What Should I Do If the Stranger in the Mirror Seems Kind of Cute?

Early morning.

Chen De sat up, rubbing his aching neck.

Nothing in his body felt right.

His neck hurt, his waist hurt, his shoulders hurt—even his heels were lodging complaints.

The painkillers were supposedly effective for a whole day.

But his body had clearly not received that memo.

At most, they would hold out for another three hours before he reverted to normal.

No, "reverted to normal" was a little ambiguous when used on him.

Chen De gritted his teeth and climbed out of bed.

He walked into the bathroom.

He turned on the tap and splashed cold water over his face.

The icy chill made him shudder.

He was awake now.

Then he looked up.

The person in the mirror stared back at him.

The patch was still there, freezing his appearance in yesterday's state.

One meter sixty-five.

Grayish-white hair draped over his shoulders.

Skin so pale it practically glowed.

Features so exquisite they looked AI-generated.

Chen De stared into the mirror for five seconds.

Then an extremely dangerous thought surfaced in his mind.

"Looks... pretty good?"

The moment that thought appeared, it startled even him.

He instinctively raised a hand and touched his own face.

Delicate.

Smooth.

Soft enough to seem breakable.

It felt absurdly good.

Better than every facial cleanser he had ever used combined.

"No, no, no."

Chen De jerked his hand away from his face.

As if he had touched a scalding pot.

"I'm a man."

He solemnly said it to the mirror.

That exquisite face in the mirror solemnly looked back at him.

It was not convincing in the slightest.

Chen De vigorously shook his head, packed up those dangerous thoughts, compressed them, encrypted them, and threw them into the trash.

Then he welded the trash shut.

He swore he would never take them out again.

"Being this vain so early in the morning?"

Qubi bounced out from behind the toilet lid, its emerald eyes narrowed into slits.

"Can you stop appearing from weird places every time?"

"The toilet lid is warm."

"That's because I just used the toilet!"

"I know."

Chen De decided not to dig any deeper into that subject.

"I wasn't being vain."

"You looked very intoxicated while touching your face just now."

"That was a self-examination!"

"Does a self-examination require touching it three times?"

"Last time, you said I had senile dementia. Can't I double-check a few times?"

Qubi jumped onto the sink counter and sat beside his toothbrush cup.

"Fine. Keep 'examining' yourself. I won't disturb you."

"Why did you put quotation marks around 'examining'?"

"For emphasis."

"Emphasize what?"

"That you're deceiving yourself."

Chen De picked up his toothbrush.

He squeezed the toothpaste hard.

Too hard.

A huge blob came out.

Expressionless, he scraped the excess back into the tube.

"Qubi."

"Yeah."

"If I walked out onto the street looking like this, would people's first impression be that I'm a man or a woman?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah."

"A woman."

The answer was immediate and decisive.

Chen De's toothbrush stopped.

"You didn't even hesitate?"

"In your current state, you're one meter sixty-five, with long grayish-white hair and a face more delicate than a female celebrity's."

"Even if you wore a school uniform, people would only think you were a gallant little girl."

"Gallant?"

"Yeah, the kind of little girl other girls would call 'so handsome.'"

"Handsome is handsome, but the category is wrong!"

Chen De complained indistinctly around his toothbrush.

"I was originally a handsome young man."

"Your definition of handsome is debatable."

"What does a cat know about aesthetics!"

"I've seen hundreds of magical girls. My aesthetic database is far richer than yours."

Chen De spat out the foam and splashed some water on his face.

Then he glanced at the mirror again.

Still good-looking.

He hurriedly looked away.

He could not look.

If he kept looking, he was afraid something would really go wrong with his mindset.

A seventeen-year-old boy thinking he looked good in the mirror every morning.

This was heading in the wrong direction.

Very wrong.

"Qubi."

"Yeah."

"Just pretend you didn't hear that thought I had earlier."

"Which thought? The 'looks pretty good' one?"

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

"You said it out loud. You can't blame me."

"I didn't say it out loud!"

"Your lips were moving."

"That was unconscious facial muscle twitching!"

"Yes, yes."

Qubi's tone was perfunctory to the extreme.

Chen De grabbed a towel and dried his face.

He rubbed hard.

