I Will Never Submit to Miss Grim Reaper - Chapter 6
Like many people, when I first graduated and started working, I was filled with curiosity about the outside world. And… I was full of enthusiasm.
At that time, I was like a small tail being dragged forward vigorously by the goddess of time. I had just finished my college courses and immediately found a job with almost no income. I did this for a few months as part of my social practice, then graduated from university, and immediately embarked on a new job. I rented a small apartment and started a busy and fulfilling life as a working adult.
There was a stationary store near my rented apartment that had just opened for business. Many items were on sale, and I decided to join in. I bought a lot of stationery and daily necessities, including a flexible ruler.
I knew that flexible rulers are generally used to measure waist and chest sizes, and they might be essential for girls in their daily lives, but for guys, especially ordinary middle-aged men, they are unnecessary. For men, as long as clothes fit, the specific size doesn’t matter.
Given this context, after I brought this flexible ruler home, it served no purpose in my life, except for that one time when I used it to measure the length of a damaged Ethernet cable that a mouse had chewed through.
I never expected that one day I would take it out again.
“Height… um… 139? Is this number serious?”
I placed one end of the flexible ruler under my foot and lifted the other end all the way to the top of my head. I forced down the unruly tuft of hair, roughly aiming it a bit higher than my forehead, then I pinched the ruler with my fingers. I released my foot from the ruler, and looked at the measurements on it—
And it’s 139 centimeters.
Even though I know that because of some grim reaper’s twisted sense of humor, my current appearance is that of an explosively cute little loli, can it really be that my height is less than 140 centimeters? Is this ruler broken?
I, the skeptic, decided to measure my height again using the same method as before.
“This time… 138 centimeters, it’s not even 139!”
After seeing the results of the second measurement, it felt like something inside me had shattered.
What’s up with being so short! I don’t have any strength, I need to jump onto a chair to sit, even holding a kitchen knife is a struggle. I’m so sensitive that my feet turn red within half an hour of wearing flip-flops. Is this some kind of divine retribution?!
I remember when I was a child, other than stuffing firecrackers into my neighbor’s cabbage patch, writing secret love letters to my female classmates and homeroom teacher in middle school, and in college, copying movies from my roommate’s computer using “cut” instead of “copy,” I don’t think I did anything particularly outrageous. Why has my perfectly fine life turned into a mess now?!
“Stupid Grim Reaper, just you wait. I’ll get back at you first.”
As an amateur novelist, even though I had already imagined countless plotlines related to that grim reaper girl in my mind, I suppressed the bitterness and anger and brought the ruler to my chest.
Endurance! Development!
It seems that the grim reaper can’t monitor me from all angles right now, and her job must keep her busy. If I put on an appearance of compliance and make her relax her guard, then I’m sure I’ll have a chance to turn the tables.
Regardless, my computer browsing history and the things I’ve done in the past must never be made public.
Publicly sharing your browser history and revealing your peculiar interests to friends and then forcing yourself to watch their reactions – is there a greater punishment in this world?
That person isn’t a grim reaper. She’s a demon, a demon!
“Bust… 71? Or 72? Anyway, it’s pretty much the same, just a tiny bit.”
After measuring my chest, feeling a little flushed in the face, I moved the ruler down to measure my waist and hips.
Even though this body hasn’t developed much, it’s still a girl’s body, and for my soul, which belongs to a middle-aged man, it’s still too stimulating. I should avoid looking at areas like the chest, the lower abdomen, and similar places whenever I can.
“53 and 78, maybe it’s not very accurate through clothes, but these are the approximate numbers.”
Thinking that most clothes don’t have strict requirements for these measurements, and knowing that knowing my height is usually sufficient, I returned to the computer desk. I lifted one of my fair, small feet, pressed the flexible ruler against it with my hands.
“About 21 centimeters.”
I took out my phone and searched online for the shoe size corresponding to 21 centimeters and concluded that it’s a size 32 shoe.
Alright, everything is ready. Height: around 140 centimeters. Shoe size: 32.
Based on the measurements I took, I opened the delivery app and found the supermarket I had selected earlier. I sorted the clothes and pants by price from low to high.
