(1)
Finally, the last glimmer of light had completely faded. Night enveloped the city. A bright moon hung high in the sky, with sparse stars scattered about.
But as the city lights came on, they instead grew dim.
As soon as Xuxia pushed open the door, she saw her grandmother’s face beaming with smiles. The wrinkles all bunched together as the old woman asked cheerfully, “Xiaxia, how did the exam go?”
“It was okay.” Xuxia lightly wiped the reddened corners of her eyes with her fingers, then headed straight to her room. Bang! She slammed the door shut.
“What’s wrong? Did she bomb the exam?” Her grandfather, who was watering flowers on the windowsill, looked up with some confusion.
“Who knows… That kid, something’s off.”
“Xiaxia—!” Grandpa walked over to her door and shouted inside, “What’s going on? Even if you bombed the exam, no need to slam the door, right? Bombing the exam isn’t someone else’s fault!”
From inside came the sound of something being thrown, followed by low sobbing.
“What, she’s crying in there? Can she still come out for dinner?”
“Yeah, no idea. Buzzing like a bee, crying and buzzing.” Grandpa shook his head. “Ah, forget it. Can’t control her.”
“We still need to care about her. Her parents hardly come home anyway…”
“Oh, she’s a grown-up now. Let her be. The college entrance exam is over anyway. We’ll talk when the scores come out.”
“Then I’ll leave something for her in the fridge.” Grandma sighed, pressed her ear to the door, and said in a soft voice to Xuxia inside, “Xiaxia, if you get hungry later, find something in the fridge. Heat it up in the microwave yourself…”
Still no response from inside.
Just as Grandpa said, only that “buzzing” crying could be heard.
—
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تا
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(2)
Xuxia looked up at the ceiling, slowly spinning in her chair. Her long, straight black hair swayed gently with the motion.
Her pupils were dilated, her gaze vacant, as if her soul had already left her body.
A moth with wide wings landed on her hair, but she didn’t react at all.
The chair kept turning like a clock, as if it would never stop.
Until a soft knock came at the door.
Knock, knock… Grandpa’s voice came from outside, as if from another world: “Xiaxia, Xiaxia? Someone’s here for you. He says he’s your junior from school, came to ask for your review notes…”
Xuxia’s long lashes finally trembled slightly. Her pupils gradually regained focus.
“Xiaxia? You asleep? Not asleep, are you?”
Click. Xuxia pulled the door open a crack and peered outside. She saw her slightly hunched grandfather smiling kindly at her, and behind him…
There seemed to be no one there.
“…Who is it?”
“I don’t know him. He said he’s your junior.”
Xuxia frowned slightly, pulling the door open a bit wider.
Then she saw a familiar hand gently press against the door panel, using a gentle yet firm force to stop her from slamming it shut in the next second.
It was a face she knew all too well.
And also a face she couldn’t recognize at all.
A face she thought about day and night.
A face she wished she could forget right now:
Zhou Chao’s face.
“Hello, Senior.” As if nothing had ever happened, he smoothly slipped into her room, then casually closed the door behind him. Click. He locked it.
Xuxia backed away in resistance, her eyes still holding some tears, staring at him intensely, as if asking why he had come.
But he only smiled faintly, muttering to himself as if talking to someone: “Senior, do you still need those notes? If you do, I’ll take photos with my camera and print them later. Oh, you still need them, right? Okay, then I’ll take the photos, uh—every subject, thanks.”
Grandpa outside didn’t suspect anything. Instead, he called to Xuxia in the room: “Xiaxia, come out for dinner when you’re done. I’ll have your grandma heat something up for you—”
“Get out.” Xuxia clenched her hands, gritting her teeth.
“I’m not leaving.”
“…Get out.”
“Not getting out.”
“Get—!”
This time, Xuxia seemed about to raise her voice and shout, but as soon as the sound left her mouth, it stopped abruptly. Her entire body tilted backward, then thud—she fell onto the not-so-soft small bed.
Blocking her voice were Zhou Chao’s lips.
But his tongue, which usually never behaved, didn’t slip into her mouth. They just stood there like kids, lips pressed against each other, staring into each other’s eyes, doing nothing.
Xuxia clenched her fists and beat Zhou Chao’s back with all her strength, but he remained unmoved.
Once, once more, and once more.
Once, once… then once more.
The fists hitting his back grew lighter and lighter, until her slender arms slid feebly onto the bedding.
The tears in her eyes finally couldn’t hold back any longer. Wronged tears streamed down.
Zhou Chao slowly lifted his head, their pressed lips separating.
He took a deep breath, looking at her with eyes clearer and more sincere than ever before: “I’m sorry.”
“You want to be with me, so you’re with me. You want to break up, so you break up with me… What do you take me for, a toy?”
