I've got good news. I was already planning to post this chapter but took a while to actually do it, so in the meantime I finished Chapter 35. And it gets better. Chapter 35 ended up so long that I decided to divide it in two. I've also increased my writing quota, and it seems like I'll be able to keep it up, so it is not unrealistic to hope for more regular updates.

Hope you guys are enjoying it so far. Please bear with me for just a little longer!

Chapter Thirty Four - The beginning of the end

Gui sat on a table in a cafe on the other side of town. He had learned it was not wise to have meetings too close to the university.

He pretended to browse the menu while watching the front door intently. Any moment now, Feng Lan would walk in. He expected she would be cross. He had, after all, discovered her secret and used it to compel her to accept this meeting. It was almost blackmailing!

He pictured Prince's angry face and his deadly kicks, and shivered.

"What are you looking at?"

A female voice chimed in his ear, and he turned brusquely.

"When did you...?"

"You were so distracted you didn't see me when I walked in. I'm sorry I'm late."

Gui checked his watch while she took a seat.

"Actually you are right on the clock."

It was so weird, Gui thought, seeing Prince's "true form". He had figured it out minutes after learning he was a girl. The embarrassing few days when he'd thought Feng Yang Ming was Prince came back to him, his mistake seeming even more preposterous, but also highlighting a face that had been mostly in the background: Yang Ming's twin sister.

"So, what would you like to talk about?" Her voice took him out of his daydream. She had been watching him all the time he'd been spacing out. Gui felt very stupid to be caught off guard twice in five minutes, and felt blood start rushing to his embarrassed face.

Lan watched with some degree of amusement as Professor Min blushed. He was usually so composed in real life, so different from his game self. Perhaps, she mused, if it wasn't for the obvious physical resemblance, people would have as much trouble recognizing him as they had recognizing her.

Those considerations worked a lot towards making her less guarded: at first she was not too sure on how she'd confront Gui, and she would probably have been hostile.

So you are a girl. The thought crossed Gui's mind, but he stopped himself from saying it. It would be re-stating the obvious. This whole conversation wouldn't be taking place if it weren't for that fact.

"Does anyone else know that you are a girl? People from the game, I mean."

"My brother. Jin and Yun." She hesitated and decided against mentioning Zhuo Lin Bin.

"Anyone from Odd Squad?"

"Lolidragon."

"How did she...?" He stopped. Lan's eyes were firmly saying that this was not his business. He changed subjects before it became an awkward silence. "But anyways, why? Why would you want to play as a boy?"

"It was a silly bet with my brother..."

The account made Gui laugh, and Lan argued he didn't know how hard it was to try and fit yourself to society's standard of feminine behavior.

"Wait... sorry. Perhaps you do… I mean, it must be hard on gay people too, right?"

"What?" The professor chocked on his drink.

That got them started on clearing a number of misunderstandings, and after they got too tired of being embarrassed they actually began laughing about it.

"... and that time when we were hunting dragons, and I wanted to sell the..."

"Oh my gosh... and I made you a soup instead..."

And they laughed and laughed.

Perhaps it was true, Lan would later think, remembering this meeting, that "truth will make you free". She hadn't been able to talk this freely to Gui when she was keeping secrets from him.

As Gui had promised, the night ended without incidents. When Lan went back home, she found Yang Ming fixing a late night snack.

"How was the date with Yu An?" He asked between two bites.

"I wasn't in a date. I just got together with a friend."

Yang Ming looked extremely surprised. In fact, a little more surprised than his sister found reasonable, but Lan refrained from commenting. Instead she grabbed a snack for herself and retreated into her room.

No sooner than she was by herself, her cellphone beeped.

I just wanted to thank you. I had a really great time today.

It was Gui.

She smiled and typed a reply.

I had a great time too, so thank you, as well :)

His next message took a little longer to come.

Would you like to do it again?

Sure.

Lan answered that a second too quickly. When her thinking brain caught up to her fingers, the message had already been sent.

She fumbled desperately for the undo button, the erase message option, anything, but Gui had already read it - his reply came immediately.

You are a very special girl, Feng Lan.

Damn it. Damn it all.

