Chapter 202: Dragon-Phoenix Assembly

Qing ascended to the upper floor with dignified steps.

Staff organizers followed behind her, and some onlookers, deciding that watching a fight was more interesting than observing Peng Daesan's face, cautiously joined them.

Thus, on the seventh floor, as the two faced each other, Murong Juhui was the first to speak.

“You. If you think I’m going to thank you, you’re sorely mistaken. Whose fault is all this in the first place? Are you trying to give the disease and then offer the cure?”

Tang Nanah immediately bristled.

“Wow, look at this insolent brat. Qing-ah, see? I told you there’s no need to consider someone like her! Even if you’re enemies, shouldn’t you at least say thank you after what just happened? Hey, kid, what do you think? Is your sister acting right?”

“Uh… Sister?” Murong Jun stammered.

“What? What! What did I do wrong!?” Murong Juhui demanded. “Isn’t the real problem the one who created a situation ripe for misunderstanding when there was nothing between them!? It’s not the fault of the person who fell into the trap and misunderstood!”

It was Murong Juhui's defiant protest.

Murong Jun’s eyebrows and shoulders slumped. His large eyes, so much like his sister’s, trembled moistly, ripples spreading through them.

“Jun, Junnie, what’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that? Don’t look at me like that. Aren’t you going to take my side?”

“Uh, yes…”

“Tsk, tsk. Real nice, aren’t you?” Tang Nanah clicked her tongue.

Murong Juhui scowled fiercely. How on earth did that girl become such a loyal handmaiden? Is she really the same wench who unleashed poison, demanding if I dared speak to her husband without the main wife’s permission?

More importantly, her brother wasn't being helpful. Rather than helping, he seemed to be fueling the guilt spinning within her conscience.

I need, I need someone to speak up for me too.

Murong Juhui glanced back at her clique. It had been halved, the rest having stayed downstairs to observe the benevolent jade face of the Jade Qilin. Her remaining followers subtly averted their gazes, looking elsewhere. Their expressions clearly said, This isn't right.

“Ugh.”

“Forget it,” Qing said. “I didn’t help you expecting thanks, so what’s the point in making a fuss? By the way, Young Lady Murong? How much longer must this pathetic, childish argument continue before you’re satisfied? Should I really start asking if the reason you’re so petty is because there’s no room left for a heart in that narrow mind of yours?”

“You, you! How could you say such a thing!” Murong Juhui cried out.

“Haa. So, if you’re confident you can win with words, shall we really go at it?” Qing sighed.

“Eek, eek!”

Murong Juhui, already having experienced a proper verbal beating from Qing’s sharp tongue, swallowed her indignation. No room left for a heart? Even a light jab from her dug deep and twisted things around; the suggestion to ‘really go at it’ naturally made her flinch.

“So let’s get this straight right now,” Qing continued. “Why are you doing this? Are you going to be this tiring every time we meet?”

“Do you really need to ask?” Murong Juhui retorted. “You humiliated me so badly, utterly disgraced me! And now you’re trying to play the victim?”

“If you’re referring to the drinking contest,” Qing replied calmly, “wasn’t it simply a case of Young Lady Murong being unable to hold her liquor and acting out? I even conceded the match because I thought you were about to make a mistake.”

“Who asked you to concede?” Murong Juhui snapped. “Did you think anyone would shed tears of gratitude for such pathetic pity? Wouldn’t anyone be angry in that situation?”

“And if I hadn’t conceded?” Qing asked. “Were you aware that I hadn’t even reached half my limit then? Honestly, even if I hadn’t let you win, wouldn’t the result have been the same, or perhaps you would have suffered even greater humiliation due to your drunken behavior?”

“Then you should have just let it happen!” Murong Juhui shouted. “You get to be the good one, the great one, the refined one, taking all the credit! It would have been better to be the wench who lost at drinking and made a fool of herself, rather than making me the ungrateful bitch who got angry despite receiving consideration!”

