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Join the ServerA brief silence fell within the car.
Su Mian lowered her head, tugging at the oversized white shirt she wore.
For the past few days in the apartment, she had been wearing Xiao Moyuan’s clothes. While this attire was acceptable at home, wearing it to school…
“Indeed,”
Xiao Moyuan’s voice came from beside her, tinged with a knowing understanding.
“Like this, it’s not quite suitable.”
He turned the steering wheel, and the car smoothly rounded a corner, entering another street.
“Let’s go back to my place to change first.”
He suggested, his tone entirely natural.
“You’ve barely worn any of the clothes I bought you last time.”
Su Mian’s face flushed crimson.
She recalled the wardrobe crammed with luxurious dresses and exquisite lingerie, each piece exorbitantly priced, with styles ranging from innocent to alluring.
“How could I possibly wear those to class!”
She blurted out the words, her voice trembling slightly with embarrassment.
Beautiful as those clothes were, wearing them to a lecture hall?
The mere thought made her scalp prickle.
Xiao Moyuan glanced at her in the rearview mirror, a half-smile playing on his lips.
“Why not?”
He countered, his tone clearly teasing.
“You’re a girl now, isn’t it perfectly normal to wear those?”
He paused, lowering his voice slightly, with a pointed implication.
“Besides, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to change your gender information back to ‘female’?”
“No! Absolutely not!”
Su Mian shook her head like a rattle, her voice frantic.
“I’ve always been a boy at school! Suddenly turning into a girl, and dressed like that… what would everyone think?”
Her words grew more urgent, a genuine panic creeping into her voice.
“Moreover, the campus network and forums are now flooded with photos of me in women’s clothes that day! Everyone’s saying we’re a couple!”
“If I showed up in a dress and admitted it was me… wouldn’t that just confirm all those rumors?”
“What would the gossip be like then? ‘Campus Heartthrob Xiao Moyuan’s partner is actually his cross-dressing rival Su Mian!'”
“How could I possibly stay at school after that?”
She finished in one breath, her chest rising and falling slightly with agitation, her cheeks flushed, her eyes a mix of shame, indignation, and worry.
Xiao Moyuan listened quietly. Only after she had finished speaking did he slowly open his mouth, his voice steady:
“Are we not,”
He turned his head, his gaze direct, looking deep into her eyes.
“a couple?”
Su Mian’s breath hitched.
The air in the car seemed to thin instantaneously.
His gaze was too direct, too candid, devoid of any hint of jest. He had laid a question before her so clearly, it was inescapable.
She frantically lowered her eyelashes, her fingers unconsciously twisting the overly long shirt cuff, her voice barely audible.
“I… aren’t I your shikigami?”
She attempted to use this newly established identity, bound by a contract, to distance herself from his overly intense and direct gaze.
Xiao Moyuan let out a soft chuckle.
He reached out, pinching her nose, which was slightly crinkled with nervousness. His every action was naturally intimate, as if he had done it a thousand times before.
“You are my shikigami,”
He corrected, enunciating each word clearly.
“And you are my partner.”
He withdrew his hand, his gaze returning to the road ahead. The lines of his profile were exceptionally sharp in the light filtering through the car window.
“I have never denied my relationship with you, our online romance.”
His voice deepened, carrying a nearly confessional seriousness.
“From the day I agreed to be with you, the feelings I invested in this relationship… they were all real.”
It was like a sudden, unexpected direct hit.
Su Mian froze completely.
A surging, uncontrollable sweetness rushed to her heart, making even her neck burn.
Her heart pounded as if it would burst from her chest, an emotion mixing immense surprise with deep alarm flooding her.
‘He… he’s serious?’
Even knowing her initial intentions were impure, knowing all her clumsy disguises and schemes, he still said… it was real?
But the more he affirmed it, the more she found herself unable to candidly acknowledge her own ‘initial intention’ that had long veered off course.
“Online romance… how can online romance count?”
She weakly retorted, her eyes darting away, not daring to look at him.
“And… you clearly know why I initially ‘online dated’ you… I… I wasn’t… sincere…”
The last few words were spoken with immense guilt, almost swallowed whole.
Even she knew that this ‘insincerity’ had transformed at some unknown point.
Xiao Moyuan let out an almost imperceptible sigh, a sigh imbued with helplessness and a hint of indulgence.
“Is online romance not romance?”
He countered, his logic so clear that she had no room to argue.
“Moreover, didn’t we ‘meet up’ later? We’ve hugged, we’ve kissed, and we’ve done more intimate things.”