As if trying to wipe away that refinement that did not belong to him.

It was useless.

Afterward, his skin was instead tinged with a faint pink from the friction.

Natural blush.

He remembered the last time he had rubbed his face.

His hand twitched, then pulled back.

He could not rub it.

The more he rubbed, the better he looked.

His face was different from other people's.

Other people turned into buns after rubbing their faces.

He turned into cake.

"Chen De."

"What?"

"How much longer do you think your painkillers will last?"

Chen De rolled his shoulders.

Creak.

Then he moved his neck.

Crack.

His entire body was like a poorly maintained door hinge.

"Optimistically, three hours."

"And pessimistically?"

"Two hours."

"It takes you around forty minutes to get to school."

"Yeah."

"First period ends around nine thirty."

"Yeah."

"So you'll start hurting all over during second period."

"Yeah."

"Want to buy—"

"No."

Chen De answered without hesitation.

"Listen to me first."

"No need. You definitely want to sell me something from the store again."

"I just wanted to say the store has a sale today."

Chen De's steps paused almost imperceptibly.

"How big a discount?"

"Twenty percent off."

"How much are the painkillers?"

"Two hundred at full price, one hundred sixty after the discount."

Chen De's mouth twitched.

He would save forty yuan.

That was four hundred in cash.

Enough to buy milk tea for half a month.

"What about the ointment?"

"Three hundred at full price, two hundred forty after the discount."

"And the patches?"

"Patch items aren't included in the promotion."

"Why not?"

"Because patches are necessities, and necessities don't get discounted."

"Did your store copy JD's pricing strategy?"

"We're far more conscientious than JD. At least we don't raise prices before putting things on sale."

Chen De reached for his phone.

Then pulled his hand back.

"Not buying it."

"You were clearly tempted just now."

"I only bought one yesterday, and today it's discounted. You're obviously trying to rip me off."

"One hundred and sixty yuan is a great deal."

"Not a great deal!"

"You said the same thing yesterday."

"Yesterday's me and today's me are two different people."

"Judging by appearances, they certainly are."

"Shut up."

Chen De changed into his school uniform.

The sleeves had gotten longer again.

The pant legs dragged even more.

He rolled up his sleeves and cuffed his pant legs once.

Although the patch made others see him as normal,

he knew that the person wrapped inside that school uniform was shrinking at a rate visible to the naked eye.

No.

At a rate invisible to the naked eye.

Because of the patch.

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"I calculated last night's total expenses."

"How much?"

"Taking Lin Xi to fight Calamity put me three hundred yuan in the red. Add the fixed daily expense of eight hundred."

"Yesterday's total cost was eleven hundred."

"That doesn't sound like much."

"That's thirty-three thousand a month."

"Three hundred and thirty thousand yuan."

"Mm."

"Then you need to make money."

"Thanks for stating the obvious."

Chen De picked up his backpack and headed outside.

As he opened the door, he glanced back at the bathroom mirror again.

Most of the mirror was blocked.

Only a blurry outline was visible.

He stared at that outline for a second.

Slender.

Unfamiliar.

But undeniably pretty.

Then he abruptly turned away.

"Let's go."

Qubi jumped onto his shoulder, its tail curling around once.

"Chen De."

"What now?"

"You were looking at yourself again just now."

"I was checking whether the door was locked."

"The door is on your right. You were looking at the mirror on the left."

"I'm nearsighted."

"Your vision is 5.2."

"Qubi."

"Mm."

"Believe it or not, cat meat is what I'm having for breakfast today."

Qubi's tail shot up.

But it still tactlessly added,

"You can deny it, but your sense of beauty is being recalibrated by that face."

"I'm guessing that in another two weeks, you might start looking into skincare products."

Chen De quickened his pace.

He walked out of the apartment building.

Morning light fell over him.

Qubi lay on his shoulder, its voice soft.

"You should consider sunscreen too. It'd be such a shame if skin like yours got tanned."

Chen De remained expressionless.

"Say one more word, and I'll throw you into the trash can at the entrance of the complex."

"Which one? The green one or the gray one?"

"You choose."

"Then I choose the green one. At least it's recyclable."

Chen De felt that his blood pressure had risen another level compared to yesterday.