“So you do understand,” Qing stated quietly.

The cold stares of the onlookers pierced Murong Juhui’s heart. She gasped, breathing heavily.

Qing let out a deep sigh.

“Weren’t you the one who set up the drinking contest stage on the first floor and gathered everyone from the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly? If we had just quietly shared drinks here on the seventh floor from the start, you wouldn’t have had to, hmm, confess your physical characteristics like that.”

“Don’t call them physical characteristics!” Murong Juhui shrieked. “A-And if, if you were going to say something, you should have told me you could drink so much!”

Murong Juhui’s clique members lowered their heads. Juhui, how much uglier are you going to make this? If she had said she was good at drinking, you would have just kept sipping water until she showed signs of being drunk.

“Well, fine. I’m sorry, Young Lady Murong,” Qing said. “I suppose I can hold my liquor quite well. And I’m sorry for letting you win the drinking contest. I truly didn’t have bad intentions; I was just worried you were too drunk and might make a mistake.”

“Again! Again! Are you the only good one!? Am I the only bad one!?” Murong Juhui wailed.

“If I couldn’t hold my liquor, I would have been the one making a scene,” Qing countered. “You must have been confident you could win, Young Lady Murong. So, what exactly did you hate so much? Enough to prepare such a grand trap?”

“You insulted me so horribly first! It was so humiliating, I’ve never heard such harsh words in my life!” Murong Juhui cried.

“Wasn’t it because you picked a fight with me first, Young Lady?” Qing asked. “Honestly, I could laugh off comments about my face being ugly or my figure being vulgar, but should I have tolerated you insulting the entire Divine Maiden Sect?”

“Th-That… I just, well, I meant it looked like rags because you were wearing it, not that the Divine Maiden Sect robes themselves looked like that…?” Murong Juhui offered a lame excuse. Because it was a slip of the tongue.

Proper female Daoists, meaning female disciples from the Nine Great Sects, One Union, were rare to begin with. Among them, women who ascended to the seventh floor were even rarer. They tended to stay on the fifth floor with their senior and junior martial brothers, acting aloof, or they stuck together in their own groups.

So, the female disciples of Daoist sects that the young ladies of the great clans encountered were, frankly, often just young women of similar age tired of mountain life rather than true practitioners. And when such women opened their mouths, they were busy complaining about how unreasonable their sects were. Thus, she had subconsciously looked down on them.

“So, was that all my misunderstanding too?” Qing asked. “Fine. Then I apologize for misunderstanding, and I also apologize for losing my temper immaturely and speaking harshly. I’m sorry.”

“Eek! Why! Why do you have to do it like that!”

Murong Juhui was starting to feel dizzy. Or perhaps it was fear. This wench is determined to bury me.

Previously, Murong Juhui had said it was Qing’s fault for creating a misunderstanding, and Qing had apologized. Now, Qing was apologizing again, saying she herself had misunderstood. If Qing had argued that her words contradicted what she said before, it might have been different, but this just made Murong Juhui look like the unilaterally unreasonable villain.

“Then you must have had a reason for picking a fight with me out of the blue, right?” Qing pressed. “For calling me an ugly wench and saying I had a vulgar body the moment you saw my face?”

Murong Juhui felt wronged. It was unfair that she alone was the villain, and it was even more unfair to be insulted by a well-endowed woman when her own small chest was already a source of sorrow.

And so, at this point, her sense of injustice exploded.

“Y-You flaunted that chest of yours right in front of me! You shouldn’t do that! You shouldn’t do that when you have ones that big!”

Tears of sorrow streamed down Murong Juhui’s face.

A solemn silence fell over the room. Murong Juhui had an unexpected talent for creating a somber atmosphere whenever she exploded!

Qing spoke awkwardly.

“Um. Young Lady Murong. I suspected as much, but… do you pick a fight with every large-chested woman you see?”

