Chapter 5: Delicate Beauty

November 1, 2009, Sunday.

The crimson morning sun had already risen, and a slightly brisk autumn wind blew in through the open window.

An Jing, on the bed, rolled over with his quilt, his head gently bumping against the cracked and yellowed wall.

“Ugh…”

He groggily opened his eyes.

What greeted him was the ceiling he’d been looking at for three years, long accustomed to it.

The air carried a hint of summer’s warmth, and faintly, he could hear some insect chirps of early autumn.

Last night seemed to have been a bit too intense, leaving him feeling empty and exhausted even now.

Sunday morning meant no need to wake up early.

Even his two cousins would sleep in on this day.

If he was hungry, he’d go downstairs to buy breakfast; if not, he’d get up and play on the computer for a while.

Since he had finished his homework yesterday, all of today’s time was his to freely allocate.

Although Yu Mingfei was a strict cousin, she wasn’t An Jing’s parent after all.

As long as he did what he was supposed to, she generally wouldn’t bother him too much.

“Hmm…? Strange.”

An Jing, who had just sat up, looked at his clothes, which seemed slightly too big, and immediately felt puzzled.

“Are these clothes that loose? I remember they fit just right before… Did I lose weight overnight?”

He raised his fair arm, where almost no muscle definition was visible, and blinked in confusion.

While he had been fair before, it was only relative to other boys—someone who enjoyed outdoor activities wouldn’t be that fair.

But now it was different; he even suspected Zhu Ying’s skin wasn’t this fair.

His fingers had also become much slenderer, and the old dark scars from childhood were nowhere to be found.

His skin was as smooth and flawless as an egg.

Everything felt off.

Too rushed to think deeply, urged by the need to pee, he got up, jumped out of bed, and quickly walked into the restroom, wearing his old, moldy slippers.

In the restroom was a mirror that was wiped clean every day.

Yu Mingfei would always admire her “beauty” there for a long time before going out.

He heard that when she was at work, people often asked her for her phone number.

To be honest, An Jing never really thought she was pretty; she was completely a stout tigress… 

If anything, Yu Huihui was truly beautiful, like an ice queen when she showed no expression, and especially gentle when she smiled. 

As for An Jing himself, he rarely admired himself in the mirror. 

After all, there wasn’t much to look at. 

While he wasn’t ugly, he didn’t consider himself handsome, and his skin was quite rough, with acne on his face too…

However, today, the person in the mirror was a complete stranger. 

—A delicate-looking young man with a slightly petite build.

An Jing would absolutely refuse to admit that such a boy was handsome, but he had to concede that this was the type most girls would like.

It wasn’t until he had stared at the mirror for over three seconds that he realized this was actually himself.

“When did I… look like this? Am I not dreaming?”

He frowned deeply, and the boy in the mirror also frowned deeply.

“And the more I look, the more feminine I seem… No, that’s not right…”

He suddenly remembered something and instinctively reached below.

Thankfully, the thing that brought him pleasure yesterday was still there.

Perhaps it was too many times in one night, so the sensation felt different from yesterday—as if it had shrunk.

But the feeling of its presence still reassured him quite a bit.

“Thump!”

“Ow!”

An Jing clutched his forehead, looking at Yu Mingfei, who was about to push the door open.

“Sister Fei, can you knock before you open the door?!”

“There was no sound inside, how was I supposed to know someone was there?”

“But the light was on!”

“In broad daylight, you can’t see it from outside.”

Yu Mingfei rolled her eyes.

“Hurry up, hurry up, are you done?”

“I just got in!”

“Oh, then I’ll wait for you on the sofa.”

The dilapidated restroom door closed again with a “thump.”

An Jing pouted and looked at the mirror again.

Then he was suddenly stunned.

He had changed so much today, almost like a different person, but why did his cousin have no reaction at all?

It was as if he had always looked like this.

He slapped his forehead hard, seriously suspecting that his memory was messed up, or that he hadn’t fully woken up yet.

***

Around 9 AM, Yu Huihui walked out of her bedroom, yawning and rubbing her sleepy eyes.

Her second sister, Yu Mingfei, had just entered the bathroom, and the sound of brushing teeth came from inside.

The eldest sister wobbled and sat down on the sofa, tilting her head to look at An Jing, who was about to return to his room: “Xiao Jing, have you had breakfast yet?”

“No, I’ll just eat lunch directly later…”

An Jing scratched his head.

“Uh… Sister Huihui?”

“Hmm? Then have some cereal first, it’s not good to skip breakfast… Yawn…”

Yu Huihui yawned widely again, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes with her fingertips.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you feel like I’m different today?”

“Different how?”

Yu Huihui stared blankly at An Jing, then suddenly burst into laughter with a “pffft.”

