That night, Yekase and her crew threw a lavish feast at a hot pot place that spoke only Chinese—no, a place that spoke no foreign language at all. Fire steamed up like red banners.

With the jump coordinates still parked over the City of Ivalice, she brought her mom along, and dragged Lu Yao down for the ride. Warm steam curled like dragon breath.

In a cramped windowless room, Yekase raised her glass high. She smiled and kept the mood light. “It’s not some long separation. No need to get dramatic. Here’s to smooth research.”

“To smooth research!”

Lu Yao didn’t shout. She wore an awkward flush and lifted her glass just a little, like a leaf touching water.

Liu RuoYuan and Jiang Bailu sat on her left and right. They leaned in and clinked her glass, gentle ripples on a pond.

Grass, what a rescue squad for social anxiety. Yekase laughed and tapped glasses with Ling Yi. Ling Yi poured herself a beer, took one sip, and her face wrinkled like a dried chrysanthemum. XiaoLei switched it to coconut milk, a white moon in a blue bowl.

Yekase picked up two rolls of beef, chased them with a big swig of liquor, exhaled like a bellows, then said slow:

“Whew… spicy.”

“I thought you were about to give some grand guidance for our next five years. That’s it?”

“What, I can’t say it’s spicy?” Yekase panted like a small furnace and dug in. “Even after all this, even if history puts a thousand blazing titles before my name, I’ll still gasp at chili. I’m still bad at spice and still love it. That means I’m still me.”

“Good elevation!”

“Nice!”

Clap clap clap—Ling Yi and Liu RuoYuan applauded, palms like sparrows.

Jiang Bailu snorted. “Really? Doctor, were you originally a delicate girl under one-sixty, with black hair and red eyes?”

“Sorry, I’m one sixty-two.”

“No difference!”

“It’s a huge difference, okay?” Yekase pushed back, sparks in her eyes. “One-sixty is a threshold. In anime, they draw mature proportions, then list heights at one-fifty or one-forty. Classic macho bias. And the Japanese are shorter historically, hence ‘Wa’—”

“Uh-huh, sure, sure.”

Jiang Bailu kept that cool smile like winter glass.

“I remember back in Cloudlong City you opened a path to the Causal Horizon. When you returned, you had a chance to reshape your body. Yet you chose to be a girl. Care to explain?”

At that line, every gaze at the table pinned itself to Yekase, like needles on a compass.

Everyone knew she chose to become female, and they’d respectfully steered around it. But since Jiang Bailu cracked it open, curiosity drifted in like incense.

“It’s not my fault.”

Yekase stayed frank. “The first time I went to the Horizon, the info set about me got imprinted in those events and concepts. It became one of them.”

“…Meaning?”

“Example. Right now, April 2022, ‘human’ means a high-intelligence, upright mammal born on Earth. That info becomes a star, carved into the Causal Horizon’s sky. Even if aliens call us something else, they can’t change the concept into, say, silicon-based beings.”

In other words, the Causal Horizon is a reality stabilizer, an observer of observers. It keeps the universe from unraveling under the hands of foolish idealists.

She didn’t say that last part. Without seeing that canopy of brilliance, you can’t feel the weight of it. Words would be ash.

Jiang Bailu, with some groundwork, caught on first. “So because you entered once, ‘Yekase’ got recorded as an individual, distinct from ‘human’?”

“Exactly. To put it heavy, the concept named ‘Yekase’ in the universe’s base logic…”

“Stamped by the world’s will. Even a full remake snaps you back into a pretty girl. No amount of changing names will help?”

Liu RuoYuan said the half that Yekase couldn’t. Yekase ducked her head and ate her half-cool meat, cheeks like cherry skins.

Her winding explanation, salted with rare terms, had started to blur the room. Once the little sister summarized it, everyone saw it clear as lantern light.

And they all thought, Yekase avoided the simple line because she felt shy.

The room settled into a bright, playful warmth, like tea steam.

Jiang Bailu sighed. “Even if you prefer being the receiving side, Doctor, you don’t need such a wild excuse.”

“My mom’s here—mind your mouth!”

Her shout hadn’t faded when—smack—a crisp sound rang.

XiaoLei had tapped her chopsticks against her bowl. A clean bell, like ice cracking.

“Eep…!”

Yekase’s butt, halfway off the cushion, returned without a squeak.

No matter how someone changes, how far they go, how grand they become, that childhood-carved awe of your blood kin stays. Eternal, like a fixed star on the Horizon.

Under the sudden hush of five young faces, XiaoLei sighed, heartbroken. “Girl, at least for those twenty-seven years, you should’ve been the one on top, right?”

