“How… how could this be? I actually lost again, and so utterly.”
Shangguan Muqing staggered, feeling like the world was spinning, almost falling to the ground.
Failure was hard to accept, especially after all the effort she had put in, all the persistence, with such high odds of winning—yet she still lost.
The worst part was that she had lost again to this old rival, the enemy she had wanted to defeat since childhood.
At this moment, she even began to doubt herself. ‘Should I never have opposed Lin Huanhuan in the first place? The pain of never being able to win, no matter what, is truly despairing.’
“I… I…”
Lin Huanhuan watched her, laughing without hiding her mockery. Although she hadn’t wanted to gamble, whenever the moment of victory came, she couldn’t help but feel excited.
Just then, a group of disciples from Shangguan Muqing’s Guild Hall walked up, all dejected. But when they saw Shangguan Muqing so devastated, they quickly came over to comfort her.
“Senior Sister Shangguan, don’t be too sad or upset. It’s because they used too many tricks and schemes—otherwise we wouldn’t have lost! We walk the righteous path openly and honestly. If we had used tricks too, we definitely would have won!”
“Senior Sister Shangguan, cheer up. Think of your past ambitions, think of who you used to be. Don’t let this hit you too hard. At worst, we start over from scratch. We didn’t lose anything anyway, so what’s there to fear?”
“Senior Sister Shangguan, victory and defeat aren’t everything. As long as we learn from this lesson, we can become stronger in the future. The most important thing right now is not to let failure completely defeat us.”
“You all…”
Shangguan Muqing was slightly moved as she looked at them, then nodded heavily.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t be defeated by failure, and I won’t be. I’ve failed too many times already—I don’t care about this one. One day, I will win.”
“But a loss is a loss. There’s nothing to say. In the end, my skill was inferior, and I have to admit that.”
Huyan Yazhi had originally wanted to go straight over to suck up to Lin Huanhuan and solidify her position, but Dong Yuner blocked her with a hostile look. She shrank her neck in fear.
Nearby, Lin Huanhuan, who was enjoying the flattery from Huyan Yazhi and the others, couldn’t help but glance over.
‘Not bad, I have to say her resilience is impressive. As long as Shangguan Muqing doesn’t die young, she’ll definitely achieve something.’
When Huyan Yazhi, Ling Dongdong, and the others heard this, they were furious.
These losers—instead of kneeling and crying in defeat, they actually dared to encourage each other and talk about fighting again! They were way too disrespectful!
They immediately marched over aggressively, sneering at the opposing staff.
“Hahaha, you lost, so why are you still struggling so hard? Haven’t you heard of ‘one wrong step leads to many more’? Once you fall into the mud, you can never climb out!”
“Still cheering each other on? How amusing. But no matter what, you can’t hide the fact that you lost!”
When Shangguan Muqing saw her people being pushed back and even showing fear from the disciples of Formation Peak, she knew she couldn’t stay silent any longer. She shouted angrily,
“Shut up!”
They finally closed their mouths and dared not say more.
Shangguan Muqing’s brother’s background was far greater than theirs, so completely angering her would be disastrous. But from their expressions, they still wanted to taunt.
Shangguan Muqing gritted her teeth and hesitated for a long time before sighing in resignation. She walked up to Lin Huanhuan and said,
“This time, I really lost. I’ll keep my promise and won’t open this guild hall again. You can be at ease.”
She turned to leave, but Lin Huanhuan called her back.
“Wait.”
A strange look appeared on Shangguan Muqing’s face. “Why are you stopping me? Are you going to humiliate me? If so, I’ll just leave. I don’t have time to listen to your nonsense.”
“I’m not that boring.”
Lin Huanhuan shook her head, a slight smile curling at the corner of her mouth. “Actually, I wanted to ask you: do you still want to continue running this kind of guild hall? Maybe we could cooperate.”
At first, Shangguan Muqing didn’t take it seriously. But when she fully understood, her pupils contracted. She said in disbelief,
“Are you saying that even though I lost, you’ll allow me to keep running it, and even cooperate with me?”
“Of course. I’m just that generous. No need to thank me.”
“Like I’d believe that. You must be plotting something.”
Shangguan Muqing rolled her eyes but didn’t refuse.
“But I really do need this, so I’ll thank you anyway. Since it’s a cooperation, how do we split the profits?”
Lin Huanhuan smiled lightly and said,
“Forty-sixty split. I get forty percent of the net profit, you get sixty. Don’t rush to argue—I’ll share some tips with you too. And most importantly, you weren’t supposed to open at all. Now I’m letting you open and cooperating. It’s only fair I take a little loss.”
Shangguan Muqing frowned slightly.
“Taking forty percent right off the bat… Fine, you’re right. In fact, I should be thanking you.”
Then they discussed the specifics of the cooperation, and the atmosphere softened.
The disciples of Formation Peak, who had just insulted the others, didn’t feel awkward. They went over to greet the opposing side, leaving them bewildered.
They quickly finalized the plan and then left.
Back at the Tiance Guild Hall, Huyan Yazhi, unable to hold back any longer, immediately asked,
“Boss Huanhuan, why are we cooperating with them?”
“Don’t you know? Cooperating with them means losing a lot of our market share! Originally, almost all customers could only come to us. But now that they’re open, those disciples have a choice, and many will stop coming here.”
“Even if we can recover later, we’ll never get back to our peak! We worked so hard to shut them down—why let them reopen?”
The others also looked at her curiously, confused.
Lin Huanhuan asked coldly,
“Sure, we could shut them down and have a monopoly. But then what?”
Huyan Yazhi, full of enthusiasm, suddenly froze.
“Then what? We just keep running, keep earning spirit stones. What else?”
Lin Huanhuan gave a faint smile.
“Aren’t you being a little naive?”
“They can’t open anymore, but that doesn’t mean others won’t. Someone else will eventually step in. What do we do then?”
“This…”
Huyan Yazhi didn’t know how to answer.
“That’s exactly why I’m letting them stay open—and secretly cooperating while keeping up the appearance of competition. Even if our profits drop, it will naturally reduce the number of competitors. After all, when people see that many have already opened and the market’s pie is mostly divided up, they won’t think of joining in.”
“It also puts customers at ease. If only one guild hall like this existed, and something went wrong—like staff being rude—the customer would be disgusted and never come back. They’d also tell others, creating a bad reputation.”
“But with two halls, if one mistreats a customer, they’ll try the other. That reduces problems a lot.”
“And since we’re secretly cooperating, we can pull off plenty of things behind the scenes—like organizing fake competitions to generate buzz, but keeping it under control because we’re allies. It kills two birds with one stone.”
“Or we can pre-arrange outcomes to keep the audience excited and maintain popularity.”
“In short, this is the best choice. By monopolizing the market together, even if newcomers appear, they’ll be suppressed.”
Everyone listened, then nodded as if suddenly enlightened, staring at Lin Huanhuan in shock.
At that moment, Lin Huanhuan’s image became even more unfathomable in their minds.