Lifting the tee-shirt that Bing Bing brought, Yue Qin could only stare helplessly at it. It looked far too small for her to fit into now that her bust had grown bigger. The only thing that she could be thankful for was that Bing Bing had brought her a skirt instead of a pair of jeans. Otherwise, with her new height and figure, she would probably be unable to squeeze into her old jeans. Moreover, as her previous self had been as flat as a runway, Bing Bing hadn't bothered to get her a bra. Not that she would have been able to wear it even if her sister had brought her one.
Now, she basically had to choose the lesser of two evils. The first was to wear her dirty soaked school shirt from which wafted a mild odour. The second was to try and squeeze into a shirt clearly meant for someone a few sizes smaller than her.
Since it had come to this, then the choice was obvious. She would sooner try to squeeze into a shirt a few sizes smaller than to wear a wet stinky shirt. At most, she would only be showing more skin than normal in her mid-waist area. Coming from the 21st century, she had even worn bikinis in public. What did showing her stomach count for?
Although not having a bra to wear was rather embarrassing, it would be the same whichever shirt she chose to she wore. And come to think of it, she wasn't sure how well she would fit into her school blouse either.
This reminded Yue Qin of how thankful she was for the culture of the Kingdom she was currently living in. It far superseded the cultures of the books she used to read about that the protagonist usually ended up in
In those stories, the transmigrators would always land in a sexist world where women were deemed as naturally weaker than men. As such, they would often be seen as prizes or objects to be traded for benefits.
In male-centric novels, their roles were always that of the damsel in distress - forever below the male protagonist and used as a plot device to spur the protagonist to fight against enemies far beyond his level. The female-centric novels were no better. The female lead would always be subject to the affections of a possessive male lead who would have overpowered character settings and would be protected by him from the shadows.
Moreover, in these world settings, it would only be normal for the men to have an entire harem of women, while women would be shamed if they let their man wear a green hat. This meant that if a man had more than one lover, it would be deemed as his right based on his abilities while a woman would be shamed for being loose and unvirtuous.
Truly, the double standards in those stories were a giant blight on her eyes that made her feel deeply revulsed. She could only say that they were the result of the sick fantasies of brainless perverts.
This was not to say that no such thing existed in her Kingdom. Instead, there were many cases of such things happening. However, unlike on Earth, where gender inequality pervaded society due to the inherited idea that men were stronger and hence superior to women, with the existence of magic and Qi, the tables between men and women had been evened out. Both men and women had the potential to become equally strong.
Hence, in this world where might was right, there was no gender inequality per se. Instead, what existed was power inequality. As long as you were strong enough, you had the ability to impose any inequality you deemed fit. Resultingly, some men chose to dominate their superiority over beautiful women, while other women chose to lord themselves over handsome men.
This didn't mean that Yue Qin approved of this culture, but it was something that she could understand. Was it fair? Certainly not. But neither was it right for her to impose the moral views of a 21st-century earthling on the people of a different world. Just like the people of the 4BC would have killed a woman who dared talk to another man besides her husband for adultery, the people of the 18th century believed that homosexual should be killed, and the people of the 21st century believed in freedom of choice, different eras had different cultures. Cultures themselves did not have any semblance of morality attached to them. Neither were there any that were more correct than others. There were only those which were more acceptable to the people at that moment in time.
After squeezing herself into the shirt and wearing the skirt, Yue Qin steeled her heart and swung the door open. There was no point in delaying any further.
As soon as the door swung open, Yue Qin came face to face with her sister who had stopped pacing as soon as she heard the door open. The two stared at each other for a few moments in awkward silence as Bing Bing's face shifted from one of worry to utter shock. Wide-eyed and mouth agape, Bing Bing, stood frozen in place as if in utter bewilderment.
"Y-y-you!" Bing Bing stuttered for a moment. "Who the hell are you and what did you do to my sister!"
Yue Qin scratched her hair awkwardly. "Hii Bing Bing, I'm Yue Qin."
As if snapping out of her daze, Bing Bing's eyes begin to burn with righteous anger. Menacingly, she took a step forwards and waved her fist angrily in Yue Qin's face. "If you don't tell me what you did to my baby sister, you'll regret it."
Yue Qin didn't know whether to laugh or to cry even though she already predicted that this would happen. "Bing Bing, it's really me. Remember when you were 10? You had this massive crush on the guy in your class. And in order to get his attention, you stole a fox charm scroll and ambushed him with it! Afterwards you-"
Bing Bing's cheeks flushed with embarrassment as she quickly interrupted Yue Qin. "Alright, alright, no need to continue. You swore to never mention this again!"
Yue Qin rolled her eyes. "Do you mind moving your fist away now?"
Sheepishly, Bing Bing put down her fist and took a step back. As she did so, she started openly staring at her sister's new looks.
Yue Qin shifted uncomfortably as she felt Bing Bing's eyes scrutinising her from head to toe.
"What happened? You look so different from before."
"But much prettier right?"
"Yes, but what happened? Why have you changed so much?!"
"Actually I'm not too sure either..." Yue Qin trailed off. From this moment onwards, it was finally time to put her acting skills to the test. Passing Bing Bing's scrutiny was just the minor challenge. The major one would be hiding the full truth from her parents and the Clan Elders. For she knew with absolute certainty that once it was discovered that she had awakened a physique, all the Clan Elders would be alarmed. And after they knew it was the Supreme Body of Holy Light, the pinnacle physique that anyone with a light affinity would dream of having, even the Clan Council would be alarmed.
Although she didn't know exactly how rare the Supreme Body of Holy Light was, she could guess that it was probably something that only appeared in geniuses once every 1000 years or so. And that was across the whole Kingdom together with all its vessel states.
"You should know that today was my cohort's turn to participate in the Core Formation Ceremony. Who knew...." Yue Qin bit her lip, twisting her finger nervously. "Who knew that right after I formed my Core, I would feel a minor tingling all over my body. As time went by, this tingles became more painful and my sweat turned black. As such, I rushed to the toilet immediately. And the next thing I knew, there was a black sludge all over my body and I became like this!" Yue Qin gestured towards her body.
Bing Bing let out a small shaky breath and pinched herself. "I'm not dreaming am I?"
"No?" Yue Qin trailed off unsure of how to react to her sister.
Then Bing Bing's face abruptly turned dark with worry. Hastily, she grabbed Yue Qin's wrist, dragging her out the bathroom. "Come on we need to go back home now!"
"Wh-what? Wait, why?!"
"Because if I'm right, then you might have awakened a special physique."