To drink or not to drink, that was the question.
When Gong Sun Li raised the glass, it gave a clear signal to Atobe. The wine was not poisoned. Of course, kicking himself in the ass if he touched the food was just something that he said to himself; he was not really betting it with anyone. If someone like Feng Bujue had been there when he said that, his ass would have been red already.
“Then… I shall accept your kindness…” Atobe hesitated and was about to reach for the cup when a shadow flashed. The cup of wine that Gong Sun Li was holding disappeared, and another person appeared in the room.
“Hmm… Just from this fragrance, I know this is good wine.” The one who spoke was a young man in his twenties. His frame was slight, and his facial features were clean. He was in many layers of cloth and had a jade pendant around his waist and black shoes on his feet. At that moment, he was holding a half-opened paper fan, and the cup was steadied firmly on the fan, not one drop spilling out from the cup.
“Humph… And I was wondering who it was. So, it’s you, the uneducated Young Master from the Tang family.” Si Yanran delivered a barb once she saw the man’s face.
“Eh? That’s where you’re wrong. I, Tang Size, am not uneducated. At most, you can say that I am hard to educate,” Tang Size replied with a face full of smiles. “I don’t mind if you mock me, but don’t target my family. If my father happened to hear this, there’d be hell to pay.”
“What, you think you can use your father to scare us?” Si Yanran scoffed. “A mere Tang family compared to our Thousand Dawn Spire…”
“That’s enough.” Gong Sun Li yelled for Si Yanran to stop. Internally, he really wished to kill this woman. The mistress of the spire was truly a natural magnet for trouble. They already had their hands full dealing with Broken Sword Chahitsu, and now she wanted to earn the ire of the Tang family just because some verbal argument?
“Young Master Tang,” Gong Sun Li greeted Tang Size evenly. “I was treating Young Master Jin to a cup of wine. Why did you swipe the cup from me?”
“Haha…” Tang Size laughed. “I just happened to pass the door, and I couldn’t help myself when smelling the scent of good wine.”
Even though everything had a reason, his reason was obviously a fake one…
In truth, this Tang Size was there to make trouble, but it was not trouble with Gong Sun Li or Si Yanran; his target was Atobe-sama. Why? To put it simply, it was due to Mu Rong Yin.
The Tang family’s young master, Tang Size, who was known as ’Swift Fingers’ by those of the martial world, had admired Miss Mu Rong for a long time. Even though the man had the appearance of a lady’s man and had a title that could be easily associated with a womanizer, he was very shy when it came to relationships. The feelings that Mr. Tang had for Mu Rong Yin could be called true love. They came from the same background and age. If he could take the first step, the chance of him succeeding was quite high. But Tang Size, who was so chatty and slick with his words before everyone else, would start stammering before Mu Rong Yin. He would stumble over his words, and even his brain appeared like it had shut down. So, after a failed confession attempt five years ago, Tang Size had been shown the door by his goddess, and the trauma caused by that had not disappeared.
Tang Size had been following Mu Rong Yin like a stalker. Of course, he would only admire her from a far and would not stoop to any despicable acts. What happened next could easily be deduced. Tang Size saw Atobe enter Mu Rong Yin’s room and spend a whole afternoon inside it…
The conclusion he came to was that those people from Broken Sword Chahitsu were too much!
You can call yourself kings, but you are not going to get too close to my Miss Mu Rong! I’ll do anything to stop that!
And thus, that was the explanation behind the whole scene.
Naturally, Tang Size did not just ’happen’ to walk past the door. He had been walking around there for who knew how long already. Just as Gong Sun Li and Si Yanran entered the room, Atobe did not close the door out of fear that the two NPCs might harm him, so he left this door open to make an escape convenient. But who would have thought that he would give Tang Size the entry he needed? Tang Size entered the scene for nothing but to make life difficult for Atobe. He did not care what the relationship between Thousand Dawn Spire and Broken Sword Chahitsu was. From how he saw it, they wished to greet Atobe with good wine; fine, he would intercept it.
This kind of action could be seen as a bold taunt. In the martial world, if someone did something like that to another, there was no question that this was an invitation for a fight. At that moment, Tang Size held the fan in his hand. He only praised the wine, but he did not touch it. To be frank, he was waiting for Atobe to come grab it so that they could get into a fight. However, Atobe’s reaction gave Tang Size quite a shock.
“Oh!” Atobe said with eyes glowing. “Wonderful!”
He could not help but smile, and it was a real smile that came from his heart.
“Please… be my guest. Consider this my treat.”
From how he saw this, this was someone who was willing to test whether the wine was poisoned or not.
At that moment, Tang Size felt like he had just given someone a slap but realized that it was to help the person kill a mosquito that had landed on said person’s face.
“Ha!” Si Yanran chuckled wickedly. A woman’s instinct clued her in on certain facts. The name ’Mu Rong Yin’ instantly appeared in her mind. She knew about Atobe’s movement that afternoon, and she had heard through the grapevine about the interest Tang Size had toward the young lady. Therefore, she soon understood what was happening before her, the explanation behind everything…
“Young Master Tang, take a look at our Young Hero Jin’s kindness and openness.” Si Yanran started to mock him. “Then take a look at yourself. A woman will know who to pick quite easily.”
As expected, the woman’s words were venomous, and she went straight for the man’s weak spot.
“Humph!” Tang Size had already been carrying a stomach of fire, and with a spark from Si Yanran, the fire erupted. “Jin fella! I challenge you to a fight!”
As he finished, the paper fan flickered, and the wine cup crashed to the ground. The cup of ’Ill Will Defuser’ splashed on the ground, quite ironically. The old ill will had not been resolved, and a new one had already begun.
For some reason, when Tang Size slammed the cup, both Gong Sun Li and Si Yanran took a backward leap out instinct. It was as if the cup breaking was the bell ringing of a boxing match, and it signaled that a fight was about to start.
“Hey! Bro, what are you talking about?” Atobe was confused, and his happiness turned into shock. Is this man mad? When he stole the wine, he looked so happy. I gave it to him, yet it feels like I insulted him. Is this what they call a temperamental personality?