The soft sounds of light taps echoed in the condo, along with Auntie Yue's soft snoring.
After a bit, my irritation cleared up and I started thinking about my situation again. Specifically, what to do going forward.
I was a five year old. That was a SEVERE disadvantage. Although it was a major advantage in having a ton of time to grind out life skills, it came with not being able to really do much to affect real life decisions.
Like I'd considered before, I couldn't tell my parents anything useful. They'd dismiss me out of hand or just not pay attention with how busy they were.
But...
I paused, a thought coming to mind.
Auntie Yue was smart. She had money. And Y2K was happening soon, right? The stocks for big tech companies would crash because of it since people thought the world would end and systems would explode.
But they wouldn't.
If she got in on that... and considering Auntie Yue was a risk-taker type...
I stopped training and gently padded over to a nearby newspaper.
It was already folded over to the business section. Good, that meant that Auntie Yue was already thinking about that sort of thing.
As expected from my ambitious Auntie. In that case...
I grabbed my crayons from my bag and started 'scribbling' on the newspaper.
Mostly, I drew random shapes. But in red crayon, I highlighted the important stocks.
Apple, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo... basically, the major companies that would tank soon due to Y2K.
...Wait. Did these companies even exist in this time?
...Well, they were listed here, so clearly they did.
Eh. Time travel shenanigans. Maybe parallel world theory or something.
Either way, Auntie Yue was smart. Since she was looking, she was probably already smelling blood in the water. This would just help her pinpoint it.
...Hm.
Come to think of it.
...Video games were kicking off around now too, right? In full force. No, I think that Pokemon Gold and Silver came out this year, right? Around November.
So if she got some stock in Nintendo before the games dropped... And since the internet didn't exist yet, if she got in ahead of time by 'gambling'...
"Hm..." I sat down. "...Might as well start jotting what companies I remember popping off around the start of 2000..."
Time passed.
I scribbled and highlighted. Then, when I was done, I slyly tucked it close to Auntie Yue's scripts so that she could look at it later.
If she actually did anything about it or not would be up to her. But it would absolutely let her do whatever she wanted in the future if she did.
I checked the clock after I tucked the newspaper away. 5:45 AM.
School for me started at 8 AM, so there was still a couple of hours.
I decided to head back to the wooden training dummy to continue training.
As I did, I realized the power of youth.
Although it definitely stung striking the wood with my bare hands and feet, the pain swiftly faded. And while I lost my breath pretty easily, after a bit of careful breathing, my stamina came back.
Ah, youth... I missed you more than you know.
So, as I happily drilled away at the wooden dummy, I shifted my thoughts to the future again and what to do.
It would be a hassle going through classes, but Ms. Blumgren seemed to understand that I was ahead of the curve, so she probably wouldn't bother me too much if I did other things in class.
The question was what 'other things' I should be doing.
I remembered quite a few stories from the future, and I was a decent writer. I could confidently say I'd written over 3 million words of fiction, after all. And I had the popularity to boot. I just never leaned into it.
But I had the chance to do it now.
Hm...
"Maybe I start up the isekai and xianxia trends early?"
It never hurt. And considering that the original authors of those genres existed, writing ahead of time could serve as inspiration and maybe jumpstart their brains into making better stories or something.
...Yeah. Let's do that.
But after I train my body to ridiculous levels-
Wait.
...Hm.
I was five.
My growth potential was basically unchecked.
I had the discipline of a trained adult and the growth of a kid just out of being a toddler.
My fist stopped just in front of the wooden dummy and I murmured, "Can't I become literally world class? Like, Olympic level?"
I ran through my memories and thought about the earliest Olympics I could attend.
I'd need to be a teenager, so maybe... ten years from now? 2009... No, the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
I'd be 14. If I put my all into training, I could definitely get there. The question was which sport...
Performance sports like gymnastics and stuff I could rule out. That didn't suit me.
But I had natural sword talent for sure. I remembered that from the future, and I had always wanted to learn fencing. Tennis too.
Both were also sports where age didn't really matter. And if I trained properly, I could get my physique to be ready.
Then with that acclaim...
I chuckled as I went back to training on the wooden dummy. "New game plus really is something."
Nine years. Nine years worth of time for me to become world class. Nine years of growing unchecked through adult discipline and the power of youthful adaptations.
But more than that... nine years that I could steadily accumulate experience instead of rushing.
I was different from kids my age training to be olympians.
I had nothing to prove, after all. I simply had something to claim.
Success was inevitable.
In my past life, I would have literally killed to have a year where I could train worry free. That was because I knew, I KNEW, I could be world class at anything if I had that time.
I just never had it.
But now?
"...Yeah." I smacked a punch on the wooden dummy, enjoying the solid feedback. "This life will be fun."