Uncle has always been very generous—at least in Lin Nan's view, whether in childhood or now, Uncle has always been quite generous.
When he was little, Uncle might have only had thirty yuan in pocket money total, but he was willing to spend twenty of it on Lin Nan, his nephew. And now, although their relationship isn't as pure as it was in childhood, perhaps out of long-standing habit, Wu Guodong is still very willing to spend money on Lin Nan.
Though Wu Guodong suspects it might simply be because Lin Nan has become quite pretty.
After buying Lin Nan a pair of shoes, having a meal, and doing a bit of shopping, he, being a homebody, was already getting a bit tired of it all.
Lin Nan couldn't really go on a shopping spree and wasn't particularly interested in wandering around either, so around eight o'clock the two of them returned home.
"Just tell me if it still smells like cigarettes," Wu Guodong sat down on the sofa, yawning a few times with fatigue.
"Are you sure you're sleeping out here tonight?"
"There's a fan here anyway, and you'll sleep better with the air conditioning."
Fair enough.
Lin Nan wasn't particularly bothered either way. He didn't really need air conditioning at all, but it was still Uncle's kind gesture, so he padded barefoot into the bedroom to check it out.
The cigarette smell in the bedroom air was gone, but if you sniffed carefully, you could still detect some lingering odor from the furniture.
It wasn't too obvious though. The bedding had been taken out to the balcony to air before they left in the afternoon, so it smelled like the sun.
Lin Nan took the opportunity to move the small fan Wu Guodong had placed in the room out to the living room. Looking up, he noticed Wu Guodong was already sweating from the heat.
Today was only just over thirty degrees. Even before he had magic, Lin Nan had never considered this temperature particularly hot. After all, his home hadn't had air conditioning before high school, and it was only after his parents decided on long-term rental that they installed a second-hand unit. And Lin Nan, worried about electricity costs, usually only dared turn it on when temperatures exceeded thirty-five degrees.
It was only this past year at university that Lin Nan had gotten used to air conditioning every day in summer, mainly because Tu Junhui was so heat-sensitive.
After setting up the living room fan, Lin Nan went into the bedroom early to get used to any remaining smoke smell. Wu Guodong smoked two cigarettes in the living room to satisfy his craving, then cheerfully followed him in to enjoy the air conditioning.
As soon as he entered, he caught a whiff of the milky fragrance in the room, and then saw Lin Nan just taking off his sun protection jacket.
His gaze was immediately drawn to the curves of Lin Nan's chest.
Earlier, with the sun protection shirt on, although he'd thought Lin Nan definitely had some chest development, he hadn't realized his nephew had progressed so much from the nearly flat figure of a month ago, gradually moving in a more sensual direction.
Perhaps in a while it would be "niece" instead?
"Not going to use the computer?"
"I'm afraid I might accidentally stumble across something weird," Lin Nan joked, folding the jacker neatly and placing it on the nightstand before looking up at him. "Weren't you going to sleep in the living room?"
Wu Guodong rolled his eyes. "What time is it? Can't I come in and enjoy the air conditioning for a bit?"
He plopped down at the foot of the bed, his eyes unable to stop glancing at Lin Nan.
How had a perfectly normal boy somehow turned into a girl? And a pretty attractive one at that. Even now, with Lin Nan wearing no makeup at all, he was still a notch prettier than most ordinary college girls.
If he put on some makeup and grew out his hair, while Lin Nan might not be devastatingly beautiful, he'd probably reach the average level of those little celebrities.
And there was that subtle charm in his eyes and brows, the faint milky fragrance emanating from his body—if Lin Nan had always been a girl, there would probably be a line of suitors stretching down the street by now.
He didn't quite dare look at Lin Nan too much, keeping his head down while enjoying the air conditioning and playing on his phone.
Lin Nan finished tidying up the bed, then sat cross-legged against the headboard and started playing on his phone.
Speaking of which, should I buy a bra to wear? Otherwise walking around feels strange now, and if I jump around a bit it feels all jiggly... Plus I heard that if you don't wear a bra, it can easily cause sagging and other problems, like Tu Junhui's chest?
Although he thought this, Lin Nan still felt very resistant to any feminine items. After searching on Taobao for ages, he ultimately chose to give up, his face flushed with embarrassment.
I’m a grown man, what's there to fear about sagging!
Feeling a bit bored, he looked up at Uncle playing on his phone at the foot of the bed, then suddenly got up and crawled over there, poking his head around trying to peek at Wu Guodong's screen.
"What are you doing?" Wu Guodong openly showed him, glancing at Lin Nan. "Why are you so excited about me reading a novel?"
"You seemed so absorbed, I thought it might be something interesting," Lin Nan said, settling his bottom down and kneeling on his calves, but finding that uncomfortable, he simply spread his legs a bit and sat on the bed instead, then continued asking, "Got any good novel recommendations? I'm in a book drought lately."
Wu Guodong looked somewhat strangely at Lin Nan's almost unconscious duck-sitting posture, pursing his lips. "Paradise of Demonic Gods is pretty good." (TN: It’s an actual novel, though I haven’t read it myself.)
"I've read that one!" Lin Nan still hadn't noticed his feminine sitting posture, excitedly discussing novel topics with Wu Guodong.
He actually didn't read that many novels, mainly because legitimate copies were expensive. Those completed legitimate novels cost dozens or hundreds of yuan each, so he could only choose a few ongoing novels to read slowly. That way, spending about ten yuan a month was sufficient.
And he'd already caught up to the latest chapters of Paradise of Demonic Gods, basically surviving on those ten yuan and daily check-in tokens.
Both being fans of the same book, they chatted enthusiastically about the plot for a while, and then Lin Nan sat down at the computer, planning to connect remotely with his roommates for some LoL.
After all, there was still a competition next Tuesday. Once that was over, Lin Nan also planned to try some other similar games. After playing since middle school until now, he was getting a bit tired of it.
Wu Guodong pulled over a chair and sat beside Lin Nan to watch him play. He wasn't playing himself, but his mouth wouldn't stop chattering.
"No, your vision placement isn't quite right," Wu Guodong was usually busy with work during the day and mostly played single-player games during his rest time after work. He was basically a casual player when it came to LoL, but he watched plenty of matches and had rich theoretical knowledge. "If you push forward there, won't you just get killed?"
"Lin Nan, your support play isn't very good. How did you die again?"
"Can you really compete like this?"
Lin Nan took a moment to turn and glare at him. "Diamond I five-man queue! The opponents are all Ionia server Diamond I Master tier players! If you can do better, you try!"
Wu Guodong still looked like he wanted to continue his commentary. He felt it was like complaining about refrigerator cooling issues—you didn't need to be able to refrigerate things yourself, right?
But seeing his nephew getting irritated and starting to flame his teammates over voice chat, he figured it was better not to provoke Lin Nan at this moment. So he planned to look down at his novel, but his gaze kept involuntarily drifting toward Lin Nan.
If you didn't look carefully, you really wouldn't notice that Lin Nan's chest had already become so much more impressive than last time...
Come to think of it, when they used to bathe together as children, how had he never noticed this was actually a girl?