I dedicate this million-word love letter to the Immortal.
Title: <Whether a Thousand Lives Are Enough to Clear Honkai>
Volume One: 34. Become the Brightest Idol in Great Xia Nation.
Chu Yuanqing silently persevered and finished another set of flexibility exercises. She took a deep breath, feeling the trembling ache in her hips, thighs, and legs as she adjusted her breathing. Then she stood up, ending her warm-up.
Dance was indeed an entirely new field for her.
But training and honing her body was more familiar than familiar to someone who had endured hellish physical training.
She only had to rely on instinct to figure out her body's limits and tolerance, stopping at just the right moment to keep herself from getting truly injured.
That was what Kiriwake Yayoi considered her "talent."
As for the pain and tearing sensations involved in developing her body, those were the least noteworthy challenges of all.
After all, even setting aside the millions of deaths she had accumulated during her career as a Savior, the seventeen-year curse of the Sea of Truth was billions of times more painful.
Chu Yuanqing regulated her breathing. Her nostrils flared and her eyes lowered as she wiped away her sweat with a towel and looked at Kiriwake Yayoi. She barely suppressed the urge to run away, her heart full of despair.
The Little Idol, who had once fallen over like a penguin, wore a serious, focused expression on her pretty, pure face. Every so often, a hint of expectation and nostalgia flickered in her eyes. She looked determined to see things through to the end.
Chu Yuanqing hesitated, swallowing her suggestion that they call it quits and make a quick getaway. Then, with a sorrowful pout, she asked,
"...What are we learning next?"
Kiriwake Yayoi thought it over before answering,
"Let's start with isolation."
If flexibility exercises were the foundation of dance itself,
then isolation was one of the elements of a dance style. It referred to moving different parts of the body separately—like the head, shoulders, chest, and hips—so they could move independently in different directions or rotate.
Since many popular dances incorporated this kind of element, practicing isolation was essential.
Even if the choreography for their theme song didn't include any isolation, it was something she would have to learn sooner or later if she wanted to pursue a career as an idol.
Chu Wangshu blinked her eyes like a mascot, handing out towels and bottled water from the sidelines.
There was no helping it. Anyone could teach flexibility exercises, but Chu Yuanqing didn't seem to need any guidance at all. She relied on instinct and simply didn't make mistakes.
As for the isolation Kiriwake Yayoi was going to teach, that fell outside Chu Wangshu's area of expertise.
The ethnic dance Chu Wangshu had studied focused more on honing the fundamentals and expressing cultural depth.
For example, Great Xia dance often pursued the balance of yin and yang, externalizing traditional culture through techniques like counter-movement and moving right before moving left.
The Five Poisons she had performed earlier had an obvious regional cultural flavor, too.
The skills and fundamentals honed by these dances were all part of body resonance, which had nothing to do with isolation.
Unfortunately, body resonance was much harder to learn than jazz dance, and it rarely appeared in girl-group dances. It was useful to learn, but the short-term benefits were limited.
Given Chu Yuanqing's current situation, learning the fundamentals of isolation was undoubtedly the most worthwhile choice.
So not only could Chu Wangshu not act as the teacher, but to avoid running into obstacles later, she had to lower herself to Chu Yuanqing's level and become a student, listening attentively to the Sakura Girl's lessons.
That said,
ethnic dance and jazz dance were both dance, after all, and they shared some basic skills. There were certain techniques that beginners struggled to grasp but that came easily to someone with a foundation.
That advantage was the result of experience.
Chu Wangshu was just disappointed that she couldn't play teacher.
Well, perhaps it was some strange father-daughter empathy, but she inexplicably felt that it would be satisfying to have the upper hand over her in terms of their roles.
The girl prattled on, explaining all this to Chu Yuanqing. In her heart, she felt like she was watching a movie about three people, but only seeing two of them hold hands.
Chu Yuanqing listened attentively. She was the sort of person who, whether or not she was interested, found it hard to do a halfhearted job whenever something came up. She asked,
"How flexible do I need to be before I can say I've passed?"
Kiriwake Yayoi thought for a moment, then described it.
"Once you can do a 180-degree side split and front split, grab your toes when you lift your leg behind you, kick and lift your leg up to your shoulder, and bend backward while standing to grab your heels, you should be flexible enough."
"But even when you reach that level, you'll still have to keep practicing."
