"If Li Fei manages to take the crown at the exchange event, that would be a good opportunity to formally elevate her student rank."
Nicole delivered her decision in an unhurried, measured tone.
"That… seems like a rather harsh condition," Herbert said, his salt-and-pepper brows knitting together.
"Indeed," Melodia murmured softly in agreement.
——I'm her godmother. Are you two her godmothers, or am I?
Nicole's smile only deepened.
"Exceptional treatment naturally demands exceptional performance, doesn't it? As Headmistress, I need to give the faculty and students a convincing explanation."
"Very well."
Herbert's gaze drifted northward. He did not press the matter or move against the Headmistress's decision.
Just as she'd thought.
Nicole ran a hand lightly along the braid resting on her shoulder, reading the old mage's mind without difficulty.
In that direction lay not only the city hall, but the Bai Mansion as well.
The most brilliant, most powerful mage in Loxibrook had not come from the Magic Academy — and for certain teachers who had devoted their hearts to the institution and staked their pride on its glory, that was a source of resentment and quiet shame.
Deep down, every last one of them nursed a private wish: that one day, a student of such extraordinary talent would appear — someone who could rival, or even surpass, Bai Mengtian.
But the odds had always seemed laughably remote, an indulgence no one would dare voice aloud. Even the once-in-a-generation twin stars had looked a little dim beside Bai Mengtian. And yet — after only a few short years — they had genuinely glimpsed a sliver of dawn.
Li Fei was still far too green, of course. But at the Sequence 9 level, at least, not even Bai Mengtian could outshine her.
Some among the faculty were already champing at the bit, eager to put Li Fei forward as the Academy's new standard-bearer — a name to pit against Bai Mengtian in the arena of prestige.
Nicole raised a hand to cover her mouth, fighting hard to suppress the chaotic grin threatening to break loose.
How delightful. Utterly, thoroughly delightful.
"Then I shall take my leave, Headmistress."
After a few more exchanges on academic matters, Herbert rose and departed. Nicole stood as well to see him out, and only once the old mage was gone did she turn back and step to Chloe's side, extending the invitation with her most approachable smile:
"Come — let's go take a look at our Lucky Fountain together. It's one of the Magic Academy's signature attractions. You simply can't leave without trying it."
...
The sky was slowly darkening.
"I — I should get up and start dinner."
Mrs. Annie Teresa's eyes kept darting toward the bedroom door, her expression flustered and guilty.
But Li Fei had her feet pinned firmly between her thighs, refusing to let her out of bed. Her right hand reached out to stroke Mrs. Annie's earlobe, eyes curved in a smile. "Just let Lilith go grab something outside — she's a grown girl, it's not like she'll starve."
"This is all your fault."
Mrs. Annie slapped Li Fei's shoulder in embarrassed indignation.
"I can't show my face out there anymore."
Li Fei had come home together with Lilith today, and Mrs. Annie had fully intended to keep herself composed and give Lilith a proper lesson.
But the courtesan queen was simply too intoxicating. And Mrs. Annie's long dry spell had been going on far too long. Now that she'd had a taste, the hunger in her heart was far more restless than any first love.
In the end, the only thing Mrs. Annie had managed to do was clamp a hand firmly over Li Fei's mouth, preventing her mischievous student from making too many loud sounds while reciting vocabulary.
"It was clearly Annie-sensei who made the first move!"
Li Fei declared, utterly shameless and entirely self-righteous.
"Mmm…"
Mrs. Annie wrapped her arms around Li Fei's waist, buried her flushed face against her chest, and let herself sink into the warmth she had grown to cherish.
Li Fei turned over, fished a cigarette from the bedside table, lit it with a lazy flick, and exhaled, savoring the cozy contentment of the moment.
Something seemed to occur to her. She puffed out her cheeks with a mild sulk.
"Annie-sensei thinks I'm disgusting."
"Hm?" Mrs. Annie looked up, slightly puzzled.
"That nightgown — I only wore it once, and you went and washed it."
"No, it's because…"
Mrs. Annie faltered, utterly unable to explain why she had "dirtied" the nightgown herself, and eventually let the matter trail off into vague mumbling.
"Hmph."
Li Fei gave a small nasal snort. Cigarette between two fingers on one hand, her other arm looped around Mrs. Annie's slender, pale neck, catching the hand draped over her own shoulder. The skin was a little sticky.
