The carriage that they were in finally came to a stop and Ye Qing's new mother removed her from the small bed they had her strapped into. The way that she treated Ye Qing like the most precious jade sculpture in the world was great, even if Ye Qing wasn't used to it. She couldn't remember what her mother from her previous world looked like but she knew that her new mother was many times more beautiful; she also had good-sized breasts so Ye Qing's future was already looking more promising than her previous life's outcome. Thinking about breasts made Ye Qing realize that she was hungry. She was already placed in some caged bed so she needed to get her mother's attention.
{What do babies usually do when they want food?}
"Weh." Ye Qing tried to make a crying sound but it went unnoticed. "Weh!" This time she yelled out louder, getting her mother's attention. Why did she look confused?
{I'm crying here for some milk!}
"Weh!" Her mother finally figured out that something was wrong and checked to see if she used the bathroom. Noticing that there was nothing down there made her confused again. Her breasts were in a loose shirt and were hanging down over the side of the cage so Ye Qing slapped one and shouted out again. "Weh!"
New mothers were difficult to work with. It took too much to get her mother to feed her. Ye Qing would need to train her mother to answer specific calls. The milk was pretty satisfying though.
Unfortunately, the time that she was left alone wasn't enough to absorb energy from the wall so Ye Qing was forced to use the slow old-fashioned method. There wasn't much energy in the air that could be transformed into qi but it was still there. They had a saying in Daqin; even a mosquito is meat. Nobody would actually eat a mosquito but it was technically true. Even a small amount of energy was better than nothing.
While meditating, Ye Qing would watch her mother. Her mother seemed very interested in the paintings of a young man on her wall and she kept looking at them when her attention wasn't on Ye Qing. He looked too feminine; men should be bursting with muscles with wide shoulders and a square jaw.
The more that Ye Qing watched her mother, the more that she realized that things were different in this place. They didn't have magic but they were able to create things that she didn't even think of during her hundreds of years of research and even accomplished things that she wasn't able to. She thought of the self-moving carriages but the wheels would accelerate too quickly and stop too suddenly. Her designs were too simple compared to the ones from the people in this world. This world was a breath of fresh air, a welcome surprise for someone whose life was filled with repetition towards its end.
Ye Qing suddenly had a different problem to deal with. Weh was for food and it would be best to have a different cry. "Wah!" The sound was similar but she couldn't think of anything else that sounded babyish. Hopefully her mother knew how to change her diaper.
It was embarrassing to be on the receiving end of a diaper change and her mother's skills in changing her diaper were bad, to say the least. Ye Qing stayed still but her mother's squeamishness made the diaper change take a while. In the end, the person that Ye Qinq suspected to be her own grandmother entered the room and gave the young mother a helping hand.
Ye Qing took a nap after getting her diaper changed. When she woke up, it was dark outside and her mother was asleep. This was her chance! Although Ye Qing's body was difficult to move, the qi running through her body gave her enough strength to crawl around. The bed that she was placed in had short walls but to a crawling newborn they might as well be ten feet tall.
Ye Qing crawled up next to the wall and tried to climb: a complete failure. Her fingers couldn't grip the wood and she didn't have enough strength to pull her body up. Kicking the bars didn't work either. The spot next to her that would allow her to pull energy from the wall was blocked. The only exposed energy was all the way on the other side of the room behind several things that used the energy.
With no access to an energy source, Ye Qing would need a week to gather enough energy to form a second core. That was unacceptable. She needed to form a total of one hundred and eight cores before she could merge them into a golden core. It took her nearly two hundred years to accomplish that in her past life in a world with greater qi density but that was because she was using an inferior technique to gather energy. Things would be different this time around.
This time she would try to combine one hundred and eight golden cores before her 200th birthday. Nearly twelve thousand cores would be needed for that and that took her more than twelve hundred years to accomplish in her first life. She was the first person to ever reach that level so she got to name the new core type: Star Cores. She was only able to form fifteen of those before her death but they gave her immeasurable amounts of power.
Ye Qing had perfected the art of gathering qi so even in a world with less qi she'd be able to become stronger than her past self. Not even a little bit of energy that entered her body was wasted. The supposed dirty energy that her first martial arts master told her to expel from her body was just a more concentrated form of qi that needed a better technique to absorb.
While looking for energy to absorb, Ye Qing got a good idea. The slab that her mother carried around didn't have much energy but it would still be faster than just absorbing the qi from the air. Her body was now doing that on its own after she started the proper circulation. The slab was on a table next to the bed that her mother slept on and was pretty close to Ye Qing.
Ye Qing stuck her hand outside of the walled bed and started using her spirit to probe the slab for a place that she could pull the energy from. The round hole was closer than the rectangular-ish hole. Ye Qing's spiritual energy slowly coaxed the energy out of the slab and led it to the formula above Ye Qing's palm. This time she knew not to take the energy too fast and kept track of how much was in the slab's energy box, leaving it with a small amount so the connection wasn't cut suddenly.
