1 A Critic's Strong Mouth
In a fairly clean and tidy room, the morning sunlight pours through the window, bringing the first hint of warmth to the dark room.
At the side of the bed, there is a silhouette looking to be around 14 or 15 years old, following the sunlight. With a bewildered face, she looked at the mirror...
"Is this... me?"
Tang Miaoyi looked at the young and delicate image in the mirror, and her eyes portrayed her confusion clearly.
The teenager stands out with her pure white complexion and long light blue hair, which cascades down her back in gentle waves. Her white nightdress hangs loosely, falling just above her knees, and her bare feet appear petite and delicate.
She has a triangular face with delicate and refined features, including high cheekbones and full lips. Her eyes are large and almond-shaped, the same shade of blue as her hair.
Perhaps the only drawback, is that her chest has two large features missing.
"What the heck, I transmigrated?"
The first thing that flashed through Tang Miaoyi's mind was the word 'transmigration'.
In her previous life, as a standard modern human, she had a repository of random information caused by the information age. She had also read Transmigration novels with similar concepts to her current situation quite often; almost to the point of addiction.
But, she never imagined this kind of thing would happen to her one day.
How could it be possible?
Last night, she was listening to music alone, doing her job as a music critic, but she woke up as a completely different gender.
"This is just bullshit .... Ugh." Tang Miaoyi's thousands of questions, eventually turned into a helpless sigh, with a disgruntled look on her small face.
In this situation, she can only accept the reality. Even if she didn't accept it, it's not like she could change it if she tried.
Unfortunately, She's almost certain that her 'little brother' is gone, and won't be coming back.
Well, what else can you do? In this scenario, the best thing you can do is think carefully about how to take care of your 'little sisters' instead.
Deciding not to think too much, she saw that the wall clock in the room had moved to 9:30 am. She finally left the mirror, came to the desk, found a laptop sitting there, and pressed the power button.
Now the first order of business is to understand her situation because while she had received some scattered memories from the girl, her general knowledge left her confused. Her memories were limited to knowing her immediate situation and didn't know anything about the environment in which they live.
She only knows that she was a high school student and the leader of her current household. She inherited a townhouse from her father, when two years ago in a car crash, her father passed away. Her mother had remarried a year ago, and moved to another city, with a new family.
Therefore, Tang Miaoyi had been living alone for a while, and communication with her mother was scarce. The only contact she had was a monthly payment for her basic living expenses.
Wait ..... Living expenses!
When thinking about living expenses, Tang Miaoyi silently took out her mobile phone to check the date. After seeing September 15th, she opened her E-Wallet, checking her online banking account...
She checked her balance, and in total, she had around two thousand three hundred and sixty Yuan.
The expression on Tang Miaoyi's face froze for a moment. Only more than two thousand Yuan left?
For a high school student, her predecessor's living expenses were not very expensive. The real issue is, there's no way she can live as cheaply as a high school student!
For someone who has lived past high school, and knows the wonders of what money could buy, she could never go back. To know what's on the other side, and be forced to live without such things, is tantamount to torture.
This amount of money is definitely not acceptable for Tang Miaoyi, who in her past life had already stepped out into society long ago. Especially since she transmigrated to potentially a whole new world, with brand new sights to see.
However, it is not in her personality to be salty all the time.
Instead of thinking about that now, it is better to understand what situation this world is in, and then find some good music to listen to. That should help her relax, and soothe her sense of grief for her little brother.
As the old saying goes, there is nothing that a piece of music can't solve, and if it's not working, you just need better music!
For a professional music critic like her, there is no greater pleasure than finding a great piece of music and then writing a long glowing review afterward.
However, an hour and a half later...
Snap~
"Enough of this crap!"
After looking at it for more than an hour, Tang Miaoyi finally couldn't bear it anymore and slammed down the laptop, making a crisp impact sound.
Within this hour and a half, she simply experienced what could be described as a mud baptism, and was exposed to a lot of things that left her dumbfounded.
First the normal stuff, the countries were basically identical to Earth. China was still one of the strongest world powers, firmly standing at the top position of the world pyramid, right beside America. Russia had fallen behind due to its hasty invasion of Ukraine, which left them floundering for resources.
Politics was roughly the same, except the Korea's had long ago merged during the Korean wars. With the sponsorship of both China and America, South Korea defeated the North and reunited the Korean peninsula.
Then came the second point, which was also the reason why she turned off her computer in anger.
There is no doubt that Tang Miaoyi likes to listen to music, and she has no hate for any particular style. But, Tang Miaoyi was a critic who specialized in electro music, from EDM to Dubstep. She listened to anything and everything in between and found songs she loved in almost every sub-genre of electronic music.
