It was already deep into the night. When I got home, thank god, nothing had happened. Minghai was sitting on the couch with her head lowered, perfectly fine. Not like the scene I'd imagined, where she'd be holding a chainsaw with a calm face and telling me to come over.

Old Han was sitting on the sofa too, looking anxious. When she saw me come back, she finally let out a breath and said, "Why'd it take you an hour to buy malatang? If you didn't come back soon, I was seriously about to call the cops!"

I gave a bitter laugh.

Then call them already. Have the police drag away those thirty-some bastards.

Minghai was still the same as usual. She sat on the couch and stared blankly at the coffee table for no reason. She didn't seem to be having any extreme reaction, so I quietly relaxed too. Honestly, I really was scared that if Minghai got mad, she'd pour pesticide into my water cup.

Then it'd be a bloody case over one late bowl of malatang.

I reheated the malatang in a pot and brought it over. The second Minghai saw food, she pounced on it. In less than five minutes, she slurped down the entire bowl. She really must've been starving.

Old Han ate while looking at her phone, slow as ever. Before she'd even finished half a bowl, Old Chu was already done.

After eating, Old Chu stopped looking so gloomy and went back to her usual blank expression. She just said she was full, then went back to her room to sleep.

Once dinner was over, Long-ge went back to her room to grind the Abyss. Old Han also slowly finished eating. In the end, only Old Han and I were left sitting on the couch.

Old Han stacked the bowls together, waved with a grin, and said, "I'll do it."

Then she carried the stack to the sink, put on rubber gloves, and started washing dishes.

I had nothing to do, so I sat in the living room and watched her thoughtfully. She was wearing my oversized black sweater and a thin pair of fleece pants. She looked incredibly sexy—

Sexy my ass.

First time in my life I'd ever used that word on one of my bros.

Old Han scrubbed hard at the bowls. Luckily, her parents probably weren't in the country anymore. If they found out she'd suddenly turned into a woman, who knew what they'd think. By now, they'd already gone back abroad, so at least she'd dodged that disaster.

Actually, I'd always been curious about one thing. How exactly had these people explained becoming women to their families?

As for Long-ge, her mother died when she was young. Her dad liked to drink, and his booze money came from whatever old savings her grandpa had left behind.

Long-ge's dad barely cared about her when she was little, and once she grew up, he just let her run wild. Honestly, even if Long-ge died somewhere outside, he probably wouldn't even know... so there wasn't really a problem on her side—

Wait, no, there was definitely a problem.

As for Minghai, I'd heard her dad was some big-shot company boss. Back in high school, Old Chu had even tried starting a business for a while. She was also the only college student among us. As for what she was doing now, I had no clue. She hid in her room every day, all mysterious.

Her family probably didn't know Minghai had turned into a woman either. Minghai had been living away from home for years, and for now, I was probably the only one who knew. News like that shouldn't spread too fast. Same with her parents. If I remembered right, they had her late in life. If they found out the son they'd raised all these years had turned into a girl, who knew how they'd react.

Then there was Old Han. Both her parents lived overseas, and the day she turned into a woman just happened to be when they were coming back.

Luckily, that morning, she'd come straight to my place. Two days had passed now, so her parents should've already gone abroad again...

But what about Xiao Yao? The older brother she already didn't like had suddenly become an older sister. The kid was so young. Wouldn't that mess up her whole worldview?

And according to Old Han, Old Shen had turned into a woman too. But she used to be a hardcore shut-in. She basically wouldn't leave the house for half a year at a time... Old Shen's family was pretty rich too. Her situation had probably already been exposed. I had no idea how they were handling it over there.

I shook my head. My thoughts were a tangled mess. I got up and walked toward the kitchen to see if there was anything I could help with.

Old Han had her head lowered, scrubbing a bowl hard with a steel wool pad covered in detergent.

