It had been nearly a month since he’d turned into this little white dumpling, and he could finally change back into a human. Bai Yiyi wasn’t the only one excited—the system was thrilled too. It kept confirming with him over and over.
“Yiyi, is it time? It’ll cost 2 points to turn you back into a human, and my energy can only hold it for an hour… We’ll drop right back to the passing line afterward. Next time…”
Bai Yiyi cut off its nagging without hesitation. “Confirmed.”
There were no dazzling flashes of light or puffs of smoke like he’d imagined. In the blink of an eye, he was lying naked on the bathroom floor.
He didn’t bother getting up right away. Instead, he held his hands up in front of his face first, turning them over and inspecting them closely.
Long, slender fingers with clearly defined knuckles—five on each hand, bending naturally.
Perfect. No more claws. He’d really turned back into a human.
He stood up slowly, readjusting to his normal height, and caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above the sink. His skin was a stark, reflective pale white, his face small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, topped with a watermelon-sized mop of hair just like the bird’s, completely obscuring his features.
He leaned in closer and brushed his bangs aside. A pair of large almond-shaped eyes emerged, framed by thick, long lashes, complemented by a refined, upturned nose. Together, they made his features strikingly beautiful.
Yes, beautiful.
Bai Yiyi had wished countless times to look more handsome and rugged, but no matter what he tried, the first impression he gave people was always one of prettiness. Tired of hiding from the attention, he’d eventually settled for a massive bowl cut and thick black-rimmed glasses to tone it down.
The glasses hadn’t come with him this time, but at least the bowl cut was still there. He glanced around and asked the system, “What about the bird body? Where’d it go?”
The system replied, “You share the same material base, so you can’t exist at the same time. Now that you’re human again, it’s been collapsed and stored temporarily in your mindsea.”
Black tech indeed—he had no clue how it worked, but he got the gist. When he was a bird, his mind was still human. Now that he was human, there was a bird living in his head. In short, he was stuck being a birdman no matter what.
He didn’t dwell on it. Instead, he tiptoed out to the living room, grabbed one of his idol’s T-shirts, and slipped it on. Then he fetched his laptop from the briefcase and hurried back to the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
The laptop password—”596291″—was something he’d memorized in advance. It matched his owner’s phone unlock code, apparently pieced together from a few birth years. Easy to remember.
Bai Yiyi moved like a thief the whole time, cautious and quick. At last, he got online according to plan.
As soon as he logged into his QQ account, a flood of unread messages lit up the screen, giving him that rush of being back among the living.
Most of them were from Shi You—about ten a day, all asking where he was. His phone was off the grid, WeChat silent. Where the hell was he?
Then there were He Ze’s messages, never straying far from talk of the manuscript, as if afraid he’d back out on his promise.
Bai Yiyi ignored them for now. He straightened his appearance in the mirror and called his mom on video.
She picked up quickly. It was noon where she was, across the ocean, with brilliant sunlight streaming in. Yao Pei looked sharp as ever in subtle makeup and a khaki business suit.
“Oh, Little Pretty, I figured you’d call in the next couple days. Right on schedule.”
“…Mom.”
Bai Yiyi had a thousand things to say, endless grievances to unload, but when her face appeared, all he could manage was the most ordinary greeting.
Yao Pei didn’t notice anything off about her son. She just seemed puzzled by his surroundings. “Pretty, where are you? Not at home… When did you buy that T-shirt? It’s huge, and that color’s so ugly. Totally not your style.”
He was wearing his crush’s shirt on top, with nothing below, which made his reply a bit awkward. “It’s oversize, Mom—you wouldn’t get it. How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t call me Pretty. I’m a guy! A guy!!”
Yao Pei pursed her lips, complaining like a petulant child. “What’s wrong with a guy being pretty? Can’t I say it? Fine, fine—Mom won’t call her little Pretty that anymore. Yiyi, you still haven’t answered. You’re not home right now? It must be almost 1 a.m. there.”
He had his excuse ready and rattled it off smoothly. “Nah, I joined a self-driving tour group in Tibet with a friend. We just started a couple days ago—probably another ten days or so till Lhasa. I’m at a roadside inn right now.”
Yao Pei didn’t suspect a thing. She approved of the trip wholeheartedly. “You should make more friends and get out more. Staying cooped up painting and watching anime all day—I’m worried you’ll get sick from it.”
“Mom, I know. Just calling to let you know. If you try reaching me sometime and I don’t pick up, it might be bad signal in the mountains. I’ll video you every month on schedule, so don’t worry. And don’t overwork yourself—getting home safe is what matters.”
Yao Pei nodded eagerly. They chatted about family matters for a good while before Bai Yiyi finally hung up amid her repeated nagging to get some rest.
With his biggest worry settled, Bai Yiyi was in high spirits as he started replying to his friends.
