Chapter 231
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 231
Chapter Title: Who Will You Offer?
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Crash!
It all happened in an instant.
Maia slapping Arvela across the cheek.
And Arvela flying through the air like a deer hit by a truck, crashing into and overturning the table laden with exquisite delicacies.
At that sudden turn of events, Yuna Kyung froze with her eyes wide open, while the already tense dancers, musicians, and attendants turned even paler.
But Maia paid no mind to their frightened stares.
She simply opened her mouth in a cold voice.
"Arvela."
"Y-Yes... yes."
It was a slap hard enough to break a normal person's neck.
Yet, as befitting a master of the Seven Dragon Society, Arvela was still conscious.
Blood trickled from her split lip as she prostrated herself before Maia, who spoke to her icily.
"Apologize to the Black Dragon Princess and beg her forgiveness."
Arvela didn't know.
Why she had been slapped.
Or what she needed to apologize to Li Chingwei for.
Thud!
"Arvela of the Green Dragon Clan apologizes to the heir of the Great Black Dragon Divine Army."
But without a moment's hesitation, Arvela knelt before Li Chingwei and slammed her forehead against the floor, begging for mercy.
It was Maia's command.
She needed no other reason.
Li Chingwei, who had been watching Arvela silently, finally gave a slight nod.
"I accept your apology."
"I am grateful for your boundless grace."
Expressing her genuine gratitude, Arvela bowed her head to the floor once more.
Maia spoke to her coldly.
"Withdraw now. Staying here in that ridiculous state will only bring me further shame."
"Yes, Princess."
Just as she had knelt and begged for forgiveness without delay, Arvela promptly left the banquet hall.
Maia didn't spare a glance at her retreating figure.
She instructed Barbara to dismiss the dancers and had an identical table and chair brought to Li Chingwei's opposite side before taking a seat there.
"Resume the performance."
"What are you waiting for? Start playing!"
"Y-Yes!"
Even though her sister had just been expelled moments ago.
Far from cowed, Barbara was even more spirited as she berated the musicians.
Only after the trembling musicians勉强 resumed their playing did Maia finally turn her gaze to Li Chingwei for the first time.
"It's been a while, Li Chingwei."
"Indeed, it's been ages since we've met face-to-face like this, Maia."
Li Chingwei smiled faintly.
As if nothing had happened, her demeanor was utterly natural.
A normal person might have inwardly thanked her tact and glossed over the recent disgrace as if it never occurred.
"I ask your understanding for the insult my foolish subordinate inflicted upon you with her thoughtless actions."
But Maia didn't inquire about Arvela.
Instead, she brought up the disgrace herself, twisting her pale bluish lips into a cynical sneer.
"Not that there's anything you could do even if you didn't forgive it."
Blunt thorns laced her words.
Yet Li Chingwei showed no sign of agitation.
She simply nodded readily, her face beaming with a bright smile.
"You're right. I wouldn't dare complain to the major shareholder who holds 7% of Leviathan's shares over something like this."
"So you're saying you'd lodge a formal complaint if it weren't for the shares?"
"It wouldn't warrant a formal complaint anyway."
Maia eyed her with cynical eyes upon hearing Li Chingwei's response.
"Don't play coy. If I hadn't punished her myself, you would've used this incident as leverage to exploit that fool's weaknesses."
"Perish the thought."
As if insisting she wasn't so devious.
Maia spoke coldly, watching Li Chingwei respond shamelessly with a smiling face.
"Do whatever you can. If she's dumb enough to fall for your schemes, she's of no use to our clan anyway."
Her sharp words carried a chill sneer.
Just as an ant's struggles can't stop a rolling cartwheel, whatever schemes Li Chingwei hatched would be futile.
Maia spoke as if deliberately trying to provoke her.
To that, Li Chingwei replied with her ever-bright smile, unflappable.
"I have no particular schemes in mind, but I'll gratefully remember your generous offer."
"Hmph."
Was it because Li Chingwei's composed attitude bored her?
Maia snorted.
Leaning back against the chair and crossing her arms, she spoke in a cold tone.
"Enough chatter. Get to the point. Unlike you, I don't have time to waste."
"...Yes, of course."
For a fleeting moment, Li Chingwei wryly smiled as she imagined the mountains of documents that must have buried Youin and Wailing by now.
Then she calmly spoke.
"As you probably suspect, my business is simple. It's about treating this man."
Maia slowly followed her gaze.
She looked at the middle-aged man sitting rigidly tense beside Li Chingwei, Hermann, with gloomy eyes before speaking.
"This sculptor?"
"You know of Mr. Hermann?"
"Don't joke. As if I'd know a nobody like him."
"So you just happened to notice him this time too."
"Obviously."