He listed them candidly, as if stating objective facts. “Doesn’t that count as being in a relationship?”
He suddenly turned his face, his gaze burning as he stared at her, his tone carrying a hint of accusation.
“After doing such things to me, are you… not going to take responsibility now?”
Su Mian’s face flushed crimson, almost dripping blood.
‘He… how could he say such things with such a calm expression?!’
‘And I’m the girl… I’m clearly the one at a disadvantage, okay?’
‘How could it come out of his mouth as if I’m some heartless scoundrel who pulls up their pants and denies everything?!’
‘…No, a heartless scoundrel who pulls up their pants and denies everything?!’
“Who… who says doing those things counts as dating!”
She mustered her courage to retort, but her voice stammered with shame, her assertiveness entirely gone.
Xiao Moyuan raised an eyebrow, sizing her up with an utterly absurd expression.
Finally, his thin lips parted, uttering two perfectly clear words:
“Slut.”
Su Mian: “…………”
She stood with her mouth agape, utterly speechless.
A complex mix of indignation and a strange urge to laugh clogged her chest, leaving her breathless for a long moment.
‘How did such a huge label get slapped on her?!’
‘No, I can’t get entangled in this topic anymore! Xiao Moyuan will lead me astray!’
Su Mian tried to calm her breathing, attempting to steer the conversation back to ‘the right track’.
“Anyway! I can’t go to school in women’s clothes! And I don’t want the fact that ‘Su Mian’ is a girl to be exposed right now!”
She paused, finding a seemingly reasonable excuse.
“Also… Shen Zhixia doesn’t know about us, does she? If we… got together, would she still be willing to accept me? Aren’t you still planning to use her to draw out Xia behind her?”
Towards the end, her voice unconsciously dropped.
While this was part of the reason, a deeper, more personal reason was something she couldn’t even face herself—she was afraid for Shen Zhixia to know.
Afraid that her childhood friend, whom she had once looked up to, pursued, and considered a goddess, would find out that she had not only become a girl but had also reached this stage with the boy they both liked.
What kind of look would that be?
Disdain?
Shock?
Or utter disgust?
The mere thought made her want to sink into the ground. Her identity and relationships, built over eighteen years, would completely collapse at that moment.
Xiao Moyuan gave a half-smile.
Xiao Moyuan seemed to have seen through her careful thoughts, giving a half-smile.
“I was just casually suggesting you return to your true self.”
“Look at you, such a big reaction.”
He looked at her with deep eyes.
“Could it be that… you actually don’t want Shen Zhixia to know that the ‘mysterious goddess’ rumored on the campus network to be ‘involved’ with me is you?”
Su Mian: “…………”
‘He saw through me again.’
She slumped her shoulders in a fit of self-abandonment.
In front of Xiao Moyuan, she seemed utterly incapable of hiding any thoughts.
“I need to remind you,”
Xiao Moyuan’s tone grew more serious.
“Shen Zhixia is a demon now. There’s no going back to your previous pure dynamic with her.”
“I’m also a demon now,”
Su Mian mumbled softly.
“Isn’t that perfect?”
“It’s different.”
Xiao Moyuan shook his head.
“Firstly, you are my shikigami, officially registered, bound and protected by both the Demon Exorcism Academy’s rules and our contract. Secondly, and most importantly—”
He paused, his gaze sharpening.
“She has harmed human lives.”
Su Mian’s head shot up, her pupils contracting. “Impossible! Zhixia, she…”
“The color of demonic energy does not lie.”
Xiao Moyuan interrupted her, his voice coldly almost cruel.
“Demons who haven’t harmed humans typically have light red demonic energy. Once they personally take a human life, and the ‘evil’ in their heart is acted upon, their demonic energy gradually turns black.”
“The more people they harm, the deeper their malice, and the darker and more turbid their demonic energy becomes.”
He looked at Su Mian’s instantly pale face and continued, “I know you might have been forced by Xia, right?”
Su Mian nodded urgently.
“The change in demonic energy color is solely related to whether the ‘evil intent’ in one’s heart is actively released and indulged.”
Xiao Moyuan explained.
“If forced to act under absolute control and without self-awareness, the demonic energy might be polluted, but it won’t undergo this fundamental ‘blackening’.”
“Only when she internally accepts that ‘evil,’ or actively chooses to do evil for her own desires, will the color change.”
He looked at the faint hope rekindled in Su Mian’s eyes, not uttering the words that would strip it away.
As early as the night of the confrontation in the teaching building, he had clearly seen the already blackened demonic energy swirling around Shen Zhixia.