The living room lights were already off. Only the kitchen light was still on. Her smooth shoulder-length hair hung neatly around her face, exposing one clean, pale ear. Her long neck was so white it almost hurt to look at...

I didn't want to admit it, but...

She really was beautiful.

And there was even something oddly domestic about her...

I leaned over the table by the stove. This was the first time I'd really stared at her since she'd become a woman. Watching her scrub dishes with steel wool, I gradually started to drift.

This beautiful girl... was she really the same bro who'd grown up with me since childhood? The same ride-or-die friend I'd drunk with, talked shit with, and spent my whole youth with?

The same Old Han who, back in high school, scraped together fifty bucks with me, called me in the middle of the night to go drinking, then staggered drunk beside me down an empty street and kicked trash cans with me?

Old Han finished washing one bowl and set it in the basin, then started on another. Then she turned her head and saw me staring at her in a daze.

She froze for a second, then grinned. "What're you staring at? Lost your soul or what?"

I stared at her for a long while again, then gave a bitter smile. "How the hell did you just turn into a woman out of nowhere?"

Old Han looked at me, amused, still scrubbing the bowl. "What, you're thinking about the old days? Drinking together, talking crap together?"

"You feel like things are gonna get distant now. Like we can't be like that anymore, right?"

She'd hit the nail right on the head. Out of all my friends, Old Han was the one who understood me best. Like, all the way through.

Ever since we were kids, she'd been like she had mind-reading powers. Me, on the other hand, I could almost never guess what she was thinking.

Old Han washed the bowl clean and skillfully set it in the basin. Then she said with a grin, "I turned into a woman, not died... I know what you're thinking. Since I'm a woman now, there'll be distance between us. Men and women shouldn't be too close, right?"

"Get the hell outta here... If you wanna drink right now, I'll go downstairs and buy two cases... And later, if you ever want someone to kick trash cans with again, just call me..."

That left me standing there in a daze for a long time. I looked at her smiling face, stunned for a moment, and suddenly everything in my chest cleared up.

That's right. Old Han was still Old Han. Long-ge was still Long-ge too. Deep down, I'd unconsciously assumed that once Old Han became a woman, all that brotherhood, all those times we'd gone through shit together, all those memories of slinging arms over each other's shoulders had become the past...

But why the past?

She was right here, perfectly fine. Sure, her sex had changed, but she wasn't dead. A friend was still a friend. A bro was still a bro. Since when could brotherhood be erased just because someone changed sex? What was the big deal?

Old Han finished washing the dishes, looked at me with smiling eyes, took off her rubber gloves, and suddenly said, "You figure it out now?... Oh right, do you still remember that time you, Long-ge, Xiao Cuihua, and Old Shen were drinking, and Old Shen went crazy drunk?"

My mood instantly lightened. I chuckled and said, "Yeah. Who would've thought Old Shen would go wild when drunk? Such a shut-in, but after drinking she got pretty bold..."

Old Han laughed so hard she could barely stand. "Bold my ass!"

She was in a good mood, so she started acting out Old Shen's drunken scene for me. She put on a blurry drunk expression, let out a hiccup, and waved her hand with a thick tongue.

"Wuh! I'mm not drunk! I can still drink! Bring the booze over here!!"

That got me laughing too. It really did look just like her.

Old Han called me over, then suddenly leaned close with a mysterious look and said, "Hey, by the way, do you remember what we said at the table that day?"

I asked, "What?"

She leaned to my ear and whispered, "Whoever turns into a woman first has to let the bros have first dibs."

My face turned green on the spot.

I looked at Old Han. She was laughing so hard she was about to die, clutching her stomach and squatting on the floor like she couldn't breathe.

Still laughing, she said, "Hahaha... what, why're you staring? You actually wanna do me? Hahaha..."

At a time like this, she was still joking about that. Was she not afraid of getting herself killed?

I straightened up, my brain heating up, and sneered from the living room, "Ha. You think I wouldn't dare?"