Bai Yiyi: You-er, you looking for me? I was in seclusion last month.
Shi You: Holy crap, you finally surfaced. Seclusion my ass—where the hell were you?
Bai Yiyi: Real seclusion!
Shi You: ?
Bai Yiyi: One dark and windy morning, this old monk got struck by sudden inspiration right in the waist. Decided to crank out some masterpiece paintings. To show my commitment, I went off-grid for a month.
Shi You: …
Shi You: Can’t understand you artists at all. You done now?
Bai Yiyi: Not yet—gotta keep at it. So no replies after that. Chill, okay?
Shi You: …Got it. Go back to your seclusion, then. Holler when you’re done.
With Shi You sorted, He Ze was a different story—no easy chat there.
Bai Yiyi didn’t want to message directly. What if the guy was lurking online invisibly? Caught red-handed. After racking his brain, he spun a thousand-word tale and emailed it over.
The gist: A paralyzed relative had suddenly shown up in J City needing full-time care. He’d be out of the house for the next three months, too busy to draw. No need to rush—the promise stood. He’d make up the missed manuscripts later.
Once the email went out, a weight still pressed on Bai Yiyi’s chest. Chatting casually with Shi You was worlds apart from this. His feelings toward He Ze were too complicated to put into words.
They went way back—kindergarten friends, then classmates through elementary, middle school, high school, even university. Same art academy, same desk for years. In his 23 years, aside from Yao Pei, no one had been around longer.
But He Ze was never the warm, buddy type. Always distant one minute, intense the next—especially after finding that letter Bai Yiyi had written to an upperclassman in high school.
Bai Yiyi wasn’t one to chase cold shoulders. If He Ze really wanted space, he’d vanish cleaner than anyone.
But He Ze wouldn’t let him. Leveraging his family’s art gallery, he’d come knocking to sell Bai Yiyi’s paintings—one a month, his only steady income since graduation.
They could have stayed casual friends, but a few months ago, Bai Yiyi discovered He’d been signing his name to those paintings for nearly two years. “He Ze” was becoming a known name in art circles, all off Bai Yiyi’s work. The cut He Ze passed along was peanuts compared to the fame and fortune he’d reaped.
If that was all, fine. As a newbie artist with no connections, no recognition, his pieces weren’t worth much anyway. Middlemen taking a cut was normal. No jealousy there.
Copyright? He’d sold them fair and square, and to someone he’d known forever. No point fighting over it. Just stop supplying him—his skill was his own; no one could steal that.
What he never expected was He Ze holding onto that old love letter and using it to blackmail him into supplying three more years of work—threatening to send it to Yao Pei.
Gun-for-hire stuff, by threat no less. Sleazy.
His dad had died young; the Bai family was single-line for generations. His orientation? Mom wouldn’t get it, so he’d kept it hidden as long as possible. Plan was to come out gradually over years, minimizing the hurt.
No way he’d let someone stab her with the truth like that.
Bai Yiyi admitted he chickened out. He’d nodded and agreed to three years.
That should have ended their old ties, right? But after getting the promise, He Ze handed back the letter, saying:
“I’ll give the letter back first. I trust you, Yiyi. You’re my only friend. What you promise, you’ll do. Don’t worry—the price difference on the paintings, I’ll make it up to you. Anything they sell for in the future, all yours. I won’t take a dime.”
His only friend?
Heh.
Bai Yiyi kept painting and taking the money, but he still couldn’t figure it out. Were he and He Ze even friends anymore?
With everything squared away and greetings sent everywhere, Bai Yiyi figured no one would notice if he vanished for another couple months. The anxiety finally lifted.
After freely surfing the web for a bit, Bai Yiyi’s internet addiction reared its head. It had been ages since he’d binged any anime. Jujutsu Kaisen’s first season was already over—how many episodes of To Your Eternity were out now?
He really wanted to grab his laptop and marathon it for three days and nights straight.
But when he glanced at the time, he saw he was just two minutes shy of the hour. Bai Yiyi jolted in shock. If he got so lost in it that he forgot the time, and the hour passed while he reverted to his bird form, how the hell was he supposed to fold that laptop and T-shirt back into shape? They were all lying there in the bathroom. Come morning, when the handsome guy woke up… that scene didn’t even bear thinking about.
He hurriedly deleted his browsing history, shut down the laptop, and slipped it back into the bag exactly as he’d found it. Then Bai Yiyi stripped off his clothes in a flash and dove naked back into the bathroom.
Perfect timing. With one more blink, the mirror reflected that same gray-black pot-lid-headed white dumpling.
Yan Tuo remained blissfully unaware of the midnight shenanigans at home. His eight o’clock alarm went off, and right at eight-ten, he scooped up Tangyuan and headed out the door on schedule.
