Chapter 2: Sign a contract and become a magical girl!

“I’m back.”
Facing the empty house, Dongfang Cheng still habitually called out those words.
Ever since that irresponsible b*stard of a man abandoned his wife and child, he had been living with his mother, depending on each other for fifteen years.
After entering high school, his mother, a frontline reporter for the TV station, became much busier with work.
It was normal not to see her for weeks, even months.
Doing chores, cooking, keeping the house running—these tasks Dongfang Cheng had long mastered.
The only thing he could never get used to was the silence, as if the entire house was an empty void.
He quietly finished the daily cleaning, prepared dinner for two—though he knew the second portion would likely sit untouched, growing cold until he reheated and ate it the next morning.
Then, as usual, he collapsed onto the old living room sofa, picking up a half-read light novel while munching on stale potato chips, flipping pages.
Only in moments like these did Dongfang Cheng slightly miss Lin Feng’s chatter.
Sure, it got annoying, but at least it kept the house from feeling haunted by silence.
…
“Time to exercise! Beep beep! Time to exercise! Beep beep!”
The grating alarm snapped Dongfang Cheng back to reality.
Eight o’clock sharp, right on schedule—time for his daily muscle training.
He set down the book, stood, and pulled off his faded T-shirt, worn from repeated washes, standing bare-chested before the large floor mirror in the living room.
He carefully studied his reflection.
The boy in the mirror stood tall and straight.
Years of relentless training had carved clear, deep marks on his body.
His chest muscles were well-defined, his abs sharply outlined, his arms and forearms sleek and strong.
Yet, when his gaze shifted to his face, the rugged lines that should have belonged to a man were unavoidably softened by a faint, almost feminine grace that even he found unsettling.
His slightly upturned eyes and thin lips were almost an exact copy of his mother’s.
Coupled with his fair, smooth skin—paler than most boys his age due to avoiding outdoor activities—it clashed with his physique.
Still, anyone who dared mock Dongfang Cheng for “looking like a girl” to his face had been thoroughly corrected with his fists.
“…Tch, it’s gotten a bit worse again.”
He didn’t need to lose weight, nor was he some protein-obsessed gym nut.
The only reason Dongfang Cheng trained daily now was simple: the side effect of transforming into a magical girl was an irreversible weakening of his body.
“One meter eighty-four. Shrunk two centimeters again.”
Dongfang Cheng focused his mind on the “black crystal watch” on his right wrist.
When he opened his eyes again, he stood in a dim, grayish mental space.
There, a round-headed black cat mascot lay sprawled on its back on the “ground,” belly rising and falling as it snored, a suspicious glint of drool at the corner of its mouth.
“Wake up, dumb cat.”
“Wah meow!! You scared me—I’m gonna unleash—”
“It’s me. Stop mimicking a corpse.”
Dongfang Cheng stared blankly at the cat, now puffing up into some ridiculous dragon-spine mode.
It was hard to believe he’d signed a contract with a creature this dim.
The black cat relaxed and flopped back down once it recognized him.
“Oh, it’s you, kid, meow. What’s up, meow?”
“My height’s down another two centimeters.”
“Totally normal, meow! You’re a guy, so you weren’t even supposed to be a magical girl.
If it wasn’t for my great mercy, plus the emergency situation, there’s no way you’d have gotten to transform—yow! Hey, don’t get so close, meow!”
Dongfang Cheng, expressionless, reached out and grabbed the soft scruff of the cat’s neck, lifting it off the ground to force eye contact.
“E-even if you threaten me, I can’t bring your height back, meow!
The price you pay for transforming is irreversible—it’s the truth of magical girls!
A-and when you signed the contract with me, I showed you the terms!
The contract’s right here, meow.
Per Article 114, you can’t harm me, your contract master, meow!”
The cat’s four paws flailed wildly in the air.
A second later, an absurdly long parchment contract—so long it touched the ground when Dongfang Cheng held it—magically appeared, barely clutched between the cat’s paws and paw pads, given its anatomy.
Dongfang Cheng glanced at the contract, its text dense enough to trigger claustrophobia.
His eyes flicked to the bottom, where his bold, blood-signed “Dongfang Cheng” stood out.
He stayed silent for a moment, then released the cat, letting it drop.
“That’s more like it, meow. A wise cat knows the times, meow!”
The black cat landed, smugly licking its ruffled fur.
…
Six months ago, Duhuang City International Airport.
Dongfang Cheng stood in the arrivals hall, staring at the flight information screen showing his mother’s expected landing time—thirty minutes to go.
Then, the alarms blared.
Ouroboros fighters poured in from every entrance, taking hostages and sealing exits.
The airport’s intercom droned on with a sweet female voice announcing delays, as if the attack were a minor inconvenience.
Dongfang Cheng’s fists clenched, then relaxed.
The airport security’s bullets barely scratched the fighters.
What could he, an ordinary person, do?
All he could do was pray for the magical girls—
He checked his phone.
A news alert popped up: [Fengxiang Red leading the team against a Ghost-level cadre at the city theater, battle deadlocked!]
The five magical girls weren’t coming.
“Hey, human.”
He looked down.
A black cat perched on the edge of the baggage claim, licking its paw and staring at him.
“Wanna save your mom, meow?”
The cat’s tail flicked.
“Sign a contract. Become a magical girl, meow.”
…
For his mother’s safety, and for the lives of thousands of innocent passengers, he signed the contract with this random black cat, gaining the power to transform into a magical girl.
But as the dumb cat said, transforming as a man came at a cost.
Beyond his body weakening day by day, his transformed state was “incomplete.”
The other five magical girls—Red, Yellow, Blue, Green, Pink—each had their own magic: fire, ice, healing, and other flashy powers.
But him—or rather, “her” in transformed state—couldn’t use any magic.
Still, his speed and strength were massively boosted.
Sure, transforming turned him from one meter ninety to a one-meter-sixty girl, but the raw stats were enough to pulverize any monster in his way into paste.
“Since we signed the contract, including this morning, you’ve transformed six times total, meow.
I sneaked a peek, and you’re already a bit famous on BiliBili, meow!
A rising magical girl star, meow!
There are clips of your heroic fights everywhere, and fans drooling over you, meow.
They’re calling you ‘Jet-Black Bullet’ or ‘Black Hand Girl’—ugh, such terrible taste in names, meow.”
Dongfang Cheng stared at the tiny smartphone screen the cat somehow produced, playing a poorly edited video vaguely showing his transformed self in combat.
He couldn’t fathom how the cat’s clumsy paws managed to swipe through a touchscreen so deftly.
Still, compared to “Black Hand Girl,” Lin Feng’s nickname “Little Black” was catchier.
The former sounded like it’d make him float off the ground.
“If I keep transforming, will I die? Or end up paralyzed?”
“Nope, meow.
We’re not like that white rat QB, with its cruel, bloodthirsty hobbies, meow.
Once your ‘price’ hits a critical point and you can’t sustain transformations, our contract will peacefully dissolve, meow.”
“But, well, by then, your height and muscles probably won’t ever come back, meow.
They’ll be locked in their final state, meow.”
The black cat flicked its tail, its tone light.
“But don’t worry, the cognitive distortion’s working fine, so no one will notice your changes, meow~”
Dongfang Cheng stayed silent for a moment, then his figure vanished from the gray mental space.
The black cat shrugged, returning to its BiliBili scrolling.
“…Sorry, meow.
If I told you the real side effect of transforming, you’d probably run away, meow.”