The day Bro Long turned into a woman, I got out of bed when it was already close to noon.

I lazed around on my phone for a bit. Not that long, really. Around twelve, I finally crawled out of bed and got ready to make myself a cup of instant noodles.

The weather was clear and high and bright today. Sunlight poured in through the window, golden and warm, spilling across the wooden floor. My mood lifted with it. I slowly took out the noodles from the cabinet, tore open the seasoning packets, then kept standing by the table, playing on my phone.

The water heater rumbled for a while. Then the button popped up with a click. I yawned, picked up the kettle, and poured hot water into the noodle bowl.

Right then, the doorbell rang. I froze for a second, then got up and walked to the door.

There weren’t many people who’d come looking for me on a Sunday—

Yeah, it was probably that dumbass Old Han. A few days ago, he’d been trying to drag me out to watch the girls’ basketball game at school. Said watching long pale legs was way more exciting than surfing the internet. If I went, he’d even buy me a Coke.

I hadn’t wanted to go at first, but after thinking it over, it did sound pretty nice.

A cloudless, blazing sunny day. Just one glance up at the blue sky would hurt your eyes. Sitting under a sunshade with my phone in hand, watching a bunch of girls with ponytails bounce around, chasing each other across the court.

The long pale legs of girls in the bloom of youth, beaded with the sweat of youth...

And I’d be under the umbrella with a Coke in hand. Sounded pretty damn good.

I’d told him I’d give him an answer on Sunday. So this was probably him.

The person outside kept mashing the doorbell like crazy. I cursed and opened the door. “What the hell are you doing? What if you break the damn thing?”

A rather pretty girl was standing there.

Her bleached long hair was especially eye-catching. Her features were fairly delicate too. But over her right eye, there was a vicious scar running diagonally upward.

This girl’s fashion sense was a complete trainwreck. She stood there all loose and sloppy in the doorway. She had on a green short-sleeved shirt, with a bright red tracksuit jacket over it. Below that, she was wearing a pair of men’s oversized casual shorts. Her pale thighs stuck out from under them. On her feet was a pair of filthy, torn white sneakers full of holes—

Honestly, I was pretty amazing too. I could still tell those shoes had originally been white.

The moment I opened the door, she looked at me in confusion and asked, “Were you jerking off in there?”

Let’s not get into whether I was jerking off or not. Who the hell was this?

I looked her up and down. She looked completely at ease. That outfit was on par with Zhao Si. I really shouldn’t know her. Assuming I hadn’t lost my memory, if there were a girl around me dressed like Zhao Si, I’d definitely remember her. Even if she turned to ashes, I’d still recognize her.

But I was extremely bothered by the scar over her eye, so I kept staring at it. That scar looked very familiar to me. The angle, the depth, the color—everything matched a friend of mine almost perfectly.

Seeing that I wasn’t saying anything, the girl scratched her bleached white hair and gave me a strange look. I stared at her like an idiot. She shoved me aside, walked in, kicked off both shoes, and headed into the apartment.

I followed after her, trembling a little. I didn’t even close the security door.

The moment she got inside, she collapsed onto the sofa and stared out the window. Then she suddenly sprang up like she’d lost her mind, grabbed one of her feet, and sniffed it. After confirming there was no smell, she gloomily put it back down, then scratched at her neck like she had ADHD. Right then, her stomach rumbled for a while. She turned to look at me and said, “Got any more instant noodles? Where’s Old Han?”

The second she turned her head, I stared at the scar over her eye again.

Then I remembered.

Among the people I knew, there was only one person with a scar over the eye.

Known as the Little White Dragon of the Pearl River. Bai Hailong. Our very own Bro Long.

The little sister sitting on my sofa right now had the same impatient look and the same sloppy, devil-may-care attitude as the Bro Long in my memory. If you told me she was his biological little sister, I’d believe it.

But did their family inherit scars too...?

That hardcore??

I went back to the cabinet, took out another cup of noodles, poured in hot water, found two pairs of chopsticks, then carried the noodles over and sat beside her.

I stayed silent for a while, trying not to look at this girl, who was staring out the window like some lonely old man while maintaining a full Ge You slouch. By now, I already felt like she had to know Bro Long. Otherwise, there was no way she could’ve found my place directly. In a bit, I’d try asking what her relationship with Bro Long was, just in case she was his sister or something. Wouldn’t want it to look like his bro was being a bad host.

The moment I turned my head, I saw that she was practically lying half-flat across the sofa. Her oversized green shirt had slipped down halfway. Half of one round breast was exposed.

The question I’d been about to ask got choked right back down.

I—I actually saw her boob!

My fragile little heart took a sudden critical hit.

