(1)
On a Sunday morning, the biting cold wind gently blew, stirring the girl tightly wrapped in her quilt awake.
She had gone to bed at one o’clock last night, yet this morning at six, she was remarkably clear-headed, as if she had slept a full twelve hours.
Her short hair, slightly covering her ears, was a little messy.
Two tear moles beneath her tightly closed eyes made her look like a melancholic sleeping beauty.
She opened her eyes in the cold wind, her golden pupils shimmering slightly, then the bright colors slowly faded, returning to their original deep brown.
“Achoo!”
She let out a loud sneeze, wrapping her delicate body in the bedding, and painstakingly shuffled to the window.
Then, she pressed two fingers against the cold window sill, slowly and forcefully closing it.
The wind swirled and slapped against the glass, making a faint rattling sound.
An Jing draped the large denim jacket over herself, covered her legs with the bedding, and sat down in front of the computer.
A small room had its advantages—because the bed almost filled the entire space, most things could be done without getting out of bed.
Yesterday’s beginning of winter had given a false impression that summer was returning, but today truly felt like winter.
The sky outside the window was gloomy, and she couldn’t tell if the sun had even risen.
“Phew…”
She exhaled softly, listening to her own delicate, slightly sweet voice, still quite unaccustomed to it.
The computer case made a buzzing sound, and when she accidentally touched the metal side panel, she felt a sensation like an electric shock.
So, she had to lean a bit more to the left and also nudge the monitor.
She unscrewed her thermos, drank the now lukewarm water, waited for the computer to fully boot up, then conveniently logged into QQ, and opened Kuwo Music from her desktop.
If she didn’t have anything specific she wanted to do, she would usually open the music player, click on a random song from her collection, and then let them play randomly in the background.
But today was a little different.
She uncharacteristically paused her cursor over the search bar, hesitated for a moment, then typed “Jay Chou” onto the keyboard.
When it came to listening to music, she only listened to good songs she liked, regardless of who sang them.
She naturally listened to Jay Chou’s songs, but only the best few.
The reason she searched for him was because she remembered that Zhu Ying’s favorite singer was him.
“Is this considered being a fan? Uh… doesn’t seem that obsessive…”
An Jing mumbled, gently pressing the enter key with her index finger.
“Oh, there are more than I thought…”
Finally, she simply selected a large collection of Jay Chou’s songs and let them play randomly.
The QQ group still contained chat records from yesterday.
An Jing opened them and read for a while, occasionally letting out a silly grin.
When she finally reached the end of the messages, she sent one, “Yay, I’m the first one up today!”
“Little loli, you’re not allowed to say ‘I’m the first’.”
A group member named ‘Light Blue Melancholy’ popped up, even with a hammer-hitting-head emoji.
“Do you think I could be a loli?”
“The more you deny it, the more likely it is.”
This was actually a daily routine in this anime discussion group, every day was either about finding out who was a girl, or ‘turning’ group members into girls.
“It doesn’t have to be a loli, what if it’s an older sister type!”
“Lolis are best, light and soft, easy to push over.”
“Older sister types are best!”
“You kid, do you even understand lolis? Do you know how good lolis are? Huh?”
On this chilly morning, two group members An Jing had never met before started squabbling, flooding the chat with messages.
An Jing looked at the flashing words in the chat box like ‘delicate body’, ‘soft physique’, ‘want a hug’, twitched her lips, and irritably closed the window.
***
If it were a normal day, she might have been interested in saying a few words, joining in the fun with comments like “lolis are the best.”
But now that she was a loli, she really couldn’t summon the energy.
“Right, let’s measure how tall I am now…” she mumbled, moving the quilt aside and pulling out the tape measure from the drawer.
She stood up straight on the bed, then brought her delicate feet together, gripping the very end of the tape measure.
With a “heck,” she pulled it forcefully over her head.
“Hmm… it should be about here.”
She pinched the spot that had touched her head and brought the tape measure closer to look.
Then she repeatedly checked the measurement several times, making sure she hadn’t misread it.
“Only… 1.52 meters…”
Although she had suspected it yesterday, she always thought she’d be at least as tall as Zhu Ying, but she didn’t expect to be so much shorter!
She recalled how happy she was when her body shot up during puberty, thinking she was already over 1.7 meters in junior high and, although her growth would slow down in high school, she should still reach 1.75 meters, or even possibly 1.8 meters.
After all, her parents weren’t short, and children of the new era were generally taller.
It shouldn’t be a problem for her to surpass her father’s 1.76-meter height and reach 1.8 meters.