In the adult section, the smallest size available was S, there was no smaller XS size. The same went for pants.
S size is meant for people with a height of 160 to 165 cm, which doesn’t suit me.
So, I reluctantly switched to the children’s section. The variety of clothes here was limited, and the prices were a bit higher, but at least the sizes were suitable.
Again, I sorted the items by price from low to high. In the end, I selected a set of clothes for girls with a height range of 145 to 150 cm. It included a light blue T-shirt with a heart-shaped pattern and matching shorts, along with a mini belt, all for a total price of 68 yuan.
Of course, the children’s section also had dresses, which, in terms of cost-effectiveness, were theoretically my first choice since a single dress would be enough compared to the combination of a top and shorts. Moreover, dresses were cheaper. However…
However, my pride as a man made me veto dresses at first sight.
Even if I were to jump off the third floor, die out there, and be humiliated by the grim reaper, I still wouldn’t wear a dress!
Bearing the pain, I added the T-shirt and denim shorts to my cart, then moved on to the underwear section. With my flushed face, I chose a simple white set suitable for my height – a bralette and panties – for a total of 48 yuan.
Finally, there were the shoes. The selection in this supermarket was limited, with only one option in size 32 – a pair of women’s platform sneakers in white for 40 yuan. I also added a pair of the cheapest socks for 5 yuan.
I selected all the items, proceeded to checkout, and the total was 161 yuan, with no delivery fee.
The app automatically applied a 3 yuan discount coupon for orders over 99 yuan, bringing the total to 158 yuan.
As I stared at the large number “158” on my phone screen, I felt like my heart was bleeding.
It’s so expensive!
This is more than a week’s worth of my food budget!
So, that twisted grim reaper was definitely doing this on purpose. Since she can create bodies at will, there’s no doubt she could have given me a body that’s close to my old one. That way, I wouldn’t have to spend extra money on clothes. Turning me into a little girl is clearly meant to increase the difficulty…
But enough of that. Endure!
No matter how unwilling I am, life must go on. If I don’t buy clothes, I can’t leave the house. If I can’t leave the house, I can’t buy groceries. If I can’t buy groceries, I’ll starve. This money cannot be saved.
After filling in the rental address and specifying in the remarks (needs to be delivered to the 3rd floor, no elevator), I gritted my teeth and pressed the “payment” button.
?Your order has been confirmed, and the merchant is preparing the goods. Estimated delivery time: 14:45~15:05?
With the mindset of “out of sight, out of mind,” I tossed my phone onto the computer desk and pulled out an unopened duckbill cap from the drawer below the table.
It’s not entirely accurate to call it a duckbill cap because its style is somewhat similar to a naval cap, or you could say it’s similar to the hat worn by “Hibiki” in the game “Kantai Collection.”
The cap is navy blue with two white circular rings, a ship anchor emblem in the center, and a metal pendant on the left side with the Roman numeral III, representing that this destroyer belongs to the Shimakaze class, which is the III class of ships.
I won this cap in a giveaway on the “Yae-do Novels” website last year. They were running a promotion, and readers who reached a certain amount of subscriptions to novels had a chance to participate. Even though I’ve never won anything in my life, that day, my luck went off the charts, and I won this cap.
When it was delivered that day, I took a quick glance and stored it in a drawer as a decoration. The reason was simple—it’s too dainty.
This cap is fine for a girl, but it looks really strange on a middle-aged guy.
Now that I’ve turned into a little girl, the long hair that reaches my buttocks has become quite a hassle. However, I don’t intend to cut off this hair. Firstly, getting a haircut, especially for a girl, costs a lot of money. Secondly, I’m personally a fan of long hair, and if I were to cut off this beautiful long hair, I doubt I could forgive myself.
So what can I do? I’ll just have to make do.
I unwrapped the cap, placed it on my head in front of the computer, adjusted it slightly, and then ran my hand through my long hair at the back.
Hmm… it seems okay. At least, the hair at the back is less messy.
After roughly tidying up my messy bangs in front of the computer screen, I brightened the computer screen, opened my writing software, straightened my posture, took a deep breath, and said, “Let’s get to work!”