I Don’t Want to Be Turned into a Girl by Magic

Chapter 275 : Lantern Festival

On Lantern Festival, you're supposed to eat yuanxiao and view lantern displays.

The yuanxiao here was basically equivalent to meat-filled tangyuan. When she was little, Lin Nan had eaten handmade yuanxiao from a shop in a small alley. That taste remained unforgettable for over ten years, but unfortunately she could never find that shop again now, and the yuanxiao sold on the streets didn't taste much different from the frozen products sold in supermarkets.

There was no hope for lantern displays this year. Although in previous years Lin Nan had only gone once to see them at the Three Lanes and Seven Alleys in the provincial capital, but back then, the Three Lanes and Seven Alleys hadn't been renovated yet. Who knows what it looked like now. (TN: China’s most integrated ancient residential area, showcasing years of cultural heritage.)

A group of relatives began gathering in the kitchen to manually wrap yuanxiao and glutinous rice red bean cakes, chatting happily while occasionally bursting into laughter. Meanwhile, Lin Nan and the others yawned in the front hall, watching TV with nothing to do.

The TV was showing "Boonie Bears." Lin Nan's little cousin, Wu Jiaming's sister, was watching with rapt attention, but the several teenagers were bored to death. (TN: This is the most random nostalgia thing I’ve seen yet.)

"What's little cousin's name again?" Lin Nan sat beside Liu Xinyi, asking quietly.

"I forgot!" Liu Xinyi said matter-of-factly.

This little cousin only came back during New Year. Usually she lived abroad, and the age gap was too large so they never played that much. Besides Lin Nan and the others, of course they couldn't remember her name clearly.

It was also possible that Aunt never mentioned it.

Lin Nan glanced at Wu Jiaming holding his little cousin while watching TV. The siblings would occasionally ask each other extremely childish questions, and the other would answer seriously and earnestly. This was the first time she discovered her cousin was actually so tolerant toward children.

If it were her, she'd probably get irritated within half an hour.

"Sis, why do you keep glancing at your phone?" Liu Xinyi teased, nudging Lin Nan with her shoulder, face full of smiles: "Are you waiting for your boyfriend to send you a message?"

"As if!" Lin Nan flatly denied it, glaring at her with annoyance.

Just as they were talking, the roar of a motorbike suddenly came from outside. The group turned to look. Before long, a male figure wearing black leather and a helmet stopped his bike at the door.

Lin Nan froze, grabbed Liu Xinyi and ran toward the bathroom. "What? What's wrong!"

"Help me fix my hair, quick quick!" Lin Nan's face flushed as she shoved her into the bathroom, then raised her head to shout at Wu Jiaming: "Cousin, help me find a mask!"

With that, Lin Nan also dove into the bathroom.

Wu Jiaming was confused. He hadn't seen that person outside, but looking at Lin Nan's behavior, it was probably that boyfriend they usually teased about?

He looked toward Chen Yao and saw Chen Yao had just taken off his helmet. The face under the helmet wore a mask, making it hard to see clearly, but at least the upper half of his face wasn't bad-looking.

He nodded at Chen Yao in acknowledgment, but since the two weren't familiar, he didn't say much. He just found a mask from the TV cabinet and placed it on the table.

A moment later, Lin Nan finally finished fixing her hair and gracefully emerged from the bathroom.

She felt her heartbeat was a bit abnormally fast. Even walking made her legs feel weak, and her usual gestures and movements subconsciously became much more gentle.

This was the first time Wu Jiaming had seen Lin Nan in such a shy and charming state. It left him somewhat dazed, and he looked at Chen Yao with rather jealous eyes.

This guy looked completely ordinary. What luck did he have to hook up with his cousin?

Lin Nan put on the mask. Her steps were somewhat hurried, but she was afraid of appearing too enthusiastic and possibly being teased by her cousins. She forcibly stopped her flying feet and just slowly walked up to Chen Yao, then raised her head to look at him sitting on the motorbike.

Probably also rarely seeing Lin Nan like this, Chen Yao's eyes smiled into crescents as he raised his hand to ruffle Lin Nan's hair.

"Don't mess it up! I just got my hair done!" Lin Nan slapped his hand away.

The hair Liu Xinyi had helped style immediately became messy again, making Lin Nan somewhat embarrassed and annoyed.

"Let's go, we're going to see the lantern display." Chen Yao took out a helmet and handed it to Lin Nan, then patted the spot behind him: "Get on."

"Lantern display?"

While Lin Nan asked in confusion, her body honestly lifted her leg and straddled the bike.

"Yeah, didn't you know? Near here there's a farmhouse that puts on a lantern display every year. Not sure if they have it this year. If not, we'll just treat it as going out for a ride."

She really didn't know about this. After all, in the past during New Year, before the fifth day, after her parents finished their New Year visits they'd go back to work, and she could only stay home bored.

Chen Yao put on his helmet properly.

"I'm too lazy to hold on." Before Lin Nan could say goodbye to her cousins, the motorbike roared again. Caught off guard, Lin Nan nearly fell backward, and could only nervously grab Chen Yao's waist and abdomen, her face turning pale with fright.

"What's wrong with you!" Lin Nan pressed tightly against Chen Yao's back, using her helmeted head to knock several times forcefully.

"Get used to it." Seeing Lin Nan's angry appearance, Chen Yao didn't mind the pain and instead laughed happily.

There was almost no one on the road. Chen Yao drove quite fast, which made the already timid and death-fearing Lin Nan even more nervous. She could only keep hugging Chen Yao's waist tightly.

"Slower! Slower!"

Although wearing a helmet meant she couldn't feel the harsh wind, Lin Nan was still quite frightened by the rapidly passing scenery. "Are you in a hurry to be reborn?! Last time I rode in your car it was this fast too!"

Chen Yao couldn't understand why Lin Nan would be so afraid. In his view, this speed was already taking Lin Nan's feelings into account.

He could only slow down a bit more, saying with a bitter smile: "How could anything happen? This isn't even fast."

"Even slower!" Lin Nan nervously clutched Chen Yao's clothes.

"Any slower and I’d be slower than a bike!"

So the perfectly good motorbike gradually turned into a bicycle under Lin Nan's demands. Only then did Lin Nan breathe a sigh of relief.

She'd never even ridden a bicycle much in her life, and now that she wasn't controlling the vehicle herself, she was naturally scared to death.

After relaxing, Lin Nan suddenly asked: "Where'd you get the motorbike?"

Of course it was from home.

But Chen Yao absolutely couldn't say that. He immediately found an excuse: "My cousin came to pay New Year visits, so I secretly rode it out."

"Really?"

Lin Nan had long known that Chen Yao and his mother's previous story about the electric scooter having a punctured tire was a lie. Although she didn't care, now she took out this leverage, pretending to be confused as she asked: "Then why didn't you go borrow one before? The roads weren't blocked yet then, were they?"

"I forgot?" Chen Yao tried to wipe cold sweat, but with the helmet blocking he couldn't, so he could only rack his brains to continue finding reasons to deceive Lin Nan, afraid this girl would get angry because of it: "You know my memory isn't great... and going out then was so dangerous. What if I went to borrow a bike and got infected myself?"

"You still drove to pick me up that day though." Lin Nan replied disdainfully. This guy couldn't even come up with a proper excuse.

"Uh..."