“Hey hey—watch the road when you’re driving!”

The front of Wu Qinglan’s car kept drifting more and more to one side. If I hadn’t shouted, we would’ve slammed straight into the curb.

“Sorry. I zoned out.”

“Qinglan-jie, calm down first. Even if this time failed, you’ve still got another chance, right?”

Just like we agreed before—she could switch back to men’s clothes and pass everything that happened at the masquerade off as a joke. Let things return to their original track…

“No more chances, Xiao Kai. I’m out of ideas… No—I’m out of patience.”

Her voice forced a lightness that didn’t quite hold.

“After what happened today, your dad is definitely going to have reservations about me. We probably can’t even go back to how things were before. And even if we could—so what? That still means zero progress.”

From the back seat I couldn’t see her expression, only hear her tone.

“Whatever. This outcome was always one of the predicted endings anyway. If I failed, I failed.”

I couldn’t help asking, “…Are you really just going to give up?”

“Why? Weren’t you against me becoming your stepmom? You should be happy.”

There was a hint of self-mocking humor in her voice.

“How could I be happy! Yeah, I can’t accept you becoming my stepmom—but that’s a separate issue! We’re friends, aren’t we? I don’t want to see you end things this miserably either!”

I glanced at my dad beside me, still stiff as a wax figure, and made up my mind.

“This isn’t over yet. I still have one more method.”

“What method?”

“We’ll talk when we get home. Just trust me once, Qinglan-jie.”

“Ah… don’t tell me—”

As if she’d guessed it, she slammed the accelerator.

We drove all the way back home—but ran into a new problem.

A middle-aged man in a thick mascot suit is heavy. Very heavy. My dad was tall and broad to begin with. With Wu Qinglan’s strength alone, there was no way she could carry him. After a long struggle she managed to drag him from the roadside into the yard—but not even through the front door.

And with my broken leg, I was useless.

“No good. I can’t lift him. Should we take off the mascot suit first?”

She dropped him onto the stone path, then sat down right on the grass, not even caring whether her cosplay outfit got dirty.

“Can’t be helped… wait here a moment.”

I went inside alone on my crutches and headed upstairs.

The Notebook lay quietly on my desk. I rubbed the bookmark between my fingers and sighed.

“Not many chances left to use it now…”

I wrote my own name on the bookmark. My awareness slipped into the familiar avatar body. After changing into a school uniform, I went back downstairs to the yard.

“Sorry to keep you waiting!”

Wu Qinglan’s mouth fell open.

“…Xiao Kai?”

“Yeah, it’s me. If it feels weird, you can call me Lingmeng.”

She stood up and looked me up and down—and completely forgot her earlier despair, and the still-unconscious dad on the ground. Instead, she entered a state of excited fascination.

“So this is the female avatar you mentioned? And in a school uniform too… Xiao Kai, this is—high school girls are—this is amazing!! Next convention you’ve got to come help the club cosplay! Those JK-level curves will definitely pull in more readers!”

I instinctively took two steps back.

“No. Next convention probably won’t work. The avatar ability only lasts until my fracture heals.”

“In that case, we’ll just have to break your leg again, huh?”

I jumped. “Wait—how are you still in the mood for jokes?”

“I’m not joking.”

“…!?”

“…Look at you panic. I’m joking.”

I swear, I can’t keep up with her. One minute she’s devastated, the next she’s teasing me like nothing happened.

“I’m timid. Please make fewer jokes like that in the future…”

I walked over and lifted my dad’s arms.

“Give me a hand. With two people, we can manage, right?”

“Got it!”

Wu Qinglan grabbed his legs. Together we hauled him up and carried him into the house.

“Heave—ho!”

No matter how dirty the suit was, we dumped him straight onto the bed. Wu Qinglan immediately turned to me.

“So, Lingmeng-chan—what exactly are you planning to do?”

“I told you before, right? I’m an apprentice of a god.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

“You actually believe that now?”

