I Need a Reasonable Excuse

The alarm rang once.

Chen De woke up.

Not because he was disciplined.

Because of conditioned reflex.

The first thing he did every morning now was not stretch or check his phone, but—inspect himself.

Like a factory quality-control check.

Chen De walked into the bathroom and stood before the sink.

He took a deep breath.

Then looked up.

The face in the mirror had become a little more delicate again.

He could not even be bothered to get angry about it anymore.

Today's inspection had one more item than yesterday's.

His hair—still shoulder-length, with no further growth.

But the color had lightened, shifting from gray-black to gray-white.

That barely counted as good news.

At least it had not turned pure white.

His face—pale and delicate, with lashes so long they looked glued on.

Bad news, but old news by now.

Old news did not count as news.

Then Chen De's gaze moved downward.

He pulled open a drawer and took out the soft measuring tape he had used to check his height yesterday.

But this time, he was not measuring his height.

He wrapped the tape around himself.

His waistline.

The number came out.

Chen De stared at the markings for three seconds.

Then measured again.

The result was confirmed.

His expression darkened.

"It's not an illusion."

"It really got smaller."

He put down the tape and reached out to pinch his wrist.

His wrists had never been particularly thick before, but they had at least possessed a certain bony masculinity.

Now—they had shrunk by a full size.

He felt his ankles too.

The same.

"My arms and legs too."

Chen De stood before the mirror and examined himself from head to toe.

His whole body was shrinking.

Not the kind of shrinking that came with losing weight.

His proportions were changing, his frame was contracting, and his entire silhouette was being reshaped in a more slender direction.

He knew what that meant.

His body was accelerating toward that magical girl state.

Transitioning toward a five-foot-tall pure-white girl.

As for what he would ultimately transition into—

He did not know.

He could only hope it would be the middle value Qubi had mentioned.

"Yo, admiring yourself first thing in the morning?"

Qubi popped out from some unknown nook and squatted on the edge of the sink, its emerald eyes narrowed into slits.

"Shut up."

The moment he spoke—

Chen De's expression worsened.

His voice had become thinner.

Not the thinness of a voice recovering after being hoarse from a cold.

It was as though his entire pitch had been raised by half a register.

If yesterday it could still barely pass for a teenage boy's voice—

Today, it probably only qualified as the kind of customer service voice where no one could tell the speaker's gender.

If this kept progressing, he could probably go audition to voice a female lead at a dubbing company.

Chen De stared at himself in the mirror, then instinctively reached up to touch his Adam's apple.

In the mirror—

It was almost invisible now.

That once slightly protruding, distinctly male feature could now barely be identified with the naked eye.

His fingers pressed against it.

He could still feel it.

He could still touch it.

Though it was less obvious than before, it was definitely still there.

Chen De let out half a sigh of relief.

Then sucked that half-sigh back in.

He no longer dared say the words "at least."

Because every time he thought things were at least okay, he would discover the next day that they had gotten worse again.

The phrase "at least" had become a countdown flag in his life.

Qubi jumped onto the sink and tilted its head as it inspected him.

"Were you measuring your waist just now?"

"You saw that?"

"I watched the whole time."

"Then why didn't you say something earlier?"

"You looked very serious while measuring things. I couldn't bear to interrupt."

"Thanks for your consideration. Don't do it again next time."

Chen De tossed the measuring tape back into the drawer.

"Qubi, my waist is several centimeters smaller than it was three days ago."

"Mhm."

"My wrists have shrunk by a full size."

"Mhm."

"My ankles are thinner too."

"Mhm."

"Can you stop just saying 'mhm'? Give me an explanation."

Qubi washed its face with its paws.

"I told you already."

"As the number of transformations increases, your body will be subjected to accelerating interference."

"Eventually, the interference will stabilize and converge toward a middle value."

"Middle value." Chen De repeated the term.

"Can you quantify that middle value for me?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean exact numbers. Height, waist measurement, whether my voice will be male or female, whether my Adam's apple will still be there."

"Give me a number."

Qubi's tail swayed.

"It's difficult to quantify precisely."

"When you told me before that high talent meant faster interference, you gave me an exact estimate of three to five times."

"Is giving me a range for the middle value really that difficult now?"

Qubi fell silent for two seconds.

