Capítulo 4: Chapter 4 - Assessing One's Circumstances and Sticking to the Plan
After waking up, Ye Qing tried looking around the room that she was in. No giants came to bother her for a while and the only annoying thing for now was that she'd sometimes hear a baby crying. She felt a bit hungry but that's to be expected since the only thing she had consumed since coming to this strange place was that giant's breast milk. The taste wasn't as bad as she had expected and after a good night's rest she had thought about it and came to the conclusion that these giants might think that she's a baby due to her size. That would explain why she was put in this room that seemed to house a bunch of babies.
Thinking back on the time when she first became a mother Ye Qing could remember when she accidentally hurt her daughter due to not knowing her own strength. Perhaps these giants weren't actually torturing her for information and just didn't know how much strength they were using. Ye Qing didn't feel much pain even though they were rough with her earlier and when imagining them treating her as a baby she couldn't think of anything they did that was actually bad.
Since it didn't seem like any of the giants would appear, Ye Qing decided to examine her current body and figure out why she couldn't use her powers. Ye Qing felt around and could tell that much like her arms the rest of her body was similarly covered with a layer of fat besides the one part that she wished would be nice and plump--two parts if you didn't count them as a set. There was another thing missing besides her breasts; her hair that had turned grey long ago is now missing. She could feel that she wasn't completely bald so she shouldn't look like one of those old spiritual cultivators she studied under but Ye Qing still felt a sense of loss when she realized this.
When trying to assess her body's situation, Ye Qing noticed that her dantian was bone dry and that she couldn't sense any mana in her body. This was depressing since they should recover when she sleeps; it didn't seem like her body was disabled in any way but she could tell that her body had returned to how it was before she cultivated. This meant that she'd need to redo her cultivation from the very beginning all over again.
After examining her body she used her spiritual sense to see if there was any damage to her spirit. Fortunately her spiritual strength was the same as always. Although spiritual powers couldn't be used for orthodox attacks they were still useful for sensing enemies, causing enemies to hesitate, and supplementing her qi and mana gathering which were very useful in cultivating both types of energy. She could even use spiritual power to help promote the natural healing abilities of someone's body if necessary. After realizing that she hadn't become completely powerless, Ye Qing couldn't help but start giggling--unaware that she was being watched by a mature couple that had the same golden hair as the woman that was breastfeeding her.
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Tatyana's plan was very simple. Make everybody look as dull and tidy as possible to trick her parents into believing that they're all well-behaved. To accomplish this she purchased all sorts of hair products and came up with a plan for each of them to follow for the upcoming week.
While Aria was absolutely useless with an iron or anything else related to cleaning, her brother had been helping out with the housework so he was skilled at it. With Aria's clothes already prepared thanks to her brother's help she needed to double-check and make sure that her appearance was perfect. Aria's hair was in great condition so she didn't need to worry about that and with no makeup on she looked fine--well, fine if you ignored her scowl. Aria knew that her scowl would make her seem bad in the eyes of Mr. and Mrs. Sokolov but since this was her natural look she needed to practice making a friendlier face. Arsenio would often catch Aria staring into a mirror making weird faces but decided against telling their parents since they had enough stress to deal with already. Although Aria spent a week on her expressions it wasn't enough time to get it fully under control; every time she made a neutral look it'd cause her right eye to twitch and she couldn't hold her face in that position for more than a few minutes.
Julia's appearance was unkempt but Tatyana found it easiest to work on making her presentable. Her clothes were in good condition so all they had to do was run a lint roller over them, tuck in her shirt, and roll up her sleeves a little since they normally covered her hands. The only difficult part was brushing her hair but that was mostly because Julia kept falling asleep while Tatyana was brushing it.
Abigail's hair was a lost cause and Tatyana knew that she couldn't get it under control after the first couple of days so instead they focused on changing her accessories and outfit. Abigail chose not to wear her contacts and instead wore the thick-rimmed glasses that she used to wear in middle school. These glasses brought back some bad memories but right now she needed them as a disguise. Abigail's clothes were already nice enough to pass the standards of Tatyana's parents but they still chose to iron them and get a longer skirt to make her look less like a troublemaker. With her new look and no makeup she looked like a stereotypical nerd. In order to make sure she didn't smell like cigarettes she was banned from touching them for the entire week but to prevent her from killing everyone around her she was given some nicotine patches.
Vanessa was the biggest challenge of all. There's no way that they could prevent Tatyana's parents from seeing Vanessa's muscles without using baggy clothes but then Tatyana's parents might confuse her for a boy. Her face wasn't particularly masculine but she was much taller than the other girls and with her short hair it was hard to tell from behind. To prevent Vanessa from looking masculine, Tatyana decided that Vanessa would need to wear a long skirt and aim for more of an office lady look; in order to accomplish this look she'd need to wear glasses but since Vanessa's eyes were good they decided on using glasses bought from a costume store. Vanessa kept her hair short so that she never had to brush it and only used shampoo when washing it so it was rough to the touch. Due to Vanessa's sleeping habits she didn't really have the time to follow Tatyana's plan--at least that's the excuse she used since she just didn't feel like following it. Thanks to Vanessa's defiance she was forced into the bathroom every day by the other four girls and they'd wash her hair in the sink using conditioner before brushing it. By the end her hair looked a lot healthier even if she wasn't very happy with how they accomplished it.
Tatyana decided that to prevent her parents from finding out that she was going to a concert they would actually spend the night at Aria's house. The reason why Aria had wanted to invite all of her friends to this concert is that Aria's brother, Arsenio, is part one of the local bands that would be performing and that this was their first real gig. The band still couldn't decide on a proper name so they were going by their temporary name, RENO. Aria is the one that helped give them this name after she realized that the last name of these four idiots could spell it out. The alternative was NERO but that was shot down since they were high school students and they had just learned about Roman history so they didn't want any name that would remind them of their schoolwork.
With Tatyana's plan mostly complete, the five of them took a few pictures of them hanging out at school with Tatyana's phone to be used when trying to convince her parents to allow her to stay the night. They took pictures of them studying out at the school library but because it would seem too unnatural with just those, Tatyana decided to also take pictures of them eating lunch, going shopping, and playing at the arcade. Now all that Tatyana had to do was ask her parents if she could stay the night and casually show off how harmless her friends looked when they asked her who she'd be staying with.
PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
Darth_Gizmo
Darth_Gizmo Writing one story for more than 6 hours in a single sitting can be frustrating but thankfully I've found a way to keep my mind fresh by switching between the two stories while writing it.
This chapter wouldn't have been so long without describing their appearance changes but it didn't feel right leaving it at only a single paragraph.
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