Her transformation hadn’t been long.
It would be better for her to verify it herself, making it easier for her to accept.
After listening, Su Mian did indeed feel a slight sense of relief.
In her heart, Shen Zhixia was always that kind and gentle girl. Even if she became a blood kin, it must have been out of coercion.
As long as she hadn’t actively harmed anyone… there might still be room for redemption, right?
Xiao Moyuan said no more, driving the car back to the apartment building Su Mian rented.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs,” he said.
Su Mian felt as if she had been granted a great pardon. She quickly pushed open the car door, practically fleeing upstairs.
Half an hour later, she reappeared by the car.
She had changed back into her signature oversized men’s hoodie and jeans, with thick black-framed glasses obscuring most of her face.
Opening the car door and sitting inside, she immediately posed a new question:
“Xiao Moyuan, what should I do about my hair?”
She ran her fingers through the strands that now reached past her shoulders, a little troubled.
“I can’t just keep it this long, can I?”
She wanted to cut it, but also felt it would be a shame…
Xiao Moyuan didn’t answer. Instead, he turned sideways and reached out to smooth a few stray strands of her hair.
Xiao Moyuan didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turned sideways and carefully scrutinized her for a moment.
His gaze was appraising, moving from top to bottom, finally a slight frown creasing his brow.
“Don’t you think,”
He slowly began,
“that you, wearing this men’s attire again, look… a bit strange now?”
“Strange?”
Su Mian instinctively looked down at herself.
“It does seem a bit ill-fitting?”
She had felt it herself when she looked in the mirror earlier—the clothes seemed smaller than she remembered, or rather, her body’s contours made the lines of the clothes appear somewhat odd.
“It’s not the clothes.”
Xiao Moyuan stated directly.
“It’s your body. Since the day you fully and stably differentiated into a female, although your bone structure hasn’t changed much, your muscle lines and fat distribution have become completely feminized.”
His gaze frankly swept over the curves of her chest, which even a loose hoodie and binder couldn’t completely hide, and her hips and thighs, encased in jeans, noticeably rounder and fuller than before.
“Simply put, your current figure is… quite curvaceous for a woman. Forcibly squeezing into these neutral or even masculine clothes will naturally make you look awkward and uncoordinated.”
Su Mian’s face reddened again, and she protested softly:
“You don’t have to be so blunt…”
“It’s just a fact.”
Xiao Moyuan was unmoved.
“However, since you can now initially restrain your demonic energy, perhaps you can try to go a step further—use demonic energy to temporarily alter these overly obvious female physical traits.”
“I can do that?”
Su Mian’s eyes lit up.
“Demonic energy can nourish and change the body, so naturally, it can also perform minor adjustments and disguises within certain limits.”
“However, maintaining this change requires continuous consumption of demonic energy, and once your demonic energy is depleted or your mind is unstable, you will immediately return to your original state.”
Xiao Moyuan explained.
“Additionally, this can only change the ‘form’ in terms of sight and touch; it cannot truly reverse gender characteristics.”
Over the next hour, under Xiao Moyuan’s calm guidance, Su Mian began her difficult attempts.
Initially, she always failed. Her demonic energy either dispersed or was unstable, causing her ‘ahoge’ to pop out several times.
Under Xiao Moyuan’s almost rigorous correction and guidance, she gradually found her way, trying to evenly distribute demonic energy in the areas that needed ‘modification,’ imagining them returning to their previous flatter, more neutral state…
Finally, after concentrating once more, she felt the tightness in her chest and hips disappear.
Now, Su Mian’s figure was slender, her chest flat, and her hip line contained.
“I succeeded!”
She excitedly looked at Xiao Moyuan.
“My body feels so much lighter! Demonic energy can be used like this!”
Xiao Moyuan looked at Su Mian, who truly seemed to have transformed back into a ‘boy,’ his eyes subtly darkening.
He reminded her:
“Don’t get happy too soon. First, maintaining this state requires continuous consumption of demonic energy. Second…”
His gaze lingered on her face for a moment, his tone carrying a barely perceptible sigh.
“Even if your appearance temporarily returns, some things cannot be changed back.”
‘You don’t have an ‘Adam’s apple.’ Your skin texture, your gaze, even subtle expressions and gestures… to an observant person, there are still many flaws. And…’
He paused, then added the last sentence in a flat voice:
“What you’ve shrunk back is merely ‘form.’ Even if your figure is now no different from when you were a boy, you lack ‘style.'”
Su Mian: “…………”
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