Mrs. Annie was, after all, an ordinary human — no Transcendent constitution — and after exertion, her skin inevitably got a little damp and tacky. Li Fei, on the other hand, might not sweat at all before much longer.
The ice-skinned, jade-boned Qin Zhihua was wonderful in her own way, of course — but Li Fei rather enjoyed this stickiness too.
Mrs. Annie curled her fingers around Li Fei's hand in return. The look in her eyes held both a mother's tenderness and a lover's devotion — that full, ripe air of a devoted wife that made Li Fei's heart give a helpless flutter.
"Why did you take it off?"
Li Fei asked suddenly, the question coming from nowhere.
"Because…"
The older woman — no stranger to marriage — understood the disjointed question perfectly. She instinctively curled the hand from which she'd removed her wedding ring inward, and the light in her eyes dimmed slightly.
"You don't need to make any compromises for my sake."
Li Fei pressed out her cigarette, cupped Mrs. Annie's face in both hands, and looked at her gently. "If the day ever comes that you take off your wedding ring, I want the reason to be that you've already let her go — not that you're worried about my jealousy."
Li Fei smiled softly, her voice warm and quiet. "Though admittedly… there is a little of that. But as long as I can feel your love, I don't mind any of it."
"Deep feeling was never a flaw — even when it isn't for just one person…."
——It is a universally acknowledged truth that people are far more receptive to ideas that happen to benefit them.
——And only if Mrs. Annie came to accept this particular idea could she, when the time came to move into the new home, understand and forgive the fact that the family she'd be living with day in and day out might turn out to be just a teensy bit larger than she'd imagined. Hehehe.
Win-win. Truly win-win.
"But…"
Mrs. Annie's eyes stung. In this moment, she was profoundly, unutterably grateful that she had found such a remarkable, gentle, and generous lover.
"Mutual… understanding is the foundation of any lasting relationship, isn't it." Li Fei gave a carefree little laugh, then leaned in close to her ear. "Besides, I said I'd accept everything about you — even if Diana actually came back, I wouldn't leave you unless you told me to."
She paused, then pressed her lips to Mrs. Annie's ear and spoke the ultimate forbidden words in a low, ambiguous breath:
"Worst case… the two of us could both be your wives."
Mrs. Annie's whole body gave a shiver.
No matter how virtuous or faithful a person might be, somewhere deep inside, there always lurked certain chaotic, unspeakable fantasies.
Li Fei had just struck a match and lit the wicked little thought buried in the depths of this proper, well-bred wife's heart.
And so Mrs. Annie pulled her into a deep, tight embrace and uttered a vow — spoken with even greater conviction than the vow of fidelity she had once made to her wife:
"I will never, ever leave you."
She held tighter and tighter, fingertips pressing into Li Fei's skin.
In this moment, only those words could express everything she felt.
And this married woman — who had once borne a daughter with her wife — did indeed breathe those words into Li Fei's ear, mere inches from the wedding portrait on the wall:
"Let me give you a child…"
An hour later, the older woman marshaled every ounce of willpower she possessed and finally extracted herself from their warm entanglement to get up and make dinner.
Most of the ingredients had been prepped in advance, so the meal came together quickly. On the side, there were also some cold dishes — Mrs. Annie and her daughter had grown accustomed to salads, but she always made a special trip to a shop that catered to Eastern tastes in order to pick up things Li Fei liked, such as spiced pork head in chili sauce and sour-hot shredded kelp.
"Lilith, are you feeling unwell?"
Li Fei put on the full performance of a doting stepmother, spooning dishes into her stepdaughter's bowl while looking over with concern.
Watching her girlfriend — young enough to be her daughter's peer — adopt this demeanor, Mrs. Annie, who had put her wedding ring back on, found the whole scene vaguely surreal. For a fleeting, disoriented moment, she almost thought she saw her wife.
"N-no, I'm fine…"
Lilith listlessly pushed rice around her bowl.
Since Li Fei had joined the household, she'd been getting noticeably better with chopsticks.
"Annie-sensei, in a couple of days Lilith will be staying over at my place for a while."
Li Fei promised with breezy confidence: "I'll take good care of her."