“Completely unmanly…”
An Jing sighed deeply, “whoosh” went the tape measure as she retracted it, then “smack” it hit her forehead.
“Ah—! Hiss—”
The burning pain made her squat down, clutching her face, shrinking into a corner like a hurt kitten.
It took her a long while to recover.
“Did it hit my eye? Will I be okay…?”
An Jing tried hard to open her eyes, but not only could she barely open them, tears also streamed out uncontrollably.
This immediately made her a little nervous.
She quickly pushed open the door, hurried into the bathroom, and stared at herself in the mirror repeatedly.
Aside from a red mark on her forehead, there seemed to be no other trace.
By all accounts, it shouldn’t have hurt that much…
The girl in the mirror was shedding uncontrollable tears, her cheeks slightly flushed, looking utterly pitiful.
This immediately made An Jing feel embarrassed.
She took a deep breath, trying to fight the sensation of pain, and forcefully slapped her cheeks, “An Jing, An Jing, you’re a man! You can’t look like you’re dying from a little pain… Phew… I’m fine, it doesn’t hurt at all!”
The girl in the mirror braced herself.
She touched the messy short hair around her ears, and a delicate strength shone in her eyes.
She suddenly blushed again.
“Between me and Zhu Ying now, who’s prettier…?”
***
(2)
It was still early, long before her sisters would wake up.
An Jing, who had already washed up, sat in front of the computer, Browse a novel on a ad-filled webpage.
The story was about a man transforming into a woman.
Compared to other stories that always described strange details in odd places, this book seemed much more serious, and the writing was excellent, drawing the reader in effortlessly.
When she reached the end of the chapter, she tilted her head towards the large porcelain bowl next to the keyboard and scooped a piece of leftover cake from yesterday into her mouth with a stainless steel spoon.
Then, she moved the mouse and clicked on the next chapter.
This was a story centered around a luminous pearl, and the title was as concise as its theme, The Luminous Pearl.
She was currently reading the part where the female protagonist said goodbye to the nurses, preparing to be discharged from the hospital.
“So, in real life, someone can go from male to female too… But this should be considered a disease; in reality, they are just women who developed a slight deformity…”
An Jing pouted, “Completely different from my situation.”
Time slowly passed in this quietude.
As for the cold winter wind outside, it had nothing to do with An Jing today.
The most leisurely feeling was probably when the weather outside was bad, but you were enjoying the warmth at home, right?
It might be even better if it snowed…
Although the small city was a coastal city, it actually snowed every year.
Sometimes the snow covered the city itself, and sometimes it only fell in the mountains.
Time flowed slowly, but the young person never felt it was being wasted.
Perhaps it was because she had so much time left, there was no sense of urgency that time waits for no one.
She wondered if she still remembered that she had homework to do?
***
(3)
An Jing felt a bit restless.
She had just read a particularly touching part of the story and now urgently wanted to chat with someone.
Perhaps she wanted to share her current feelings.
But it seemed that even if she found someone, she couldn’t explain how interesting the novel she had just read was.
After all, normal people definitely wouldn’t understand why someone would read such a book—and a ‘man’ at that.
So, forget about the book.
Even just finding someone for a casual chat would be fine.
However, a few messages she sent in the group seemed to vanish into thin air, like stones sinking into the sea.
It was the weekend, and most people were off.
Group messages were flying by quickly, making it hard to keep up.
Since no one replied to her, she could only send messages to her good brothers.
It was nothing more than phrases like “alive or not?”, “dead or not?”, “can’t get up?”, and so on.
However, still no one responded.
Looking at their avatars, they were all grayscale, meaning they probably played games too late yesterday and hadn’t woken up yet.
Judging by their sleep schedule from yesterday, she probably wouldn’t see them until after ten o’clock.
She propped her chin with one hand, licked the leftover frosting from the corner of her mouth, and expressionlessly scrolled down her friends list, then… suddenly stopped.
Zhu Ying’s avatar was lit up, and there was no ‘away’ icon, which meant she should be in front of her computer.
Perhaps she could strike up a casual conversation with her.
A girl might also be interested in such romance novels.
An Jing’s hand hovered over the keyboard for a long time, but in the end, she didn’t type a single word.
—Because she didn’t know how to start the conversation.
She was worried the other person wouldn’t reply to her message, and also worried they wouldn’t be interested in what she said…
“Forget it,” she pouted, and instead opened her QQ space, wanting to see if anyone had posted interesting updates yesterday.
However, as soon as she opened her plain QQ space, which had no custom decorations, she saw an update posted by Zhu Ying.
The time was two seconds ago.
“I find all your topics interesting.”