Maia sneered at Li Chingwei, who nodded as if she'd expected as much.
Pointing at Hermann with a gloved finger, she continued in a mocking voice.
"The signs of him stubbornly clinging to life as a sculptor until death are so glaring that only a blind man wouldn't notice."
"......"
Muscles twisted from overwork.
Emphysema from inhaling dust while sculpting.
Trembling hands and stiff joints even when eating.
And the scars, calluses, and burn marks on his hands.
His very body was a testament to a lifetime as a sculptor, as Maia mocked.
Hermann's expression grew complicated.
Should he be impressed that she'd diagnosed his condition at a glance?
Satisfied that his life as a sculptor was acknowledged?
Or ashamed and angry at the sneer that he'd ruined his own body?
A tangle of unclear emotions left him unsure what face to make.
But Maia ignored Hermann's expression.
She merely deepened the sneer on her lips.
"What baffles me is how this man, who should have died long ago from his symptoms, is still kicking."
"That's thanks to the Divine Lord."
"Divine Lord... I see. That fits what a quack like her would do."
Only after hearing Li Chingwei's answer did Maia nod as if understanding, her words twisting Yuna Kyung and Hermann's faces into odd expressions.
Meanwhile, Li Chingwei chuckled as if she'd expected that reaction.
"Your evaluations are as merciless as ever."
"I merely called a quack a quack. What's merciless about that?"
Not knowing exactly where or why a patient hurts.
How to treat it, what aftereffects remain, or what management prevents relapse.
Just slapping on a skill, declaring it cured, and washing their hands of it—what differs from a snake-oil peddler hawking miracle cures?
Yuna Kyung muttered blankly at Maia's cynical words.
[I've lived long enough to see everything. Someone calling the Divine Lord a quack.]
Calling the world's top healer a quack.
It made even Sia's jab at the Magic Lord as an insolent brat seem like playful praise—a truly fearsome critique.
'It's not entirely wrong, though. Though personal grudges play a big part.'
[Personal grudges?]
'Forgot what Quetzalcoatl does?'
[...Ah. Yeah, that makes sense.]
Yuna Kyung nodded in agreement.
It was infamous how the Divine Lord founding the Saint Guild and offering cheap treatments nearly shattered the existing medical industry.
With that history, the Green Dragon Princess Maia had no reason to think kindly of the Divine Lord.
That was why Li Chingwei spoke as if amused.
"Unfortunately, even the Divine Lord could only save his life, not fully cure his illness."
"So you're asking me to treat the scraps that quack couldn't finish?"
"I think it's a pretty good opportunity for you too, Maia. Don't you?"
Treating a patient the Divine Lord couldn't cure at Quetzalcoatl.
If word spread, it would boost stock prices for companies under the Green Dragon Clan's management and stick it to the Divine Lord—a prime chance.
After eyeing the smiling Li Chingwei briefly with gloomy eyes.
Maia nodded.
"It's not a bad deal."
Treating one patient for massive advertising and checking a business rival.
As a businesswoman, accepting was only natural.
"But I can create opportunities like that anytime."
That held only for ordinary businesspeople.
Not for Maia, owner of Quetzalcoatl, the megacorp dominating global healthcare.
No matter how rare the disease.
No matter how risky the patient.
She could procure them with a word.
"So don't think you can fob me off with nonsense, Li Chingwei. Give me a proper answer."
Thus, Maia spoke bluntly not as Seven Dragon Group's chairwoman, but as the Seven Dragon Society's Green Dragon Princess.
Gazing at Li Chingwei with sunken green eyes, she continued.
"Whose life will you offer?"
"...!"
Utterly resolute.
Utterly cynical.
Twisting her pale bluish lips into a single sneer, her words made Yuna Kyung and Hermann's eyes widen.
But Li Chingwei wasn't surprised at all.
Smiling faintly as if she'd known it would come to this, she replied.
"'Offer a life'? You're putting it so frighteningly."
"Unpleasant to hear?"
"Paying you doesn't always mean death, does it? It's just that they often end up living like they're dead."
Dying and living as if dead.
They look similar but are distinctly different, she pointed out innocently.
Maia sneered at Li Chingwei.
"Then I'll ask again."
Maia.
Quetzalcoatl's chairwoman.
Green Dragon Clan's princess, born with the psionic of bio-manipulation—healing.
Thus, even after the Iron Age dawned and before the Divine Lord appeared, she was hailed as the greatest pharmacist, physician, and healer.
In truth, many deemed unrecoverable by top healers had been cured by her.
Yet the reason those facts weren't widely known, why patients hushed it up.
The reason she'd become a symbol of despair over salvation, Maia voiced in a cynical tone.
"Decide first who will become my slave and serve me in exchange for treatment from me."