She hated facing that messy, sticky true body, like wading into cold jelly—but she couldn’t dodge forever. After dinner, Yekase slipped into the bathroom and finally dropped her transformation.

Her soaked clothes sagged at once, clinging like drowned seaweed.

She peeled everything off and flung it into the washer, then dove under the preheated shower, a single smooth dive into warm rain.

“Haaah—”

Bliss.

A hot soak is heaven; a shower’s no slouch either.

After tying off a giant incident, her muscles loosened like unstrung bowstrings, and a harvest-joy rose warm as autumn sun.

“Can your clothes still be worn—?” Liu RuoYuan’s voice tugged from outside the door like a thread in the steam.

“Grab me two sets of kids’ clothes from the street—” Yekase called back through the hush of water, voice hitting tile like pebbles.

“Kids’ clothes…”

Was she accepting this too fast? Maybe second-loop experience made the ground feel solid.

No matter how she spun it, something about that felt off, like a drumbeat out of time.

Liu RuoYuan admitted it—when those tear-glossed, upturned eyes looked up at her, she’d blanked for a breath; she’d never even dated, yet a phantom child warmed her arms like a phantom sun—but the one inside was still her…

She couldn’t let this drift.

“Bro, let me borrow your bike!”

“Oh—”

Yekase was wrestling her hair like seaweed and answered offhand.

“…Wait, what did you call me—”

Only the patter of water replied, thin as rain on bamboo.

…

When Liu RuoYuan pushed the door open again, her gaze leaped past the hall and landed on Yekase, towel-wrapped, kneeling on a keyboard like a penitent on a bed of nails.

“Why are you doing that?! Doesn’t it hurt your knees?”

“I was wrong. I kept dragging my own mess, then played expert like a barking stray, and made you worry this long. I’m guilty…”

“You—”

She’d planned to sit down and talk. Instead, Yekase unleashed a ten-minute imperial edict of self-blame, a sudden downpour that left her blinking in the splash.

“No, stand up first! I’m not mad—okay, a little mad, but…”

She tossed the shopping bag onto the shoe cabinet and hurried over, scooping Yekase up like lifting a fallen fledgling.

“There, there…”

She felt softer than last time, smaller too, like holding a cloud instead of a person; that crack before dinner about “biological celibacy by decree” had been hyperbole, a spark thrown into air, but now a sharp premonition cut through her—if she looked away, she might lose her.

“So… before I came to Twin Towers City, what happened?”

“I resigned from the Sinister Organization. Then I changed gender.”

“Uh, why?”

“Didn’t want my old boss to find me.”

“…That’s it?”

Was there something she couldn’t say?

Liu RuoYuan’s mind stalled.

She’d pictured this: all of Twin Towers City—even Shadow Curtain International—had wanted posters up; in a dead-end, stripped of hope, she’d shed name and body like a snake skin; even now the organization hunted her shadow, so for everyone’s safety the truth must stay locked—at least something of that scale, right?

“You’re not wanted by Shadow Curtain International?”

“No.”

“No spies still tracking you?”

“No.”

“Telling me won’t put my life at risk?”

“If it did, I’d never say a word in this life.”

“Thanks.”

…Right.

Liu RuoYuan felt like the fool who practiced speeches to a mirror, then tripped at the first step.

“So… you just wanted to be a woman?”

“No! My orientation’s perfectly normal!”

“Oh? If your orientation’s normal, then what would you do if you met a girl you liked now?”

“The girl I liked ascended into a cosmic ghost. I’m not looking for a new one yet.”

“Didn’t expect you to be that devoted, huh?”

With the words finally aligned, her last misgivings fell like leaves, and she could tease her outrageously absurd big brother with both hands.

“She only ascended, not died. There’s a chance you two meet again, right? Like, you meet in a dream tonight, you plan to do happy things, but you tossed the tool yourself… then what?”

“Then… light grinding, I guess?”

Liu RuoYuan looked at Yekase.

Yekase looked at Liu RuoYuan.

“Bro.”

“…Yeah?”

“In your case, we usually call that a perv.”

“Erk…”

A jumble of LGBT-plus terms and Pride Day slogans bubbled up in Yekase’s head like fizz, but she knew one wrong word would nuke her reputation like a wildfire—so she shut her mouth.

She still glared back, not yielding an inch, like a cat puffing its tail at thunder.

“Please stop acting cute, okay?” Liu RuoYuan smiled helplessly, a crescent over storm water. “It only makes me suspect your kink settings even more. I wonder what Mom will say when she hears the truth…”

Yekase shook her head, swift as a sparrow.

“You want me to align stories with you, and tell Mom the version I imagined?”

Yekase nodded, small as a bobbing reed.

“Bro, you don’t want Mom to find out about a cross-dressing kink, right?”

“I don’t have a cross-dressing kink!”

