Housekeeper of the Hundred Blossom Palace

“Hey, Jian Qing, if you’re the number one player as you claim, then why are you rolling on the ground over there? The number one musician also plays biwa the most. You won’t be able to practice if you keep on rolling on the ground like what you’re doing now.”

Xu looked down the window, and Jiang struggled more violently.

“What the heck are you talking about!? Everything’s your fault, isn’t it!? Everyone here treats me like an idiot, nobody recognizes me! It doesn’t matter how good I play, Xu can do better, if it’s Xu, if it’s Xu, IF IT’S XU!? Everyone’s kept on patronizing you!! If nobody will recognize me, then what’s the point of practising, huh!?”

‘So that’s how it is.’

Jiang shrieked as she loathingly stared at Jiang. Meanwhile, Yui Mei alone realized something.

‘So Miss Jiang has her own reasons why she didn’t want to practice.’

Jiang had a lot of enemies in the Jiaofang, and she probably thought of them as Xu’s patrons.

However, Xu had an exasperated expression when she heard Jiang’s opinion.

“I’ve been a courtesan far longer than you,so isn’t it just them being more familiar with my biwa? It takes time for people to get used to something new.”

‘That’s also probably true.’

Yui Mei understood where Xu was coming from.

No matter where it was, there would be people who had excellent abilities who would attempt to coach someone by suggesting things that would help them become better. However, the other party would refuse, preferring to continue doing the things the way they were accustomed to.

Going along those lines, the people in Jiaofang must be accustomed to the sound of Xu’s biwa and her way of playing the instrument, making it easier for the other players to follow.

However, Xu also started as a newbie that was new to everyone.

There’s no such thing as a person who didn’t experience any sort of failure when starting out.

Xu continued on.

“If you believe you’re the number one musician  here, then hold yourself up with confidence no matter what the others say. You could’ve been proud of yourself that you performed before His Majesty through your own strength.  You could’ve done it, Jiang Qing, without resorting to that sort of deception. Well, at least that’s what I thought.”

Xu’s gaze was extremely filled with sadness as she said those words.

Jiang shook her head and tore her hair.

“…Lies, lies! You always scolded me off and made a fool out of me!!”

“Hey, saying I scolded you is so disgraceful. I just told you to aim higher while showing you the challenge, didn’t I?  I won’t force someone without a future to do anything — I’m not the type of person to waste my time on pointless things. In fact, didn’t you try doing what I told you to?”

Xu calmly refuted Jiang’s protests.

It seemed that even if Jiang half-heartedly did it, she still tried the challenge that Xu gave her.

There are plenty of people in the world who won’t do a thing on their own, but they would if somebody else told them to.

Xu saw through her, so she told Jiang to do this and that, but Jiang only thought she was doing it out of spite.

‘So this teacher-student pair just misunderstood each other big time, huh.’

It’s also possible that Xu didn’t explain it that well, too. 

She had been raised as a pampered young lady until the collapse of her father’s business, and she really hadn’t experienced any hardship, so it was not surprising that she wasn’t familiar with how some things were done.

Things might’ve been different if there was someone else around to mediate between the two; however, Jiang also felt out of place in the Jiaofang, so they never had the chance to smooth out their differences.

“You’re lying, lying, lying!!”

 Perhaps Jiang couldn’t accept this after all this time, so she kept on screaming those words as she banged her forehead on the floor.

“Will you stop! Somebody hurry and get the tranquilizer!”

The government official tried to stop Jiang from harming herself, but she just continued screaming.

“I,  I’m in this sort of place, so there’s no way I’m a good person!”

Not sure if it was Jiang’s speech expression, but she changed the way she referred to herself. She continued glaring with a ghastly expression, but tears also started to fall from her eyes.

“I just wanted to be happy, so why, why, why doesn’t anybody save me, why…!?”

Her last shrieks were screams that came from the bottom of her heart.