion.
"Doesn't your family give you a thousand yuan a month? Plus you have part-time work. Even if not for entertainment, it should be enough for food, right?"
Food was certainly sufficient, but Lin Nan definitely wouldn't say that. He immediately began complaining pitifully: "My school isn't some key university, the cafeteria doesn't even have subsidies. One vegetable and one meat dish costs fifteen yuan, and if I ate three meals a day it would be forty yuan daily. I also have a cat and feed it Orijen cat food."
"You don't know what Orijen is? It's the kind that costs over a hundred yuan per pound!" Although he actually fed Cola cheap domestic cat food, and the cafeteria prices weren't as expensive as he claimed, Lin Nan's righteous attitude still made Wu Guodong waver.
"Look, I work part-time whenever I have time, but it's really just barely enough for my cat's food..."
"School expenses are that high?" Wu Guodong hadn't really understood current college students' spending since graduating, and was somewhat surprised. "Five hundred yuan was enough when I was in school."
Lin Nan looked at him disdainfully, too lazy to even glance his way: "Nonsense, what expenses could a shut-in like you have?"
That seemed... not wrong?
Although Wu Guodong felt Lin Nan's words made sense, his heart still stung.
He was clearly forced to be a shut-in! If his company gave him frequent time off... he'd probably still stay home playing games anyway.
Lin Nan's rebuttal left him somewhat breathless, but he still fulfilled his duty as an uncle and continued persuading: "I don't really understand your condition, but from what your mom says, it's very dangerous."
"Who knows my body better than me? I eat with great appetite."
Lin Nan was somewhat disappointed. He'd thought that claiming to be poor would get his uncle to give him a few hundred more yuan.
This isn't the uncle who used to give money with just a little coaxing.
Wu Guodong didn't know how to persuade him either. As a programmer shut-in, he wasn't good at communication to begin with, and now he was communicating with a nephew who looked like a girl, while also being attracted to his nephew's body, which made him even more unsure what to say.
"What should we eat for lunch?" Lin Nan comfortably put his feet up on the sofa, that completely unguarded, deliberately masculine posture making Wu Guodong frown.
Although he was only ten years older than Lin Nan, the education he'd received was almost the same as Lin Nan's parents' generation. Seeing Lin Nan's somewhat improper behavior made him uncomfortable.
But he still couldn't say anything, mainly because he was attracted to the person.
"What do you want to eat? Let's have something good these two days." He took out his phone and handed it to Lin Nan. "You order."
"Then help me fight this boss."
This was NG+ with nearly double the difficulty in Sekiro. Wu Guodong was demolished over and over—he'd played this game last year, and playing it again left him completely confused.
"How about grilled fish?" Lin Nan was getting a bit hungry. He hadn't had anything greasy in a long time.
The cafeteria fast food he usually ate was actually quite greasy too, but Lin Nan rarely ordered meat dishes lately to save money.
"That works, and we'll get two bowls of rice." Wu Guodong tried not to look at Lin Nan, keeping a straight face and restraining his physical desires. "Eat more to gain weight. Being so thin makes you prone to injury."
"I know, I know."
Lin Nan also wanted to gain weight, but the problem was his wallet wouldn't allow it.