Ye Qing was starting to get used to being carried around everywhere. It reminded her of that phase she had as a young empress when she would go everywhere in a palanquin carried by servants. It was a short phase, only lasting for three years. It was convenient since she could snack or nap on the go but going everywhere in it took too long.
Remembering that phase reminded Ye Qing of why she set fire to the palanquin; her husband, Feng Daijiang, had sex with one of her servants inside of it. Unfortunately, neither one of them were harmed when she set fire to it. Just thinking about that womanizer made her angry. She loved him but he always ignored her for someone else that was more attractive.
It was pointless thinking about it now since he was already dead. She would often do this to herself; remembering him, getting angry, and then ending up in tears when she realizes that he will never be able to do anything to make her angry ever again. She could feel a gentle touch on her head and a soothing voice. The golden-haired woman seemed to be talking to her and, although Ye Qinq didn't know what she was trying to say, she recognized those eyes. They were the eyes that every mother and grandmother gave a child when trying to soothe them.
It had been a long time since anybody had tried to comfort her so she forgot how it felt. Ye Qing's fear and sorrow washed away and she no longer had tears falling down as she focused on the voice. It was a good feeling to have someone that cares about you, even if it was part of a misunderstanding.
The woman brought Ye Qing to another room. This one was different from the others because it had the bed in the center of the room. There was only enough room for one person to lay down in here. One of the other giants picked her up from the woman's arms and brought her over to the bed. It was the weirdest bed that she had ever seen; what was even the point of having such a large shroud when there were no windows?
The giant put something in her ears and everything became quieter. After a short while, the nice woman had returned. The somewhat angry-looking man that was with her earlier seemed to be staying outside. Ye Qing wasn't sure what they were trying to do but she couldn't fall asleep with all of the lights still on.
Ye Qing watched as the nice woman put something on her own head that covered her ears. After she nodded her head there was a muffled sound and a weird knocking. The weird muffled sounds continued but the nice woman didn't act like anything was wrong so Ye Qing stayed still.
Ye Qing didn't know how long they waited for but the noises finally stopped and the nice woman took the accessory off her head. The giant from earlier that put something in her ears ended up taking them out. It was nice being able to hear things clearly again.
The nice woman started to talk about something with the giant while Ye Qing slowly started drifting off to sleep. It was common to get sleepy after forming the first core since your body needed to adjust to the new energy inside of it but she felt more tired than she was expecting. It was pointless to continue fighting it so Ye Qing closed her eyes.
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Tatyana arrived at Aria's place, safe and sound. It would be hard for her not to arrive safely with how slowly Aria was driving. The girls helped bring her bags upstairs. "It's almost eight PM. What time does the concert start?" Tatyana was focused on her plan to just get out of the house so she wasn't up-to-date with the schedule.
"Technically it starts in an hour or so at nine but the band we're going there to support will be on between ten and ten-thirty. We've got enough time to get ready." Abigail was currently opening up Tatyana's laptop bag. "Oh, this is a good brand. I'm not that familiar with laptops but I use their software to monitor my CPU and GPU when benchmarking games."
"Tatyana, do you understand what she's talking about? Nobody else can keep up with her when it comes to computers." Vanessa just finished setting up her gaming console. The three of them were going to be staying in the room that used to belong to Aria's brother. Julia was going to be staying in Aria's room.
"I have no clue. I don't really use my laptop much." Tatyana only had it for a month and she used it twice in that time.
"Can you type in your password?" Tatyana leaned over and typed it in with two fingers. "Anastasia1997. Were you a fan of that old animated movie?"
"What animated movie? Anastasia was the line of clothes my mother was working on when she married my dad in 1997. It means 'Rebirth' in Russian." Tatyana didn't know what Abigail was talking about.
Abigail was surprised that the Russian girl didn't watch the single best animated movie about Russian characters. "Where did you install Steam, Galaxy, Origin, Uplay, and the hellspawn that shall not be named? I'm not finding any of them."
Hellspawn? "I only installed a browser and art program on it. The rest is whatever it came with." Tatyana was really starting to understand what Vanessa was talking about. Just how many things did she need installed on her computer?
Even Vanessa was looking at Tatyana with a look of surprise. "You don't have Steam on your computer? I mainly play on PlayStation and even I have Steam on my PC."
"PlayStation?" Tatyana didn't know what that was. Why were they being quiet? Was it really that big of a deal that she didn't know what it was?
"If I knew you weren't a gamer then I wouldn't have asked Aria to let you stay in this room. Whenever we spend the night here we tend to stay up playing games. We can get pretty loud at times." Abigail seemed a bit apologetic but Tatyana wanted to try new things so she didn't mind if they played their games. "If we're too annoying then you can still go over there. Aria will understand."
"What will I understand?" Aria noticed that the two tech heads were already trying to play games when she popped her head into the room. "What are you doing? You need to be getting ready."
"We know, Vanessa was just hooking up her system while I was trying to download some games on Tatyana's laptop." Abigail was waving her hands while trying to explain the situation. "She doesn't even have any games so I've got to download everything."
"Just get ready. You can't go to the club wearing those clothes. You two look kinda lame right now." Tatyana wasn't sure if she heard Aria correctly.
"A club? I thought that we were going to a concert." She wanted to try new things but clubbing was too high level for her. Her parents would kill her if they found out!
"The concert is held at the club; they're hosting a competition for local bands. There's no alcohol being sold so that anybody 16 and up can participate. It starts at nine so we don't have much time to get ready." What Aria said helped to alleviate Tatyana's worries.
There was just one thing that Tatyana wondered "Abigail said that we wouldn't need to be there until ten since the band wouldn't be on until then."
Aria glared at Abigail--or possibly just stared at her since it was hard to tell. "Abigail is wrong. If we get there after nine fifteen then we don't get to vote. We're going to support them, not just listen to them."
Aria left the three of them to get ready. Abigail just changed her clothes and put in her contacts. Vanessa didn't care about her look and kept on the clothes that made her look like an office lady, only taking the fake glasses off. The only person serious about their appearance was Tatyana.
Tatyana couldn't curl her hair in such a short time so she went for a different look than she originally planned on using. Her hair remained straight but she used a black decorative hair clip to hold it to one side. Tatyana had lots of experience with using makeup thanks to her mother taking her to events; there were even a few times when she walked the runway to show off her mother's clothes. The look she was aiming for was simple but exotic. The use of dark colors to accentuate her eyes and a black cherry lipstick was all that she needed. Her skin was naturally smooth and with proper maintenance she made sure that it stayed that way.
The clothes she was wearing completed the look. Up above; she was wearing a black jacket that didn't cover her midriff, a short-sleeved v-neck shirt with black and white stripes, and a simple choker on her neck. On her lower body; she had a black pleated skirt that went just above the knees, knee-high black stockings that were held in place with a garter belt, and high heel boots that gave off a hint of danger. After all, it wouldn't be an exotic look if it was entirely safe.
As for her underwear, she didn't expect anybody to look at it. She was wearing a comfortable pair of white panties and a black bra just in case the color bled through her shirt. Tatyana wished that she could still fit comfortably into sports bras because they were much simpler. Her breasts weren't massive but even now they were still growing so she had to keep replacing her bras.
After getting dressed, Tatyana put on sunglasses to complete the look... before deciding almost immediately to take them off. It was dark outside and, when she thought about it, she realized that it was silly to wear your sunglasses at night.