Chapter Text
Luo Binghe had looked small and dirty when she had been far below digging a hole in the ground. Now, given a bath and a fresh change of clothes, her hair clean and combed, Shen Qingqiu sees her for what she really is. With long eyelashes and almond eyes, thick hair and a heart shaped face, she’s only pretty now but will clearly grow up to become a heartstopping beauty one day.
Shen Qingqiu despises nothing more in the world than beautiful women.
She sits and watches Luo Binghe over her fan as she bows deeply and serves her tea, speaking of the kindly old washerman who raised her as his own daughter with sweet, filial gratitude. It is clear from how she speaks of him that he never once touched her improperly. The more she hears, the more burning bile and venom rises up Shen Qingqiu’s throat, filling her with hatred and envy.
“That is enough,” she says, and Luo Binghe obediently clamps her mouth shut. She obediently ducks her head, but sneaks awed, admiring looks at her face from beneath her thick eyelashes. Shen Qingqiu hides a sneer behind her fan.
When she had been chosen as Head Disciple of Qing Jing Peak, many had gossiped that she accomplished it by lying on her back and spreading her legs for her shizun. After all, what did she have to offer besides a pretty face? (“Her features are too sharp, though,” she’d overheard someone say, expressing a sentiment she had heard a hundred times before. “And she ruins it further with those nasty expressions she makes.” “What does it matter if she’s always sour faced, if she lets him stick his manhood in her whenever he wants to? He can just turn her over and take her from behind.”) Many of the disciples, often envious, spiteful, vicious girls, who had insulted her behind her back would then go ahead and speak sweetly to her face, fawning over her looks and complimenting her.
“I suppose you must be grateful to that man for raising you,” Shen Qingqiu says, “and for dying when he did, before he had the chance to sell you to the nearest man with a want for a young wife.”
Luo Binghe flinches, blinking wide, startled, horrified eyes at her. “No! Shizun, he would never--”
Shen Qingqiu shuts her up by dumping a cup of tea over her head. Better. She doesn’t look so clean and sweet now, shut up quiet and soaked with tea. Shen Qingqiu preferred her when she was filthy.
“I know a tramp when I see one,” she says. “Luo Binghe, I saw the way you were clinging to Ning Yingying earlier. If you think you can seduce that naive child just to get whatever you want, think again. I will not tolerate such disgusting, immoral behavior on my peak. If you don’t behave properly here then I will take you down to the brothel at the base of the mountain and sell you. Undoubtedly, you would make a much better whore than a cultivator.”
Stunned, Luo Binghe doesn’t say another word, only kneeling there looking pale and foolish. Shen Qingqiu stands up, sweeping past her without a look backwards. Ming Fan, plainfaced and gleeful at the downfall of the infinitely prettier Luo Binghe, stays behind to scold her in her stead.
Females are, after all, a duplicitous and vindictive sex. Shen Qingqiu knows this very intimately from personal experience, after having spent years at the mercy of a beautiful young woman who would smile and speak sweetly in front of men and then behave with delighted cruelty when out of sight. Using her as a personal plaything for both her boredom and her frustration, encouraging any male friends to make use of her as they wished. She knows this from Qi-jie who had turned into Yue Qingyuan, a pure and virginal maiden praised universally by the entire cultivation world for her beauty, prowess, and kindness, who abandoned Xiao-Jiu in a heartbeat to benefit herself.
Women are selfish. They are liars, conniving, self serving, vain, backstabbing, greedy, jealous bitch harpies. Shen Qingqiu knows this very well. She is all of those things herself, the worst kind of woman there is.
“Never disrespect your shizun, tramp!”
Tramp. While Luo Binghe lives on her peak, that might as well be her name. It serves her right, for committing the unforgivable sin of being born a pretty girl.