Blood Neon

Chapter 53

Chapter 53

Problem

Why, then, did she feel resistant to a scene like “playing the role of a girl”?

Shouldn’t she have been someone who simply did not care about things like that at all?

Lin Ying herself could not quite figure it out either.

Because if one were to say it was due to her former gender identity, that did not really make sense either.

At least, from her own understanding.

—As someone who had once been a pure materialist, her understanding of gender had always been that it was an outward identity and a psychological identity formed through the interaction between the influence of hormones and the learning processes of the brain’s neural network.

In other words, in every sense, “the butt decides the head”.

Then in theory, she should not have resisted living like a proper girl, right? After all, her appearance was already that of a beautiful girl, and in terms of bodily functions, there should at least have been some hormones at work too, right?

Or was it that the male soul she possessed was causing trouble?

That was even more of a joke.

What meaning was there in discussing something as metaphysical as the soul here?

Look, even though she had already become a supernatural creature, even to this extent, she still had no way to directly prove the existence of the kind of “soul” that fit human imagination and understanding.

What was a soul?

If one wanted to say it was something like a USB that could be hot-swapped, or a cloud backup containing all of one’s data, or perhaps something brought forth by a lone and lofty performer from some plane with a cry of “Link Start!”

—Those forms of soul existence that matched traditional human imagination.

They were still merely things that could neither be observed nor falsified. If, when discussing a problem, one simply threw all the blame onto that, then would there not be no point in talking any further at all?

A “male soul” and such was nothing more than a descriptive adjective.

One would not even need to experience a gender swap to feel that sort of thing. Even if one simply took a few estrogen pills every month, one would feel changes occurring in both body and personality.

The skin would gradually become smoother, the voice would gradually grow higher, muscle mass would decrease, sexual desire would also decline, and so on and so forth.

.

So after reasoning through it all like this, the whole issue circled right back around again.

Lin Ying did not even know how she had transmigrated or reincarnated, so how could she determine something like the gender of her own psyche?

Was she still the same person as her previous-life self?

Asking that kind of question seemed to carry more or less the flavor of the Ship of Theseus.

How was one supposed to judge whether a tram that had all its parts replaced was still the same one that had originally left the factory?

And then how was one supposed to judge whether, after reincarnation, a person was still himself?

The key to the matter, subjectively, lay in how one viewed it; objectively, it lay in whether “continuity” existed.

If it was the ship Theseus had been sailing all along, then naturally it was the Ship of Theseus. If it was you, after being run over and killed by a truck and then going off to adventure in another world with your head full of terrible memes, then that was still you.

Put simply, it was about acknowledging the unity of the self with memory, and memory with the self.

But then, in a case like Lin Ying’s, where she woke up from chaos only to discover herself in another world, how was she supposed to prove that she had a strong causal connection with the existence of some previous life from some world?

After all, she also had no evidence to deny the possibility that she was a supernatural creature who had, by chance, obtained the memories of a person from another world.

And if one started from that assumption, then there would not even be any need to keep discussing any of these questions at all.

So, in summary.

Dragging in things like the soul would only make the topic more confusing, let alone the fact that she no longer counted as a standard human at all.

In the current situation, when even the species was different, what practical meaning was there in talking about gender?

If she felt embarrassed about being a shut-in wrapped in the skin of a beautiful girl, then why did she not feel embarrassed about being a monster wrapped in the skin of a beautiful girl…?

……

Just like the so-called “phantom pain” of humanity, Lin Ying could only say that, deep in some corner of her heart, she probably still habitually regarded herself as male.

And if one absolutely had to ask how she currently felt about her psychological gender…

At present, she felt that in terms of orientation, she was closer to being asexual?

Although she had confirmed that every detail of this body, from top to bottom and inside and out, had been constructed according to the standards of a young beautiful girl.

As the body’s actual user, however, Lin Ying did not intuitively feel any kind of “gender inclination”.

When she saw beautiful girls heading home after school, she would occasionally crack jokes in her mind, sure, but she had absolutely no thoughts of following them and forcing them down.

For another example, Zhang Qiming was actually fairly handsome, but when she saw him, she likewise felt no flutter of the heart at all, or simply put, no physiological or psychological reaction whatsoever.

Sexual desire?

Masturbation?

None of that existed. All she had was appetite.

To explain that, she felt that perhaps, in the final analysis, it was a matter of how her body functioned.

Because as a predator, she did not need to feel sexual interest toward prey, did she?

Did the little light bulb on an anglerfish’s head need to be sensitive to special wavelengths of light?

It was not a photoreceptive organ. There was absolutely no need for that, or rather, how could it possibly work that way?

