Nethersky - Chapter 11

Yuning barely made it a couple of steps from his bedroom when he realized he forgot to grab himself some clothes to wear. Shaking his head at his stupidity, he scurried back inside of the room and over to his dresser.

When he previously looked at the clock, besides finding out the time, he discovered that the weather today would be humid. Which made a lot of sense since summer would be starting in about two months.

So with that in mind, he knew that he needed to find clothing made with light material so he wouldn’t overheat. As he was searching the dresser, a sudden thought came to mind.

‘Once summer starts and school is out, I will have a tougher time finding a job, especially with all of those new job seekers that are fresh out of university.’

As one problem crops up, another one would soon follow. The other is Yuning, realizing that there will always be a summer break when there is summer.

Which means his instant sister would be home with him for two months. Which means the food expenses will increase.

The information he gained from the other soul’s memories was because the school fed Meiyin breakfast and lunch, he saved a lot of money on groceries. But when she is on break, those expenses would fall back on him.

And he couldn’t allow a child that was only 10-year-old to eat cheap noodles for the 2 months she would be out of school. That would be terrible of him.

This pressured Yuning to find a way to earn money even more intensely.

‘I guess this is what life in hard mode feels like,’ he sighed inwardly while picking the clothes he wanted to wear.

After grabbing a shirt, some jeans, and a pair of underwear, Yuning once again left his bedroom and headed to the bathroom to take a shower.

Once he was inside the bathroom, Yuning walked over to the shower panel on the wall and pressed a few buttons, turning the water on after turning on the light and closing the door.

While Yuning waited for the water to heat up, he walked over to the sink to brush his teeth.

After placing his clothes down on the empty space of the counter connected to the sink, Yuning grabbed his toothbrush. Even though he understood that the brush had only been in this mouth, it was still strange, so he made sure to rinse it thoroughly with hot water before even thinking about applying any toothpaste.

Only when he was satisfied with the cleanliness of the toothbrush did he pick up the Tofu Pudding flavored toothpaste before putting a dab of it onto the bristles.

‘They sure do have some strange toothbrush flavors nowadays,’ he thought in amusement.

From the time he had woken up in a new body until now, not once did he ever think to look in a mirror. So the shock he experienced when he lifted his head to brush his teeth only to see the face of a stranger in the mirror was expected.

‘Who the fuck is this stick-thin skeleton-looking person? Where did my plump rosy cheeks go?’ Yuning wailed, touching his face in disbelief.

When he was looking through the memories, they have always had his other self blurred, so for some reason, he thought that he would look exactly the same as he did in his previous body. How wrong he was.

His tan, muscular body that he gained from years of studying Piguaquan for therapy with the Shaolin monks was now replaced with a willowy body with pasty skin.

His lush black hair that he finally managed to grow long enough to get the wavy fringe on top and short taper fade on the sides style was changed to a head full of curly hair.

Natural curly hair at that.

The facial hair that took forever for him to grow was now smooth skin, and from the memory that was triggered when he rubbed his face, because of the medicine, his hormones were altered so he wouldn’t be able to grow normal body hair in this lifetime.

‘How can this be! I even shrunk a few inches!’ Yuning gasped as he stared gloomily at his reflection in the mirror. ‘I guess I should be thankful that at least my peach blossom eyes and heroic brows still stayed the same.’

He could accept this, so what if he was now only 5’4 instead of 5’7, so what if he looked like a starved chicken that was plucked, so what… No, he couldn’t accept it; he wanted his facial hair back!

‘It’s okay, this is all okay; I had worse things happen to me. If I can come to terms with being trapped in a dog cage and electrocuted for weeks, I can deal with having a new face and body.’ Yuning told himself convincingly.

While repeating that to himself over and over again, Yuning brushed his teeth and went to take his shower. It was only after he was fully dressed and applying skin cream in his bedroom did he feel as though he could.

But as he made sure that every inch of his ghostly pale skin that wasn’t covered in clothing was coated in sun cream, Yuning couldn’t help but miss his old body.

With a drawn-out sigh, Yuning glanced at the clock one last time before grabbing his wallet and his phone and leaving out of the apartment.

~~~

It was a little strange; he had never explored this apartment complex, but like it was inside of his apartment, he knew the layout like it was the back of his hand.

Yuning knew that he needed to turn left and walk past 5 of his neighbor’s doors before turning right after exiting his door. Only by doing so would he be able to find the nearest elevator.

This feeling of knowing but not knowing was almost akin to deja vu but just a lot stronger.

As he rode the glass elevator down to the ground floor, he looked outside at the scenery. Looking at the busy street filled with hovering cars and construction equipment, he couldn’t help but feel regretful that he couldn’t catch a cab.

He would have, but he only had a small amount of loose cash on his person, and without the ability to check his bank statement, he could only walk.

However, walking made him a little worried, though, because he got flattened by a piano the last time he walked somewhere by himself. And now that cars can hoover, he felt a little anxious.

What if a car fell on his head. Okay, he knew that fear was irrational, but still, there was a small chance it could happen.

‘And with my luck, it would.’ Yuning thought as he got off of the elevator onto the busy street.

~~

As he looked around at the area, Yuning was pleased to admit that elevators that let people off outside the building are a good upgrade. Having the option of not having to walk through a busy lobby if he didn’t have to was fantastic.

Using his second set of memories as a GPS, Yuning began to walk down the bustling street. It was as if he was a tourist that had researched the destination thoroughly but was just seeing it for the first time.

The future was magnificent. There were colorful highrises, loud holographic advertisements playing on different buildings, and some even roaming around the streets.

There were hovering cabs and buses picking up people in different buildings, there were robots walking dogs, and security drones flying all around.

Everything just felt too surreal; Yuning kind of wanted to pinch himself to make sure this wasn’t a dream.

‘This is my world now, how great is that.’ Yuning smiled as he continued to walk down the street.

Yuning felt giddy at the thought, so much that he barely paid attention to where he was going. It was a good thing that he didn’t have to cross any streets, or he probably would have gotten run over by how distracted he was.

The sights, the sounds were overwhelming. There was just so much for him to see. Because he was so immersed in his sightseeing, it took him 35 minutes instead of the twenty needed to reach the net cafe.

But even though it took longer than expected, he still made it there safely.