Chu Yuanqing was at a loss for words. All she had to do was imagine herself making those kinds of moves, and a powerful wave of shame filled her with an overwhelming desire to leave this beautiful world immediately.
Damn it. Was she really going to end up posing like that one day?
That was just too weird!
Although she had gone through the pain and embarrassment of trying to develop her body in front of her daughter, that level of flexibility was still hard to accept.
Ultimately, her habits and self-image as a man wouldn't let her calmly display feminine grace in public.
The fact that she'd chosen street dance, rather than a program that would have been easier to muddle through, made that clear.
That, in a nutshell, was the core reason Chu Yuanqing didn't want to dance.
Well, unless one day Chu Yuanqing's self-image was "corrected" by her new body and she achieved true, complete feminization, she would keep feeling that same embarrassment no matter how many times she did it.
So...
Her embarrassment actually proved she was perfectly normal right now!
Kiriwake Yayoi didn't notice the complicated thoughts running through someone's mind and began teaching in earnest.
Chu Yuanqing was miserable inside and really wanted to slack off.
But faced with the Sakura Girl's careful, selfless guidance, she still couldn't bring herself to say a word. She could only continue training in despair.
Time passed.
At the lowest level of the underground base, in the central hub,
the space here was so vast it seemed magical, as if an entire secret realm had been carved out. At its center stood an AI mainframe forged from nanomachines, surrounded by virtual cables and quantum Light Bands. The layout along the edges resembled the squares of a cube, with numerous cultivation pods of unknown origin held inside.
Dream Weaver Rabbit sat in front of the mainframe. Streams of data continually flickered across the depths of its crimson eyes as it monitored the 168 contestants' current situations. After completing its routine data summary, it turned its attention to the scenes playing on the enormous screen.
They were recordings of Chu Yuanqing onstage.
"A rough diamond."
"And one whose brilliance has already begun to shine."
As the words faded, numerous Virtual Screens popped up around it, replaying the surveillance footage from the Cube Prison.
As Chu Yuanqing danced, the cultivation pods all began to writhe and tremble in unison. Their movements were mixed with horrifying wails and crawling noises.
This had almost instantly triggered the base's alarm system. Nanomachines flowed like liquid metal, quickly transforming into sturdier soundproof walls so that nothing happening underground could cause a disturbance.
Dream Weaver Rabbit's lips curled upward. No matter how many times it watched, the moment a treasure came into being always stirred its heart. It whispered in wild delight,
"According to the Kindling Project experiments, only [Flow State] of extremely high purity has a chance of making the Magic Threshold fluctuate."
"I didn't expect anyone besides that one person to achieve this on their very first time onstage."
"Chu Yuanqing, there's a future worth looking forward to in you. Go become the brightest idol in all of Great Xia Nation."
Volume One: 35. Win Over the Sakura Girl in Three Days, Because I Am...
Achoo!
In the bathroom, warm steam hung like a gauzy veil, and the water ran with a steady rush. Suddenly, a cute sneeze joined the sound.
Chu Yuanqing blinked. Her curled lashes trembled, scattering glistening droplets, and a puzzled expression appeared in her brilliant, exquisite golden eyes.
She wrapped her slender arms around her ample softness. Her lithe, slender body was shrouded in mist, and the elegant lines of her back took on a bewitching pink hue beneath the hot water.
The warm stream slid down, over the small of her back and her tailbone, then along her pronounced curves, trickling off her ankles and splashing into glistening droplets on the floor.
"Can Magical Girls catch colds, too?"
The girl murmured in confusion. She had no idea that her Magical Girl traits had led a strange entity to form a certain misconception about her. She raised a delicate hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, revealing a small, cute earlobe.
A few strands of hair lay scattered against her skin. Their faded-ink color had already, without her noticing, returned to the pure white of Tianshan Snow.
Even though her features and figure hadn't changed, the return of her original hair and eye color had dramatically boosted her appeal, style, and presence, as well as the unique radiance of a Magical Girl. Her overall beauty seemed to break free of its seal and ascend to a whole new level.
Her magical disguise could hide her hair and eye color, but she had to maintain it constantly, which was a real hassle.
So the bathroom—with no cameras and filled with mist and steam—was one of the few places where she could relax for a little while.
