Chapter 326: Unease

~~~

Fan Bingbing opens her eyes.

She sees Lu Mei sitting by her bedside. The crimson-haired girl wears a positively vicious smile that only grows sharper when their eyes meet.

Fan Bingbing closes her eyes.

“Now, now, none of that,” Lu Mei says when Fan Bingbing tries to hide her face under the covers. A quick tug pulls them away. Fan Bingbing’s delicate fingers try to keep hold of them, but her body is too weak from the fight. “You are awake. Isn’t it time we talked?”

Fan Bingbing stubbornly keeps her eyes closed. It is childish, yes, but she absolutely does not want to be at this woman’s mercy.

Lu Mei clears her throat.

“I will not have it! I am tired of you irrational people making trouble for him,” she says, mimicking the words Fan Bingbing spoke during her match.

“…Kill me,” Fan Bingbing says, covering her face with a pillow. Her pale skin is flushed crimson. “Spare me further humiliation and be done with it. This is mortifying.”

“Now, why would I do that?” Lu Mei says, still smiling. “It was such an impassioned declaration. I never thought you were capable of something like that.”

“I am not emotionless,” Fan Bingbing says, one brown eye peeking from behind her pillow to glare at Lu Mei. “I merely refuse to allow my emotions to make me act like a fool.”

“Except for today,” Lu Mei points out.

“Except for today,” Fan Bingbing admits, sighing. “I was childish.”

Lu Mei hums but doesn’t say anything. The girl is content to let the silence continue until Fan Bingbing lowers her pillow.

“I have never quite liked you, you know?” Lu Mei says.

“You have never quite hidden it,” Fan Bingbing says. “It does not matter. I am used to being disliked.”

Because she is strong. Because she is favored by Elder Ju. Because she does not allow her emotions to run wild like most people. The reasons are many and varied, but the end result is the same. Fan Bingbing has never quite managed to connect well with others.

“Truly? I thought I hid it well. Oh well, it doesn’t matter,” Lu Mei says. “I must admit I was confused as to why. Usually, I am the one disliked by other women, so why would I bother giving you that distinction? What did you have that made you worth disliking? It took me a while to recognize it.”

“And?” Fan Bingbing is forced to ask when Lu Mei deliberately allows the silence to stretch.

“I was jealous of you.”

Fan Bingbing blinks.

She looks at Lu Mei, a woman with a face songs and poems can be written about and a body that would inspire lust in the most disciplined ascetic, then at herself. No one will ever call Fan Bingbing ugly, and many would agree she is quite pretty, but most would not even notice her with Lu Mei in the room.

“Not of your appearance or your talent in cultivation. Obviously,” Lu Mei explains, rolling her eyes. “It is something else. You connect well with my Jin. Your temperaments are similar, and that allowed you to bond quickly. More so than we did. I did not like that.”

Fan Bingbing refrains from pointing out that anyone with sense would hesitate to trust someone as obviously deceitful and manipulative as Lu Mei. How Brother Jin managed to secure her so tightly to his side is an utter mystery to her.

“I… do not have an easy time connecting with others,” Fan Bingbing says instead. “It is not something I mind, but in Brother Jin, I found someone I could talk to. Spending time with him is soothing. I enjoy it very much, but that does not mean I feel as you do.”

Lu Mei raises an eyebrow. “After what you said in the arena, many people would disagree.”

“I treasure my friend. Is that so odd?” Fan Bingbing asks. “It is because I treasure him that I felt angry on his behalf for having to deal with all of you.”

“Am I included in that statement?”

“Have you done anything to think you are not?” Fan Bingbing retorts.

“Was that anger? How emotional of you.”

“I am being ambushed in my recovery bed,” Fan Bingbing points out. “A little anger is fine in this case. Are you still jealous of me?”

“No. Not for a long time,” Lu Mei replies. “My relationship with Jin has long surpassed the need for me to ever be jealous of anyone else.”

“You are bragging.”

“Absolutely,” Lu Mei admits. “However, the reason I am here is that I wanted to say that now I can appreciate the benefits of someone like you. The people around us tend to be extreme personalities in one way or another.”

In Fan Bingbing’s opinion, Lu Mei is also an extreme personality.

“Having a moderating influence like you around can only be a good thing, especially right now. I am sure you have noticed there are far too many interests surrounding him. He needs as many people on his side as possible.”

Fan Bingbing meets her eyes calmly. “I am a member of the Eternal Flame Clan, not the Storm Dragon Empire.”

Lu Mei smirks. “Of course.”

“However,” Fan Bingbing adds, “I am not so small that I would ever fail to help my friend. That is not something you ever needed to ask.”

“Fair enough,” Lu Mei says. “By the way, the others have already procured multiple memory jades of your fight.”

Fan Bingbing covers her face with the pillow once more.

~~~

Cold permeates throughout the Imperial Cloud City Branch of the Divine Frozen Palace.

Such is not the usual state of affairs. Though the ladies of the Divine Frozen Palace are well known for their mastery of ice, it is precisely this mastery that makes them excellent at keeping the cold they wield from spreading. Even the arrival of Bai Lianshi and Meng Yue did not change this.

However, Xiao Shaung has.

The girl’s presence has complete hold of the property, forcing the servants to walk around in multiple layers of clothing, and even that is not enough to stop their limbs from shivering, much to their displeasure and Xiao Shuang’s mortification. To curtail the effects of her presence, Xiao Shuang has secluded herself in an isolation chamber, but it has not been as effective as she’d like. The cold still manages to seep through the barriers around her.

Sitting cross-legged in the isolation chamber, Xiao Shuang tries her best to control her Qi. She breathes in, and frost forms over the walls. She breathes out, and snow falls over the floor. With her next breath, mist fills the room. A frown mars Xiao Shuang’s face. The cold begins to recede.

It comes back with her very next breath.

“You are unfocused. That is not like you.”

Xiao Shuang does not jump when her master appears in front of her. It does not matter that the doors are locked. It does not matter that she never once sensed her approach. Meng Yue of the Divine Frozen Palace is not a woman who can be limited by such things. After so many years, her sudden appearances are a familiar event.

They usually herald that something unpleasant is about to happen, but Xiao Shuang rather doubts that is the case right now.

“Master,” she says. “I do not believe I am unfocused.”

Meng Yue sits on the floor in front of Xiao Shuang. Raising an eyebrow, she waves a hand at the room. The same gesture also dismisses the frost and cold.

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“I am focused,” Xiao Shuang protests, unable to stop her lips from forming a pout. “It is impossible for me not to be focused right now.”

That is the problem.

Meng Yue frowns.

“Perhaps we were too hasty in telling you the truth,” Meng Yue says. “The burden it has placed on you is too great.”

Xiao Shuang softly shakes her head. Wisps of ice fall from her hair as she does.

“No, Master,” she says. “Even if you had not told me anything. I would have noticed something. The change in the tournament ever since my husband used that movement technique is unmistakable.”

“True enough, but there are degrees of truth,” Meng Yue says. “There was no need to elaborate on certain things. That was my error.”

“What things?” Xiao Shuang asks. “That because my husband knows a movement technique, the strongest people in the continent want to capture or kill him? That the only thing keeping him alive right now is the structure of this tournament? That once it ends, they will pounce on him like starving wolves?”

Xiao Shuang smiles mirthlessly.

“No, Master. This disciple will always be grateful for your harsh, thoughtless, and almost cruel bluntness.”

“…Little Shuang, you added a lot of unnecessary adjectives there.”