…No, compared to the near-eternity ahead, twenty-seven years is a breath. Yekase might someday recall the brief pre-transcendent time, like finishing a documentary, and muse how young she once was male, trapped by wages and overtime. No good; the thought chilled her like night wind.

She changed the topic at once.

Thankfully, everyone read it as an awkwardness flare. No one pressed. The feast slid to a clean end—broth nearly boiled dry, and every belly full. The last bubbles rose like tiny suns.

Back at her staff dorm, she watched her mom, her sister, Ling Yi, and Lu Yao step through the portal, one after another, like swallows into light. She turned to the last person lingering beside her.

Jiang Bailu.

“Not heading back?”

Jiang Bailu smiled, a crescent. “What are you saying? I’m moving into Ivalice from today. I haven’t signed a place yet, so I’ll borrow this bed for now. Doctor, you don’t mind, right?”

“Uh?”

“I resigned from the Foundation a few days ago. Before I left, the boss told me to slap you, to convey her fury over you blowing up R&D. I won’t do that… not like she can see.”

Yekase blinked. “You quit? What did you tell your family?”

“I said I’d follow Mechbreaker and do GM work. They threatened to cut ties. Two old fossils who’ve spent their lives in the organization.”

…Huh. A career-and-ideals cold war with family. Feels familiar—oh right, it’s her arc too.

“And your income…”

She stopped mid-sentence as realization flicked on. Jiang Bailu grinned the way she expected and held out a hand.

“Pay me.”

“You’re just gonna hold your hand out!”

“I’ll work in your lab. You paying me is proper and righteous.”

Hard to argue. The line had weight like a seal.

Yekase shut down the portal and let Jiang Bailu stay for the night.

Then she got pushed onto the bed.

“Eh—”

Neat bedding wrinkled like ripples. Yekase’s hair fell loose across it, black silk on white.

Jiang Bailu pinned Yekase’s wrists on either side of her head. Her breath grew rough, like wind through reeds.

The girl beneath looked soft, light, sweet. Time hadn’t touched her collagen-lit face and never would. She hadn’t erased those old male habits, but they didn’t dull her charm. They added a lively cut, a beauty beyond the fences of gender.

Yekase didn’t seem to notice. That unforced state was the most beautiful.

In short: Jiang Bailu leaned over her, looked down, and her phantom limb went rigid. To hide her impatience, she took a detour.

“Doctor, I’ve replaced you as the unemployed drifter. I can’t even guarantee breakfast tomorrow.”

“Is ‘unemployed drifter’ a noble lineage to inherit, or is it like the toilet in Icecrown Citadel…”

“Advance some salary.”

Yekase wriggled twice. “That’s not impossible, but why are you saying it while pinning me—”

“Because the salary I want is you.”

“…Uh.”

Her face, shadowed by Jiang Bailu, flushed at that sudden cheesy line, then pinched with a sting. She glanced down at the head tucked into her shoulder.

Oh, just biting. She let out a tiny breath. Relief drifted like a cool wave.

In the backlight, Jiang Bailu’s eyes glowed crimson. “The Doctor doesn’t fight back. Deep down, you want it too, right? It’s called… playing hard to get?”

Yekase drew a righteous line. “Don’t slander me! I was clearly struggling!”

“Struggling so weakly that, with Flash Energy, you couldn’t shake off even one of my hands?”

Yekase turned her face aside and went quiet, like a moth folding its wings.

After a moment, she murmured in a mosquito-thin voice, “Do as you please…”

…

…

The next day, Yekase went to Bangli University to inspect the classroom that would soon be hers. Morning air felt like cool tea.

She’d produced a lot of Flash Energy last night. Her body felt a touch hollow, like a gourd, and her crimson Flash Energy cowlick drooped, almost triggering a shrinking protocol.

Thanks to her Master’s Southern Sky Cross, hugged to her chest like a warm star, she held the balance on the edge.

Her outfit was, of course, the one from Master. A deep, dark fantasy dress. The fabric was dark-gold Sorcery-woven cloth only a seasoned archmage could recognize. The patterns formed on their own, quiet grandeur. The stitching used iridescent thread that harmonized with Sorcery, even serving as a wand in a pinch—details Sandryon had explained in a little essay after noticing Yekase had no idea what she was wearing.

Even beneath the skirt, a constant illusion shimmered. No matter your angle, you couldn’t see the real view—only a flowing starry sky. A cosmos under a girl’s hem.

Whatever the case, it was truly comfortable.

Dressed in this couldn’t-be-more-magic look, she chose not to ride a hover platform. She followed the holo map Principal Burns had sent. She plotted a route she could walk to the university gate, two feet on earth like roots.

Starting today, she’d live here. Time to adapt, fast, like a fish taking to a new stream.