"You calculated it before. Your height will probably be between one sixty-five and one seventy."

Chen De's eyebrows twitched.

"So I'm still going to shrink a little more."

"A little? Six centimeters counts as a little?"

"Compared to one fifty after transforming, one sixty-five is already quite generous."

"You call that generous?"

"If your talent were one level higher, you might have gotten stuck directly below one fifty-five."

Chen De shut his mouth.

He suddenly felt that one sixty-five was not entirely unacceptable.

"What about my voice?"

"It will lean slightly neutral, but it will not reach the extent it does after transforming."

"How neutral?"

"Probably... enough that people on the phone cannot tell whether you're male or female."

"Isn't that already how it is now?"

"Yes, so your voice may already be close."

Chen De opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"What about my Adam's apple?"

Qubi glanced at him.

"It will become very inconspicuous."

"How inconspicuous?"

"You won't be able to see it with the naked eye, but you can still feel it by touch."

"Isn't that also how it is now?"

"Yes."

Chen De leaned against the sink and stared into the mirror.

"So you mean my voice and Adam's apple are basically already in place?"

"More or less."

"But my height and body shape are still shrinking?"

"Yes."

"How much longer will they keep shrinking?"

"At your current transformation frequency, they should stabilize in roughly two to three weeks."

Chen De took a deep breath.

Two to three weeks.

Twice as fast as the previous estimate.

That meant he still had to endure being treated as an observation subject for another two to three weeks.

Jiang Ping watching him every day.

Discovering new changes in the mirror every day.

Every day—

"Qubi."

"Mhm?"

"If I don't transform for these next two or three weeks, will the interference stop?"

Qubi's ears twitched.

"It will slow down, but it will not stop."

"Because the magic within your body has already been activated. Even if you do not transform, it will continue affecting your body."

"It will just be much slower."

"How much slower is much slower?"

"About one-fifth the original speed."

Chen De did the math.

Two to three weeks now meant two to three months if he did not transform.

But that also meant no fighting disasters for two to three months, and no income for two to three months.

The money he had on hand—

There were probably around 300,000 left.

Enough.

Was it?

People always wanted most what they lacked.

"Chen De."

"Mm."

"You're doing the math again."

"How did you know?"

"The corner of your mouth is twitching."

Chen De draped the towel over the mirror.

He did not want to look anymore.

Chen De picked up his toothbrush.

As he squeezed out the toothpaste, he looked at his hand again.

His fingers were long and his knuckles distinct, but they were indeed much slimmer than before.

They had once been a boy's hands.

Now—

They were somewhere between a boy's and a girl's.

He brushed his teeth hard twice.

His mouth was full of mint.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"I need to think of a way to explain these changes when I go to school today."

"Didn't you explain it yesterday? Puberty."

"Puberty can explain getting paler, but not getting thinner."

"Then say you lost weight."

"I'm a 175-centimeter-tall guy. Should I say I lost weight so hard I got shorter?"

"Then say you're sick."

"Jiang Ping already suspected I was sick yesterday. If I admit it, he'll drag me straight to the hospital."

"Then let him drag you."

"What would they find if I went? Tell me, what hospital could detect 'magic interference causing skeletal remodeling'?"

Qubi thought about it.

"There really isn't one."

"So I have to make something up myself."

Chen De spat out the foam in his mouth and splashed his face with cold water.

The icy water jolted him awake a little.

He gave the mirror one last look.

Ash-white hair, a pale face, a slender neck.

If this face appeared on the street, it would probably draw a hundred percent of heads turning.

Unfortunately, they would not be turning because he was handsome.

They would be turning because they could not tell.

"I'm leaving." Chen De picked up his backpack.

Qubi jumped onto his shoulder, its tail curling around him out of habit.

"Chen De."

"What now?"

"Your school uniform might be a little too big today."

Chen De lowered his head and took a look.

The uniform really had slipped down a little.

The pant legs were longer too.

The uniform that had fit him three days ago now looked like he had borrowed it from someone else.

Expressionless, Chen De rolled up his sleeves twice.

"Let's go."

He pushed open the door.

Qubi lay on his shoulder, speaking very softly.

"Good luck."

"Luck with what?"

"Good luck with school."

"What I need isn't luck."

"Then what do you need?"

"A reasonable excuse."