Old Han shook her hand and walked out of the kitchen, grinning. "You dare?"

I snorted, then lunged over and grabbed her wrist, putting on a show as I dragged her toward the sofa.

She didn't panic at all. She was still smiling.

It wasn't until I pinned her down on the couch and held both her cool wrists that she finally froze.

I was sitting on her waist.

And now I was the one starting to freeze.

Her waist was really soft.

By the time I came back to myself, I was already confused. What the hell was I doing?

Even if Old Han was still the same Old Han, she had a girl's body now.

But I still forced myself to say, "You give up or not?"

Old Han just kept staring at me blankly.

The living room was pitch black. When she'd come out earlier, she'd casually turned off the kitchen light too. The only light in the room was the blue glow from outside the window reflecting off the floor.

I was sitting on top of Old Han, gripping her wrists. She was wearing my oversized black sweater. It had gotten a little messy from all the struggling, exposing a large patch of pale skin below her neck. She wasn't wearing a bra. At her chest, just under the collar, a small half-curve showed, perfect and pale. Under the streetlight outside, it looked almost luminous, almost dazzling.

Her neck was especially long, with a delicate sort of grace. In that instant, a thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

A necklace would definitely look good on that neck.

We stayed locked in that position.

I was completely stuck riding a tiger I couldn't get off.

A damp chill started spreading across my back. I was probably breaking into a cold sweat. The atmosphere began to freeze solid. I looked at her with a twitching mouth.

Honestly, I desperately wanted Old Han to do what she always did and give me a way out. Like jokingly saying, stop screwing around, I'm going to bed, or something like that. Then I could climb off her while still pretending to be annoyed. Totally natural. Totally normal. Just like friends messing around—

But she didn't.

She just kept staring at me in a daze. And her eyes were huge, bright and watery, like they could talk.

Under that blue light from who-knew-where outside the window, blue glimmers reflected in her eyes.

I'd only just graduated high school. I was twenty. Still at that age when the hot blood in your veins hadn't been worn down by time yet. I wanted to chicken out and get off her, say sorry, you win.

But I still held my neck stiff and didn't move.

In that moment, I really wanted to strangle myself.

Or have someone hurry up and strangle me.

It was like that meme where the same line gets repeated over a dozen cartoon images with different skins: I treated you like a brother, and you wanna sleep with me?

Right now, she treated me like a brother.

And right now, I was about to sleep with her.

The air stayed silent for more than ten seconds.

Or maybe an hour.

Her stunned expression had already turned thoughtful, while my cold sweat gradually soaked through my undershirt.

Just as I was trying to figure out how to break this dead silence, Old Han thought for a moment, then asked tentatively, "How about... you go buy a condom?"

The second I heard that, I sprang up like I'd been electrocuted and stood beside the couch, my voice shaking.

"Buy—buy my ass! Buy what the hell?!"

My voice sounded like a wail. In the dark, Old Han finally couldn't hold it in anymore. She buried her face in the sofa cushion, and her whole body started shaking.

I stared at her shaking there, a little dazed. Then I realized she'd played me again. My heart loosened, and at the same time, I felt a strange little trace of disappointment...

I let out a sigh and dropped onto the couch beside her.

Old Han laughed for what had to be several minutes before she finally calmed down.

I sat beside her. She lay on the couch, no longer laughing, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Then she said, "Lu Ren... tell me. Have I really turned into a woman?"

I said gloomily, "Then what else did you turn into? You wanna be a pug or something?"

Old Han stared at the ceiling, thoughtful. Blue light from somewhere fell across her face.

Outside the window, I could faintly hear the sound of late-night cars passing by.

After thinking for a while, she said, "It's mainly that it doesn't feel real. It feels like a dream... Tell me, how can a grown man just turn into a woman out of nowhere?"

I lowered my head and said nothing. She kept murmuring, "Long-ge can't figure it out. But she also doesn't really care. She probably thinks being a man or a woman is all the same..."