She had only agreed to that meeting because she thought there was no way Gui could continue pursuing his romantic delusions about Prince after he knew her true identity. Except... wasn't that exactly what he was doing? And he'd said he wasn't gay.

Doubt began gnawing at her.

"You are a very special girl."

Did people send this kind of message when they were just being friendly? She didn't think so.

Perhaps for the first time since she'd seen him as a lone wandering bard, playing in a town square, before they had been properly introduced, she stopped to think about how handsome he was. One of the three most handsome men she knew - and the other two were her brother and Prince.

Then she remembered Yu An. Not that she had forgotten about him, but she decided to focus her wandering mind on him. He was handsome, too. If it weren't for his numerous diseases making him look so pale, giving him dark circles under his eyes, making his skin brittle... he would probably be the fourth man on her list. Of course, since he was an exact lookalike of Prince. But Yu An smiled a lot more than Prince did - the Bloody Overlord had a role to play, and only let his mask down when he was with his most intimate friends. All the Judy-and-Punch act aside, Gui /was one of those friends.

That only made it harder to tell him they couldn't continue meeting the way he wanted to.

The thought was surprisingly hurtful.

"Gui, I don't think we should meet in private. Why don't we call the whole team? It will be fun!"

Lan rehearsed these words to herself countless times, trying different intonations.

"No, that's not right. I need to explain why we shouldn't meet in private, shouldn't I?"

"Gui," she started again, "the truth is that I don't feel too comfortable about meeting in private like last time. I have a boyfriend, and I don't think he would be too happy a about it and... lame! Lame, lame, lame!" She gave up.

The weekend came and went, and classes started, and she still didn't know what to say.

"Xiao Lan? Are you ok?"

Yu An was very caring, but that actually made her feel worse. Why wasn't it easier to tell a guy she already had a boyfriend?

"I'm just... anxious about game stuff." Not exactly a lie.

But also not the truth he deserves. An accusing voice inside her pointed out.

What truth? She cut herself sharply. Nothing happened.

"Wanna take a break from Second Life tonight?"

"I... think everything is under control."

"Ok..." Yu An tried not to look disappointed. He had actually hopped for an opportunity to hang out with her. Then he remembered. "Ah, do you have an answer about this weekend?"

Lan blinked. It took her a few seconds to catch up.

"Oh, yeah. To visit your hometown. Hmm..." she hadn't thought about that matter at all, but she felt Yu An deserved a better answer than that. She decided it would be a great incentive for figuring things out with Gui. "Can I get back to you on Thursday?"

"Sure."

He did leave her. Yu An probably realized she needed some space. His thoughtfulness only added to her sense of guilt.

Second Life

System Notice: Quest "Infiltration" has been assigned.

Of course the first thing the Black Brotherhood did was to try out all of Clyde's quests. They were edgy quests assigned by an edgy NPC in an edgy town!

They were mostly simple quests: some of the classic "go kill N so and so mobs then report back", the more interesting "deliver this edgy package to this edgy NPC" - apparently there were a handful of those in each of the major cities, and though simple in nature those quests were quite thrilling for people that had bounties on their heads. There were also slightly more complicated quests. "Infiltration" was one of those.

Just like Traverse Town had received an NPC when it was acknowledged by the system, so had the Rising Sun Camp. They had an NPC called Old Chief Red, who traded potions for an assortment of ingredients, and told players the lore about each dungeon in long, monotonous tales. Old Chief Red was wrinkled and smoked a pipe. Like everyone else in Rising Sun Camp, he had two stripes painted across his cheek and a wore a feather bound in a leather strip on his head. But, unlike everyone else in camp, his feather was black, with a golden tip. It was said to be a feather from the King Eagle – a boss that was extremely hard to find, but was said to be extremely powerful. How and when had Old Chief Red found such a splendid beast? That was a story he never told players. And it was exactly for that story that Clyde had sent them.

Quest Description

Infiltrate the Rising Sun Camp. Make friends with Old Chief Red. Get him to loosen up by offering him the "Special Blend Tobacco Leaves" and discover the location of King Eagle's nest.

Jet had one suspicious look at the quest item Clyde had given them.

