Chapter 332 Why

Chapter 332: Why

Qiu Heng grabbed Yun Xiang by the hair, eyes bloodshot: "Why wasn't it enough for you to harm me? You had to harm Fang Zhou too?"

Yun Xiang screamed in pain: "I didn't mean to! I didn't mean to! Let go, it hurts..."

"Hurt?" Qiu Heng's dry eyes burned with fire as she slapped Yun Xiang hard across the face, then grabbed her hair and threw her to the ground, stepping on her face.

"You call that pain? Three years ago you pushed me into that deep pool, and three years later you pushed Fang Zhou into Green Lotus Lake, and you still have the nerve to cry about pain?"

At this moment, any semblance of calm, any ladylike composure, any worry about looking bad in front of her crush—all of it was bullshit to Qiu Heng.

The skills she had learned, the books she had read—they were just tools others used to mold her into what they wanted.

But in truth, she was just a country girl, and now all she wanted was to go crazy.

Yanking Yun Xiang up, Qiu Heng slapped her again: "Tell me, why did you do this?"

"I—"

Another slap landed, and Yun Xiang spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with teeth.

"Speak!"

The frenzied girl raised her hand again, and to Yun Xiang, she looked like a vengeful ghost.

"I'll talk, I'll talk! But how can I talk when you keep hitting me?" Yun Xiang sobbed hysterically.

Qiu Heng finally lowered her hand and glanced back at Xue Han standing by the door.

Xue Han quickly said, "A Heng, take your time with her, no rush. I'll wait outside."

He thoughtfully closed the door and let out a sigh.

It was good she could let it out.

Inside, Qiu Heng forced herself to calm down and looked at Yun Xiang, whose face was swollen.

The moment Yun Xiang pushed her into that deep pool, she had so many unanswered questions. Those doubts had stayed with her through the ten years she spent in Great Xia. After returning, the confusion remained, but she had no time to seek out the missing Yun Xiang for personal revenge.

The world was vast, and she had too much to do. How could she have the energy to look for someone who'd vanished?

Now, finally, it was time to get answers.

Why? Why had this childhood friend tried to murder her?

"Yun Xiang, I've wanted to ask this for a long time—why did you want to harm me?"

Yun Xiang's lips trembled.

Qiu Heng, now calm, did not put Yun Xiang at ease; instead, she felt even more afraid.

"I—" she choked, tears and snot mixing together.

Qiu Heng stared at her, her gaze as if looking at a dead object: "You can drag it out if you want. I have all the time in the world to wait for you to speak. The longer you delay, the angrier I'll get."

Yun Xiang instinctively covered her face: "I'll talk!"

Qiu Heng waited expressionlessly.

Having decided to speak, Yun Xiang seemed to calm a little. She looked at Qiu Heng with a strange look in her eyes: "A Heng, why didn't you die? How long have you been in the capital? Have you met Brother Bai?"

"I'm the one asking the questions."

"Asking me—" Yun Xiang touched her swollen cheek, recalling the interrogation she had endured after Xue Han's men found her, and the beating she had just taken. A surge of spite rose within her.

She stared into Qiu Heng's eyes and said slowly: "A Heng, it was Brother Bai who told me to push you into that deep pool."

"What?" Qiu Heng grabbed Yun Xiang by the collar. "What did you say?"

"I said, it was Brother Bai who told me to push you into that deep pool."

She let go. Qiu Heng staggered back several steps until her back hit the cold wall.

It was so cold. It was still the eighth month—the Mid-Autumn Festival hadn't even passed yet! Why was it so cold?

This wasn't an autumn day in the human world. She must be in an ice hell...

"You're lying. Yun Xiang, you've committed all sorts of evil, and now you're trying to drag Brother Bai's name through the mud."

"Drag his name through the mud?" At the mention of Ling Yun—Brother Bai, whom they both knew as the bright moon hanging high—Yun Xiang's fear was overwhelmed by jealousy and resentment. Watching her distraught childhood friend gave her a twisted satisfaction.

"A Heng, you know how I feel about Brother Bai. Why would I smear his name?"

Qiu Heng stared at Yun Xiang's moving lips, her mind spinning.

Not slander... it was... the truth?

"Why?" she asked in a voice that didn't sound like her own.

Yun Xiang shook her head: "I don't know."

"You don't know?" Qiu Heng drew a soft sword from her waist, and it coiled around Yun Xiang's neck like a flexible snake. "I don't want to hear you brush me off again. If you don't tell me, it won't be slaps you'll face next."

Yun Xiang's eyes widened in terror.

When Qiu Heng had grabbed her hair and slapped her, she had been in pain and fear, but it was a different kind of fear.

A frenzied childhood friend reminded her of the brawlers in the village—that was familiar to her.

But now, it was a foreign, bone-chilling fear.

A Heng was just an ordinary country girl like her. How, in just over three years, had she become a ruthless demon who kills without blinking?

"I really don't know why Brother Bai wanted me to do it..." Yun Xiang's voice trembled as she dared not move.

Qiu Heng sheathed her soft sword: "Then tell me exactly what Brother Bai said to you."

"At the beginning of the second month three years ago, Brother Bai said goodbye to us, saying he had recovered enough to go home. Do you remember?"

"I remember."

Yun Xiang bit her lip. "Later, I went to see Brother Bai alone and told him I couldn't stand to see him leave. Brother Bai... Brother Bai said that if I pushed you into the mountain pool on that day, he would take me with him..."

"Impossible. That can't be." Qiu Heng denied coldly, her nails digging deep into her palms.

"I'm not lying!" Seeing Qiu Heng's confident denial, Yun Xiang felt gratified. "Brother Bai is a young master from the capital. You can have those officials search for me—just go find Brother Bai and ask him yourself. Then see if I'm lying."

"What about you?"

Yun Xiang froze. “What?”

Qiu Heng stared at her intently. “Even if what you say is true, if… if Brother Bai asked you to harm me, you just did it? We’ve been friends for over ten years—”

“Friends?” That word brought back her most hated memories, and Yun Xiang forgot to be scared for a moment, her expression twisting. “At first, I really thought of you as a friend. But why, when we’re both village girls, are you the only one born so beautiful? The people in the village always praised you, saying you were a golden phoenix born from a mountain nest. Just because I was always with you, when they praised you, they would say I wasn’t good-looking. But am I really ugly? I’m clearly prettier than Erni and the others!”

Qiu Heng closed her eyes.

“And your parents—why didn’t they try desperately to have a son like the other villagers, but instead treasured you, a mere girl, to the point of even buying you a maidservant? As for me, I lost my parents as a child, and I worked like a mule at my uncle and aunt’s house, enduring beatings and scoldings, not even getting enough to eat…”

Watching Yun Xiang’s ferocious expression, Qiu Heng suddenly realized how foolish she had been before falling into the deep pool.

But Yun Xiang grew more agitated as she spoke. “I could put up with all that, but then we happened to meet Brother Bai. We met him together—I also helped escort the lost Brother Bai back to the Taoist temple—so what right does Brother Bai have to only see you? Why!”

The constant “why’s” and “what right’s” filled Qiu Heng’s heart with sorrow.

She also wanted to ask, “By what right? Why?”