This story is going yuri, 1000%. Even if I dropped it, I still wouldn’t write a permanent BG pairing for the regular cast.

But before that, I’m not going to sacrifice the story itself just to accommodate certain people’s hair-trigger “minefields.” This volume’s theme is “the past.” Two pairs of siblings, separated for years, end up with different fates. To make that contrast work, Ling Nuo Si had to go through a change he couldn’t come back from. His departure was decided before this volume even began.

Back in the initial draft, I did consider making the permanent TS version a regular. But the ability setup was way too troublesome. The old ten-year setting really didn’t leave much room to play with, and I also mixed in a bit of veteran-driver flavor... On top of that, leaving someone this flamboyant, this strong, and this socially dominant in the main cast would’ve made the overall atmosphere feel kind of off. So I dropped it.

Speaking of that, I need to formally complain about something.

Yeah. That New Year’s thing.

Some people call themselves yuri enjoyers, yet they slap on this shipping filter that turns all camaraderie and family affection into BG romance. Give a character a little-sister identity, and before she’s even appeared on page, they’ve already fast-forwarded to brocon. Their imagination is that rich, yet they somehow ignore all the safety locks I deliberately set up, like “only transformed characters get in” and “comes with a built-in CP.” Maybe that’s just the iron-blooded yuri pig mindset, where male characters come with innate aggro. Honestly, it’s pretty funny.

And this “author avatar” nonsense too. Avatar my ass. I’ve been busy expanding the worldbuilding. What kind of logic is that, making a special avatar just to derail things? And then having him show up all coy and delayed until sixty-something chapters in? Even the trashy self-insert wish-fulfillment web novels from ten years ago wouldn’t write it like that. Damn, I’ve seriously been underestimated.

I’m saying this at the end of the volume mainly to put the minds of the people who really read this far at ease. I’ve already gotten mad enough over the review itself, so I don’t really care anymore. But if anyone still thinks it’d be better to delete it, just complain about it under this paragraph, and I’ll go pluck it out.

By the way, after being persuaded by a lot of reviews and friends, I really did get a little tempted and tried posting on Shuke. Right now I’m uploading one chapter a day there and watching how it goes.

And then I found out “Sinister Organization” is a censored term over there... That got a laugh out of me. It kind of suddenly reminded me why I ran off to SF in the first place.