"Minghai's a genius. I can tell she's been turning it over in her head these past few days, but she can't make sense of it either. And I still don't feel any sense of reality. This should be a dream. Some kind of joke..."

"Then just now, when you were sitting on me, you looked so panicked. It felt like I was the one about to do you. That's when I suddenly snapped back and thought, oh. Holy shit. I really did turn into a woman."

I said weakly, "You're the one who was panicking. Between the two of us, who was doing who?"

Old Han stopped talking again. I sat there on the couch for another ten minutes or so.

Finally, I couldn't help turning my head to look at her.

And I found that Old Han had already quietly fallen asleep.

I sat there stunned for a while again. I couldn't just leave her sleeping on the couch. At first I wanted to carry her back to her room, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it for the longest time.

Wait.

This couldn't be fake sleeping just to mess with me again, could it?

I nervously watched her for a good five minutes.

She mumbled something and turned over.

I felt a little stupid. I’d really been messed with so much that I was scared of it now. I gave a bitter smile, shook my head, and stood up from the couch.

Old Han was lying sideways on the sofa, her face turned toward the backrest. Blue light from outside the window fell across her neck.

Her skin looked bluish and faintly luminous, almost transparent. I slipped one arm under her knees and the other under her armpits, then lifted her up—

Her body was unexpectedly light, and especially soft. Curled in my arms, she gave off the minty scent of the men’s body wash from my place.

I could also smell a faint trace of her own body fragrance. I tried to hold my breath and stop myself from breathing it in.

I carried Old Han across the living room. The lights were off, but blue light reflected across the floor.

I headed for Long Ge’s room and nudged the door with my foot. A few seconds later, Long Ge scratched her white hair, messy like a bird’s nest, glanced at me in a disheveled state, then rushed straight back to the computer.

The room was dark. Only the monitor cast a stark white glow. The smell of cigarettes hit me in the face, and under the screen’s light, the whole room looked hazy with smoke.

After opening the door, Long Ge went right back to hammering at the keyboard. She had her back to me. The monitor’s light was a little harsh, and a long wisp of smoke curled slowly up past her head.

I didn’t speak to Long Ge. The bed was pushed against the wall. Old Han was still sleeping deeply, so I carried her to Long Ge’s bedside and laid her on the innermost side, against the wall. She turned over and curled up slightly.

After I straightened up, I opened the window on the sill a crack to let some of the smoke out.

When I turned back, Long Ge was probably at a boss stage. She hit her first awakening, took both hands off the keyboard, and flicked the ash from her cigarette.

Her white hair blocked the monitor’s light. The room was full of smoke, and it stirred up my own craving. I walked over to her side, picked up the cigarette pack from the desk, pulled one out, tossed the pack back onto the table, lit it, took a deep drag, and silently watched her play—

She’d leveled a healer. Lately she wasn’t farming the Abyss anymore. She was grinding hard for gold.

Long Ge quickly pulled out half a carton of cigarettes from under the desk. She took out one pack and tossed it to me, then went right back to tapping at the keyboard.

I picked it up and slipped it into my pocket. Then I stubbed my cigarette out in the empty can on the computer desk and said to Long Ge, “Smoke less. Get some sleep early.”

Long Ge stared at the screen and nodded.

I stood beside her, feeling a little lost. As if possessed, I kept watching her for a while. Her white hair was lit by the monitor, like it had a thin silver edge.

She was wearing the same oversized shorts she’d had on when she first came to my place, washed so many times they’d gone pale. She sat cross-legged in the swivel chair. The eye with the scar near it shone brightly, fixed on the screen without blinking—

Only now did I realize her body really had gotten a lot smaller. Back when he used to come to my place, there was no way he could sit cross-legged in that swivel chair.

I stood there and watched Long Ge play for a while longer. My thoughts were a tangled mess, and then I walked out of the room.