Chapter 3 - Falling Star and Scamming Parents

After being forced to do such a terrible thing, Ye Qing's good feelings for this female giant were thrown out the proverbial window. She felt like being rubbed by the cloth was preferable to this. Although it didn't hurt her physically she still ended up feeling mentally drained.

This mental torture was finally over and Ye Qing was passed back over to a different female giant. This one had the black hair that Ye Qing was used to but wore something strange on her face. Some clear surface was surrounded by a thin piece of metal on either side of her face--just over her eyes. Although she has seen glass before it was all murky or colored so she couldn't connect it to the glass on this person's eyeglasses. Ye Qing couldn't help but reach out towards this strange thing until she noticed something. In her memories, Ye Qing could clearly remember her thin but powerful arms yet now they seemed pudgy and weak.

{Just what happened for me to become like this? The last thing I can remember seeing is everyone panicking all around me.} To Ye Qing it felt like she was surrounded by darkness for countless years. At first she felt conscious but completely devoid of any senses; even thinking seemed to be outside of her capabilities which made her feel even more confused. It wasn't until recently that she felt enveloped by warmth and then regained her ability to sense things around her.

While thinking to herself, Ye Qing was clothed by this black-haired giant. The clothes seemed quite easy for the giant to put on her--especially since Ye Qing was preoccupied and didn't struggle. After putting the clothes onto Ye Qing the black-haired giant picked her back up and brought her out of the room. When Ye Qing felt that she was on the move she woke up from her thoughts and decided to try looking around.

Ye Qing's eyes could only see the ceiling above her and the black-haired giant's face but she was still determined to find out where she was being held. {The ceiling doesn't seem to be made out of metal, stone, or wood. Everything around me seems foreign but yet some things remain the same. The giants seem almost human in appearance yet their eyes are more round and they have slightly larger noses. Even if they appeared in my empire with these faces they wouldn't stand out too much.}

After being carried for a short while, Ye Qing began to hear the sound of a baby crying but it seemed to be muffled. The giant carrying stopped in front of what seemed to be a door and spoke to another giant. For a short while Ye Qing could see the other giant's head. {Tanned skin and black hair. Perhaps even these giants need to work out in the sun. I remember that when I was a child my skin would look much like that back when I still worked on my father's farm. In the city the people would make fun of me for it but after a few years of cultivating qi my skin regained the same white luster that I had as a toddler.}

The tanned giant held open the door for the black-haired giant and Ye Qing was brought into the room. The sound of the baby crying got even louder and was no longer muffled so Ye Qing assumed that this was the room that the crying baby was in. {Why would they bring me to a baby? Judging from their size I should be nearly the same size as one of their babies so I don't think that they'd be able to feed me to one. Even if I was much smaller I can't imagine that a humanoid would eat another humanoid. Even in the wilds of Daqin it was rare for someone to eat a monkey because of their human-like appearances.}

Ye Qing couldn't figure out what these giants wanted from her and while thinking she was gently put into some sort of box. Although the box was only slightly larger than her she still felt comfortable inside of it. It was warm, whatever she was laying on was soft, and the top of the box was wide open so it didn't seem like she was being held captive. Ye Qing still couldn't figure out just where she was or what happened to her body but she felt tired. There was a soft music playing that made her want to shut her eyes and without the giants constantly reminding her that she was being held against her will she soon fell asleep.

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Tatyana Sokolov was a second generation immigrant with parents from Russia. Although her family was rich they weren't rich to the point of being able to walk sideways in the streets. She was taught to always mind her manners as a child and wasn't a stranger to being spanked when she strayed from those teachings. Due to this way of being raised she grew up to be timid and although she wasn't bullied in school she didn't have many friends either. As she always attended all girls schools she hadn't even been able to talk to a boy that wasn't related to her since pre-school. It wasn't until high school that she felt she needed to change.