But when she searched through the charts, she found that this world's electronic music seems a bit... off.
As this world's China is developing too rapidly, the entertainment industry chain is changing fast, and people have a lot of entertainment options to choose from.
However, even if it's developing well, it seemed like there were too many genres to choose from, in too many different places. In all the commotion, one genre was left behind! Tang Miaoyi couldn't find a single, real, modern electronic song.
Luckily,
K-pop still existed
...
..
.
AH HA HA HA AHAHA!!!
...
NO! Focus!!!
- - - - - - - - - -
...Anyway, though she did find songs that were close and weren't completely unpleasant, she still felt that something was missing...
It seems too... conventional?
Yes, it's conventional!
Tang Miaoyi opened an electric single called "Love of Fireflies", listened carefully, and frowned.
To be honest, if she didn't know beforehand, she would think she was listening to a normal Chinese pop song.
The reason why electronic music is named as such, is because it's made with pure electronic technology, and doesn't follow most of the sound conventions of pop music while producing a different, futuristic sound.
In other words, it's a completely different genre.
But inside this song "Love of Fireflies", she didn't hear any of these elements.
If that were the case, one would ask the question, why is it so different?
She loves the new and modern form of electronic music from her old world, much more than conventional pop music, otherwise, she wouldn't be in a career related to it.
"How about posting a question on how to commit suicide without pain and see if we get reverse transmigrated?" Tang Miaoyi's eyebrows are wrinkled into a ball.
She was expecting a new single to come out from her favourite artist before she transmigrated, and electric music is equivalent to spiritual food for her. Even if she lost her little brother, they won't even let her listen to decent electro music?
But she would never actually attempt suicide. Putting aside her fear of death and pain, this body was basically stolen from her predecessor. To let this life be wasted; wouldn't that be insulting?
So, feeling aggrieved and unable to find an outlet to express her emotions, Tang Miaoyi's occupational disease was already ready to move. She singled out all the songs she had just listened to, and quickly typed a few reviews with "Crackling" fingers.
[On "Love of Fireflies", the name leaves much to be desired, and hardly describes the song, the song barely fits within the definitions of the genre, the initial design of the Drop part...]
[...it gives no indication whether we should pay attention to the Kick drum, or the lead melody...]
The biggest difference between a music critic and a troll is that one is purely criticizing, dragging everyone else down, while the other is analyzing a piece of music from the most fundamental angle, not only criticizing, but also praising, and lifting others up.
The trolls are creatures who simply think that their keyboards are encrusted with gold and diamonds, and they disassemble songs until there's nothing left, but real music critics are the ones who know their stuff.
And for Tang Miaoyi, since she decided to evaluate, then her comments will certainly draw the attention of other people's ire, not to mention what she evaluated was also on the hot list with huge traffic.
Soon, there were already many "Love of Fireflies" music fans replying at the bottom.
"If you don't want to listen to it, get lost. No one's asking you to listen? What's with all the words?"
"Your bar is set way too high. This is the work of one of the best in this genre. Unless you think you can do better than the best?"
"Everyone needs to calm down a bit, to be honest, I think the owner has a good point."
"It makes sense, what a troll. I'm happy to hear and see another king with a strong mouth."
Tang Miaoyi: "..."
A familiar scene, familiar words, it seems that humans in every world are the same.
"Who said that the critic is the only one with a strong mouth?" Tang Miaoyi stared at the computer screen with strange eyes and raised her eyebrows slightly.
Writing a bunch of music reviews in the comment section of someone else's fan base, Tang Miaoyi had long been prepared to be disliked.
And looking at these "Can you do better?" comments, she slowly came to an idea that was either the best one she'd ever had, or the worst.
Perhaps, she could make her own electronic music?
Originally, as a professional music critic, Tang Miaoyi naturally had some insights into the production of electronic music. Since she doesn't have to listen to it now, she might as well do it herself.
At the same time, some overtones attracted Tang Miaoyi's movement.
'Tuk Tuk... Tuk Tuk ....'
While she was deep in thought, there was a knocking sound at the door of her home.
"Who could it be?"
Tang Miaoyi stopped moving her hands, feeling a little puzzled about this.
Picked up her phone, she went to the door, and turned the handle to open it.
"Squeak~"
"OH!!!"
As the door opened, no one was found. Instead, She saw a furry little guy who tried to run inside as soon as the door opened and hit Tang Miaoyi's white calf nose first.
"Yip ~ Yip ~"
The little guy shook his head slightly, raised his head, and barked a few times. It turned out to be a snow-white little fox with a collar.