With the drain complete, Ye Qing was moderately happy with the results. She would be able to cut the time needed to advance in half if she could do this every night. The second core was nearly a quarter complete now.
As Ye Qing stayed awake, she had a lot of time to think about what she could do to get stronger. The main problem was that her physical body was too weak. There was a body strengthening technique she could use. Her old body was perfected, physically, if you ignored the lack of sex appeal. The technique required complete control over your body's internals to absorb all of the resources in your food. The amount of waste that she produced would be drastically decreased but her mother was inexperienced so it should be easy enough to fool her.
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After the competition was over and they had voted, all that was left was for the hosts to count the votes. In the meantime, the club's in-house band played some relaxing music. People with backstage passes went through the door next to the stage but their group of five had to wait.
"Hey, do you still have the paperwork that came with your computer when you bought it?" Abigail wasn't really a fan of the relaxing music and wanted to start a conversation. A normal person would bring up the music they just listened to but she wanted those games. Especially the post-apocalyptic one set in Russia. The flying powersuit one and the one about warfare didn't get good reviews in the forums she read.
"They're still in the box in my closet. My dad told me to keep the box since it's under warranty." Tatyana's father could be considered frugal for a person that had as much money as he did. He made tens of millions in a bad year but kept receipts in case something broke and waited for things to go on sale. The mansion they lived in and his car were the two major exceptions.
"There should be some video games that came with it that are still in the box if you didn't redeem them." Abigail was just about to hustle Tatyana out of her games when she noticed someone jogging towards their table.
It was a familiar-looking man wearing a cheap disguise; a hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses. "Sorry, I completely forgot about the passes. The bands needed to apply for them earlier and we missed the cutoff. The management just gave me four of them after the other guys explained the situation." Tatyana recognized him, especially with that voice of his that she liked.
"Only four? I told you that there are five of us." Arsenio forgot to tell the others about Aria asking for a fifth pass.
Arsenio looked at the other girls that were with his sister. He knew the other three but the blonde girl was new to their group.
"Sorry, I didn't mention it to the guys." His sister was part of an odd group of schoolgirls that were ostracized for different reasons. Most of them were stupid reasons like his sister's glare. The blonde girl looked like trouble but his sister was a good judge of character so she wouldn't hang out with a bad person. "You must be the new girl. Nice to meet you. I'm Arsenio, Aria's brother." Arsenio held his hand out towards her.
Tatyana was a bit flustered since she didn't expect for Arsenio to talk to her so suddenly. She gripped his hand with an awkward smile on her face and introduced herself, "Tatyana. Aria's friend. I mean I'm Tatyana. I'm not calling you Tatyana. That's my name." She was rambling on and felt embarrassed.
Aria sighed since she knew that look on Tatyana's face. Every once in a while there was a girl that approached him with that look but recently they had been dwindling. She suspected that it had something to do with his fan club that was formed when he entered college. Those women were scary at times. "If you've only got four passes then there's nothing we can do about it. Do you mind waiting here with Tatyana while the rest of us go back to see the other bands?"
Tatyana didn't expect to be abandoned so soon so she looked up at Aria only to see her wink. {She knooows!} Was it really that obvious? Tatyana had never had a crush before but it was easy for her to figure it out.
"Wouldn't it be better to leave Vanessa behind? She'd be able to defend herself if anything happened. Besides..." Arsenio decided not to continue his sentence when he looked in Vanessa's direction. She was stretching her hands and if he mentioned her looks then she might really kill him. "Besides, you wouldn't want to leave her with someone she doesn't know well, would you?"
"You don't plan on doing anything to her, right? She'll be fine with you." Aria wasn't planning on hooking them up but wanted to give Tatyana a chance to get to know him. "You're fine with that, aren't you, Tatyana?"
Tatyana gave a shy nod so Aria took the four passes from Arsenio's hand. "We'll be back in time for the winning announcement. If he does anything weird then feel free to call me." Aria had to pull Julia up since she almost fell asleep again. Julia had an odd sleeping pattern because her parents worked through the night making a lot of noise. Julia's brother used to have the same problem until he moved out.
"Sorry, my sister can be impulsive sometimes." Arsenio didn't know why she left him alone with her friend. "Do you go to the same school as Aria?" He hadn't heard much about Aria's friends since he moved into an apartment.
"Yeah. We're in the same science and gym classes." They were in a different class together the previous year but Tatyana didn't talk to Aria back then. "She's surprisingly bad at sports."
"She used to be decent at sports but she stopped wearing her glasses and she can't really see far away that well. It's also why she always has that scowl on her face." Tatyana didn't know that about Aria; she just assumed that Aria was always annoyed.
"Is that why she drives like an old person?" Tatyana wanted to know the reason for Tatyana's slow driving. The fastest she went was still five miles under the speed limit.