Tatyana's outer appearance matched her personality. Her straight blonde hair was always kept tidy and even her bangs were parted equally on both sides. She didn't really care about keeping her hair so straight but every day her mother would brush her hair several times. She couldn't really blame her mother for this; after all, she was an only child and she was aware of the fact that shortly after she was born her mother could no longer have any other children.

Tatyana would dress up and model her mother's clothing designs--usually they would be white clothing with a blue accent that would match Tatyana's eyes. When she was a child she would do it for free but after becoming a teenager she started gaining an allowance for helping her mother with her job. The only hobby that Tatyana had was modeling her mother's clothes but it would be hard to call that a real hobby--because of this she felt like she didn't really have anything to herself. She took piano lessons at her mother's behest but she never became good enough to play professionally and eventually gave up. If it weren't for a maid coming twice a week to clean the place up then perhaps the piano in the corner of her room would be covered with dust. This daily grind of going to school, studying, and modeling for her mother caused Tatyana to start becoming more and more rebellious in her heart.

While she wouldn't dare to openly rebel against her parents due to the fear and respect she held for them she still found ways of breaking the rules when they weren't watching. At first it was simple things like drinking milk or juice straight from the carton. As a straight-laced girl she felt a rush from doing bad things but due to the difference in how she was raised they were all very mild in the eyes of the people around her. While doing bad things(in her eyes) she started to gain more confidence in her self and began to hang out with girls she knew her parents wouldn't approve of. There were four girls in this group; five if you counted Tatyana. They mostly had normal appearances since piercings, tattoos, and dying your hair was banned at the school they went to but most of them wore flashier clothes that were barely allowed under their school's dress code.

The ringleader of the group was named Aria Romano. Like Tatyana she was a second generation immigrant but her parents were from Italy; both were poor when they came here but her father's restaurant became locally famous and soon he gained enough money to send his daughter to a good private school. Aria's beautiful brown hair was slightly curly but was well-maintained; when wet it'd reach down to the center of her back. Unlike how she kept her hair, she'd often wear her clothes in a sloppy manner. Her shirts were wrinkled and she never tucked them into her pants. With her makeup combined with her natural scowl she had a fierce look that scared some of the more timid girls in school.

The three other girls in this group were named Julia Evans, Abigail Goldstein, and Vanessa Strong. Julia Evans had a sleepy look, brown hair, and brown eyes; although she wore makeup it was light and you could tell that she didn't put much effort into her looks even though most people would call her beautiful--her hair was always unkempt and when she wasn't hanging out with her friends she could usually be seen sleeping in class. Abigail Goldstein had frizzy red hair which couldn't be tamed and brown eyes; her most notable feature was that she had lots of freckles on her face but this didn't detract from her good looks and while she wasn't as tidy as Tatyana she could still be seen as having a tidy appearance--if it weren't for her makeup and her smoking habits then she'd look like a model student, especially when she was wearing glasses. The last girl, Vanessa Strong, was well-known for getting into fights, usually because some guy tried flirting with one of her friends; she wasn't beautiful like the others but nobody would really call her ugly either--Vanessa had short brown hair and brown eyes much like Aria did but her hair looked muddy due to how little care she gave it and all of the clothes she wore were simple without any decorations. The group of them standing together seemed strange but the one thing that united them was that nobody really wanted to be seen around them.

While hanging out with the bad girls at school one day, Tatyana got invited to a concert. Tatyana told them that her parents wouldn't allow her to go to a concert alone with some friends, especially one that would have boys at it, but Aria still insisted that she should come. Tatyana felt pressured since she felt like they might stop talking to her if she didn't go but also knew that if she went with them she'd be able to experience fun things so there was a part of her that really wanted to go. Tatyana's parents were controlling but not to the point where they wouldn't allow her to do things with her friends. She knew that while she couldn't go to a concert they would likely let her stay the night at one of her friends' house, especially if that friend had a straight-laced appearance like hers. With this thought in her head she schemed with these bad friends of hers and together they came up with a plan to scam her parents.