As their bond deepened, she'd been thinking — even if the title "young mistress" happened to reach Mrs. Annie's ears through Lilith, that probably wouldn't be a problem anymore.
"Mm, thank you for looking after her," Mrs. Annie said, her voice warm with worry. "This child, she…"
"I'm not a pet."
Lilith finally couldn't hold it in and cut them both off.
"Mm~ if anything, it'll be Senior Lilith looking after me."
Li Fei held out her hand with a cheerful smile. "I'm in your care from here on out."
Lilith knew perfectly well that if she ignored the gesture, her stepmother's hand would just stay there, outstretched, for as long as it took. So she gave it a reluctant shake — then yanked her hand back as if she'd touched a live wire, before the flood of improper thoughts in her head could get any worse.
The courtesan queen polished off three bowls of rice and one bowl of serpent-scale chicken broth in short order, then patted her stomach contentedly.
"I'm full. Time to go to work."
"Mm."
Mrs. Annie rose and, with all the gentle grace of a devoted wife seeing her beloved off to work, straightened Li Fei's collar, helped her into her mage's robe, and walked her all the way to the door.
Given that the afternoon had been relatively short, Li Fei had lost only about a liter of fluid, leaving her looking merely a touch haggard. Beyond that, the Sensitivity Aura — for all how frequently Li Fei used it — was leveling up more and more slowly as her level climbed, which was to be expected. It wasn't hard to foresee that once the Sensitivity Aura reached Lv10 and hit that difficult ceiling, the courtesan queen's "soul-damage aftereffects requiring serpent-scale treatment" would gradually improve.
"Do you… still need this job?"
Watching Li Fei head off to the Golden Kumquat Tavern every evening to serve tea and wait on guests, Mrs. Annie felt a pang of guilt.
Of course, her understanding of the situation matched exactly what the papers said — Li Fei really was just serving tea and carrying drinks at the Golden Kumquat Tavern. No improper snuggling whatsoever. Hehehe.
"The income itself isn't really that important anymore…"
Li Fei gave a shy, pure-hearted little smile. "But back when I was down on my luck, Lady Gneia took me in and funded my studies… and in a sense, it was even she who brought the two of us together. She's practically our matchmaker. That debt is enormous."
"So I can't just walk away from this job — that would make me terribly ungrateful. Besides, I've built a bit of a reputation at this point; quite a few of the guests come specifically for me… but don't worry, my work is very relaxed these days. Mostly I just chat with the guests, talk about cultivation, help keep the regulars coming back… Once I feel the debt is repaid, I'll resign."
"Mm..."
Mrs. Annie relaxed slightly. "Then… I'll find a time to visit Gneia and pay my respects."
Her face colored a little — clearly, this "visit" was meant as a gift of thanks to Lady Gneia for her role as matchmaker. Given Li Fei's age and their teacher-student relationship, it was impossible not to feel embarrassed about it.
——Please don't!
——Lady Gneia had held herself back from making a move for years. Even when the courtesan queen practically threw herself into her arms, she restrained herself. If you showed up on her doorstep to flaunt your happiness and rub it in her face, that would really be in rather poor taste…
"No need to be so formal — Lady Gneia and I are very close, and she's quite busy running her establishment."
Li Fei gently talked her out of it, then leaned in close to her ear — speaking like the head of the household quietly conferring with his wife about adult matters behind the children's backs:
"Let's have Lilith stay at my place for now… once she's settled in and not so averse to the idea of our relationship, I'll bring you over too..."
I'm sorry to put you through this…
Mrs. Annie nodded, and found herself wrapping her arms around Li Fei once more — a mix of wistfulness and sweetness.
Even the most loving, devoted wife had never shown her this kind of all-encompassing consideration, always thinking of her, making room for her at every turn… Gratitude and the insecurity of not quite believing she deserved it all twisted together in her chest.
Seeing that the subject change had worked, Li Fei exhaled almost imperceptibly and said, with a slightly odd lilt to her voice:
"Ah — I'm not quite ready to raise a child yet… I really don't have that much energy or time to dedicate to raising a little one right now… But I promise, in the future…"
——Actually, I could just hand the baby off to the fairies to look after. Lord knows my Fairy Mother has been getting reverse-parented by her daughters for ages already…
——But I'd have to consider Zhihua-jie's feelings. Zhihua-jie, someone else's wife wanted to have my baby, and I said no — see how much I love you, sob sob sob.
