Do I Look Good?

He lay on the sofa for a full two minutes.

Without moving.

Like a stranded salted fish.

Not the fresh kind that could still flop around a couple of times.

The kind that had been dried for three days and had completely given up struggling.

Then he slowly raised a hand.

He lifted the hem of his school uniform.

And looked at the thin patch on the left side of his waist.

Semi-transparent.

The size of a coin.

It sat there quietly.

Like a seal.

Sealing away Schrödinger's truth.

As long as he did not peel it off, he had both changed and not changed.

Quantum mechanics had been perfectly embodied in him.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"What will happen if I tear the patch off now?"

"Do I look like an X-ray machine to you?"

Qubi shook its head.

"If you want to know what you've turned into, you'll have to tear it off and look in the mirror yourself."

Chen De's fingers rested on the edge of the patch.

His fingertips applied a little force.

Then relaxed again.

"If you're not mentally prepared yet, keep it on for now."

Qubi's voice was unusually free of sarcasm.

"I'm afraid you might not be able to accept it right away."

Chen De fell silent.

The air was quiet for several seconds.

"What level of not being able to accept it are we talking about?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it the kind of not accepting it where 'the haircut turned out awful,' or where 'the plastic surgery went wrong'?"

Qubi thought for a moment.

"Probably the kind where 'you look in the mirror and find a stranger standing there.'"

Chen De pulled his hand away from his waist.

"Then I'm not tearing it off."

"Mm."

"How much longer until the patch stops working?"

"Five hours left."

"After five hours, it'll disappear on its own, and I'll still have to face it."

"Right."

"So basically, I'm just procrastinating."

"Right."

"Is procrastinating useful?"

"No, but it can make you happier for another five hours."

Chen De stared at the ceiling.

"You know, Qubi, it's kind of scary when you occasionally say something human."

"Thanks. I'll try to say less of it."

Chen De took a deep breath.

And sat up.

He walked over to the sink.

The face in the mirror was exactly the same as yesterday's.

The patched version of him.

The high-definition beauty-filter version of him.

He stared at himself for ten seconds.

Then his hand reached for his waist.

He pinched the edge of the patch.

"I'll count to three."

"Okay."

"Three."

"Two."

"..."

"Where's one?"

"Why are you rushing me?"

"I wasn't rushing you. You were the one who got stuck."

Chen De gritted his teeth.

And tore off the patch in one go.

A faint chill swept over him.

Then the image in the mirror changed.

It was not a gradual transition.

It was an instant switch, like turning off a phone filter.

Click.

His true appearance emerged.

Chen De looked at the mirror.

The person in the mirror looked back at him.

Then his brain crashed.

His face.

Was pale.

Not the pale complexion of a northern boy in winter.

The kind of pale that could make him a beauty blogger even without a filter.

His features were even more refined than yesterday.

His brows looked as though someone had trimmed them with tweezers.

His hair had grown back, draping over his shoulders.

Then he looked at the rest of himself.

His shoulders were narrower.

His waist was slimmer.

His wrists—he raised a hand and turned it before his eyes.

They were so slender that it looked like the PS slimming tool had been used on the wrong spot.

Most importantly, his height.

He looked at the relative positions of himself and the sink in the mirror.

He had gotten shorter again.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"How tall am I now?"

"Do you want the exact number or a vague description?"

"The exact one."

"One meter sixty-five."

Chen De braced himself against the sink.

"I used to be one meter seventy-five."

"Right."

"I shrank ten centimeters."

"More precisely, ten point three centimeters."

"You even calculated the decimal for me, huh?"

"Precision is a virtue."

Chen De lowered his head.

And looked at his hands.

Slender and fair, with fingernails gleaming a faint pink.

They did not look like his hands.

They looked more like the hands of some Korean drama heroine.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"Will people hit on me if I go out looking like this...?"

"Depends on the location."

"What about school?"

"They'll think you're a new female transfer student."

Chen De closed his eyes.

"You were right earlier."

"Which thing?"

"I really can't accept this right away."

He stepped back from the sink.

Then took another step back.

Then plopped down on the floor.

With his back against the wall.

He stared at the ceiling.

And said nothing.

Qubi jumped down and crouched in front of him.

"Want to buy some pain-relief ointment?"

"What hurts right now isn't my body."

"Then what hurts?"

"My heart."

"Sorry, there's no corresponding product for heartache."

Chen De gave a bitter smile.

"Your ability to comfort people is seriously in the negatives."

"I'm not the comforting type. I'm the practical type."

"Then show me how practical you are."

Qubi fell silent for two seconds.

"Do you have any patches left?"

"I used it up. There was only one."

"Then buy another one. Put on a new one tomorrow, and your appearance will freeze in its current state again."

"Current state?"

"Right. Meaning how you look right now."

Chen De lowered his head and looked at himself.

One meter sixty-five.

"Then when Jiang Ping sees me tomorrow, he'll notice I'm shorter than yesterday."

"He will."

"He'll notice I'm paler than yesterday."

"He will."

"He'll notice my facial features have changed."

"Possibly. The patch freezes your current state, not yesterday's state."

