Shift! The Side-Character Heroine

Time to put some pressure

Zhao Youyue looked at Han Leng once again. No, Master Leng Zi, to be frank. Her eyes glimmered. She has just given birth to a great evil!

He was wearing a high school girl uniform which belonged to the 2D world. His straight long slender legs were covered by a layer of black silk knee socks. An absolutely white and smooth surface was exposed at the void between where the short skirt ended and knee socks began. No one will ever feel tired of playing with such a beautiful pair of legs!

The only unfortunate part was that his chest was too flat. So what? His cute face and slender legs would still lure men into the ultimate trap!

"Great gifted scholar Han, I mean…Master Leng Zi, I certainly did not expect you to turn out so cute! Your fans will be thrilled!" said Zhao Youyue happily.

She circled him a few times, surveying her work. She took out her handphone and snapped pictures of him from different angles. Unfortunately, she did not bring along a single-lens reflex camera. It could have captured the images with life-like quality. With some editing, this Han Leng would turn into a Goddess for the otakus!

Han Leng stood on the spot nervously. Cross-dressing was most certainly a private affair. The last thing you would want happening is to get exposed. Yet here he was, being scrutinized from head to toe by Lady Zhao. He felt so shy, yet excited…

Lady Zhao's beautiful appearance seemed to suddenly turn mundane and mediocre. It was Han Leng's almighty ego speaking once again. He thought that the prettiest person in this world should be him in drag, Leng Zi, not Han Leng.

This is Han Leng, forever, changing his mind. Sometimes extremely arrogant, sometimes his harshest critic.

"In the past, I always see statements from other male writers, saying they'd rather die than cross-dressing. Some would be deep in debt, yet they would refuse to pay up by dressing in drag. How foolish! Such writers deserve to stay penniless! I think it's time to put some pressure on them. I'll take a cross-dressing selfie for each holiday and festival, and have my readers share them to other readers' groups. I feel so excited just imagining it!" said Han Leng proudly.

No one knows since when, but there is this common practice among social groups of books, where the groups' hosts would be asked to cross-dress. Han Leng used to ignore these requests. But now, his cross-dress photos were definitely qualified to be shared to other groups, with the intent of putting pressure on the other groups' hosts!

Han Leng realized that he was not against cross-dressing at all, without getting addicted to it. He was not obsessed about cross-dressing. He belonged on a higher level. He truly understood gender equality!

Anyone who opposes male cross-dresser is definitely looking down on females. His head should be caved in!

This is Han Leng's view towards cross-dressing.

Zhao Youyue was slightly disappointed to see Han Leng being so receptive towards cross-dressing. She was actually expecting to see a very abashed and reluctant Han Leng, eventually left with no choice but to relent. However, she felt that Han Leng had always wanted to cross-dress. He just never had the opportunity or a person to guide him.

Zhao Youyue's appearance had helped fulfill Han Leng's deepest, darkest intention. She made his dream come true with both her hands

Zhao Youyue loved to mess with skin care products and cosmetics, reading all sorts of fashion magazines. She had become quite the skilled makeup artist. Like many other aspects of her, it had remained largely unknown at school.

"You've totally ruin Master Leng Zi's image the moment you speak, and you can't possibly bring a voice changer along." Zhao Youyue started to satirize Han Leng.

Little did she know that Han Leng had already mastered the 'pseudo voice' technique. It's just a matter of choice.

"Voice? How do you think about my voice now?" said Han Leng with his pseudo voice.

Zhao Youyue was amazed!

If she did not know him as a boy in the first place, she would have been fooled on the spot. Such a sweet and cute voice had to be the voice of a typical cute girl!

Of course, if you knew that he is a boy, you would be able to distinguish the flaws. Anyway, if Han Leng were to speak on the phone with his pseudo voice technique, he would fool the entire world!

Even if I had not forced him, he would have started cross-dressing on his own accordeventually.

I wonder what he had experienced in the past..

Zhao Youyue suddenly remembered a sentence. "Boys who become cute have nothing to do with girls. Girls who become handsome have nothing to do with boys as well."

Zhao Youyue considered herself very handsome. How could she not be handsome, after such a violin performance?

She had even decided to completely restore and project Chu Luoxun's original music from the literary world into reality. This was also Chu Luoxun's wish.

Han Leng was content with Lady Zhao's surprised reaction. He continued to speak in his pseudo voice, "As a writer, I really like to extract materials from any source of inspiration possible. Learning the pseudo voice technique was a kind of material extraction. There's no need to be so surprised."

Zhao Youyue truly admired Han Leng. She somehow felt that even if he were to go on a patronage date[1] one day in future, he would refer it to material extraction as well, experiencing a more exciting side of life…

"Let's go out together. I'll buy a few more sets of suitable women's clothing as a present for you, and snap a few more sets of photos for my personal collection," said Zhao Youyue.

"Oh, let me change my clothes first."

"There's no need to change, let's just go out like this."

"What? How can I possibly go out in such clothes? I'm not an idiot, you know. People seldom wear 2D style clothing like this, unless we're at Comic Fiesta[2]…"

"Tsk, lost your balls? I thought that you truly did not care about how others view you. It seems like you're the bedroom-only type of cross-dresser"

"Hahaha, I know that you're trying to provoke me, but I'll still bite the bait! I'm not like those mortals! I'm a writer, an artist that can create and destroy worlds! I truly need not care about how others look at me!"

"I just realized that you're a fake hipster and real adolescent!

"Whatever. I'm just living a life more honestly and frankly than others.

"Fine, Let's go…Oh, right, how about some perfume?"

"Give me the best! Are there any 82s?"

"Stop joking! Be cooler!"

…

Han Leng always dons a pair of pure white sneakers. The sneakers still seemed to be a good match to his stockings.

Zhao Youyue had forgotten about the shoes, but she could easily purchase one on the spot. She personally disliked wearing high heels. Somehow, she felt that Han Leng might rock them. This was also a form of material extraction

Han Leng would definitely look like a model once he puts a pair of high heels on!

Han Leng sounded very confident. However, the moment he walked out from the beauty salon, the nervousness took hold of him. He could the breeze beating about his lower portion. This was his first time wearing a skirt!

It was also a liberating, new sensation…He vaguely remembered that be it skirts or knee socks, they were initially men's clothing. When did they get classified as women's clothing, instead?

The matter left him greatly disgruntled.

By this time, Chen Haoran was staring at them blankly. He could see Zhao Youyue

He saw no Leng Zi

Translation Note:

[1] Patronage dating - Patronage dating is a noun phrase that originates from Japan, which refers to females promising to go out with males on dates in exchange for money, not necessarily having sexual behaviors.

[2] Comic Fiesta - Comic Fiesta or CF for short, is Malaysia's longest-running convention that focuses on animation, comics and games (ACG). Their focus is to celebrate all aspects of art and creativity (and the ever popular ACG culture). It is the biggest non-profit ACG convention in Malaysia, organized by a group of volunteers to bring the comic convention experience to the Malaysian audience.

Tonicquill (ED): In short, a cosplay convention. I couldn't reach the Translator of this chapter at this time, so I do not know if the author specifically used 'Comic Fiesta,' otherwise we would adopt the universal term 'cosplay convention.'