Still, that said…

Thinking carefully about it, this world seemed to be a somewhat idealistic one, so perhaps nothing was truly fixed forever.

Who knew—maybe one day, after suddenly thinking something through, something about her would change again.

.

After finally more or less finishing that whole bout of wild thoughts, Lin Ying at last gathered enough courage to overcome her shame and her hesitation in the face of the unknown, and pushed open the shop’s door.

The exterior decoration was not that shabby, nor was it all that elaborate. Its biggest plus point was that the warm lights inside looked very pleasing to the eye.

She liked the feeling of warmth.

And this was precisely the shop she had taken a liking to from the very beginning. Since it had felt relatively agreeable to her eyes, even after circling around three times, she still ended up choosing this place.

At this point in time, there were no other customers in the shop. There was only an auntie lounging in a recliner and leisurely playing on her phone.

When Lin Ying pushed the door open, it set off a burst of crisp wind-chime sounds, but that did not stop the woman from continuing to focus on rubbing at her screen with her head lowered.

“Welcome. Buy whatever you want, just look around.”

She said that listlessly, which barely counted as welcoming a customer.

Lin Ying was somewhat speechless at such frigid salesmanship, but for her, not having anyone come disturb her while she browsed was actually a good thing.

Otherwise, it would have felt unspeakably embarrassing.

So she obediently began to just look around.

.

This was a shop that sold all kinds of women’s clothing. From coats that looked a little cheap, hats and scarves that looked a little cheap, to boots that looked a little cheap, and bras and panties that also looked a little cheap, it truly had everything one could need.

If there was any style that unified the shop, it was probably that lingering sense of cheapness that would not go away.

Well, considering the price range...

She glanced at the price tags, most of which were in the double digits. It was very much a case of getting what one paid for.

Still, it was not a big problem. A qualified hero could beat the opening boss of the first stage while holding a wooden club and wearing nothing at all, so at times like this, she should first seriously see what she could do with the money she had on hand.

And as a beginner, Lin Ying at this moment was like Columbus arriving in the New World, or like Granny Liu entering the Grand View Garden for the first time. She looked here and there, her eyes full of curiosity.

Back when she could only pass by the entrances of women’s clothing shops, she would never have imagined that one day she would walk into one to buy something.

And buy it for herself to wear.

Of course, curiosity was curiosity, but she was also properly managing her facial expression.

She could not immediately make it obvious that this was her first time buying girls’ clothes. Setting aside the possibility of being overcharged for the moment, just from the perspective of a girl who looked to be in her teens, giving people that sort of impression would already feel rather abnormal.

If she really ran into any difficulty, she would deal with it then.

However, as a reliable adult, Lin Ying was confident that she could complete this spur-of-the-moment shopping trip at lightning speed all by herself.

Was it not just buying clothes?

In any case, her goal today was very simple: she was just here to pick out a set of underwear that suited her.

If there was some buy one get one free deal, then she would get two sets.

No matter how she thought about it, that task objective sounded very simple.

And even if what she bought did not fit properly, it was not that big a deal. As long as it was usable, that was enough. She was not picky.

So what problem could there possibly be?

……

……

……

Facing the dazzling array of target goods on the shelf before her—multicolored, varied, some plain and unadorned, some ornate and elaborate, and apparently even differing quite a bit in shape and style...

Facing these garments that embodied the fantasies of boys of a certain age...

Lin Ying felt that she had run into a bit of difficulty.

Now then, the first problem had arrived. Contestant, please listen to the question.

The girl raised both hands and touched her chest.

It seemed to be a transitional landform formed between mountains and plains, and at the tops of the only two highlands, both were covered by artificial multilayered woven structures, concealing the iconic pink rocks that had originally been exposed.

And beneath the soft surface of the hills, which held a slight curve, the hard ribs, acting as the support provided by the earth’s crust, felt a little rough against the hand. Their distinctly angular texture was very obvious.

So... what size did this count as?

Looking at the heap of random combinations of numbers and letters on the sign in front of her,

she felt that she had entered a blind spot in her knowledge.

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Regarding the estrogen mentioned in the text.

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(ps. Unless there is an actual need, cisgender men should not take estrogen on their own. Taking too much should be bad for the body.

And even if you are someone with a need for it, such as the “wooden bucket rice” sort of group, it would still be best not to buy medicine and take it on your own...

Of course, because my understanding of this part basically came from Zhihu, some things I saw a long time ago, and that memory from The Big Bang Theory where Howard applied medicine to his mother without wearing gloves, what I said might not be entirely correct either.

Please treat it as a not particularly serious friendly reminder. )