"Bro—!!" Su Lin Yue cried out in panic, but there was no response.
"Please don't let anything happen to him... Please..."
Su Lin Yue's hands were shaking. She grabbed the doorknob and twisted it hard.
"Click." The door opened.
It had to be said: Su Li's bad habit of never locking the bathroom door had turned into a lifesaver at that moment.
Su Lin Yue saw Su Li lying on the tiled floor.
He lay there stiff as a board, his pants awkwardly pulled halfway down. His body was curled into a ball, and his skin had taken on a bizarre, deep flush, like a boiled prawn.
"Bro!" Su Lin Yue didn't care about looking where she shouldn't. She shrieked and threw herself toward him.
"Bro, what's wrong? Don't scare me! Wake up!"
She reached out to pat Su Li's face, but the heat beneath her hand made her jerk back.
He was burning hot!
This wasn't a human temperature at all. He was practically like a red-hot iron!
"Wah... You big liar! You said you were fine... You said you were healthy..."
Tears welled in Su Lin Yue's eyes and spilled over at once, pattering down like beads from a broken string.
A crystalline tear slid down Su Lin Yue's cheek and fell onto Su Li's scorching forehead.
"Fizz—" A terrifying sight unfolded.
The instant the tear touched Su Li's skin, it made a faint boiling sound, then evaporated into a wisp of white smoke!
"?!"
Su Lin Yue's eyes widened in terror. Even her sobs caught in her throat.
What was going on? Was this even human?
But before her mind could process the supernatural phenomenon, her gaze was involuntarily drawn to an even more horrifying sight.
Her good buddy Xiao Su was actually disappearing, bit by bit...
Then Xiao Su transformed into Xiao Li?!
"???" Su Lin Yue's mind completely froze.
An illusion? It had to be an illusion!
I must be losing my mind because I'm so worried about my brother!
She rubbed her eyes hard and looked again.
He hadn't changed back. In fact, the transformation was still spreading upward.
The muscles that had given Su Li at least some definition were rapidly reshaping under the effects of the heat.
His broad shoulders narrowed slightly, becoming rounder.
His flat, firm chest didn't swell dramatically like a balloon, but it did develop a slight curve.
He seemed to have shrunk a little in height, though not by much for now.
His skin had already been fairly fair, but now it was so smooth and delicate it looked like it could be squeezed for water.
The most outrageous change was his hair. His once-neat short hair was now growing wildly, like vines under a spell, lengthening at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Black as a waterfall, it spilled past his ears and shoulders, finally fanning out across the white tiled floor.
His facial features hadn't changed so drastically that he looked like an entirely different person, but the masculine sharpness between his brows and eyes had softened. His nose had become more refined, and his lips fuller and rosier.
If Su Li had previously been a somewhat handsome young man, then now she was simply a little beauty!
In just a few minutes, a complete transformation had taken place right before Su Lin Yue's eyes.
As the last strand of black hair stopped growing, the pained grimace on Su Li's face faded away, replaced by a baby-like serenity.
The bathroom fell silent once more.
Only Su Lin Yue remained, kneeling on the floor like a statue, mouth slightly open, eyes blank.
"This... This..." She shakily reached out, wanting to check, but stopped with her hand suspended in midair.
A surreal turn of events! Absolutely surreal!
"My brother's gone?"
"Now she's my sister?"
Su Lin Yue felt as if her worldview had shattered into pieces.
She took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.
No matter what she looked like now, the person lying on the floor was still Su Li, her only family.
"Let's get her out of here first." Su Lin Yue gritted her teeth and tried to lift Su Li off the floor.
The first thing she noticed was how light she was—she really had gotten lighter.
The big guy who used to weigh around 145 pounds now felt like barely over 100 in her arms. Her body was soft and limp, and carried a pleasant, delicate scent.
Even so, for Su Lin Yue, a high school girl, carrying an unconscious adult to the bedroom was still a huge undertaking.
"Ugh... Up...!"
Su Lin Yue's face reddened as she put all her strength into it.
"Su Li! You lazy pig!"
"When you wake up, you'd better buy me snacks for a whole year, or I'm not letting this go!"
Panting hard, Su Lin Yue ranted to herself, trying to ease her fear.
Meanwhile, Su Li kept her eyes closed the entire time and slept like a baby.
At last.
"Phew... Phew..." Su Lin Yue collapsed beside the bed and gasped for breath, completely spent.
She had managed to settle Su Li onto the bed, but...
"Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?"
She felt like a soulless puppet. Mechanically, she got up and rummaged through the wardrobe.
Men's clothes obviously wouldn't fit anymore. After hesitating, she took a long T-shirt from her own wardrobe—one she usually thought was too big to wear—along with a spare set of underwear.
"What am I supposed to do..."
Su Lin Yue wiped Su Li down, then dressed her sister.
"Her skin's even better than mine... Her waist is even slimmer..."
"Why are her legs so long? Why didn't she get shorter?"
Though she hated to admit it, her brother's proportions after becoming a girl were so perfect that even she, an actual girl, felt a little jealous.
Once Su Li was dressed, Su Lin Yue pulled the covers over her and sat dazedly by the bed.
Su Lin Yue propped her chin in both hands, her gaze fixed on Su Li's sleeping profile.
Long eyelashes cast shadows beneath her eyes. Her breathing was steady and deep. If you ignored the fact that her Adam's apple had disappeared, everything looked fairly normal.
"Bro..." Su Lin Yue called out without thinking, then smiled bitterly and shook her head.
"I guess I should call you sis now?"
What was going to happen now? When she woke up and realized that the brother she'd been so proud of was gone and she'd become a girl, would she completely fall apart?
Would she still be able to accept herself? What would the people around her think? How would they change her household registration?
Countless practical questions surged into Su Lin Yue's mind like a tide, leaving her overwhelmed by a profound sense of helplessness and confusion.
She began remembering all the little things from their childhood.
The brother who brought her an umbrella on rainy days, the brother who rushed into a fight whenever someone bullied her, the brother who saved money to buy her presents while eating instant noodles himself...
In those memories, he was always that tall figure standing in front of her.
And now...
"No matter what you look like, you're still Su Li, right?"
Su Lin Yue reached out and gently held Su Li's hand where it rested outside the blanket.
The hand was now slender and elegant, no longer broad and strong, but its warmth still felt familiar.
Just then.
"Mm..." A sweet, soft moan came from the bed.
(The author finally got through after deleting a lot! Rem)
Before you continue