Oct 5 — Sunday morning

On my bedroom carpet laid a young man in a tracksuit, face-up.

His hair was a mottled black-and-white mess, dark bags under hollow cheeks, skin deathly pale — only the faint rise and fall of his breath proved he was still alive.

Yup. It was Senior Li Jianlian.

I looked at Sis Qiuluo and asked, “What happened to him? How’d he end up like this?”

She shrugged casually. “Hah, it was just morning exercise. I was off today, so we dragged him out for a run — health first, right?”

I helped Senior Li sit up and forced a cup of water into him.

“Hell, it looks like his soul just left the body. How long were you both even running for?”

Sis Qiuluo: “Oh, we left at five. Morning’s getting cooler — perfect for a jog.”

I glanced at the bedside clock, the electronic alarm I’d smacked earlier — 【8:03 AM】.

“It’s eight already! You ran for three hours?!”

She cocked her head with a puzzled look. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing wrong for a muscle freak like you, but don’t apply that standard to normals! And don’t get near my bed!”

Sis Qiuluo barreled at the bed without mercy, still wearing that sweat-soaked tracksuit... ugh, guess I’ll be changing the sheets this afternoon.

“Wasn’t it you who called us over here in the first place?” she said.

I waved it off. “I don’t remember including you?! I only phoned Senior — and I didn’t tell him to come this early.”

“How could I let him come alone? I wouldn’t trust leaving my dear ‘sister’ with you!”

Li recovered enough to sit up properly. “Sis, what are you saying? I’m your brother, aren’t I? And Chang Kai isn’t that kind of guy.”

I nodded and added, “Yeah, you should trust my character.”

Sis Qiuluo scoffed. “Ha — what character do boys from an all-boys school have?”

Hey — your brother’s from the boys’ campus too!

I tried to needle her: “Speaking of which… when I eavesdropped on Rinka and the others at the girls’ campus, you kept staring at my butt—”

She flushed and flailed, trying to change the subject. “Shut up! Ah! Right — what’s up with your dad? Why did he freeze when he opened the door?”

Ah — that. Earlier, when she opened the door and came face to face with him, Dad might have thought it was Wu Qinglan at the door and just short-circuited into a wax statue. Because he can’t move well, Sis Qiuluo had to help carry him back to his room.

“Gynophobia — in which his psychological condition is that bad where the brain stops functioning when it sees a woman,” I said.

“Wait, that’s a thing? How’d that even happen?”

I shrugged; not something I wanted to go deep into.

“Anyway, don’t worry about my dad — he’ll come back around. I actually called Senior here for something else…”

Here I stalled. The reason I’d brought Senior Li over was to grant him autonomous-transform permission. The ritual would look really suspicious if Sis Qiuluo saw it… and Sis Qiuluo was exactly the sort of hulking muscle sister who’d misinterpret everything. Nightmare.

If Senior was to be kissed for ten seconds as part of the rite, without a plausible excuse I’d get absolutely walloped by Sis Qiuluo. Plus, Xiao Lei (the great divine emissary) had left for work — I was on my own to con both Senior Li and Sis Qiuluo. Great.

When Senior Li asked what was going on, I said, “Okay, Senior, you go into the bathroom. Sis Qiuluo, you go in too.”

“Do you want to transform me here? I didn’t bring any clothes.”

I grabbed my own women’s clothes from the wardrobe — bra and dress — tossed them to him and shoved him into the bathroom.

“Transformation is just the first step. Don’t worry and do as I say. Wear mine first — my chest is bigger, it’ll fit.”

“Uh… underwear is a bit—”

“What exactly are you planning?” I turned around, and noticed Sis Qiuluo sitting on my bed asking suspiciously.

“Enough questions, you hurry up and go in too,” I urged.

“This feels like you're plotting something shady calling my sister to your room, you brat!” she spat.

“Hey? How many times do I need to tell you I’m still your brother…” Senior Li still trusted me enough to be pulled along, and after a bit of cajoling I managed to get Sis Qiuluo into the bathroom too.

Since the bathroom only locks from the inside, I wasn’t about to do anything in the bedroom. I grabbed the notebook and hobbled downstairs on my crutch, wrote Senior Li’s name on the notebook, used the Avatar Bookmark to make a double, sat my original on the first floor toilet, and, wearing the notebook’s clothes, went back upstairs.

Why do I need to present as female? To deal with Sis Qiuluo — she treats me slightly better when she thinks I’m a girl.

I came in as Senior Li stepped out, newly changed.
“Huh? Chang Kai’s turned into a girl too?”

[Now switching to whiny-kyun mode]

“Aah, don’t call me Chang Kai! Senior Changpu — now you call me Lingmeng!”

To get that ten seconds of a kiss, I went all in — in front of Sis Qiuluo I launched a surprise rear hug on Senior, slipping my arms around her sides and clamping down hard around her waist.

“Eek!” Senior let out a startled sound.

Caught in my sudden embrace, she struggled lightly like a startled rabbit in my arms.

My goal was to kiss the small of her back — a perfect place to hide the stigma. As everyone knows, the Valkyries of Hyperion stamp their marks exactly there.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! You brat, what are you doing to my dear sister?!”

Sure enough, Sis Qiuluo started yelling and rushed over, swinging her arms to give me a good thrashing. I’d expected that, so I twisted and pivoted with Senior so she’d be between Sis Qiuluo and me.

I leaned close to Senior’s ear and whispered, “Senior — I need to kiss you for ten seconds, okay? Please stall your sister for a bit.”

Maybe it was my explosive confession, or maybe it was the fact there were suddenly very noticeable curves behind her — Senior froze red-faced and flustered. “Kiss?… Ling— Lingmeng? W-what are you—”

Earlier I’d tossed her a dress. Now I used the tip of my nose to nudge aside her black-and-white hair, then bit the zipper at the back of her collar and tugged it down, exposing the pale, flawless nape of her neck.

Perhaps because I’d also taken a female form, I felt surprisingly calm. After all — it’s only a back. Who gets worked up over backs?

I bent down and pressed my lips to her skin, feeling the vertebrae under my mouth, my arms locked tight around her stomach to keep her from wriggling free. I focused and counted the seconds in my head.

One, two.

“Let go right now!”

Of course — Senior couldn’t hold Sis Qiuluo off forever. By the second second, Sis Qiuluo had already come around behind us. Using her absurdly huge strength she tried to yank me off Senior.

No — wait. Her strength felt smaller than I’d expected; by all rights I shouldn’t have been able to hold on a second.

Three, four.

Then I noticed it. I realized Sis Qiuluo was only pretending to pull me! On the surface she was tugging, but in truth she was taking advantage of the chance to knead my chest. Her practiced grip sparked a surprising, distracting tickle that almost made me break contact.

Putting everything together, it was clear — Sis Qiuluo was a lesbian through and through.

“...This feeling is unbelievable. Is this really a monkey?” she blurted aloud.

Why are you even saying it out loud? You pervert! Who’s the monkey now?

Five, six.

Endure… I have to hold on. Four seconds left — I can’t throw it away now.

But Sis Qiuluo’s groping became bolder and more blatant. Her rough, callused hand slipped under the hem of my clothes and explored across my lower abdomen. This was a genuine crisis of modesty.

Seven, eight.

“Is it… the same as a girl’s here?”

Her hand made a few circles on my belly and then began to travel lower… lower…

Terrible. In every sense, terrible!

But only two seconds remained. My inner alarm bells were screaming, and yet my brain somehow found a sliver of an idea — a lifeline.

— The notebook!