“Yes! I do! Happy now!?” Murong Juhui sobbed. “Are you satisfied now that you’ve made me the villain of the century!? Why are you making such a big deal out of it!? It’s always been like this, so why are you the only one making such a fuss!”

“You think I was too sensitive?” Qing asked. “Are you saying the others just put up with that rudeness, no, that ill-mannered behavior of yours?”

“What? Rudeness? Have you finished speak—”

“Wait! Young Lady over there. Yes, you.” Qing interrupted, indicating another woman.

The indicated woman opened her mouth hesitantly. She looked like someone who had received her fair share of insults from Murong Juhui.

“Well, it’s just, since it happens every time, we just think, ‘Ah, there she goes again,’ about that wench— I mean, Young Lady Murong…”

“So, you never responded?” Qing inquired.

“I figured she’d meet her match someday,” the woman replied. “Also, she’s from the Murong Clan… only someone like Sister Jin Seol can retort. There’s nothing good for a minor family like mine to gain from arguing back.”

She then mumbled and fidgeted, glancing around nervously.

“Young Lady? Is there something more you wish to say?” Qing prompted gently.

“W-Well, honestly, it doesn’t really feel that bad,” the woman admitted. “Young Lady Murong is a Sword Flower, but seeing her eyes flip with envy whenever she sees me… it doesn’t feel entirely unpleasant, you know.”

“Who, who’s envious!?” Murong Juhui shrieked. “I’m not envious at all! Who would be envious of those lumps of flesh!”

“Juhui, stop. Please stop,” one of her clique pleaded. “Juhui, wipe your tears, okay? Your makeup is smudging. Okay?”

Murong Juhui’s clique rushed over, ready to restrain her if necessary, busily dabbing her eyes with handkerchiefs.

Perhaps emboldened by this, or perhaps not, the testifying young lady continued speaking.

“Besides, even if Young Lady Murong says those things, it’s a bit… well, you know… for me to respond.”

“What do you mean?” Qing asked.

“Well, it’s not about anything else, it’s about that,” the young lady explained. “You know, it’s okay for those who don’t have it to complain, but the reverse isn’t right. Because it’s pitiful…”

“That’s right.”

“That’s true.”

Several women nodded in agreement. They all shared the same characteristic and had endured insults for it.

There was a similar logic back in my hometown, Qing thought. The poor can curse the rich, but not the other way around. Because that would be too cruel. Black people can curse white people, but not the other way around. Because it’s too cruel for the master to curse the slave as well. Just let them curse their fill while picking cotton, or something like that.

“What! Hey! Pitiful!?” Murong Juhui yelled. “How could you! Just because you have some lumps of flesh, you look down on people like that! That’s why I hate you big-chested wenches!”

“Um, Young Lady Murong, excuse me,” the testifying young lady said calmly, “but we don’t look down on small-chested people. We just think Young Lady Murong is pitiful.”

“Hey! You!”

“And,” the young lady continued, “if you’re going to put something in there, you should fix it properly. Sometimes the heights are different left and right. I even saw you quickly pull one up once when it had slipped down to your stomach… But I couldn’t possibly say anything.”

Perhaps thinking she might as well get it all out, the testifying young lady aired her grievances.

Murong Juhui’s blood pressure shot straight up. Hearing that they’d been putting up with her out of pity naturally made her boil with rage.

“Y-You, you ugly things!”

However, none of them seemed particularly affected. While not from the Five Great Families, they were daughters of provincial powers or ruling families of old estates or cities. Though they might pale slightly compared to Murong Juhui, one of the Five Flowers of Murim, they were by no means lacking in beauty. Their backgrounds were similar; though not comparable to the Five Great Families, they were all princesses in their own neighborhoods.

Murong Juhui received the greatest shock from this.

“All of you, looking at me like that… No, you shouldn’t, how could you! No, don’t look at me with pity like that, don’t!”

Murong Juhui took a step back, then another, violently shook off her clique, turned her back, and fled.

Watching her go, Qing thought, Hmm, now that it’s turned out like this, maybe I did something quite mean.