Ten in the morning.
Several people sat around the stone table.
The girls were wrapping rice dumplings. Chen Shu sat beside them, petting the cat and offering technical guidance.
As Chen Banxia wrapped a dumpling, she glanced at Qingqing, Xiaoxiao, and Peach. "What's the occasion? Why are you all wearing dresses? I don't think I've seen you wear dresses in years... And why did Suannai cut her hair short? Did you all decide to try new looks together? Why didn't anyone tell me?"
The little girl concentrated on her dumpling without saying a word.
Peach kept trying to escape Chen Shu's hand.
Zhang Suannai was silent too.
A Sword Sect Disciple could certainly take a loss, but admitting to her friends that her hair had been burned off by Chen Banxia's brother during their match—and that her two roommates and Peach were wearing dresses because she'd lost—was more than she could bring herself to do.
She still had some pride to protect.
Only Ning Qing replied as she wound string around a dumpling, her voice mild:
"I felt like wearing one."
Zhang Suannai fell even quieter.
She hadn't expected her roommate to lie against her own nature just to spare her guilt, refusing to say the dresses were the result of a lost bet or that Chen Shu had beaten her at the Martial Body Meet. After all, Qingqing never...
Wait!!
Zhang Suannai suddenly sat bolt upright, lifted her head, and craned her neck, her expression blank—
Didn't Qingqing never lie?
Zhang Suannai's mind ground to a halt.
"Keep wrapping."
Chen Shu's voice sounded beside her.
"Right, right!"
Zhang Suannai flinched like an employee caught slacking by her boss and hurried back to work.
"Don't scare her." Chen Banxia asserted her authority as an older sister, scolding her brother. She