Release that Man

Ye Shuang didn’t have the time to speculate and understand the thoughts of the Fang siblings. After all, her mission was to take Fang Fei back to Fang Mo. What happened after next was none of her business.

She found herself a new hotel to stay at. That night, she suffered through yet another memory influx, she only managed to fall asleep when it was almost 2 am. When Ye Shuang woke up the next morning, she received the first good news since the jade sculpture incident—she was finally a woman again!

She was so touched she could cry! She even purposely went into the bathroom to carefully examine her own reflection in the mirror. She looked prettier than before, but the changes weren’t as dramatic as when she switched gender. There were only some slight advancements to her looks. For example, her eyelashes became longer, the line of her brows clearer, her pupils more watery, the line of her jaw more pronounced, and her skin more supple and soft… It was as if her whole person had been airbrushed using Photoshop. It was still the same face, just prettier.

“This is the difference between gene improving and gene editing‽” Ye Shuang commented to herself as she wiped away the water vapor on the mirror. After the memory influx from the night before, she understood the difference between Ye Shuang’s male and female forms easily.

The female genes were merely building upon her native earth genes, even if they were optimized by the alien DNA, it was just an evolution of the foundation. However, the male genes were edited by adding the male strain into her DNA strain. Even though it still used her genes as the base, the sex chromosomes were created from nothing.

If one saw her flesh and blood as the product and the alien DNA as the expert, then Ye Shuang’s female form was a less-satisfactory product being improved upon by the expert. The expert built upon what was already there, so this took more time and the end result couldn’t be completely different from its original form. For the male form, the expert practically had to start from nothing, and since there was no original form to deal with, the final result wouldn’t be bogged down by the less-than-stellar pre-existing product… this was why Ye Shuang’s male form was more impressive than her female form.

I suppose one could say that the difference between the two is the time needed for the transformations to complete, the female form taking more time than the male form. In a way, I should be thankful that I had the male form to assume while the transformation for the female form was progressing, or else who knows what kind of form I would have taken during that time?

Ye Shuang nodded with satisfaction. She washed her hands and left the bathroom to pack her things and prepare to go home. Finally, home sweet home!

When Ye Shuang left the hotel, she felt that something was off, but she didn’t think much of it. Her thoughts were completely occupied by the excitement of returning home. However, when she got off the bus and saw the shocked expressions on her neighbors’ faces, as well as the fact that the cup slipped from Ou Qianru’s fingers when she saw her walk through the door, Ye Shuang had to admit there was something wrong about her… But what‽

Even though her looks did have a slight level up, it wasn’t to the point where it couldn’t be explained by a change in make-up or a spa trip…

Ye Shuang swallowed the greeting that had reached her throat. She frowned in thought and instead asked carefully, “Sister Qianru, what’s wrong with you‽”

“You, you, you…” Ou Qianru pointed at Ye Shuang and the bags in her hands with a quivering finger, but the sentence never went beyond “you”. Ye Shuang hesitated. As she put down the shopping bags, aiming to ask in detail what happened, she bent over and saw the male clothing inside the bags, and her heart fell with a heavy thud. Suddenly, everything came to Ye Shuang with such startling clarity.

She lowered her head reluctantly to look at her clothing…

Motherf—! She had forgotten to change out of her male outfit!

Ye Shuang felt like weeping then and there. Habit is such a scary thing. Since she had been wearing male clothing for the past two days and she was too caught up in the sex change that had happened that morning, she absent-mindedly put on male Ye Shuang’s clothing without thinking much about it… The neighborhood aunties and Ou Qianru’s reactions could now be explained!

Ye Shuang felt the blood drain from her face. She knew her words would have little effect in this situation… because she had trouble convincing herself, much less others!

None of the Ye family members were home. The Ye parents were probably out at the morning market, and Little Brother Ye was still on his mission to fill up his summer break with as many crazy activities as possible. If not for the dramatic change that had happened to Ye Shuang a few days ago, he wouldn’t have stayed home for the whole afternoon. Ou Qianru was considered family, so they didn’t have to purposely stay back to cater to her.

However, it was also due to this closeness that certain things became difficult, things like… what if Ou Qianru went back to Mother Ye’s maiden family and announced to the whole world the sudden appearance of this handsome man? Would they all storm over to meet him and welcome him into the family‽

Just as Ye Shuang was struggling to come up with an explanation, Ou Qianru had already recovered. Her face darkened, and she dashed toward Ye Shuang in two steps and pulled her into the living room. She asked, “You… Have you told Auntie Ye about this‽”

“What do you mean?” Ye Shuang was confused.

Ou Qianru smacked her on her head; she was furious because her cousin was so not protective of herself. “I mean, you spending a night with that man! Don’t think you can lie to me, when your mother was out clothes shopping with him, I was there!”

Jesus Christ! Someone please come save me, how do I explain I’m still as pure as driven snow…

Ye Shuang felt like crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. “I didn’t spend a night with anyone, I just happened to wear the wrong clothes…”

Ye Shuang herself knew how dumb that explanation was.

Naturally, Ou Qianru didn’t believe a word of it. “Fine, then explain to me, how did his clothes end up with you?”

“…”

Ou Qianru sighed when Ye Shuang didn’t answer. She continued in a calmer tone, “Since that man has gone clothes shopping with your mom, it means that your relationship should be quite stable already. However, at the end of the day, men and women are different; you have to learn to take care of yourself… By the way, when do you plan to bring your fiancé back to the Luo family so that your uncle’s family can meet him?”

Listening to the first part of the sentence, Ye Shuang thought she had escaped a tragedy, but before she could even sigh in relief, the sentence took a sharp and surprising turn…

What the hell! When did I become my own fiancé‽