“You just turned into a schoolgirl who’s now here in front of me. What choice do I have?”

Fair point—but she still believed a bit too easily.

“Well… besides the avatar ability, I’ve got another power as a divine apprentice—the power to turn people into bishoujos.”

In fact, that was the main job description.

“So you’re going to turn your dad into a bishoujo, right?”

I thought that was a bombshell reveal. Wu Qinglan, however, reacted far too calmly—almost like she’d expected it.

“…Yeah. The transformation comes with a mental adjustment effect. I want to use that to correct Dad’s fear of women.”

“Oh? It has that feature now?”

“…What?”

That sounded weird.

“N-no, nothing. Slip of the tongue. I just think it’ll work—go ahead and do it!” Her eyes shone with renewed hope. “Uncle Chang’s been unconscious longer than ever this time. The shock must’ve been huge. If this doesn’t fix it, his condition will definitely get worse.”

“Alright.”

I turned to leave, but she stopped me.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“My divine artifact is in my room. The casting tool.”

She raised her palm toward my dad from a distance and made a pushing gesture.

“Shouldn’t it be like this? Then a white beam shoots out of your hand?”

“…What's that, Iron Man?”

“Isn’t it the same?”

“What isn’t?”

“Nothing. Go on.”

She always stops halfway through her thoughts. It’s driving me crazy.

I didn’t show her the Notebook. In my bedroom, I wrote my dad’s name, then ran back to his room.

The mascot suit’s seal was so tight that not a trace of transformation light leaked out. Only the newly raised chest beneath the suit proved the Notebook’s power had taken effect.

I glanced at Wu Qinglan. “Looks like it worked—but she’s not awake yet.”

“Then let’s get that annoying suit off and see what your dad turned into!”

I was curious too. I reached out to lift the dog mascot head.

“Mm…”

He—no, she—actually groaned and woke up first.

That was fast. For a first transformation, that was unexpectedly fast.

Her body twitched twice, then she suddenly sat upright, the dog snout facing Wu Qinglan at the doorway.

“…Uncle Chang,” Wu Qinglan called carefully, stepping closer—then stopping when Dad shrank back.

“D-don’t come closer yet. Let me calm down… eh?”

Her voice sounded off—higher, softer. She noticed too, touching her throat in panic.

“M-my voice—what’s wrong with it?”

“Dad, listen to me. For various reasons… you’re a woman now.”

Limited by the narrow field of view inside the headpiece, she only just noticed me and turned the snout toward me.

“Ying?!”

That was my mom’s name.

Crap—I forgot the thick-framed glasses again. No wonder she misrecognized me.

“Wait, Dad—it’s me! Your son!”

She didn’t process it. Her whole body stiffened, trembling starting again—the prelude to another system crash.

I darted out of the bedroom and complained from behind the doorframe:

“Are you kidding me? You’ve turned into a woman yourself and still react this hard to my face? Where did the mental-adjustment effect go?”

“Xiao Kai, you really are the root of all evil,” Wu Qinglan muttered.

“That’s clearly my missing mom’s fault—why am I the one taking the blame?!”

Using the doorframe as cover, I peeked inside.

“I… turned into a woman?”

She murmured it, lifted her hands to the mascot head, and slowly removed it.

A waterfall of black hair spilled down, scattering across the bed and veiling her face.

Even as a man, my dad’s skin had been pale from years of indoor office work. Now, as a woman, it looked like polished ivory and pearl.

The mascot head rolled to the floor. She slumped, arms hanging limp like a puppet with its strings cut, unable to hold herself upright.

Wu Qinglan wanted to go closer but didn’t dare—she could only call out from the doorway.

“Uncle Chang, are you okay?”

“I turned into a woman?”

Dad repeated the line, then turned to look at the full-length mirror on the wardrobe.

A moment later, she fell backward onto the bed—
—and lost consciousness again.