“Break my ass! What the hell did you put in this black sesame porridge!!” Ji Yuennian clutched her abdomen with both hands, feeling as if a storm was raging inside her stomach—it was even worse than eating Wallace.
“To prove it’s medicinal food, I added some unconventional Chinese herbs.” The paranoid man’s IQ was clearly at its lowest today.
“Such as?”
“I added croton seeds.”
“++!”
Ji Yuennian couldn’t hold it in anymore. She cursed under her breath, grabbed a handful of tissues, and dashed straight to the bathroom.
About half an hour later, Ji Yuennian came out, bracing herself against the doorframe, her legs trembling uncontrollably. Even so, she gritted her teeth, walked up to Jiang Chi, and jabbed a finger at his nose, unleashing a barrage of flowery insults.
After the beautiful woman had exhausted herself cursing, the paranoid man slowly raised his head. Seeing Ji Yuennian still standing there alone, his eyes dimmed, and he sighed, “Why is there still only one?”
It was only then that Ji Yuennian noticed that Jiang Chi’s mental state seemed off.
Those azure eyes, once as bright as the starry river, had darkened into the ominous deep blue that precedes a tsunami. Bloodshot veins webbed across the whites of his eyes.
Ji Yuennian instinctively took a step back.
Judging by his eyes, Jiang Chi was having an episode.
She immediately turned—not to run outside—but to first lock the kitchen, then seal all possible exits.
She wasn’t afraid of mental illness.
Nor was she afraid of knives.
But a mentally ill person with a knife made her legs shake uncontrollably.
There was nothing to be done about it; childhood trauma left its mark as deeply as certain family scars.
After setting all precautions against escape, Ji Yuennian walked over to the paranoid man sitting on the sofa. His eyes were vacant, and he was mumbling under his breath, “Why didn’t it become two?” There was a pitiful yet unreasonably stubborn intensity in his tone.
Seeing this, she simply smiled, then flexed her wrists—left, right—a slow motion.
Pa! Pa!
Two crisp slaps echoed through the entire living room. The man’s head snapped to the side from the force. In the next moment, the domineering lady leaned down, gripped his chin, and demanded, “Have you snapped out of it?”
“It hurts.” Jiang Chi’s mouth twitched in pain, and there were two vivid red handprints on his cheeks, making it hard not to suspect Ji Yuennian was settling personal grudges.
Looking up at him again, the dark, oppressive storm blue in his eyes had vanished, replaced by clear, bright blue as if the clouds had parted.
“You feel pain, so you must be awake.”
Seeing Jiang Chi recover, Ji Yuennian nodded, plopping herself down next to him, long legs crossed.
She pulled out a cigarette, lit it with her lighter, took a delicate puff, and exhaled a plume of smoke. The faint scent spread with the white smoke, drifting through the air with a hint of sweetness and subtle fragrance.
“Say, Jiang Chi, do I act like you when I have an episode?” She asked, a trace of concern in her beautiful eyes.
“Not likely.” Jiang Chi shook his head, pointing to his own temple, and said seriously, “I have obsessive tendencies, so I get fixated on certain things. But you’re different. The doctor didn’t find anything similar in you. The only recommendation was abstinence.”
Abstinence.
Whenever this word came up, Ji Yuennian never knew whether to feel shy or annoyed.
Since turning into a woman, her desires had skyrocketed. If, as a man, she could hold off for half a month, now she wanted it several times a day.
“Don’t worry, you have me.” Seeing Ji Yuennian fall silent, Jiang Chi thought she was afraid. He wanted to give her a reassuring hug, but remembering how she always chanted “men and women should keep their distance,” he simply smiled and gently took her slender, cool hand.
Ever since both of them had been diagnosed with mental illnesses at the hospital, out of mutual sympathy, Ji Yuennian and Jiang Chi had added another clause to their original gentleman’s agreement: mutual assistance.
Simply put, when one of them had an episode, the other would use physical means to snap them out of it.
*****
Saturday.
The morning sunlight streamed into the room through the untied curtains. The alarm clock began beeping right on time. On the bed, a short-haired beauty frowned in annoyance and crawled out of the covers, her bare body completely exposed to the air.
Still drowsy from sleep, her mind hazy, Ji Yuennian grabbed her phone from the nightstand and rubbed her eyes. It was 7:30.
“Another beautiful Saturday.” Yawning, the beauty who’d grown to love sleeping nude since her gender swap braced her arms on both sides and slowly sat up, heading to the bathroom to wash up without bothering with slippers or clothes.
In front of the bathroom mirror, Ji Yuennian inspected her face. On her fair, delicate skin was a faint bruise—a result of gaming late into the night till three or four in the morning for several days in a row.
She twisted the tap, filled the cup with cold water, squeezed on her favorite mint toothpaste, and, humming a cheerful tune, started brushing her teeth.
As her movements found their rhythm, her thoughts drifted. These days, aside from that one episode triggered by the black sesame porridge, Jiang Chi had relapsed again. He’d pinned her down, asking why she didn’t have a sister, why she’d never had a sister.
Ji Yuennian was seriously exasperated.
Last time, she’d just joked, “If you have the guts, get my sister a rice bowl too.” But Jiang Chi had really started plotting to make her into two people.
Sure enough, mental illness defied logic.
Muttering to herself, Ji Yuennian couldn’t help but recall that dream: Jiang Chi, in his middle age, wearing a white coat, prying open her skull and taking out her brain, then…
“Little bro, breakfast is ready.” Ji Haotong’s shout came from outside the door, interrupting Ji Yuennian’s train of thought.
“C-coming…” Hastily faking her male voice, Ji Yuennian finished brushing her teeth, walked out, took some clothes from the wardrobe, and got dressed.
Honestly, the pleasure in bed after her gender swap was dozens, even hundreds of times greater than as a man.
But daily life was truly inconvenient—especially if she didn’t wear a bra. Walking around, things would bounce up and down, just like someone skilled in lightness skill suddenly having two iron weights hanging off them—totally uncomfortable and awkward.
Today’s breakfast was corn porridge, boiled corn, and Mexican corn chili wraps.
With a bumper harvest from the Ji family’s greenhouse garden in the suburbs, corn and corn-based dishes had become a staple on the table lately.
However, Ji Yuennian had a little problem. It wasn’t that she disliked corn, but… she liked to lean forward a bit while eating. As a man, that had been fine, but after the swap…
Ji Yuennian casually grabbed a boiled corn cob and took a big bite, her body leaning slightly forward. But as she did, her chest was squeezed and shifted in shape.
A peculiar sensation immediately spread from her chest, causing her pretty face to flush red.