"Do you think those really are tobacco leaves?"

No one knew botanics enough to give an unbiased answer. Internally, everyone thought no. Clyde was just too edgy.

"So… disguises, folks."

"Can't we use the same ones as last time?" - "last time" referring to a previous quest at Star City.

"I don't think that will work. Rising Sun Camp is much smaller than a regular city – though they still have a lot of players. Getting in without being recognized will be harder."

The team sighed, and Crow shrugged, a sheepish smile on his face. He was probably the second most well-known face of Second Life. Good luck hiding that for long enough to trick an Indian.

Real Life

It was Thursday.

Yu An was radiant because Lan had said she'd love to go with him to his hometown, and Lan was relieved because that gave her the perfect excuse to talk to Gui. Now she just had to tell him.

"Sorry, guys, I need to stay to get some stuff done." She gave some poor excuse to her friends, brother and boyfriend, urging them to go ahead.

As soon as they turned around the hall she re-entered the classroom.

"Feng Lan. That's great, I wanted to talk to you."

"Right..." she realized she was forgetting her lines. The lines she had carefully rehearsed to say to him.

"I was thinking if we could do something this Saturday."

"Oh." It was like he had participated in her mental rehearsals, because he gave her the perfect cue. "You see, Gui... this weekend I'll be out of town."

I'll be visiting my boyfriend's family. The sentence got stuck in her throat.

Gui wasn't really fazed by it, so Lan was forced to say it.

"I'll be visiting my boyfriend's family."

CRASH.

While half of him remained catatonic, the other half of Gui worked at double speed to compensate.

Did I just hear the sound of glass breaking? Was that the sound of my dreams crashing?

"Boyfriend?"

He didn't know what expression he was making, or what color was his face. And he didn't care.

"I didn't realize you would want to go out again, otherwise I would have told you right away."

It did make sense. That all started because Prince had said he was in love.

Actually... a representative of Gui's inner Debate Club spoke up. ... that's not exactly what he said.

"And" Lan continued on her own momentum, afraid she wouldn't be able to finish if she stopped to hear Gui's reaction. "I know you just invited me to go out as a friend, but I haven't talked to my boyfriend about it yet, and I feel like we shouldn't continue meeting just the two of us."

"Who said I just want to go out as friends?"

His brain was working again, and Gui was decided on taking control of the situation. He took her hand, and was suddenly very close.

Feng Lan blushed. It was hard to breath, and she felt dizzy. She wished there were a wall behind her for support. Then she thought better. No, she didn't want a guy pining her against a wall, not even a guy as handsome as Gui.

"This boyfriend of yours" Gui continued, "do you love him?"

Love.

BA-DUMP.

Love was a strong word.

"I like him a lot."

She knew that was not the question. She remembered Yu An.

I didn't ask if you're free this weekend. I asked you if you want to go out with me.

Gui, on his side, swallowed his petty hurt because he too knew she hadn't answered the question.

"But do you love him?"

She tried to think about Yu An, perhaps weight that question objectively. But even though one second ago she could practically hear his smiling voice, right now she couldn't conjure his face in her mind's eye.

You are too close. She thought, feeling uncomfortable. Gui probably realized that, because he fell back one step - though he did not let go of her hand.

As it became easier to think, she thought she didn't know the answer. Going out with Yu An had always been fun, but at some point she had started liking him. If they continued to go out like that, would she eventually grow to love him? Was that how love worked?

"Well, the thing is..." Gui spoke, once it became clear she wouldn't. "I love you, Feng Lan. The entire you."

Lan blushed so hard that her head throbbed.

"You... we've barely met, you know."

Rather than reaffirming the truth of his feelings, Gui changed his wording.

"Fair enough. I am in love with you, then."

When he phrased it like that she couldn't find any objections, and the beginning of the end was when she realized that made her happy.

That's Prince, all right. Her thoughts are showing through her face.

Gui couldn't bring himself to feel sorry for whoever her boyfriend was. He just closed the distance between them and planted a soft kiss on her lips before she could do or say anything.

Lan didn't pull away, but made a tormented face.

"I can't."

"But do you want to?"

This time there was nothing soft about his kiss.