“I’m sorry. Before, I thought you really were that kind of woman. But today, I got to know you for real for the first time.”
“…But you’re right.” Murky tears flowed slowly from the corners of Xuxia’s eyes toward her ears, soaking her bedding. “I really am a piece of trash. Used by a lot of people. My body has no value at all. My feelings… probably don’t either.”
“No. They have value.” Zhou Chao pressed his forehead against hers. “They have value… I’m willing to exchange my sincerity for yours… To me, their value is priceless—a value that can’t be measured by ordinary standards.”
“…I don’t want, to affect you… You must be close to your high school entrance exam, right?”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“Let’s talk after your exam…”
“No, we talk now. I want you back by my side. Whether you agree or not, you have to agree.”
Xuxia wrinkled her cute little nose: “You’re so domineering.”
“I told you, I’m exchanging my sincerity for yours. Maybe you still… don’t quite believe it.” Zhou Chao put his mouth to Xuxia’s ear. “Let me tell you my biggest secret. After I have sex with a girl, I turn into a girl myself—don’t look at me like that, it’s true. The reason you never noticed is that when I become a girl, your impression of me gets replaced with another set of plausible memories. Correspondingly, when I turn back, the memories switch again.”
“Liar…”
“Don’t believe me? Do you want to try right now?”
“Can’t… mmm!”
(3)
“Old man, a young man and a young woman alone in a room together—isn’t that too long?”
“That young guy looks quite a bit younger than Xiaxia. Should be fine, right…?”
“That’s not necessarily true.”
“No… I have to open the door and check. Do we still have the spare key to the bedroom?”
“I remember the spare keys are all in a drawer. I’ll go find them.”
“Hurry up…! This is, this is already half an hour…”
And when she looked at Xuxia with her flushed little face smiling, the latter opened her eyes wide in disbelief.
“It seems that as long as I say it in advance, even after I transform, you still keep the memory of me as a guy.”
“My head… is a little messed up…”
“Because two sets of memories are mixed together.”
“So, so every time…?”
“Sorry, I kept it from you all this time.”
“…Wait, why do you have the right to do that kind of thing to me just to prove yourself? I didn’t agree…”
“Really? But your body didn’t resist.”
“You… you’re too domineering!” Xuxia protested in a small voice.
“Really? Who was it earlier, towards the end, doing…”
“Nonsense, nonsense!”
“Then why don’t you get off first…”
“But, wait. We’ve been in here so long. My grandparents must be suspicious. What if they find out!”
“Even if they find out, it doesn’t matter. I’m a girl now.” Just as Zhou Zhao finished speaking, they heard the rustling sound of a key turning outside. She immediately grabbed the bedcovers and lay down on the bed.
Xuxia frantically pulled on her clothes and pants. As for the underwear, there was no time—she stuffed it all under the covers.
“They, they’re coming in…!”
“Don’t panic… I’m a girl now.” Zhou Zhao’s voice carried a hint of laziness, matched with that flushed little face, making Xuxia want to pinch her hard a few times. But she held back—because the door had already been pushed open.
(Д)
The moment Grandpa pushed open the door, he suddenly felt his mind a little confused. It was as if he had forgotten something, but also as if he had remembered something. He shook his head, looked at his granddaughter sitting on the edge of the bed with an inexplicably awkward expression, and then at the girl lying on the bed with flushed cheeks. Her forehead was sweaty, as if steam were still rising from her.
“You two… uh… yeah… do you really need that long to take pictures of notes?”
“She, she… suddenly… felt really uncomfortable. Fever. So, so I let her lie on my bed for a while…” Xuxia stammered in explanation.
“Oh, fever, huh. We should have some fever medicine in the house. Give her a couple of pills quick.”
“Old man, it’s summer. Not that easy to get a fever. Probably heatstroke.”
“Heatstroke, huh. Do we still have some Huoxiang Zhengqi liquid? Give her a bottle. If that doesn’t work, I’ll scrape her for her.”
“Ah, ah… no, no! It’s fine! She’ll just rest a little and then go home.”
“Then she has to tell her parents herself when she gets home. Heatstroke is no big deal, but it’s no small matter either. If you don’t take care of it soon, ending up in the hospital is common.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Snap.
The door was closed again.
Grandpa turned his head and looked at his wife, who was placing the reheated food on the table. He twisted his neck in confusion: “I feel like I forgot something.”
“What did you forget again? Keep this up and you’ll get dementia. I told you, you should go out and play chess more.”
“Ah, forget it. I thought it over for a long time. I probably didn’t forget anything. Maybe it’s just my imagination. Wait—what’s that burning smell?”
“Ah! My braised duck soup!”
“If you ask me, if anyone’s getting dementia, it’ll be you before me…”
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