The bathroom door clicked shut behind her, and Feng Ling finally let herself relax, lowering her arms that had been wrapped tightly around her chest.
With the pressure gone, the battered dress gave up completely.
The fabric on the upper half sagged along the torn seams, sliding down to her wrists and exposing her pale shoulders.
Feng Ling grabbed the hem of the skirt, pulled it up over her head, and yanked the whole dress off.
Then came the undershirt and stockings, peeled off one by one, finally releasing the suffocating tension that had been pressing down on her.
Ever since she’d transformed into a magical girl, she’d never once taken off this cyan dress.
After all, changing back and forth would make it brand new again, no cleaning required.
So this was the first time she’d seen her own body in full.
She stood barefoot on the cold tile floor, staring at the half-length mirror above the sink.
The completely unfamiliar girl reflected back was what Feng Ling looked like now.
Not that she’d been familiar with her original appearance either.
Feng Ling wasn’t a lolicon, so she had no interest in ogling her own magical girl form.
She didn’t keep staring at herself like some narcissist.
To her, her understanding of her appearance only went as far as knowing that others found her cute.
But after merging with Lian Ge’s features, her own reflection now looked perfect to her no matter how she turned.
In the mirror now, her facial features still showed traces of her original base, but the baby fat on her cheeks had mostly faded, replaced by a youthful vibe somewhere between a girl and a mature woman.
That was exactly the type Feng Ling liked.
She looked left and right, twisted and turned—every pose she struck made the mirror image look like a delicate illustration.
Now even she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
She really had become narcissistic.
Wait…
It suddenly occurred to her that she liked the Lian Ge + Feng Ling style, but she didn’t feel anything for her original self.
Didn’t that mean…
“Feng Ling, can you still fix your clothes? If not, you can wear some of mine.”
Feng Ling snapped back to reality.
She shook her head to clear those random thoughts, yanked her focus off the mirror, bent down, and picked up her tattered clothes from the floor.
“Hold on, I’m still fixing them.”
She quickly spread out the discarded dress and tried pouring magic power into it.
Sure enough, magical girl outfits had an automatic repair function.
After a cyan glow flowed through, the torn threads rewove themselves one by one, and in less than half a minute, it was as good as new.
But when Feng Ling picked up the repaired dress and held it against herself, it was exactly as she had expected.
The clothes were fixed, but the size hadn’t changed—still the same size for someone about five foot two.
With her current figure at around five foot seven, even squeezing into it would be a challenge.
“Um… Lian Ge, I’ll have to borrow your clothes after all.”
She folded the dress and set it aside, then called out through the door.
“Got it! I’ll find you some clothes.”
Footsteps headed toward the bedroom.
A closet door slid open, and the clatter of hangers came through.
Soon the footsteps returned, and the bathroom doorknob turned halfway before stopping.
“Hey, Feng Ling, you actually locked it?”
“Uh… yeah. I’ll unlock it.”
Feng Ling instinctively locked the door for everything—she didn’t want to accidentally expose her true identity.
But this time, she could afford not to.
Lian Ge, of course, interpreted it differently.
‘Feng Ling is really shy. Even though they’re both girls, she’s still so secretive…’
Lian Ge couldn’t help but imagine Feng Ling’s flustered state in the bathroom, a motherly smile spreading across her face.
Of course, someone as righteous as Lian Ge would only think about it.
She wouldn’t deliberately tease shy Feng Ling.
After Feng Ling unlocked it, she just cracked the door open enough to slip a hand through, pushing a thick stack of clothes inside.
Feng Ling took the clothes and unfolded them.
She found that Lian Ge had even prepared underwear for her.
She picked up the light blue bra and paused for a moment.
She could wear it—their builds were about the same now, so it should theoretically fit.
But… wearing someone else’s underwear, especially her childhood sweetheart’s… no matter how she looked at it, it felt really wrong…
‘I’ll just stick with my own underwear for now,’ Feng Ling thought.
Her original bra was tight but hadn’t burst yet, so it would do in a pinch.
But she didn’t have a bra before—not with her current bust size.
If she didn’t wear Lian Ge’s, she had no other choice.
After reluctantly putting on the bra, Feng Ling’s face immediately darkened.
She now had one more reason to never reveal her identity.
The remaining clothes didn’t weigh on her mind as much.
After all, she was used to wearing magical girl skirts.
About five minutes later, Feng Ling had dressed herself piece by piece, and a completely new appearance stared back at her from the mirror.
The clothes Lian Ge had handed her turned out to be a sailor uniform.
Only after putting it on did Feng Ling realize it was a classic, almost clichéd sailor outfit.
The top was white with dark blue trim, the skirt a navy blue pleated one that ended just above the knee.
Below that were black knee-high socks, their tops hugging the curve of her calves, gently pressing into her skin.
Looking at her new image in the mirror, Feng Ling pushed open the door and stepped out, pointing at her outfit and couldn’t help complaining:
“Lian Ge, why a sailor uniform? Don’t you have anything more normal?”
Lian Ge stood in the center of the living room, hands on her hips, looking as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“If you just wear ordinary clothes, you’d be no different from an ordinary person, right?”
“So you’re saying magical girls are separate from the masses?” Feng Ling retorted, losing her filter in her irritation.
“Because you’re a magical girl now. Of course you have to wear clothes fit for a magical girl. At the very least, it should look like cosplay. That way you’ll stand out, and people can recognize you at a glance in dangerous situations and come to you for help.”
Feng Ling froze, momentarily unable to argue.
“That actually makes sense. I can’t refute that.”
She had always thought magical girls’ flashy outfits were pure attention-seeking, but she never expected Lian Ge to give such a serious explanation.
She had underestimated the thoughtfulness behind magical girls’ choices.
“Enough about that. Let’s hurry to the Association. We can’t let Zhi Jin escape and cause trouble elsewhere.”
Lian Ge walked to the window, pushed it open, and placed one foot on the windowsill.