The bedroom window was sealed tight behind heavy curtains. Outside, the sun was already high in the sky, yet the room was still as dark as night.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, Jiang Zixuan slowly walked toward the bed.

Even when he reached the bedside, the lump under the blanket didn't move at all, as if the person inside hadn't noticed his arrival in the slightest.

Jiang Zixuan suddenly really wanted to laugh.

The middle school they had attended was a boarding school. But the dorm conditions were pretty awful, so most students preferred renting a place outside, or just staying at a teacher's house instead. The latter also earned the teachers quite a bit of extra cash. Back in junior high, the two of them had lived on campus. But after entering high school, they really couldn't stand the shabby dorms anymore, and neither of them liked the restrained feeling of living at a teacher's place. They hit it off immediately, talked it over with their parents, and simply rented a two-bedroom apartment in the neighborhood across from the school. They had lived there together for two full years, through their first and second years of high school. It not only trained their ability to live independently, they had actually lived pretty comfortably too.

Back when they were still in school, every morning was like this. Jiang Zixuan would get up early, wash up, and get himself ready. Meanwhile, this guy would still cling stubbornly to the bed, savoring those last few minutes of lazy sleep.

As this guy's personal wake-up assistant back in their school days, Jiang Zixuan's usual method was simple—grab the edge of the blanket with both hands, then yank hard and rip the whole thing off in one go, while shouting, "Get up, you damn pig!"

Only this time, he never got to say the second half.

Because the instant he pulled the blanket away, he froze.

The person lying on the bed wasn't his best bro.

It was a curled-up girl.

The blanket suddenly leaving her made the girl blank out for two seconds. She gave an unhappy hum, lifted her head, and called out, "You could've just woken me up! Why'd you pull my blanke—... huh...?"

Their eyes met, and Shu Yuxin also fell into a brief daze.

This was a historic meeting.

Jiang Zixuan held the blanket against his chest and stared at the girl on the bed with a face full of disbelief. It felt wrong to keep holding the blanket, but also wrong to give it back. He looked so awkward that he resembled a girl about to be violated, hesitating between rejecting it and accepting it.

In the end, he chose to accept—pfft, no, he chose to return the blanket. After letting the girl wrap herself up properly, Jiang Zixuan took two steps back and gave a dry laugh.

"Sorry, sorry. I came to look for Shu Yumo... um, is he home?"

He still couldn't understand why there was such a pretty girl lying in the bed of his best friend, a guy who had never even held a girl's hand before.

Could she be some kind of child bride his family had raised?

Shu Yuxin still hadn't finished spacing out.

She hadn't gone out at all these past days. Aside from not having fully adjusted to her new identity, the more important reason was that she still hadn't figured out what attitude she should take toward everything from before. She was actually the sort of person who adapted easily. Even after suddenly turning into a girl, she hadn't cried, made a scene, or tried to kill herself. At most, she'd just been a little stunned. And for someone who had basically gotten her life back, this price wasn't that big.

Being easygoing meant her mindset adjusted quickly too. For example, on the first day after the surgery succeeded, she had still been thinking about how she was supposed to live after becoming a girl. By the second day, she had already started thinking about how to act cute with this body so she could bring out its full potential... Of course, whether she'd actually go and act cute was a matter for later.

Back to the present. As for the issue of "how should I deal with my old friends and bros after becoming a girl," our heroine still hadn't figured it out.

Two thoughts had been fighting in her head the whole time.

The first was to draw a clear line between herself and her old friends, start learning how to be a proper girl, and then go seduce men.

The second was to pretend she was still a guy, keep slinging an arm around her bros like before, and then go seduce men anyway...

No matter how she thought about it, both ideas felt cheap as hell.

Thankfully, before she could think it through and make a decision, her bro Jiang Zixuan had appeared right in front of her and forced her into making a final choice.

After thinking for a moment, Shu Yuxin kicked the blanket aside and showed a smile uglier than crying.

"Zixuan... if I said I'm Shu Yumo, would you believe me?"

Jiang Zixuan: "???"

Lunch didn't take long to finish cooking. Father Shu and Mother Shu thoughtfully prepared a set of chopsticks and a bowl for Jiang Zixuan as well. Once all the dishes were on the table, Father Shu called toward the bedroom, "Come out and eat."

Only Jiang Zixuan came out of the bedroom. Shu Yuxin had gone to wash up first and asked him to help straighten the bed. But even after sitting down at the table, Jiang Zixuan still looked absent-minded.

Seeing that, Father Shu couldn't help smiling.

"Zixuan, that girl Yuxin gave you quite a scare, huh?"

"Huh? Ah... yeah." Jiang Zixuan snapped back to himself and nodded instinctively. Then he glanced uncertainly toward the inner room and asked, "Uncle, Yumo... I mean, Yuxin, she... what happened to her?"

How did a perfectly fine young man turn into a girl?

Though she was pretty cute.

"Haha, that's a long story..." At the mention of this, Father Shu grinned. He wasn't even in a hurry to eat anymore and started explaining. "Here's what happened..."

By the time Shu Yuxin came out of the bathroom, Father Shu had just finished telling the whole story. The three people at the table all turned to look at her, each with a different expression.

Shu Yuxin twitched her lips, but still walked over.

This was the first time she'd changed into anything other than pajamas since all this happened. After Jiang Zixuan had confirmed that she really was Shu Yumo, she had no intention of lazing in bed any longer. She kicked that guy out of the bedroom, then ran to the wardrobe to find something to wear. It had honestly taken her some time to dig out an outfit from a pile of little dresses that wasn't too hard to accept. What she had on now was a loose black tracksuit. It covered her figure up tightly from top to bottom. With her hands pressed to the seams of her pants, if you ignored her head, she looked exactly like a rectangle.

Father Shu and Mother Shu felt that the kid was wasting a perfectly good face.

But Shu Yuxin herself felt great about it.

Maybe because she had only become a girl recently and hadn't developed the habit of grooming herself yet, her long hair had only been brushed a couple of times. Once it was untangled, she just let it hang loose like that. She hadn't even noticed the little ahoge sticking up on top of her head.

Mother Shu saw it and frowned a little.

"This child, she's already a grown girl now, and she still doesn't know how to dress herself up properly."

"I've only been a girl for a few days, okay? You can't expect me to learn the whole makeup routine already..." Shu Yuxin replied perfunctorily, then sat down beside Jiang Zixuan and yawned.

Mother Shu pointed at her head.

"I'm not talking about makeup. Look at your hair. You've got a tuft sticking up."

Shu Yuxin raised a hand and patted the top of her head.

"How about now?"

The little tuft that had just been pressed down sprang stubbornly back up again.

Seeing Mother Shu about to flare up, Father Shu hurriedly stepped in as peacemaker.

"Alright, alright, let's eat. The food's getting cold."

Mother Shu shook her head helplessly and said nothing more.