Anyway, sitting there was just sitting there, so I went to the kitchen first and cooked her a bowl of noodles. Then I sat back down beside her and calmly told her there wasn’t much in the house right now, just instant noodles. If she wanted to eat, then eat. If it wasn’t enough, there was more.

She sat up with a reluctant, constipated-looking expression, ignored me, and started slurping down the noodles.

I watched her for a few moments, then pretended I needed the bathroom. Once inside, I pulled out my phone and called Bro Long.

A while later—

“You smell like her perfume~~”

At that moment, I heard a phone ringing in the living room. Other than the ringtone, the only sound left was her slurping noodles. I froze. She even had Bro Long’s phone?

The ringtone kept going for a while without mercy. After a long moment, she finally picked up. “What, you run outta toilet paper in there?”

“Wrong number!” I pinched my voice high and spoke like a eunuch, then hung up.

She had Bro Long’s phone on her. No way they weren’t connected. I mean, even the scar was on the same side...

Wait.

Do scars come in matching couple versions too?

I started thinking maybe feeding her instant noodles was too shabby. Later I should probably go get some malatang. Then when I saw Bro Long, I’d make him reimburse me.

I came out of the bathroom. Dragon Sis looked at me in confusion, then asked with concern, “Your name’s literally in the contact note. What’re you messing with me for? What were you doing in the bathroom? Really no paper? Did you come out without wiping your ass?”

“I wiped... I wiped...” I said awkwardly.

She snickered, tilted her head back, and drank the rest of the noodle soup from the plastic bowl. Then she got up and said she needed the bathroom. I shifted over to make room for her and watched helplessly as she went in. I was thinking I’d ask what she was to Bro Long once she came out.

A while later, a scream suddenly came from the bathroom.

Then another.

Then a whole string of them.

Not the sexy kind. The soul-ripping kind.

I was a little stunned. Did she really run out of toilet paper?

Dragon Sis screamed, “Hey, I— Lu! Lu!! Get in here!! Get in here!!”

I ran over to the bathroom door in a panic, still confused as hell. Was there a cockroach in there or what? I was just about to push the door open, but then I thought, at the very least, this was a girl. Going straight in didn’t feel right. So I asked, “I’m coming in, okay?”

“Lu! Holy shit, Lu!!”

I shoved the bathroom door open.

Right in front of me, Dragon Sis was sitting on the toilet with a terrified face. No cockroach. No rat. The faucet and everything else were perfectly fine. Her little face was deathly pale, half her soft chest exposed, the men’s shorts pulled down to her ankles. Her two pale, slender legs were trembling and spread apart, and between them was a whole lot of—

I slammed the door shut with a bang!!

I collapsed to the floor outside the bathroom, panting hard. “Lil sis... lil sis, come on. Brother Lu’s heart isn’t that strong. You can’t do this to me.”

From behind the bathroom door came Dragon Sis’s panicked scream again:

“Where’s my dick? It’s gone...! My dick’s gone!!”

The weather was beautiful today. The light outside poured in brutally, making the floor so bright it was almost impossible to look at.

I stood outside the bathroom door. Amid Dragon Sis’s screams, it took me about five minutes to painfully sort through what had happened.

Oh.

Dragon Sis wasn’t Dragon Sis.

She used to be Bro Long.

And there used to be a little Bro Long down there too.

And now, through some scientifically impossible bullshit, she had turned into Dragon Sis—

Holy shit. This felt like the plot of some sci-fi novel.

I’d read a short story like that before. Forgot the title. The plot was that I got gender reassignment surgery, then took a time machine back and fucked myself.

It took Bro Long half an hour to calm down. Now she was sitting on the sofa like her mom had just died. The sunlight outside was still bright and cheerful. The two of us sat there in silence.

I used to believe in science too. Then overnight, a fierce, loyal guy turned into a soft, delicate girl.

Turns out my worldview wasn’t that sturdy after all. It could collapse pretty damn easily.

Back when we used to drink together, we’d joked about this before. If one of us ever turned into a woman, the bros would get first dibs. The four of us had sat around the table grinning like perverts.

And now fate had played a joke on us.

Back then, after a few too many drinks, the one yelling, “If any of you turns into a woman, I’m first in line, and nobody better fight me for it,” had been Bro Long.

And now that same Bro Long was sitting on my sofa, all curves in the right places, head buried between her thighs, curled up like a ball.

I tried to comfort her. “Bro Long, pull yourself together! What’s the big deal about a dick? My Bro Long’s walked through blades and blood. You’re not even scared of losing an arm. It’s just one little worm. If it’s gone, it’s gone!!”

Bro Long’s head stayed buried in her thighs. Her gaze remained blank, fixed on the flat space between her legs. She didn’t say a word.

I tried again. “Besides, weren’t those little punks always looking for trouble with you? Looking like this now, could they even recognize you? How’re they supposed to mess with you?”