“Right, a cross-dresser doesn’t slap a thigh and get a full gender change. No wonder you’re the one who wants to light a fire in people’s hearts—your action and IQ are both off the charts.”

Yekase rolled her eyes so hard she nearly flopped onto the floor, head spinning like a lantern.

“Okay, I got you clothes. One-size.”

Yekase took the paper bag and pulled out the contents.

Black fabric folded in a clear bag, like a square of night.

“All black, nice. I thought you’d buy something kiddie. I’d die before wearing that…”

She tore the bag and shook the dress open.

“…”

“Nice, isn’t it?”

It was a classic, painfully classic gothic lolita.

“Deep, dark, not kiddie at all. Well? Try it on.” Her voice was smooth as lacquer.

“You want me to wear this at home…”

“Bro, you don’t want your cross—”

“I’ll wear it—again, I’m not a cross-dresser.”

“Sure, sure.”

Liu RuoYuan undid the laces and hidden zippers up and down, nimble as a seamstress, and helped Yekase into it. There was a matching corset too; being a children’s cut, it was mostly for show, and it cinched with ease.

When they finished, Liu RuoYuan took two steps back to the wall, appraising like a painter squinting at dawn.

Under that scrutiny, Yekase flushed, a cherry gloss over pale glaze. “H-how is it?”

“Insanely cute.” The culprit nodded, and the words rang like bells. “Even if your little girlfriend’s straight, this look will snap her like a twig!”

“Don’t snap her! And she’s seen my seventeen-year-old version.”

“How so?”

“She said if I date another woman, she’ll kill me.”

By then, Yekase had melted into her beanbag chair like butter into toast. Her small body, wrapped in frills, glowed with a carved-glass fragility. But when Ivaris’s deeds flickered through her mind, the pain twisted her face and shattered the dream like a stone through a window.

“R-right. Then… may you two reunite soon…”

Maybe that’s its own kind of couple’s face, Liu RuoYuan thought, at a loss, then changed the subject with the grace of an awkward crane: “By the way! I ran into your friend on the way back. She said her name’s Jiang Bailu.”

Mira had sent Shen Shanshan to the Emerald Pool battle, and as the current head of Development, Jiang Bailu would know the warfront. Guessing that Yekase had snuck in to stir the pot wasn’t hard. So did she skip overtime to check if Yekase got hurt?

Warmth pooled in Yekase’s chest like tea in a cup. “Why didn’t she come up?”

“I told her you’d turned into a little girl.”

“Oh.”

“She looked very worried, then spun around and left. I couldn’t catch her.”

“No way.”

A chill pricked Yekase’s spine like ice needles.

She pulled out her phone and dialed at once.

“Hello? Bailu, where are you rushing to?”

Doctor.

“Mm.”

Your body shrank because of overusing Flash Energy, right?

“Uh…”

Because you just won’t cherish yourself, I’m implementing some… minor compulsory measures.

“Huh?”

I just ran back to base and rushed out a set of gloves and stockings that block Infinite Power. They lock. Wear them. Don’t take them off until you’re back to normal. Be a proper little lady.

“Eh?”

“What are you mumbling for?” Liu RuoYuan snatched the phone, her hand quick as a fish. “Ms. Jiang? It’s me, Yekase’s sister. We just met downstairs, yeah…”

Mm, mm… After a moment, she hung up.

“I’ll supervise.”

“????”

Yekase jerked upright, throwing up a final barricade like chairs against a door. “But I’m heading to Ningxia in two days to investigate! You can’t ditch your class to tail me—”

Doctor, did you forget? I’m going to Cloudlong City with you too.

The voice floated from the entryway like a winter draft, snuffing her last sparks of hope.

Jiang Bailu closed the door softly behind her, murmured a small excuse-me, and stepped out of her shoes onto the floor.

She walked in, lab coat still draped over her shoulders like pale moonlight.

“They’re ready.”

“You… you’re a little too fast…”

Yekase’s mouth twitched, a hairline crack across porcelain.

This felt wrong, out of tune with the score. In her mind, Jiang Bailu and Liu RuoYuan were the gentle, easy-to-coax kind… How did they fuse into this sudden sadist ensemble? Did the worldline really shift?

“Perfect. Try them now.”

Smiling, Liu RuoYuan took the bag Jiang Bailu handed over and pulled out a pair of milky-white thigh-highs and long black silk gloves, like snow and night side by side.

Yekase backed three steps, then tripped on her beanbag and fell into it. “Is there a chance the gloves mess with my fine motor control…”

“True. You never wore gloves for organic chemistry anyway.” Jiang Bailu tapped her chin with a forefinger, thinking like a cat watching a fish.

“Why the ‘Doctor’ again? Don’t be so formal, you’re scaring me…”

All the more reason you should learn to adapt.

The two twenty-two-year-old women surged as one, a tide with no gaps, and pinned the defenseless Yekase into the sofa like a butterfly under glass.