“You can’t even grasp the Energy Threshold of the badge. Forcing a resonance will only trigger a Magnetic Field Rampage, and both of you will be trapped here until you die!”
Lin Yu’s voice was as cold as ice, though the hand clutching her own badge was trembling uncontrollably.
The burning pain in my palm intensified.
The Star Badge felt like it was about to burn right through my skin.
My body fluctuated between extreme heat and freezing cold, as if something was rampaging through the marrow of my bones.
My physical state was in a state of violent flux.
“I don’t care about opening some Secret Chamber.”
I gritted my teeth and gripped the badge tighter.
“I just want to figure out why I turned into a girl. I need to know what this badge has to do with my transformation!”
Lin Yu stared at me, her brow furrowing deeper.
Xiao Yan took a step forward, shielding me behind her.
“You’ve been guarding that badge and studying it for so long, and yet you haven’t found the answer either, have you?”
She looked up at Lin Yu.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but every word was clear.
“Cooperation is the only path left!”
Lin Yu remained silent.
Without waiting for an answer, Xiao Yan turned around and took my hand.
When her fingertips touched my palm, she frowned.
“If it hurts, say so. Don’t force yourself.”
She looked down, carefully holding my palm, which had been scorched red by the badge.
Her touch was gentle, carrying a warmth that was impossible to refuse.
“…It doesn’t hurt,” I said.
“Liar.”
She glanced up at me.
The burn marks on my hand were becoming increasingly obvious.
Suddenly, a crisp crack echoed from above.
I looked up.
Dust from the Observatory’s ceiling began to sift down following a series of vibrations.
A loose piece of wall paneling directly above the observation window peeled off and fell straight toward Xiao Yan.
“Watch out!”
I reached out to pull her away, but she had already moved to block me.
With her back turned to the falling debris, she shielded me with her own body.
The paneling grazed her shoulder before crashing into the ground and shattering.
Her body jolted.
She bit her lip and made no sound, but beads of sweat instantly broke out on her forehead.
“Xiao Yan!”
I grabbed her shoulders.
When my hand touched her back, my fingertips met a wet, warm sensation.
Her jacket had been torn, revealing a red gash that had already begun to bleed.
“I’m fine.”
She forced a smile.
“It just grazed me.”
Lin Yu stood two paces away, watching the red mark on Xiao Yan’s back.
Her lips moved, but she said nothing.
After three seconds of silence, she pulled a neatly folded piece of paper from her pocket and threw it in front of me.
“I’ll give you 20 seconds.”
Her voice was still cold, but it lacked its previous piercing edge.
“Align the badge according to the Stellar Orbit angles in the data. If you fail, get out immediately. Don’t let your failure interfere with my research.”
I unfolded the paper.
It was densely packed with Stellar Orbit coordinates, timelines, and Energy Threshold curves.
The final column read:
“Resonance Angle: Orion’s Belt three stars in a line, badge engraving at 15 degrees to the wall’s star-mark.”
Xiao Yan leaned in to look, tracing an angle on my palm with her finger.
“Fifteen degrees… roughly like this.”
I looked up at the star-shaped groove on the wall.
The engraving flickered within the blue light.
“It’s aligned.”
I squeezed the badge, and my palm began to burn again.
Lin Yu walked over and pressed her badge next to the groove.
Separated by only a few centimeters, the two badges lit up simultaneously as if answering each other.
However, the light from mine was noticeably dimmer than hers.
Lin Yu frowned, staring at my badge for two seconds.
“The energy gap is too large.”
Her tone turned grim.
“Your badge hasn’t stored enough resonance energy. Unless there’s an external force supplemented into it—but external forces will conflict with the Transformation Factor. I don’t know what the result will be.”
“What do you mean?”
Xiao Yan asked.
“It means…”
Before Lin Yu could finish, Xiao Yan seemed to understand something.
Seeing the determined look in my eyes, she hesitated for a moment before reaching out and grasping the hand I used to hold the badge.
Palm to palm, our fingers interlaced.
Her body heat transferred through my skin, accompanied by a slight tremor.
“So what if it goes out of control?”
Her voice was soft, but I heard it clearly.
“At worst, I’ll be right there with you.”
I was stunned.
She looked down at our joined hands, her thumb gently rubbing the back of my hand.
“My only obsession is protecting you.”
She looked up, her eyes bright.
“Does that count as an external force?”
‘You idiot. This isn’t energy replenishment.’
But the blue light of the badge in my palm truly did begin to brighten, bit by bit.
Lin Yu’s eyes widened as she stared at the data curves jumping wildly on the monitor screen.
“This is impossible…”
She muttered to herself.
The Energy Threshold curve on the screen shot up from the bottom in a straight line, crossing the red line and continuing to surge.
