Power Up, Artist Yang!

Nothing much occured after Yujia went home. As she expected, no one particularly noticed her absence, so she didn't have to even use her prepared excuse— not that she was complaining about that either.

Yang Yujia just felt absolutely miserable.

These were the emotions that she was feeling for the first time since she arrived in this new world. She supposed that during the first few days of arriving, transmigrating still seemed like such a fun and entertaining event to happen. She was unbelievably excited when she first arrived, her decisions and rational-thinking-skills affected by that a little, and she believed that no matter how dire her situation was in this world, she could make her life better than her life in her old world. Her excitement and anticipation for a new life fed her much more energy than she would expect herself to have.

But now, after seeing Wu Hao— or, not Wu Hao, but rather someone who looked identical to him— Yujia became miserable.

It wasn't seeing someone looking like Wu Hao that truly bothered her, and rather what he represented. It was as if after seeing him, all of her old memories and habits of her previous life just came rushing back to her.

There were many things in the modern world that she despised, but there were just as many of them that she enjoyed and almost took for granted, thus ignoring them and focusing on all of the negativity in her life.

Oil paints. Actual graphite pencils and erasers. Entire sketchbooks of high quality paper. Photographs to help her capture and draw a moment in time. Microwaves. Refrigerators. Washing machines. Toilets that flush. Taking showers. Digital clocks. Smart phones. Cars, buses, and trains. Air conditioning and heating. Television.

The list could go on forever.

As much as she disliked her status in the past, Yujia suddenly felt so… limited.

She knew that she found this world interesting for now, but later on, in the future, she wasn't sure if she would feel the same. After all, she came from a world where she had so much stimuli. If she was bored, she would just go on her phone. If she felt limited with her art, she would just go watch some television. If she wanted an ice cold beverage in the middle of the summer, it was as easy as reaching over to open her fridge.

What could she do now? She could only paint and sketch for most of the time. Besides that, she could go to the market, but certainly she would get bored of seeing the same stalls and vendors every day. Food and drink was routinely the same, and if she diverted any way from her current diet, she would break out in a face of acne.

There was always something new to do, something new to watch, and something new to listen to in the modern world. How could she guarantee that months from now, she would feel the same about this new environment?

Yujia shook her head, muttering a "no" to herself.

This was a bad mindset to keep herself in. Technology may be limited in this time period, but there were millions of other things that she could surround herself with. With no technology, she could focus more on things more important to her, such as relationship building, her art skill, and appreciating nature for what it is.

Keeping those thoughts in her mind, she picked up her pencil again and began working on finishing the commission. She should keep her ideas more focused on the situation she was in right now— the undesirable marriage she had coming up— and think a little less about her future. She could deal with that when the time came.

Yet still, only an hour later, Yujia began lamenting over having a Wi-Fi connection once more.

First world problems were indeed severe.

She didn't know why she was so emotional today. Sensitive, even. Normally, she could not remember herself acting like such. As far as she could remember, there was nothing too traumatizing that occured today either. Seeing someone that looked like her old classmate shouldn't have meant that much to her on a typically normal day.

A few more hours passed, and little progress was seen on her portrait. Yujia found that she couldn't concentrate as much as she wanted for it. Perhaps it was just a difficult case of artist's block.

For now, the best option that she could do would be to get a good night's sleep and think about this problem the next day. It was barely near the evening, and she hadn't had dinner yet. Yujia wasn't really in the mood to eat though, so hunger wasn't a present problem.

She set her pencil down and gestured at Hui'er, telling her that she wanted to sleep early and to get preparations for that earlier. Once she washed her face and cleaned her teeth, she would just sleep and try to sleep all her worries away.

…

The next morning, when Yujia woke up, she realized the true reason for her moodiness the day before. At the same time, she also realized the reason for why a pimple appeared on her face, besides the fact that she ate an entire greasy chicken.

When she woke up and got out of bed in the morning, she found a large red stain lying on the mattress and blankets she slept in.

Her first reaction upon seeing that was instantly a frustrated groan.

The excitement of transmigrating also made her forget an important fact: she was still a female, and all females experienced a menstrual cycle every month.

For a few seconds, Yujia stood still, unsure of what she was supposed to do. How did women in the ancient times even treat this? They certainly did not have the convenient sanitary napkins that she was accustomed to.

Hui'er soon saw the scene too, and her eyes instantly widened. "Oh, Miss," she explained a little apologetically, "usually I remember when the other Fourth Miss has her moon cycle, but I didn't know that you would have the same schedule as her. I'll get the suited materials as soon as possible."

Before Yujia could say anything, Hui'er quickly went to a cabinet that held the basin and other objects Yujia used for hygiene purposes, taking out a folded and sewn cloth that looked like a pad that Yujia was used to, just made out of fabric. She stuffed it into Yujia's hand, and expected her to know how to use it.

Yujia examined the folded cloth for a few seconds. It seemed fairly self explanatory. After Hui'er handed her a new set of clothes, Yujia went behind her bed, where the chamber pot was, and sorted things out herself.

She thought that this ordeal was over. Hui'er changed her blankets and mattress, and reminded her that as long as she changed her folded cloth three times a day, she would be fine.

Except, things didn't particularly end as simple as that, to Yujia's displeasure.

Yujia was just carefreely chatting with Hui'er about the portrait commission when she mentioned her thoughts. "As soon as I'm finished, I think I'll just go over and trade it for the taels. What do you think?"

Almost immediately, Hui'er jumped up and shook her head. "Miss, you can't do that!"

"Why?"

"Because— your body is weak right now," Hui'er stared at her disappointedly, as if she expected Yujia to know this, "You're not supposed to even exit your room, much less take such a long trip to the Bo villa."

Yujia stared back at Hui'er with disbelief. Her body was weak? She couldn't even go the short distance to the villa of her commissioner? What nonsense was this? What did Hui'er even expect her to do… just to stay in her room all day and continue on being miserable? Could she not even exit and go out to her courtyard?

With an unpleasant frown, Yujia retorted, "What about you, then? When your moon cycle comes, do you just sit around and do nothing as well? No, right?"

"Well, Miss, we're different. I'm a servant and you're a young miss. How could we be compared?" Hui'er replied with an equally justified argument that Yujia didn't agree with but she was sure that most others in the time period would think the same.

Seeing that things were going nowhere even if she continued to argue with Hui'er, Yujia decided to give up. "Alright. When the portrait is finished, you'll have to deliver it for me, then."

Hui'er nodded, agreeing.

The matter ended like that, but Yujia was still infuriated. She was definitely bleeding constantly, but that didn't make her a handicap! She didn't understand why she didn't have the right to go outside.

Currently, after the arrival of this "moon cycle" and learning that she couldn't even exit her room, Yujia could only say that her mood was even worse than the night before.

Life was miserable.