“Kept you waiting,” Xueyu said, her voice like a dry towel offered after rain.

After a long, dripping pause, she’d finally fetched a change of clothes from the Princess Manor, a small hearth carried through a storm.

Kelor sat with one leg hooked over the other, a poised crane on a chair, her eyes still nesting in the book in her hands. She didn’t look up. “Good work. Get her changed fast,” she said, calm as winter glass. “Don’t let her catch cold and miss the stage.”

“Roger that. Then hurry and change, my grand counselor,” Xueyu sang, her tone sweet as candy with a needle hidden inside.

The words pricked Lingcai’s ear like a burr in silk, a smile on the surface with a shadowed hook beneath.

Xueyu had brought a white formal dress, pale as frost on jade, and a set of light-cyan underwear, like shallow water under a spring sky.

Lingcai’s heart murmured, a pebble skipping across a pond. “Thoughtful… surprisingly.”

“All right, start undressing,” Xueyu urged, a breeze pushing a paper door.

“Now?” Lingcai blinked, a deer caught in a shaft of light.

“When else? Or do you want to stew in wet clothes like soggy leaves?”

“No… I mean…” Her cheeks warmed first, a dawn before the sun, and then her mouth found a brittle smile. “With you two watching… I’m a little embarrassed.”

Xueyu rolled her eyes, a wave brushing a stone. “Fine, fine, you’re delicate. I won’t look, okay?”

She turned to slip out, a sleeve like a falling petal, but Kelor caught her cuff with two fingers, a hook snagging silk.

“Your Highness, what are you doing?” Xueyu sighed, a breeze boxed by walls.

Kelor cut her a sly glance, a fox peeking through bamboo. At once, Xueyu knew the princess’s sleeves hid rainwater and thunder.

Kelor coughed twice, a theatrical drumbeat before a farce. “Ahem. What’s there to be shy about? We’re all girls here, petals on the same branch,” she drawled. “Looking won’t cost you a piece of flesh. It’s not like we haven’t seen you before, right, Little Xue?”

Xueyu played along, two flutes weaving one tune. “Her Highness speaks truth,” she said, sugar poured with vinegar. “But she looks unwilling. Still guarding her lily-white purity, hmm?”

“Oh? What’s that supposed to mean?” Kelor’s voice cooled like shade under a cedar. “You mean if I look twice, your virtue crumbles?”

“That’s not what I meant…” Lingcai’s laugh buckled, a bridge with thin ropes.

“Your Highness, she’s got a fiancée back home,” Xueyu chimed, her words a string pulled taut. “This body’s meant for the fiancée’s eyes, isn’t it?”

“Fiancée, fiancée…” Kelor rolled the word like a bead, slow as a cat with cream. She dragged the pause long, like dusk refusing to fall. “Then our dear Cai-cai can’t meet her fiancée in this look. She ought to go back as a man, right?”

“Please just say it straight,” Lingcai blurted, her heart swaying over a cliff. “When you talk like that, I get scared.”

“My point is,” Kelor said, tapping the table like rain on tiles, “right now your body and mind are both a girl’s. When you recover, if you still flinch like this, you’ll lack a man’s backbone. Right?”

She elbowed Xueyu lightly, a nudge like a tossed pebble.

“Right. You’ll go home a total fop,” Xueyu added, her tone a feather with a hidden pin. “Forget a fiancée. Go find a fiancé.”

Lingcai’s eyes went foggy, a window clouded by breath. “Am I really acting that girly?”

“It’s not ‘acting.’ It’s a perfect match,” Kelor said, seizing the opening like a hawk stooping. “You’re a maiden in body and in heart. Think about it. When a skirt falls on you now, do you feel any real resistance?”

The words knocked something loose. Insight lit her like a struck lantern. “Yeah… that’s true.”

“Before, even if your upper body was half bare, you didn’t care,” Kelor pressed, her voice a slow tide. “Now you’re scared to change your underwear in front of us. Tell me that isn’t a full-bloom girl.”

Under Kelor’s soft-knife patter, Lingcai’s will wilted like tea leaves in hot water. “It… kind of sounds right. No. Calm down. I need to find myself again.”

She lifted both hands, shut her eyes, and slapped her cheeks, two clean claps, like waking a drum.

“A good deed to the end,” Kelor said, rising with a grin like a crescent moon. She clapped Lingcai’s thin shoulder, a firm palm that almost tipped her like a reed.

“First, beat the shame,” she declared, a flag snapping in wind. “It’s just changing clothes. How can that stump you? Change. And do it in front of people.”

Her royal hand cut the air, and the spell hooked deep. Lingcai staggered into belief like a moth into lamplight.

It even felt reasonable, like cool water after heat.

“…Then I’ll start,” Lingcai whispered, each word a leaf falling.

Obedient as a novice, she slipped out of her clothes, moonlight washing over skin pale as carved jade.

“You’re the high one, Your Highness,” Xueyu murmured, lifting a thumb, a candle bowing to a lantern.

Kelor didn’t answer at once. She tugged Xueyu close and lowered her voice, a river tucked under stone. “The real show starts next.”

Lingcai reached both hands behind her back, careful as a butterfly folding wings, trying to undo the bra clasp.

Kelor strolled behind her with the book in hand, hands clasped like a scholar under plum blossoms. Then her finger flicked up and tapped Lingcai’s unguarded underarm, a cat paw to soft snow.

“Eek!” Lingcai squealed, a silver bell dropped in water. “W-what are you doing!”

She tore her hands away from the clasp and hugged herself fast, palms like shutters slamming in a storm.

“Ahem… Little Xue,” Kelor said, throat clear as knocking wood. She turned toward Xueyu. “Tell me. Isn’t that a reaction only girls have?”

“Exactly. Spot on,” Xueyu replied, laughter like beads on a red string. “And it’s the reaction of a petite, adorable girl.”

“You hear that?” Kelor’s drawl cooled like night dew. “If you can’t endure a little thing like this, you might as well stay a girl for life.”

Lingcai’s eyes glossed, a lake trembling in wind. “I’ll endure. I’ll endure, okay?”

Changing clothes felt harder than climbing to the blue vault, a path of stone steps fading into cloud.

She had just slid her panties down to her ankles, like a petal falling to the foot of the vase, when a finger pressed lightly on her lower belly. It rubbed downward for a few seconds, a teasing current just before a waterfall.

It didn’t go lower. If it had, she would have launched at Kelor like a cornered sparrow.

“Hoo…” Warm breath brushed her ear, a spring wind threading willow branches. A soft fragrance curled into her ear and nose, a slow tide raising heat and heartbeat.

“Don’t…” Lingcai flinched on instinct, a fish shying from a net. Kelor’s eyes lifted, sharp as a blade reflecting frost.

“Hm?”

“I’ll endure. I’ll endure,” Lingcai said, a bitter line cutting her mouth, like tea steeped too long.

After trials like thorns on a path, she finally finished changing, a white dress settling like first snow.

But along with a pinch of dignity, something else felt lost—something like a bell tone fading past the treeline.

“How is it? Found a bit of yourself yet?” Kelor asked, triumph glinting at her lips, a fox tail flashing behind a screen.

“I only feel… dirtier,” Lingcai murmured, curling in the corner with her knees hugged tight, a small boat tucked against a bank, her voice thick with tears.