The April wind blew through the orchard, the cherries on the branches still deep in their dreams.
The time when they would fall naturally and pile into small hills in the baskets was still a while away.
Their skins had just begun to blush with a shy crimson, their internal sugars slowly accumulating day and night.
But the wind couldn’t wait.
The early spring chill wind swept over the mountain ridge, slipped into the orchard, and began a harvest that brooked no argument.
The branches gradually contracted in the cold breeze, gently releasing the cherries that had not yet fully matured.
Beneath the trees, rough kraft paper bags had already opened their mouths in waiting. The coarse paper surface rubbed against the still-fuzzy skin of the fruit, making a faint rustling sound.
The cherries, forced to end their growth prematurely and bearing an obvious tartness, clinked against each other lightly, as if protesting inside the paper bag.
They should have stayed on the branch a few more days to fully ripen, yet they were forced to come into contact with rough fibers inside the bag, maturing quietly in an unknown corner.
…
White Li’s ears were burning hot, a wave of heat rushing straight to the top of her head.
She carefully hunched her shoulders, crossing her arms in front of her.
On the lecture platform, the math teacher was explaining a key point, his voice booming. Sparrows chirped noisily on the telephone poles outside the window.
But none of that mattered anymore.
White Li was using all her strength to maintain the posture of someone paying attention, but her mind felt like it was exploding.
The sensation of rough fabric rubbing directly against her skin was now infinitely magnified.
Every inadvertent movement, every subtle shift caused by breathing, brought feedback far beyond the ordinary.
‘I’m done for, I’m done for. How am I supposed to get through a whole day like this…’
‘It’s all that brute Martha’s fault! If she hadn’t beaten my clothes to shreds, I wouldn’t have been in such a rush changing and forgotten something so basic.’
White Li mentally added another black mark against that weird cadre, then guiltily lowered her head, darting a quick glance at her chest from the corner of her eye.
‘Thank goodness the clothes are loose. The bracelet’s cognitive distortion should be working a bit, right?’
‘And I look like a boy now… probably, maybe no one will notice?’
“You don’t look so good. Are you feeling unwell?”
The girl sitting next to her noticed White Li’s discomfort and asked with concern.
“N-no, I’m fine,” White Li snapped back to reality, her voice unconsciously rising a little. “Maybe… I didn’t sleep well last night. A bit tired.”
The girl blinked, seeming to want to say more. But the teacher at the front happened to call on someone to answer a question, so she turned away.
White Li secretly breathed a sigh of relief, simultaneously pulling her jacket tighter around herself, wishing she could wrap herself into an airtight cocoon.
Every minute that followed became torture. White Li’s sitting posture shifted from a slight hunch to simply lying on the desk, minimizing all unnecessary friction.
When the final school bell finally rang, White Li practically sprang up from her seat.
“See you tomorrow, White Li!” Her deskmate said politely as she packed her bag.
“Ah, bye,” White Li replied distractedly, grabbing her backpack and rushing out.
Pushing the creaky shared bicycle out of the school gates and merging into the evening crowd of students, White Li finally felt like she could breathe normally again.
The spring evening breeze brushed her face. The lights of shops lining the street flickered on one by one, the aroma of food drifting in the air.
Students in the same uniform walked in twos and threes, discussing evening games or unfinished homework.
White Li pushed her bike, walking slowly. Her thoughts gradually settled with her steps, only to be immediately filled with more pressing, real-world problems.
After a whole day, there was zero progress on information about the Flame Knight.
The whole area was as calm as a lake; she couldn’t sense even a ripple of energy.
‘But that’s understandable. There wasn’t a monster incident today, so the Flame Knight had no reason to appear.’
What was more annoying was…
She glanced at her nearly empty wallet. She’d counted it this morning; only a few dozen yuan remained.
After paying rent and the deposit, and buying some daily necessities, there was almost nothing left.
Food, transportation… how was she going to survive?
‘Do I really have to get a job? In my past life, to save up for 648 top-ups, I worked at a fast-food joint too.’
‘But with this body and this identity now, what kind of job can I find? And I still have school, missions…’
Just thinking about homework made her head hurt even more. She hadn’t fully noted down today’s math and English assignments, and she hadn’t even touched her textbooks, let alone looked at them.
Although she still had a tiny bit of her past life’s knowledge base, it had been so long that many details were fuzzy. What if her homework was a complete mess and drew the teacher’s attention? That would affect the mission!
White Li paused her steps, her cheeks beginning to feel warm again.
‘Most importantly, I need to buy underwear, fast!’
She absolutely did not want to experience today’s awkwardness a second time.
The feeling of emptiness under the school uniform was far too unsettling.
‘But how do I buy it? Where? And under what identity?’
She looked like a boy now. She definitely couldn’t just walk into a lingerie store. Online shopping… would take a few days to arrive.
‘Guess I’ll have to use a delivery service…’
All sorts of worries tangled together like a messy ball of yarn, making her feel irritable.
“Tch. I finally managed to return to human society, so why does it feel more troublesome than when I was a monster…” she muttered under her breath, getting on her bicycle.
To avoid the main roads crowded with students and to shorten the distance a little, she turned into a relatively quiet alley.
The alley ran alongside the wall of an old residential complex. Tall parasol trees grew inside the wall, their shadows dancing. There were few pedestrians, only the occasional electric scooter passing by.
The bicycle wheels crushed fallen leaves, making a rustling sound.
For some reason, she felt uneasy.
White Li pedaled a little faster, wanting to hurry back to her somewhat shabby little nest to properly think about what to do next.
“Hey, you up front. Stop.”
Three figures swayed out from a side path, blocking the bicycle’s way.
White Li’s heart tightened, and she squeezed the brakes hard.
The bicycle screeched to a halt less than two meters from them.
Blocking the way were three young men, around eighteen years old. They wore garish, tight-fitting T-shirts and ripped jeans, cigarettes dangling from their mouths, their eyes openly showing a roguish glint.
The leader had dyed yellow hair. He tilted his head, looking White Li up and down, a malicious grin spreading across his face.
“Boy or girl? Getting out of school pretty early,” Yellow Hair said, blowing a smoke ring. “Us brothers are a bit short on cash lately. Lend us some spending money, huh? You look pretty clean, don’t seem broke.”
The red-haired one next to him smirked and moved closer. “Yeah, be smart. Hand over your money and phone, save yourself some hurt.”
The last one, with green hair, didn’t speak. He just crossed his arms, blocking White Li’s retreat, his gaze unfriendly.
‘Speak of the devil…’
White Li’s heart sank. She tightened her grip on the handlebars, her eyes quickly scanning the three.
“I don’t have any money,” she said, taking a deep breath, trying to keep her voice calm. “The phone’s an antique, worthless. Move aside.”