Bro Long let out a sigh. “Them, mess with me? What the hell am I supposed to do now? My old man only didn’t strangle me to death back then because I had a dick. Otherwise he would’ve done it already. What the hell is this supposed to be??”

Honestly, I really wanted to roast her. Like, how big is your mental blind spot? You didn’t notice two things growing on your chest the whole way here? What did you think they were, tumors?

But she really did look miserable, so I didn’t joke around. I just sat beside her, equally speechless.

Back when Bro Long still had those few ounces of meat downstairs, she’d been the boss of the area around our high school. White hair, savage in a fight. She looked glorious on the surface, and naturally, she had a ton of enemies too.

This year, some out-of-town students enrolled. A few of them came from rich and powerful families. Those first-year brats didn’t study worth a damn. They spent all day obsessed with triad novels, reading about fights and bloodshed until they got all fired up, planning to buy their way into the underworld...

It sounded kind of stupid, sure. But with money, everything gets easier. With a few informants working things properly, they got to know quite a few “big brothers.”

No idea whether those little punks had good judgment and could tell those so-called big brothers were all bark and no bite, or if it was something else. Either way, they ended up approaching Bro Long. They wanted to treat her to a few meals and “deepen the friendship.”

So they called politely.

Bro Long was gaming at an internet café at the time. She answered with an annoyed, “Who the fuck is this?” After the little brat humbly explained what he wanted, Bro Long flatly said she wasn’t free and told him to fuck off wherever he came from.

That was just how Bro Long was. Stubborn as hell. You couldn’t bribe her, pressure her, or sweet-talk her. The only friends she acknowledged were the kind she’d gone through life and death with. If she didn’t know you, then she didn’t know you. No need to give anyone face.

But those little punks didn’t share Bro Long’s simple values.

So they held a grudge.

And since Bro Long already had plenty of enemies, the punks used their money to treat a bunch of local tough guys to drinks all the time. As time went on, aside from Bro Long, even some of Bro Long’s old enemies and some of Bro Long’s own brothers all got to know each other. They’d drink together whenever they had nothing better to do. Life was great.

Little by little, Bro Long ended up isolated.

Anyone who’d mixed in those little circles outside school understood how it worked. Sure, people acted all hardcore every day, saying they knew this guy and that guy. But when a real conflict happened, and everyone started gathering their crews to avenge some close bro, the guy you wanted to stab ten times and spit on before leaving had a better than ninety percent chance of being your friend’s friend’s friend...

I don’t know about big cities. But in a small city, the circle is just that small. Once something happens, everybody knows everybody. Even when it comes to throwing hands, people end up holding back.

And Bro Long just happened to be hot-tempered and bad at maintaining relationships. So over time, even though her name still carried weight, fewer and fewer people around her could actually help.

But Bro Long was exactly the kind of wall everyone wanted to push over.

She was the Little White Dragon of the Pearl River. If you could bring down the local boss, your own name would be made.

At first, those first-year punks had only held a grudge. They hadn’t actually planned to target Bro Long. Later, probably egged on by her enemies, they started with verbal provocation. After Bro Long knocked out a few of their teeth with a couple punches, they started showing up in groups whenever they had the chance. Nice and friendly, of course, carrying clubs and knives while waiting quietly at the internet cafés Bro Long liked to visit.

The first few times, Bro Long could still kick over a few of them and get away on skill alone. But lately, there were just too many of them. Escaping had become harder and harder. The bruises on her body kept increasing too.

A few times before, when she was smoking and coughing up phlegm, she coughed up a wad of bloody sputum. Scared the hell out of me. But she was broad-minded as ever. She just wiped it on her clothes and went right back to gaming. In her eyes, that probably didn’t even count as a problem.

That once high-spirited Little White Dragon—

Now the tide had turned.

Brother Long looked utterly aggrieved. “So I’ve gotta bleed every month now? Do I need to buy those giant Band-Aids too? Are they expensive?”

She made a period sound terrifying... I did the math for her. “If I remember right, Space 7 costs seven-fifty. That’s like one pack of Hongjinlong cigarettes, with enough left for a drink...”

Brother Long asked, “Can I just not buy them?”

I put on a pained look. If she didn’t buy any, was she planning to hand-wash her own underwear later? There wasn’t even a washing machine where she lived. And on top of that, there was always a crowd hanging around outside that internet café, ready to beat her up at any moment... Anyway, there was no way I could let her go back there.

I said, “You think I can’t even cover your pad money? I’ll front it for you... We can talk about that later. Don’t go back to the internet café. You don’t have much luggage anyway. Just stay at my place tonight. As long as you don’t mind how small it is.”

Brother Long let out a sigh and glanced at me. The arms wrapped around her knees loosened a little.