“The Energy Threshold has been breached!”
Lin Yu’s voice hit a higher pitch.
“Certain frequencies between you two… have resonated with the badge!”
I looked down.
The Stellar Orbit engravings on the back of the badge were blinking within the blue light.
Lin Yu stared at it, her pupils shrinking.
The core of the energy replenishment solution she had researched for so long was actually this.
“Final 10 seconds!”
Xiao Yan gripped my wrist and Lin Yu’s, her eyes fixed on the countdown on her phone.
9:59:50 PM.
The star-shaped groove on the wall began to glow.
Blue light overflowed from the engravings, spreading along the wall like flowing water.
“Watch the angle!”
Lin Yu shouted.
I turned the badge half a degree, aiming it at the center of the blue beam.
Lin Yu’s badge was pressed next to the groove, forming an angle with mine.
49 seconds.
The blue light began to pulse like a heartbeat—*thump, thump*.
“Hold it steady!”
Lin Yu’s voice was tense.
45 seconds.
My entire arm was shaking.
Xiao Yan’s hand was still on my wrist, her grip tightening slightly.
“Three!” Xiao Yan began to count down.
“Two!”
The blue light from Lin Yu’s badge flared brilliantly, connecting with mine to form a ribbon of light.
“One!”
Both of them raised their hands at the same time, pressing the badges into the grooves on the wall.
“Strike!”
Two beams of blue light collided and exploded.
It wasn’t ordinary brightness; it was a white that swallowed the entire Observatory.
I closed my eyes, but the light still pierced through my eyelids, searing my retinas red.
The Observatory began to shake.
It wasn’t a gentle swaying; it was a heavy, dull vibration rising from the depths of the foundation, as if something were turning over underground.
The glass of the observation window hummed, and the dome overhead emitted a metallic, twisting groan.
Star-shaped pillars of light shot out from the grooves, lancing straight toward the roof.
A magnetic shockwave hit me.
It wasn’t painful, but rather a sensation of being turned inside out from the bone.
It felt as if something was being uprooted while something else was being shoved back in.
The first thing I noticed was my skeleton.
My collarbones were pushing outward, my shoulders were widening, and my entire frame was being pulled apart from the inside.
My spine emitted faint clicks as each vertebra snapped back into place.
Xiao Yan’s grip on my hand loosened slightly.
It wasn’t that she was letting go, but rather: my palm was getting larger, and her fingers could no longer wrap around the same position.
Muscles rearranged themselves beneath my skin.
My arms thickened, and the lines of my upper arms shifted from rounded to rugged.
My jacket began to tighten; first, the shoulders filled out, and then the cuffs strained against my deltoids, leaving a mark.
Xiao Yan’s fingers loosened further.
Her fingertips slipped from between my fingers until she was only clutching my palm.
My vision was rising.
It didn’t happen slowly; it surged upward in increments.
A moment ago, I was looking up at Xiao Yan.
Now, my line of sight was level with her, falling on the wall behind her.
The top of her head slid from the level of my eyebrows, past my eyes, past the bridge of my nose, and finally stopped beneath my chin.
Ten centimeters.
More than 10 centimeters.
Her fingers let go completely.
It wasn’t a rejection; my hand had simply grown too large for her to hold.
Her fingers curled into her own palm, touching my skin but no longer gripping it.
The curve of my chest disappeared.
The front of the T-shirt beneath my jacket was pulled flat, stretching until it deformed.
The collar shifted from resting on my collarbone to tightening just below my Adam’s apple, making it hard to breathe.
The waistband of my pants had been tightened with a drawstring, but now my waist was thicker, and the cord dug into my flesh.
The pant legs shrank upward from my ankles, revealing my calves.
My feet pressed against the front of my shoes until my toes hit the tips and my heels were squeezed out.
I looked down at my hands.
My fingers had thickened, the knuckles protruding.
The veins on the back of my hands surfaced beneath the skin.
The red burn from the badge was still there, but these were no longer a pair of slender hands.
They were the hands of a boy.
Bony, with rough pads on the fingertips.
They were a size larger than they used to be.
The entire transformation lasted for about a dozen seconds.
The magnetic shockwave swept through the Observatory, shedding wall fragments before finally ceasing.
The vibrations stopped.
In the air, only floating specks of light remained, drifting slowly.
I stood there, looking down at Xiao Yan.
The top of her head reached my chin.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide.
Her lips were slightly parted as if she wanted to say something, but no words came out.
“I’m back,” I said.
My voice vibrated from my chest, much lower and deeper than before, carrying the rasp of a puberty that hadn’t quite faded.
She blinked.
“You…” Her voice was a bit strained.
“You grew so much taller.”
“Yeah.”
“Your clothes are too small.”
“…Yeah.”
