I picked up Xiao Yao’s left hand with a bit of excitement. Her palm was small, but her fingers were long and delicate; the skin was smooth and pale, and the lunulae under her nails looked healthy.

“So…shall I kiss it?” I asked.

Xiao Yao only pressed her lips together and nodded twice, totally calm.

I took a deep breath and pressed my lips to the back of her hand.

No exhaling, no fidgeting, clear mind — just count to ten. Those ten seconds felt much longer than I expected; I thought I might suffocate.

“Okay! Ten seconds — stop!” Rinka shouted and yanked Xiao Yao’s left hand away from my mouth.

Luckily the ritual to grant the self-transform permission had worked. A simplified fan pattern appeared on the back of Xiao Yao’s hand — the “stigma” Master talked about. It was a deep red like the command spells from Fate series; seven little fan ribs marked the number of uses granted.

At first glance it seemed fine, but looking closer you could see it wasn’t actually drawn on her skin. It glowed faintly in red and hovered just above the surface of her hand like a flat apparition — you couldn’t touch it. It felt unreal but undeniably there.

Rinka couldn’t help herself: “That’s way too obvious.”

The stigma was surreal and very visible — Xiao Yao’s hand looked like a red beacon. This absolutely had to stay hidden under clothing.

“Looks like the stigma itself is another limitation: the more people I give permission to, the higher the risk of me getting exposed… Better hide it under clothes,” I said. Rinka kicked me in the shin.

“You get to hide it under clothes, huh? Kai-chan — you just want to kiss girls’ bodies, don’t you? Shameless!” she scolded.

I’m innocent, I swear. It’s not like the person I’m kissing isn’t half a guy — the ones I can grant stigmata to are people who can switch back and forth. If anyone’s daring, it’s me — making yourself kiss-ready takes guts. And what if the body still smells like big-man sweat? I’d have to think twice!

Rinka sighed: “Whatever. Let’s test the self-transform function first. Besides, Liuliu doesn't actually need this permission, right?”

She shook her head. “No. This body is an excellent model figure. The self-transform permission is useful. And it’s just being kissed by Chang Kai for ten seconds — I don’t mind.”

“I mind!” Rinka snapped.

Xiao Yao didn’t seem to get Rinka’s angle at all, which drove Rinka crazy. Xiao Lei, who’s dumb in her own way but not clueless emotionally, smelled something in Rinka’s reaction and made a meaningful “oooh~” sound — but didn’t call anyone out, instead changing the subject: “Okay, then how do you revert?”

“To revert, just think in your head ‘revert’ — the Notebook reads your thought and will…” I hadn’t finished explaining when the white-effect flashed and Xiao Yao turned back into Old Yan. Fortunately their builds weren’t too different, so the clothes only got a bit tight — if Xiao Lei had done it, the outfit would’ve ripped.

Old Yan is a neat, bookish glasses guy; the cross-dressing looked odd but actually passable. We could call him a pretty convincing cross-dresser — a “otokonoko,” I guess — but his serious face in that get-up was still kind of hilarious.

Rinka burst into laughter and tried to take a photo, but she was shaking too much to get a clear shot.

I voiced my takeaway: “So even with self-transform permission, you still need a place to change — otherwise you’ll just look like a cross-dressing pervert.”

If there’s still a difference between an otokonoko and a cross-dressing pervert; mostly it’s about how you look. Cruel world.

Old Yan: “No problem. If I never wore clothes to begin with, no one could call me a cross-dressing pervert.”

“That’s just pure perversion! You exhibitionist!” I yelled. Was he asking me to roast him? No way he actually meant that.

If Rinka weren’t fixed as female, she’d be the best user for this feature — her male/female build barely changes, so female mode would be natural for her. Right?

Old Yan still had seven fan ribs on his hand. Rinka asked, “Do you trigger transformation by thinking too?”

“No — you have to shout it out loud!” I said.

“Shout ‘transform’?”

“No, shout ‘HENSHIN.’”

“Why Japanese?!” That was Xiao Lei.

“Don’t ask me — ask the Notebook.” Apparently, like the Notebook’s preference for only making female clothes, the “HENSHIN” quirk is just the Notebook’s own weird taste. I want to ask Master Halliluya about it, but she’s cryptic and refuses to explain everything.