Arsenio laughed at Tatyana's comment. His smile looked nice to Tatyana. "No, that would be my fault. Aria got to ride around in the van when I was learning how to drive." Thinking about the past must have been amusing to him since he was looking off into the distance with a smile on his face. Arsenio turned back to look at Tatyana, "I used to accelerate too fast and I was never good with a stick shift. Aria didn't like my driving at all."
Tatyana was having fun learning about Aria but Arsenio changed the topic. "Do you have a license or permit yet?"
"No, my parents have offered but I'd be afraid to drive my dad's new car and my mom doesn't have a car of her own. She used to have one but it's, uh, gone." Her mother managed to drive it into a lake and since then she hadn't driven anything. Her father's old car was given to his assistant so they only had the one car.
"What makes you afraid of driving your dad's car?" Arsenio couldn't imagine what kind of vehicle Tatyana's father drove since he didn't know anything about her family.
"It accelerates too quickly. I'm afraid that if I push too hard on the pedal then I'll crash it." It could accelerate to sixty miles per hour in under four seconds according to the brochure. Why did a luxury car need such a powerful engine?
"You're graduating soon, right? You'll have a couple months before college starts up." Arsenio figured that she'd probably go to college like Aria was planning to do. "If you ever want to learn how to drive after getting a permit then you can use my car. I can promise that it doesn't accelerate fast." His car was a cheap four cylinder Japanese vehicle from the 90s with nearly eighty thousand miles so it wasn't powerful at all.
Tatyana didn't accept or decline his offer since she wanted to be polite. Her father would buy her a car if she really wanted to learn how to drive. "I'm not going to further my education for a couple of years. My mom thinks it's best to learn from her first before I go to a design school. Otherwise, people might put too much pressure on me by comparing me to her."
"Being compared to someone else can be pretty tiring." Arsenio's friends would compare his cooking to the food that his parents cooked and he always came up short in some way. "What is it that your mother designs?"
"She makes clothes for a living; mostly for women. Have you heard of the brands Anastasia, Tatyana, Celestial, or Majesty?" Celestial was the new brand created a few years ago and was the first one not to have a Russian name. The male line of clothes was now under its own name: Majesty. Tatyana's mother had completely redesigned the whole Tatyana line of male clothes to give them a majestic look.
Arsenio was a poor college student that worked part time at a fast food restaurant. High end clothing brands were the last thing on his mind. "Sorry, I'm not familiar with those brands. Give me a moment." Arsenio brought out his phone. "What should I look up if I want to see her designs?"
Tatyana got up and sat next to Arsenio before bringing her phone out. "I've got some pictures on my phone if you're interested." Tatyana skipped the pictures of unreleased designs and went straight for the ones that were just added to their stores. "This is one of her designs that just got released. It's one of my favorite designs that she made last year." Tatyana leaned against Arsenio to give him a better view of the phone. After that, she showed him a few other designs but he didn't seem that interested. It was disappointing but it wasn't odd for men to not care about fashion.
Tatyana didn't realize that it was because she had been pressing her breasts against Arsenio when showing him the designs. It's not that he wasn't interested in what she had to say. He was just distracted.
Tatyana decided to change the topic to something he might be more interested in. "Do you have any gigs planned in the future? I really liked listening to you sing."
"No gigs planned but we're planning on recording some songs in a studio soon. Are you interested in watching?" Arsenio was a bit interested in Tatyana so he wanted to spend more time with her.
"Can I really come and watch you?" Tatyana was extremely interested in watching them record their songs.
"Yeah, just give me a way to contact you and when we decide on a date and place then I'll give you a call." Arsenio wasn't just trying to get her number but he'd be lying if he said that he didn't want it. Tatyana gave him her number and added him on social media. "Do you do cosplay? There are a bunch of pictures of you in different clothes."
Tatyana didn't know what cosplay was. "Those are my mother's designs. I model them for her and whenever she releases a design I post it to my account."
"Have you thought of creating a page? With your looks and these clothes you'd probably get a lot of followers." The pictures looked almost professional and were tasteful. She'd probably get more followers if she had sexier pictures but he wouldn't mention that. There was something about her that seemed almost unreal to him, like she was from another planet. Even when wearing provocative clothes, Tatyana still came off as being pure and untouched by the world. He didn't want to ruin that.
"My mom already set up a page for the clothes. Why would I need to make one?" Tatyana didn't understand the purpose of making a page.
"You're going to become a designer, right? Build up your audience with pictures of you wearing your mother's designs. You can use it to show off your designs in a few years." It's similar to what Arsenio did with the R.E.N.O. page. He recorded them doing covers of songs from famous bands and posted them to gain listeners before posting something original.
Aria and the others returned from backstage just as Aria said they would when the announcer went on stage. There were three guys just behind them; the three that were on stage with Arsenio. Arsenio took Tatyana's hand and pulled her towards the rest of the group. It wasn't much to Arsenio but it was the first time that Tatyana had actually held a boy's hand for anything other than a handshake. She could feel the calluses from his fingertips on the palm of her hand as they made their way to the dance floor, proof that he took his music seriously.