She stood there, looking at me.
Before, she would have reached out to fix my hair, straighten my collar, or tug at my sleeves to see if they fit.
But now, her hands hung at her sides, her fingers curling slightly.
She didn’t reach out.
I took a step forward.
She didn’t retreat, but her shoulders tensed.
It was a very slight movement—so slight that if I hadn’t been watching her closely, I never would have noticed.
I stopped.
“The injury on your back…”
I began.
“It stopped hurting long ago,” she interrupted, putting her hands behind her back and refusing to look at me.
The air was silent for a few seconds.
Lin Yu stood by the hidden door, watching us.
Her gaze moved from Xiao Yan to me and back again.
Her mouth twitched as if she were about to say something, but she swallowed it.
“Aren’t you two going in?” she asked.
Xiao Yan shook her head.
“It’s enough that the President is back to normal.”
Her voice was very calm.
“The rest… isn’t important.”
She stood at the entrance, neither heading inside nor turning to look back at me.
Lin Yu glanced at her, then at me.
The ice in her gaze had begun to melt.
“Then I’ll go in and take a look,” she said.
“The badge’s resonance mechanism might have clues hidden inside.”
She pulled a flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on.
The beam of light pierced the darkness.
“You guys go ahead,” Lin Yu said without looking back.
“Tomorrow, I’ll synchronize the data and clues I find with you.”
Xiao Yan stepped out the door. I followed behind her.
Outside the Observatory, the night wind rushed in, making the already tight school uniform feel even tighter.
Chills crept in through the cuffs, collar, and pant legs, clinging to my skin.
Xiao Yan stood at the bottom of the steps with her back to me.
The moonlight shone on her shoulders, illuminating the tear in her jacket where the wall paneling had cut it, exposing a section of her shoulder.
During the transformation, the strange points of light that burst forth had healed both of our wounds, but her clothes remained ruined.
I stood on the steps, watching her.
In the past, she would have taken off her jacket to drape it over me, asked if I was cold, or reached out to feel the back of my hand to see if I was freezing.
But now I just stood there, clutching the badge that was no longer hot, feeling a tightness in my chest.
I felt none of the joy I had expected from changing back.
She turned to look at me. “President,” she called.
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go.”
She didn’t reach out her hand.
She just stood there, waiting for me to walk down the steps.
I walked down and stood beside her.
She looked up at me.
Previously, it had been a doting look from above; now, her gaze was level with mine.
“I didn’t realize it before, but you really did grow a lot taller,” she said.
There was something in her voice I couldn’t quite place.
“Yeah.”
She gave a small smile. It was a faint one; the corners of her mouth turned up, but her eyes didn’t crinkle.
Each of us harboring our own thoughts, we walked side by side down the path of the Back Mountain.
The night wind poured into my strained uniform, making my shoulders ache.
She walked to my left, her hands hanging at her side.
As our arms swung, her fingertips occasionally brushed the back of my hand.
She would pull back as if she had been shocked.
Before, she would have grabbed my wrist directly, swinging my arm as she said, ‘President, walk slower, be careful.’
Now, she only touched me and immediately withdrew, not even leaving enough time to retain the warmth of her fingertips.
I gripped the badge in my pocket.
It suddenly vibrated.
It was very slight, like a heartbeat.
I pulled it out to look; the words “Bond Resonance” on the back had faded until they were almost invisible, leaving only shallow grooves—like a secret that had been remembered.
My phone vibrated right after.
A message from Lin Yu:
“The inside is empty, but there’s a Stellar Orbit map carved on the wall that matches the badge’s patterns. I’ll find you with the data tomorrow.”
I stared at the screen for a few seconds before stuffing both the badge and the phone back into my pocket.
Xiao Yan walked beside me, not asking who the message was from.
She just walked quietly, her hands at her side.
The wind blew from the Back Mountain, lifting her hair so that it brushed the back of my hand.
It was itchy.
It was the same as before.
I stared at the distance between us—a mere two steps.
Just as I was about to say something, she suddenly stopped.
She pulled an Orange Candy from her pocket, peeled the wrapper, and held it out to me.
Her fingertips were only a centimeter away from my hand.
“Here.”
Her voice was soft.
She looked at the ground, a subtle sense of distance in her eyes.
“Even if you’ve changed back, you still need to eat candy, or your blood sugar will drop.”
I froze for a moment before reaching out to take it.
When my fingertips touched hers, she didn’t pull away this time.
Only her shoulders tensed slightly again.
As the sweetness of the Orange Candy spread across my tongue, I looked down at our shadows.
Under the moonlight, the two shadows stood very close—so close they almost overlapped.
Behind us, the hidden door of the Observatory remained open, with points of light still drifting out.
But I didn’t look back.
And neither did she.