“HENSHIN!” Old Yan suddenly howled and nearly scared me to death. White light flashed and he turned back into Xiao Yao. I checked the stigma on her hand — one fan rib had disappeared; it seems the count decreases each time you transform.

“Then it’s the last step: I’ll be taking back the stigma, ok?” I asked. Xiao Yao nodded, so I erased “Yan Liuzhuan” from the Notebook and she flipped back to the cross-dress look. Old Yan rubbed his forehead, dizzy.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, just a bit light-headed from switching so much.” Each change left a momentary daze.

“Thanks for making this easier. The test was a success.” I glanced at Rinka and quietly asked Old Yan, “Do you want to keep the permission?”

Rinka’s face puffed up with anger. “Hey! Didn’t we agree you’d only get the hand-back kiss today?!” she protested. The right answer for Old Yan would’ve been “no,” but he surprised me.

“I want it,” he said. Of course he did.

“Okay — where do you want the stigma placed?” I asked.

“The lower back! I’ll only allow you to kiss Liuliu’s lower back!” Rinka shot her hand up; Xiao Lei seconded it. “Agreed! Commander can only kiss the lower back!”

Is that really the safest spot they could come up with? The lower back is a decent hidden place since it’s getting colder in October, so fine.

“The lower back then, so are we going on with the ritual now?” I asked for permission and wrote the name Yan Liuzhuan again.

In a daze, Xiao Yao lounged on the redwood sofa with one hand propping her chin and the other tugging at her dress.

Uh-oh. The skirt kept riding up and was about to expose some nicely shaped legs and a perkier butt — then Rinka and Xiao Lei clamped Xiao Yao’s hand down.

“Stop!”

“Liu..Liuliu, don’t you have any shame?!”

“Trying to seduce Commander — what a surprise opponent!”

But as the exhibitionist she is, Xiao Yao didn’t seem to think she was doing anything indecent at all. If that skirt had gone all the way up to the lower back we'd have seen everything.

Honestly, though, female bodies aren’t that mysterious to me anymore.

The solution was simple, I tossed the Notebook onto her and instantly it turned into black shorts. The clothing-change feature is handy — but then you have to wear the Notebook, which raises its own questions.

Like what if you had to write on it while it was in clothing form? Are you forced to strip?

Xiao Yao’s dress was lifted to reveal a strip of pale, flawless skin at the small of her back — like some exquisite delicacy just waiting.

I huffed a breath on her back, wiped it with my sleeve, then gave a heads up, “Then I’ll be kissing, ok?”

I leaned over and kissed it. Sitting on the coffee table made the angle awkward and my back started to cramp, so I told myself it wasn’t that great… but then Rinka hauled me up.

“You’ve been kissing for how long? Ten seconds are up… are you crying?!”

Crying? I actually cried. Turns out a gentle kiss on a pretty girl’s lower back hits harder than I’d admit. Even if I’ve seen my own female form a hundred times, as a guy I don’t get many chances for this kind of contact.

I wiped my tears and lied: “It’s just that my lower back’s stiff, I couldn’t get back up.”

“You’re pathetic!” Rinka snapped. Rinka fixed Xiao Yao’s dress while Xiao Lei wiped my mouth with a wet wipe. The Notebook snapped back to normal.

“Then the next is Senior Li Jianlian,” Xiao Lei said.

“The next victim of the Kiss Maniac?” Rinka groaned. “This new feature is terrible.”

Terrible or not, the ritual was awkward for me. Kissing girls is one thing, but when they’re technically half-men in pencil mode, it’s weird — like kissing half a guy.

On the other side of the room, Xiao Yao had already changed back into Old Yan.

Rinka said, “Liuliu, go change your clothes first before you stretch them out of shape.” Old Yan nodded, stood up, and walked into the bedroom still wearing the dress.

Maybe it’s the difference in pelvic structure, but yeah—guys really do have flatter rears.

Old Yan’s butt was just… flat. Not the faintest hint of a curve.

…Wait a second.

Why the hell am I even paying attention to Old Yan’s butt?