Tòumíng stared at his phone screen, the notification still glowing. The new banner artwork showed a collection of characters in elaborate cultivation robes, each one striking a dramatic pose. The title read: "Ladyboy Lotus Pack - Limited Event."
He clicked it.
Thirteen character portraits appeared, each one more elaborately designed than the last. Flowing hair, delicate features, makeup that ranged from subtle to theatrical, outfits that walked the line between masculine and feminine with deliberate ambiguity. All femboys. Every single one. Not a single hourglass-figured warrior or busty sword cultivator in sight.
Usually, Tòumíng went for the basic hourglass warriors. The ones with the jiggle physics and the impossibly proportioned bodies. Maybe the odd MILF character when they released special banners. That was his type. That was what he pulled for.
But something had snapped.
Maybe it was the encounter fifteen minutes ago. Maybe it was his brain trying to process new information and categorize it into his existing framework of attraction. Maybe he'd just been irreversibly corrupted by two weeks of unlimited internet access.
Whatever the reason, he found himself staring at these characters with interest he couldn't quite explain or justify.
The booster pack cost fifty yuan for a single pull. The odds of getting one of the thirteen featured characters were listed in tiny text at the bottom: 0.6% per pull.
Predatory. Manipulative. Designed to exploit exactly this kind of impulsive thinking.
Tòumíng clicked the "Buy 10 Pulls" button. Five hundred yuan vanished from his account.
The animation played. Colorful lights, dramatic music, cards flipping over one by one to reveal his pulls. Common character. Common character. Duplicate. Weapon he didn't need. Another common. More duplicates. Crafting materials. A four-star character he already had at max level.
Ten pulls.
Zero femboys.
"FUCK!" Tòumíng slammed his phone face-down on the bed, the impact muffled by the mattress. "I'll never get a femboy!"
The words hung in the air for exactly two seconds before Cupid's voice cut through with barely contained amusement.
"You have, oh I don't know, THE NUMBER OF ONE ON YOUR PHONE!"
Tòumíng sat up straight. "Yeah! You're right! I need to text him to get my bike back!"
"That is not why you want to call him."
"Yes it is! My bike was stolen. I'm the victim here. I deserve to get my property returned."
"Uh-huh."
"I'm serious!"
"You're gay."
The word hit like a slap. "I am NOT gay!"
"Okay, bi then."
"I'm not bi either!"
"You just spent five hundred yuan trying to pull anime femboys in a gacha game."
"That's—that's different! That's just I was curious about the event mechanics!"
"You slammed your phone and said 'I'll never get a femboy' with genuine despair in your voice."
"I meant in the game!"
"Did you though?"
"YES!"
Cupid's voice softened slightly, losing some of the teasing edge. "Look, there's nothing wrong with being gay. Or bi. Or whatever you're figuring out right now. Sexuality is a spectrum. People discover new things about themselves all the time. It's normal. It's fine. You don't need to—"
"I'M NOT GAY!" Tòumíng shouted at his chest, at the heart that wasn't entirely his anymore, at the entity living inside him who wouldn't stop with the psychoanalysis.
"I like girls! I've always liked girls! Just because I got confused for five minutes by someone with good makeup and—and I'm not finishing that sentence!"
"So you're saying you were attracted to—"
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!"
He grabbed a pillow and pressed it against his face, muffling his own frustrated scream. This was too much. Too many new concepts in one day. He'd gone from thinking he understood his sexuality perfectly well to questioning everything in the span of twenty minutes, and he didn't have the emotional framework to process any of it.
His phone sat on the bed, screen still showing the gacha results. Zero femboys. Just a collection of common characters and duplicates he didn't need.
Five hundred yuan down the drain.
He could text the number. Right now. Just pull up the photo, type in the digits, send a message about the bike. Simple. Straightforward. Purely transactional.
But what would he even say? "Hey, you flashed me and stole my bike, can I have it back?" That sounded pathetic.
"I have your number, meet me to return my property?" Too aggressive.
"So about that pleasant surprise..." Absolutely not.
Tòumíng picked up his phone, opened his contacts, started to manually enter the number.
His thumb hovered over the keyboard.
"Just call him," Cupid said quietly.
"To get my bike back."
"Sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night."
"It IS to get my bike back!"
"Then call him."
Tòumíng stared at the partially entered number. Seven digits in, three to go. His thumb wouldn't move. His brain had frozen, caught between impulse and overthinking, between curiosity and self-preservation.
"Fuck it," he finally said, exiting the contacts app and tossing his phone onto the bedside table next to his stacks of cash. "I'm going to sleep. It's early, but I'm exhausted, and I don't want to think anymore today."
"Running away from your feelings?"
"Strategically retreating from unnecessary emotional complexity."
"That's a lot of words for 'yes.'"
"Good night, Cupid."
"It's 8:47 PM."
"I SAID GOOD NIGHT!"
Tòumíng stripped off his ruined designer clothes, leaving them in a coal-dusty pile on the floor to deal with tomorrow or never. He collapsed onto his bed in just his underwear, pulled the blanket over himself despite it not being particularly cold, and closed his eyes with aggressive determination.
Sleep. That's what he needed. Sleep would reset everything. Tomorrow he'd wake up, go back to the mine, find more gems, make more money, and definitely not think about femboys or stolen bikes or the number saved in his phone's photo gallery.
Definitely not.
His last thought before unconsciousness claimed him was whether the gacha game would have another femboy event soon, and whether he'd have better luck next time.
Then he was out.