"Every new patch is based on your current face."

"So a tiny bit of change leaks out every day."

Chen De's mind began to turn.

"So the patch can only slow the rate of exposure; it can't hide it completely."

"Right."

"It breaks one day's drastic change into tiny bits every day."

"Right. Like boiling a frog in warm water."

"The frog being boiled is Jiang Ping."

"And you."

Chen De fell silent again.

He stood up.

He walked back to the mirror.

And examined himself carefully from head to toe.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"Tell me honestly."

"What?"

"Is this face of mine... pretty?"

Qubi tilted its head.

"You're asking for my aesthetic opinion?"

"Yes. You've seen so many magical girls. Give me a score."

"Eighty-five."

"Out of how many?"

"One hundred."

Chen De raised an eyebrow slightly.

"So that means—"

"Among magical girls, you're above average. Among ordinary people, you're top-tier."

"But you're still changing. The final score might be even higher."

"You're just sweet-talking me."

"I'm stating facts."

Chen De stared at the unfamiliar face in the mirror.

It was pretty, all right.

The problem was, it wasn't his face.

His name was Chen De.

He was male.

Seventeen years old.

Still in high school.

No matter how he looked at it, the person in the mirror didn't seem like someone named "Chen De."

She seemed more like someone named "Chen Youyou" or "Su Xi."

Wait.

Su Xi was him.

Chen De rubbed his face.

Hard.

As if he could rub his features back into their original shape.

It was useless.

His skin was absurdly elastic.

Not only did rubbing fail to change it back, the increased blood flow left a faint flush on his skin.

The person in the mirror had slightly reddened cheeks, with a faint watery sheen at the corners of her eyes from all that rubbing.

A built-in blush effect.

The score had probably risen to eighty-seven.

Chen De gave up struggling.

He opened his phone.

Starwish Marketplace.

Physique Maintenance Patch.

Purchase.

Five hundred Magic Coins vanished.

A new patch drifted down into his palm.

He pressed the patch onto the left side of his waist.

It was slightly cool.

Nothing changed in the mirror.

Because the current state was what had been frozen.

This was what he looked like now.

At least until this time tomorrow.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"I set three alarms."

"Very good."

"They'll remind me to change the patch every night at ten thirty."

"Wise."

"And I have another question."

"Go on."

"Will I keep changing?"

Qubi was silent for three seconds.

"Yes."

"How much longer will I keep changing?"

"I'm not sure. The rate of your interference is accelerating every day."

"You said I'd stop changing once I reached the middle value..."

"Individual differences."

"Is there nothing you can be certain about?"

"There is."

Qubi jumped onto the sink.

Its emerald-green eyes met the delicate face in the mirror.

"I'm certain you'll keep getting prettier."

Chen De grabbed the toothbrush cup and hurled it over.

Qubi darted behind the doorframe.

The cup bounced off the wall and rolled into a corner.

"Chen De."

Qubi poked half its head out from behind the door.

"Do you want to hunt Calamity tonight? Your maintenance costs went up again today."

Chen De glanced at his phone.

His Magic Coin balance.

He calculated this month's patch expenses.

Then calculated the Odor-Blocking Patch he might need to add.

And there was also the fact that he had promised Lin Xi she could take down the next one.

Income was falling while expenses were rising.

Classic signs of impending bankruptcy.

He picked up the school uniform jacket from his backpack and sniffed it.

It smelled of lavender.

Air freshener.

And a faint trace of milk.

Three scents mixed together.

Anyone who smelled it would lose their mind.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"Odor-Blocking Patch."

"One hundred a day."

"Buy it."

The phone screen flickered.

His balance dropped from thirty-four thousand to thirty-three thousand nine hundred.

A speck of light fell into his palm, transforming into a circular film smaller than the Physique Maintenance Patch.

Chen De stuck it beneath his right collarbone.

It was slightly cool.

Then he sniffed himself again.

There was no smell at all.

He was as clean as a freshly unwrapped sheet of white paper.

"It works."

"Of course it does. It costs a hundred."

"Can you stop measuring everything's quality by its price?"

"That's a basic principle of the market economy."

Chen De tossed his school uniform jacket into the washing machine.

Then turned and sat back down on the couch.

He picked up his phone and did the math.

Patches: five hundred.

Painkillers: two hundred.

Odor-blocking: one hundred.

Eight hundred a day.

Twenty-four thousand a month.

That was two hundred and forty thousand in cash.

He had just over three hundred and forty thousand in his bank account.

It wouldn't last a month and a half.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"I don't think I'm a magical girl."

"Then what are you?"

"I'm a walking money shredder."

Qubi's tail swayed.

"A money shredder wouldn't feel sorry for itself."

"Then I'm a money shredder with feelings."

"That makes you even more expensive."

Chen De placed his phone face-down on the coffee table.

He closed his eyes.

Today's maintenance costs had gone up by another hundred.

They might rise again tomorrow.

They might rise again the day after.

Hunt Calamity to make money, spend money on maintenance, then keep hunting Calamity after the maintenance.

An endless cycle.

Even a perpetual-motion machine didn't work as hard as he did.