“Hmm… your hair’s grown longer, you’ve become more handsome?”

Although An Jing appreciated the compliment, he couldn’t help but press on: “I mean, do you feel like today’s me is particularly different from yesterday’s me?”

“Is there?”

“Huh…?”

“Pfft… Although you’re still in puberty and can still develop, you wouldn’t change day by day, would you?”

Everything seemed completely normal.

An Jing nodded strangely, opened the door, and slipped into his room.

Yu Mingfei, who had just finished brushing her teeth, turned her head to look outside the door: “What did that kid just say?”

Yu Huihui held back her laughter: “He asked me if there was anything particularly different about him today.”

“Hmph… That little brat must have preened in front of the mirror today.”

“Xiao Jing is too delicate. I think he should be a bit more masculine.”

“Huihui, you don’t understand this. This ‘pretty boy’ type is popular now. Do you believe there are a bunch of girls at school chasing him?”

“Hmm… but I also feel like he wasn’t that delicate before. He’s especially fair and clean today.”

“Last night, he probably made a mess of himself and then took a good scrub, right?”

Yu Mingfei rolled her eyes. 

“He took almost an hour to shower last night—that kid usually only takes five minutes.”

“That’s true. Maybe he washed off all the grime on him. Boys this age, if they’re a bit clean, will look quite delicate.”

“Tsk, he still looks like a little kid, but he’s already secretly doing that kind of thing. It’s really annoying.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ah, I can’t just casually hug him and mess up his hair anymore.”

“…You wouldn’t think crooked thoughts about your sister, would you?”

“Don’t underestimate the physiological urges of a teenage boy!”

***

An Jing was now absolutely certain that his body had indeed undergone some changes, and those around him were completely oblivious, or rather, didn’t find it strange at all.

“One meter sixty-five, impossible, absolutely impossible. When I last measured, I was clearly one meter seventy-one…”

He frowned, muttering to himself, pulled out the retracted measuring tape, and measured again.

But no matter how many times he measured, it always hovered around one meter sixty-five.

While becoming “handsomer” was a good thing, he wasn’t happy about getting shorter.

His previous height of one meter seventy, in his junior high class, even if not as tall as Fang Qiang, was certainly among the top few.

But what was going on now?

He’d probably be in the middle of the line during roll call. 

And his skin was so smooth, it even made him feel a little sick.

“What’s going on, a grown man’s…” 

He got goosebumps. 

“I’ll go ask A-Qiang today and see if he has any impression.”

An Jing mumbled, sitting down in front of the computer.

His hand was already on the computer case, but he was drawn by the golden stone on the desk.

“A golden transparent stone… when did I bring this back?”

He scratched his head hard, then suddenly let out an “Ah!”

“Isn’t this that meteorite fragment?! Why did its color change? Wasn’t it blue before?”

He stared at the markings on it for a few seconds, confirming again that it was indeed that stone.

After all, he had polished it himself, so the impression was particularly deep.

“Could it have had some chemical reaction? How amazing… Ugh, no time for this. I should quickly contact A-Qiang…”

An Jing picked up the white-backed, red-edged Nokia 3250 on the desk—his dad bought it for him in his first year of junior high.

He twisted the bottom part around, turning the numeric keypad back into view.

After lighting up the screen, he quickly sent a message to Fang Qiang: “A-Qiang, free to hang out today? Need to talk to you.”

The expected immediate reply didn’t come.

A few seconds later, An Jing put down his phone, feeling a mix of hope and disappointment, and sat down in front of the computer.

This computer also had some years on it, still running the older XP system.

It took half a day to boot up every time, and the 360 Boot Assistant would even “mock” him: “Boot time one minute thirty-six seconds, your computer is as fast as a carriage!”

He logged into QQ and before he could even look closely, he heard the “ding-ding” of a new message notification.

He moved the mouse and clicked open the window, finding that it was from Zhu Ying.

“An Jing, why didn’t you come back yesterday?”

“Nonsense, of course, I was trying to set you two up…”

An Jing rolled his eyes, but deleted the words he had just typed and replaced them with a different answer: “My sister called me home for dinner yesterday.”

The message was sent, but a reply probably wouldn’t come quickly.

After all, in that era, not every child had a computer in their own bedroom.

An Jing scratched his head and opened the browser.

The dazzling main interface of hao123 popped up first.

His mouse precisely found the search bar among a pile of websites and advertisements, and he quickly typed a few words: “Can a person get shorter overnight?”

However, all the search results were various sci-fi stories or ghost stories.

Occasionally there were a few medical answers that also seemed like nonsense.

Just as An Jing was worrying, his phone suddenly vibrated.

He pressed the answer key and the asterisk key to unlock the phone and saw a message from Fang Qiang.

“Free, where should we meet?”

“Our usual spot!”