Chapter 2 : How to Delicately Tell Your Childhood Friend You’ve Turned into a Girl?

The moon climbed into the sky, supported by the tall buildings.
Silver light squeezed through the gaps in the curtains, spilling onto the floor.

Darkness crept like a rustling swarm of ants, devouring the room’s light inch by inch.
The faint glow from the computer screen futilely illuminated a patch of wall.
The game’s background music leaking from the headphones made the room feel less nauseatingly quiet.

Bai Ling curled up inside the old drum washing machine.
The metal inner wall pressed against her spine.
The cold, hard sensation of the drum’s rotation clung to her skin.

Bai Ling didn’t know why she wanted to crawl into the washing machine.
She just felt that this feeling of being enveloped in a small space, her skin compressed, seemed to alleviate her inner turmoil.

‘Who was that woman in red who appeared in the bathroom?’
‘And why did that jade pendant turn me into a girl?’

Bai Ling couldn’t figure out these questions, nor did she want to.

She just wanted to hide herself in the shadows, as if doing so could make everything have never happened.

“I must be dreaming…”

The girl caressed the jade pendant, her fingertips tracing the winding crack on its surface.
A firefly-like glimmer seeped from the depths of the crack, as if responding to her touch.

She murmured the question, not knowing who she was asking.
Perhaps herself, perhaps the darkness that was spreading like a swarm of ants.

But the faint stinging sensation as her fingertips brushed across the pendant’s crack told her this was no dream.

The faint light from her phone screen illuminated the girl’s delicate face.
She scrolled aimlessly on the screen, trying to find something to distract herself from her current situation.

She always liked to escape her troubles this way.
As long as she covered her head and pretended not to see, it was as if nothing had ever happened.

But after scrolling and scrolling, she eventually stopped on the chat interface with the contact nicknamed ‘Blind Xu’.

[I’m coming to Lin’an the day after tomorrow! Remember to treat me to a meal!]

[You got it! I’ll take you to eat the best food in Lin’an!]

[Yeah, right. Who doesn’t know that Lin’an cuisine is famously terrible?]

Every sentence of their past chat history now felt like a knife stabbing into Bai Ling’s heart.

‘Should I tell him?’

‘Tell him that I turned into a girl because of that damned jade pendant you gave me!’

‘Tell him that if it weren’t for that jade pendant, I might have already died in the bathroom…’

“Blind Xu, do you think demons actually exist in this world?”

In the end, the girl’s turmoil manifested as a single, cautious probe, sent out as a network signal.

But the girl’s probe received no response for a long time.

The girl told herself that he was probably busy with something else, but she couldn’t stop her mind from racing.

‘Maybe Xu Zhi won’t care about my change at all.’
‘He might not even care about me.’

‘That’s right, Xu Zhi is such a radiant person.’
‘He seems to get along happily with everyone, radiating a dazzling sunlight.’
‘He was from a completely different world than someone like her, Bai Ling, a creature who could only hide in dark corners and run away from everything.’

She curled up, feeling her body temperature gradually turn cold, becoming as icy as the jade pendant.

Strangely, this feeling wasn’t bad.

The small space and the sufficient darkness within it gave her a sense of security.

She suddenly felt that perhaps things weren’t so bad after all.

Her appearance hadn’t changed that much, really.
Other than turning into a girl.
Other than her face becoming more feminine.
Other than her hair getting a bit longer.
Other than her waist becoming as slender as a snake’s.
Other than the two small mounds that had suddenly appeared on her chest.
Other than her voice becoming clearer and more pleasant.
Other than becoming so unfamiliar it made her sick.

It seemed there were no major changes.
Besides, no one cared about her anyway.

Maybe Xu Zhi had long since stopped caring too.
Maybe he had already forgotten the effeminate boy who used to hide with him under the bridge pier, counting the shimmering ripples on the river under the childhood sunset.

‘See, he hasn’t even replied to your message!’

‘Stop flattering yourself, Bai Ling!’

‘No one will care about your changes, and you don’t need to care either.’

Bai Ling suddenly felt as if everything had lost its meaning.

The reunion she had been looking forward to was, for him, just an insignificant event he wouldn’t even remember.

‘So what do you still care about, Bai Ling?’

‘Stop thinking about it!’

‘No one will care anyway.’

