“Ai, truly heaven envies talent. Brother Kujū left too suddenly. But the deceased are gone. We still need to look forward to the cooperation between our two families. After all, our friendship remains; it won’t be broken by this accident.”
A member of the Tachibana Main House naturally took over the conversation, glossing over the sensitive topic.
“Quiet Forest is a loyal child. In the future, both sides will take good care of this pair of twins from the Kujū Family.”
And just like that, the matter was smoothly brushed aside.
Orange Quiet Forest, sitting at her seat, let out a long sigh of relief in her heart.
She picked up her goblet and took a tactical sip of sparkling wine, the stone in her heart finally settling.
‘Safe! As long as I get through the next free toasting segment, I can finish work tonight and go home to play video games!’
However, Murphy’s Law tells us that in serious occasions, the gears of fate often start spinning wildly due to a nonsensical accident.
As the Evening Banquet entered its second half, the atmosphere gradually relaxed.
Burp——!
A strange old man, reeking of alcohol and with a face red like a ripe tomato, swayed over holding a cup of sake.
He was probably someone from the Kujū Family—Orange Quiet Forest didn’t recognize him anyway.
Clearly, he had gotten too excited about the cooperation between the two families tonight and had drunk too much.
“Oh! Isn’t this… burp… our new daughter-in-law from the Kujū Family!”
People at the surrounding tables, including Madam Orange Peach at the opposite table, stopped their movements and turned their gazes over.
Orange Quiet Forest’s knife froze mid-cut, the blade scraping against the fine porcelain plate with a harsh screech.
She suppressed the urge to smash the plate onto the man’s face and forced a dignified smile.
‘It stinks. I give up.’
‘Old man, don’t ruin drinking for us young people, okay?’
“You’re drunk, old sir.”
“Not drunk! I’m happy!”
The drunken old man waved his hand grandly, his cloudy eyes sweeping over the three girls: Orange Quiet Forest, Umimi, and Miho.
“Look at this! What a touching family of three!”
He raised his cup, excitedly tapping its rim with his chopsticks, and shouted to the surroundings.
“That’s right! They haven’t even formally served tea yet!”
“Come on, say it! Family doesn’t stand on ceremony!”
In that instant, the atmosphere took a wild turn toward awkward social death.
“…”
The smile on Orange Quiet Forest’s face completely cracked.
Her pupils were trembling violently, her brain trampled by ten thousand alpacas.
‘W-wait?! Have Umimi and Miho… in front of all these people, call me “Mom” in public?!’
‘Miho is all right… after all, I can tell she’s younger than me.’
‘But what about Umimi? And they’re my teammates…’
Orange Quiet Forest, like a rusty machine, stiffly turned her head to look at the two girls beside her.
By now, Umimi and Miho’s faces were red enough to drip blood.
‘That’s drunkards for you.’
‘Someone from the Orange Family, please come and drag him away.’
Orange Quiet Forest’s toes inside her expensive heels had already dug out the entire Winter Rose University campus.
“Come on, Umimi! Usually such a sensible child, why are you shy now?”
The drunken old man kept urging from the side, oblivious to his own death.
“Raise your glass! Call her Mom!”
Under everyone’s gaze.
Kunomi Umi stood up shakily, holding a glass of orange juice.
The girl’s body trembled like a leaf in autumn wind.
She bit her lip hard, her eyes already misty from extreme shame.
Under everyone’s watchful, amused gaze, Kunomi Umi bit her lower lip fiercely, her thin shoulders shaking slightly.
Beside her, Miho’s eyes were red, clutching her sister’s skirt tightly.
They didn’t move.
They didn’t speak.
Watching these two girls silently endure humiliation, the smile in Orange Quiet Forest’s pink eyes—originally frozen from embarrassment—gradually cooled down, bit by bit.
‘Call me Mom? These girls have their own real mother!’
‘The Kujū sisters have a real mother. They shouldn’t be forced to call me Mom.’
“Old sir.”
Orange Quiet Forest suddenly stood up. She didn’t look at the juice.
“You’re drunk.”
Orange Quiet Forest’s voice lost its previous gentleness.
“Security? Escort this gentleman to rest.”
Several Orange Family bodyguards, who had been standing by on the Family Head’s orders, immediately stepped forward to try to support the drunk old man.
“Let go of me! Don’t touch me!”
When the old man was pulled by the bodyguards, he felt his face was lost in public.
He immediately became furious and struggled violently.
His nearly two-hundred-pound fat body shook off the bodyguards like a wild bull, and he pointed at Orange Quiet Forest’s nose, cursing loudly.
“Who do you think you are! Just a tool for marital alliance! How dare the Orange Family touch me? What, is your Orange Family trying to back out of the cooperation?!”
Watching his pathetic, bullying display, Orange Quiet Forest was speechless.
‘This guy is probably just some small fry. At least he isn’t on the guest list I saw.’
Seeing that even invoking “cooperation” got no reaction, and that Orange Quiet Forest was looking at him with a cold, contemptuous gaze like he was garbage, the man’s poor self-esteem was completely ignited by alcohol.
Unable to do anything to Orange Quiet Forest, he immediately turned his anger toward Umimi and Miho, hiding behind her, and escalated his drunken rant:
“And you two! How dare you play deaf and dumb when an elder speaks! As expected, wild girls raised outside without education from the Kujū Main House—no upbringing from a noble family at all! Since that useless—”
“You speak for whom?”
A cold retort suddenly cut through the air.
The next second.
Before the old man could fully spit out his vicious curse, Orange Quiet Forest moved.
Whoosh!
With a sharp swish of her skirt cutting through the air, Orange Quiet Forest decisively stepped forward.
Her left leg lunged, perfectly lowering her center of gravity.
Her right hand instantly clenched into a fist.
She twisted her waist, the power transmitting through her spine—
Bam!
A dull sound of flesh colliding exploded in the luxurious Banquet Hall.
Orange Quiet Forest’s straight punch violently smashed into the old guy’s fleshy right cheek!
Then she followed up with two more slaps on each side of his face, the sound echoing throughout the entire venue.
The old man’s red face deformed under the massive, continuous impact, and something could be heard breaking.
A fierce glint flashed in Orange Quiet Forest’s eyes.
She raised her right leg abruptly, the faint sound of her dress’s delicate threads snapping audible—
Orange Quiet Forest kicked the old man in the stomach, not caring about her clothes at all.
Oww!
That nearly two-hundred-pound fat old man, in front of this seemingly frail eighteen-year-old girl, flew into the air, flew a very long distance, and then rolled awkwardly three or four times.
Until his back slammed heavily into the corner wall of the Banquet Hall with a loud crash, then he slid to the floor like a pile of shit, clutching his stomach and dry-heaving in pain.