Mrs. Annie stopped her words with a kiss.
As someone who had been through it herself, she understood all too well how much having a child could upend one's plans. Mrs. Annie looked at her girlfriend — young enough to be her daughter's match — and the regret in her eyes ran even deeper than Li Fei's own:
"It's my fault. I didn't think about your feelings."
"You're still so young. You have your whole bright future ahead of you…"
——True enough. I'm in the prime of my life, still plenty of fun left to have. Not yet time to settle down with a wife and kids by the warm stove.
"Don't apologize to me."
Li Fei's eyes curved with warmth. "I felt exactly what Annie-sensei meant by it. I'm touched. I really am."
And she meant every word. When she'd heard those words, Li Fei had felt like she'd knocked back a shot of very strong liquor — a rush of feeling unlike anything else.
After their parting kiss, Li Fei floated off on her broomstick in a pleasant haze, flying a good distance before she remembered her plan of "deliberately making small mistakes during foreign language lessons to ease Mrs. Annie's feelings of inadequacy."
But she quickly laughed it off with a rueful smile.
There was no point in that anymore.
After all, what could possibly be more effective at shattering the perfect image she'd cultivated in Mrs. Annie's mind than the fact that she'd been playing the field?
During the pursuit phase, a little performance was fine — but sooner or later, she'd need her lovers to accept the real her. Otherwise, she'd have to keep performing through the long years ahead, and that was simply exhausting…
Of course, pacing and temperature control were everything.
Back at the villa, she changed her clothes, shared a goodbye kiss with Lady Qin Zhihua, and then Li Fei — Master of Time Management — hurried off to her next engagement, to meet her next victim… or rather, to greet the evening's guest with her most radiant smile.
"Sorry for the wait."
Pulling the private room door shut behind her, the courtesan queen kicked off her heels with a most unladylike flourish. Her delicate, lovely feet, sheathed in blue-gray crystal stockings, climbed up onto the sofa cushions as she crawled on her knees over to the silver-haired, tear-mole beauty waiting inside.
This young angel positively glowed. Beyond the luminous halo above her head and her brilliant golden eyes, even her porcelain-white skin and cascading silver hair seemed to shimmer with a faint shifting radiance. Her hair color was similar to Nicole's and Irena's, though those two leaned toward a softer, more natural ashen luster; her features were more sculpted than Grace's — flawless and exquisite, with a quality of noble, sacred beauty, and as coldly imposing as the silver armor she wore, the sort that made one want to bow in reverence.
Not only that, but Chloe's two-meter height and golden body proportions left little doubt as to the extraordinary length of the legs beneath that battle-skirt — long and shapely, straight and powerful without sacrificing elegance, paired with silver metal boots, radiating a breathtaking, heart-stopping allure. This was the natural advantage of her bloodline; aside from succubi, almost no race could rival angels on average for sheer charm.
The courtesan queen deftly yanked one of the angel's wings toward her and draped it over herself like a blanket, then rapped her knuckles against the silver armor with a dissatisfied frown, wincing at the sharp clink.
"This is awfully uncomfortable to cuddle against… oh, right."
Before Chloe could even get a word in, Li Fei bent down to pick up her high heels by the tips, pointed toward the window, and smiled.
"Let's go."
"Go where?"
A look of puzzlement crossed the angel's cool, composed face.
The courtesan queen plopped herself down onto those very springy thighs, wound both arms around Chloe's neck, and said: "Didn't I say so last time? I'd help you pick out a skirt."
"No time like the present — let's go right now!"
"We fly out the window, ditch work, and go skirt shopping."
"But…"
Chloe instinctively folded her wings inward, enveloping the courtesan queen in warm, white feathers — Li Fei looked delightfully small and adorable cradled there, thanks to the considerable difference in their heights. Her voice still wavered with hesitation.
"Stop dithering — you're acting like some pampered young nobleman."
Li Fei gave her legs a little swing and goaded: "If you're any kind of woman, you'll hold me tight right now and take me with you."
CRASH!
An instant later, the private room window exploded outward into glittering shards.
Cradling the human woman in her arms, the angel soared out into the night, flying straight toward the moon.
____
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