The small, dark washing machine seemed to give Bai Ling enough strength and courage to stand up and let her already broken life shatter completely.

She slowly climbed out of the washing machine, her supple body stretching and coiling like a snake.
The moonlight spilled onto her skin, reflecting a faint, scale-like shimmer.

The moonlight was no longer warm, but rather a bit cool, though not bone-chilling… like a snake shedding its old skin.

The chat interface remained silent.
The last message hung there, isolated at the 3:02 AM mark, like a scar that would never heal.

Xu Zhi gently stroked the scar on his forehead and sighed unconsciously.

For some reason, his heart was filled with unease.
He felt as if he had lost something, and gained something completely different in its place.

The team members inside the armored vehicle were fully geared up, ready for battle.

“Gu Xiyan, report your status!”

“Yuck~, the demonic energy here is so thick, it’s disgusting. This thing has practically turned this place into a demon’s den. The demonic energy filtration level needs to be adjusted to six or higher.”

Gu Xiyan’s light, ethereal voice came through the headset.
She was the team’s Demon Spy, often the first to infiltrate locations occupied by demons.

“There are eight civilians affected by the demonic energy’s corruption. I’m moving them now. Tell Lu Qingyu to prepare for treatment.”

“Watch the time. If you can’t withstand the demonic energy’s corruption, retreat immediately! Zhou Xuan?”

“Demonic energy wave model analysis complete. The type is a Resentful Demon. Core position has been locked. Today’s divination result for the operation is ‘Great Fortune’.”

The voice of intelligence analyst Zhou Xuan came from beside him.
He was currently holding a tablet, calculating the demonic energy fluctuations.

“Wait! A completely different type of demonic energy has suddenly appeared! Demonic energy concentration level seven!”

As Zhou Xuan’s words fell, a piercing alarm suddenly blared through the communication channel!

Level seven!

The Demon Suppression Division classified demonic energy concentration into nine levels.
Level seven was already a high-risk concentration!

“Gu Xiyan! Evacuate immediately!” Xu Zhi shouted at once.

“Strange! The demonic energy that suddenly appeared is rapidly decaying! Level six, level five, level four, level three… it’s… it’s gone?!”

Zhou Xuan was rendered speechless by this bizarre phenomenon.
Even someone from Dragon Tiger Mountain like him had never seen such a high-risk demonic energy suddenly appear and then vanish.
The whole thing was as absurd as a technical malfunction.

“What about its position? Did you lock its position?” Xu Zhi asked.

“It was too fast, there was no time to get a lock!” Zhou Xuan muttered.
“Only the Hetu Module could possibly locate it at that speed. No, maybe even the Hetu Module couldn’t!”

“Wait a minute! The Resentful Demon’s power has weakened! It seems to have suffered a heavy blow! The demonic energy fluctuation has dropped to level four!”

‘A heavy blow?!’

‘Could it have been caused by that sudden wave of demonic energy?’

A thoughtful glint flashed in Xu Zhi’s eyes, hidden behind the bronze beast mask.

It’s true that demons sometimes fight each other, but that didn’t mean the one that appeared and vanished was a good demon.

‘Demons only harm people; how can they be divided into good and bad?’

“We can’t worry about that now! All members, listen up! Operation code LA2400097, objective is to suppress the Resentful Red-Clothed Ghost hiding in the New City Community. Operation begins now!”

Regardless of why that sudden demon heavily wounded the Resentful Red-Clothed Ghost and then disappeared, its disappearance meant it had left.
Otherwise, the Luoshu System equipped on Zhou Xuan would have detected its demonic energy.
The main objective now was still to suppress the Resentful Demon hiding in this community.

The lights inside the armored vehicle cast down on each of their heads, and the resulting shadows covered their faces.
The fangs of the bronze beast masks gleamed with a cold light, as if they could come alive at any moment.

Xu Zhi raised a hand and put on his beast mask.
The taotie patterns seemed to flow like blood in the darkness.

“Let the mountains and rivers be our witness—” his voice rumbled through the mask, like the tolling of an ancient bell.

“Demons must be slain!” the team members responded in unison, their electromagnetic spirit-pulse rifles already silently chambered.

Xu Zhi pointed his long saber towards the community roiling with sinister energy outside the vehicle and roared, “When the Profound Blade is drawn, all evil shall scatter!”

“Move out!”