That meant the middle-aged office worker, who had initially been intensely embarrassed to wash this body, had spent three exhausting hours practicing dance while her daughter stared at her. Now, she couldn't help sinking into the pleasure of the hot water washing over her and gradually easing her fatigue, almost unconsciously forgetting to be "discreet."
But that inexplicable sneeze did make her realize something might be wrong.
Chu Yuanqing shook her head like a cat caught in the rain. After a brief, customary flush of embarrassment, she disguised her hair and eyes, then left the shower with a gloomy expression.
She dried herself with a towel, closed her eyes as she put on soft underwear, then changed into her contestant uniform.
After the initial evaluation stage, the trainees were only allowed to wear their contestant uniforms in front of the cameras.
Chu Yuanqing had very few clothes in her suitcase and disliked wearing girls' clothes, so she didn't mind.
She glanced at the time. It was already five in the evening.
The Program Group had announced the gathering time over the broadcast. At that point, they would officially reveal the final results of the theme-song vote based on the live data.
For the other contestants, especially those with a clear specialty, this seemed like a fairly important matter. But for Chu Yuanqing, who had only learned a little street dance and jazz over the past few weeks and just wanted to be eliminated, it was nothing but a formality.
The sooner she died, the sooner she'd be free. The sooner she withdrew from the competition, the sooner she'd enjoy herself.
Chu Yuanqing had a perfect plan: collect her salary and pay into insurance, then, before she died, use magic to create a fake corpse so her daughter could receive a huge insurance payout.
Everything was ready. All she needed was a salary.
Who cared about the theme song? Ridiculous. She couldn't care less.
Chu Yuanqing gave it no more thought. She quietly used magic to dry her hair, then left the enormous bathroom. Looking around at the expansive area, simply decorated with expensive materials, she couldn't help marveling at the size of the underground base.
It was as complex as a beehive and as vast as a fortress.
The practice room shared by the three of them alone was nearly three hundred square meters.
It contained all kinds of equipment for physical training, an independent Virtual Reality System, devices that could check their physical data at any time, massage pods they could use freely, various entertainment devices that weren't connected to the internet, and high-tech food unavailable in the outside world.
For example, sports drinks and nutritional supplements.
They could quickly replenish lost fluids and energy, ease fatigue, and improve one's constitution.
Of course, this was a practice room reserved exclusively for A-Class contestants. Only they could truly enjoy all the benefits of the latest technology.
As for the other contestants, B-Class contestants also had their own practice rooms, though they weren't as luxurious in size or features. C-Class contestants no longer had rooms assigned individually; instead, several regular practice rooms were available to them with their access cards.
D-Class and F-Class contestants had it rougher. Not only could they not experience the high-tech idol training methods, but they also had access to only one large practice room corresponding to their rank.
In short, as their rankings fell, their training environments rapidly deteriorated, tier by tier.
The lowest-ranked contestants' facilities weren't exactly shabby, but comparisons made all the difference. They were all competing in the same audition show, yet their rankings alone created a dramatic, cliff-like divide between them.
Who could accept that with a calm mind?
Flash Dance had been made into a miniature society. The simple ABCDF ranking system vividly portrayed the gap between those at the top and those at the bottom.
Chu Yuanqing was a hanger-on who had been brought into the high-end practice room by an A-Class contestant. As soon as she and her daughter stepped through the access-controlled door, she could spot all kinds of complicated emotions in the eyes of the contestants they passed.
Envy, jealousy, disdain, disgust, and even a desire to take her place.
Kiriwake Yayoi was a pure-hearted idol, but after earning an A-Class rank, she had become the eye of the storm.
Whether they were contestants on the verge of elimination or contestants in the middle ranks with no hope of debuting, if they could get into Kiriwake Yayoi's circle, they might be able to break their deadlock.
—Use acting to maliciously tie themselves to her and feed off her popularity by shipping them as a couple.
—Talk to her as much as possible to get some screentime.
—Use the high-end practice room, or even gain access to the advanced features of the Virtual Reality System.
These tactics had varying degrees of shamelessness and all kinds of impure motives, but each could help them climb a rung.
The other A-Class contestants were more popular in everyone else's eyes than Kiriwake Yayoi, an unknown from the Island Nation with no established reputation. They also had no national barriers, making them better targets. But there were too many contestants and too few opportunities, so someone was bound to make a move on her.
Like now.
After exchanging a few glances, some trainees began to stir in unison.
Before you continue