Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, rock all the way to Grandma's bridge…
Humming a nursery rhyme that had taken on a rather different flavor in her head, Li Fei had melted into a puddle of herself, slumped limply against the headboard with even the hand dangling a cigarette swaying gently over the edge of the bed — the very picture of someone completely wrung out.
That paper-pale face wore a dopey little smile, like someone recovering from a serious illness who had then promptly lost their mind on top of it — grinning away happily at nothing in particular.
A married older woman really is something else entirely…
She was still savoring the thought when the bedroom door swung open.
"Come eat."
Mrs. Annie had changed into a loose set of pajamas. Her usually pinned-up hair now draped over her shoulders in soft, slightly disheveled waves — like a cat whose fur had been ruffled the wrong way. Every trace of that worn, sorrowful look had been wiped from her delicate, fair features, replaced instead by a radiant, alluring warmth.
Her hands were still damp — she'd clearly just finished cooking. Li Fei had wanted to take her out to eat, but Mrs. Annie had insisted on making the meal herself.
"Mm."
Li Fei had no intention of moving. She simply stretched her arms out lazily.
"You're going to die of laziness one day," Mrs. Annie said fondly, tapping Li Fei's forehead with one finger. She picked Li Fei's clothes up off the floor to help her dress, then noticed that one of the buttons on the white chiffon blouse had come off.
"I'll sew it back on — put on some pajamas for now."
Mrs. Annie opened the wardrobe and glanced inside, then immediately furrowed her brow.
She only owned two sets of pajamas that she rotated between — one loose, one fitted. The loose set was already on her own body, and the fitted one would never in a million years fit Li Fei.
"I want that one!"
Li Fei's gaze drifted over and pointed to a pink-and-white nightgown that had been neatly folded and buried under a stack of other clothes at the very bottom.
Mrs. Annie bit her lower lip, her expression uneasy.
This is my wife's nightgown…
"It's fine if it's inconvenient."
Li Fei's voice carried a faint note of disappointment — like a well-behaved little girl gazing longingly at someone else's hamburger while telling her cash-strapped parents, "I'm not hungry."
That look tugged at something in Mrs. Annie's chest, and a wave of self-reproach washed over her.
She was the older one here — no money, no standing, a divorcée with a daughter to boot — and yet she had used her position to seduce this perfect, luminous girl who had been handed every blessing the world had to offer, and had even spent her money in the process. The guilt and unease that came with all of that never quite left her; a nagging, fragile inferiority that made her want to make it up to Li Fei at every possible turn.
Especially now, when she had just taken advantage of her, only to ask her to give something up yet again…
Oh, forget it. It's already come to this.
Mrs. Annie exhaled a silent sigh, her fingertips trembling faintly as she retrieved the nightgown she had kept carefully stored away for over a decade, and dressed Li Fei in it without a word.
The nightgown was cut loose, but once it was called upon to accommodate certain insistently present features, the hemline that was meant to reach the ankle stalled stubbornly at mid-thigh instead.
"Does it look good?"
Li Fei pinched the hem and did a slow spin in front of Mrs. Annie.
Twelve years ago, when Mrs. Annie had first brought this nightgown home, her wife had stood in this very bedroom — the room that had served as their bridal chamber — and made the same gesture, asked the same question.
In that moment, Mrs. Annie's expression drifted into something hazy and faraway. The silhouettes of Li Fei and her wife seemed to blur and overlap.
A forbidden, feverish feeling surged up from somewhere deep in her chest, and she pulled Li Fei into her arms without quite meaning to.
On the nightstand, the wedding portrait looked on in silence — the silver-haired bride held in her wife's embrace, wearing the same bright, joyful smile she always had.
*
In a quiet chamber, incense curled in lazy wisps through the air.
A breathtakingly beautiful woman in white sat cross-legged, a faint smile resting at the corner of her lips.
The floor tiles, the walls, the ceiling — every surface was covered in carved murals: mountains and rivers, grass and trees, birds and beasts. But most of all, the figure of a woman — her face in a coquettish pout, full of enchanting grace; her glance cast over one shoulder, vivid enough to stop a heart; her expression in a moment of feeling, devastatingly lovely. Every expression, every smile, rendered with uncanny life.
"This blade is named Misty Drizzle."
Qin Zhihua opened her eyes. The sword resting across her knees slid from its scabbard.
In an instant, thousands upon thousands of fine, close-packed sword-glints scattered outward like rain through mist — ethereal, beautiful, and utterly lethal as they sliced effortlessly through the solid walls.
As powdered dust sifted down in a soft cascade, the freely commanded sword-light traced a painting onto the one patch of wall left intact: a full moon hanging high, sparse stars scattered around it; a barefoot girl with sandals in hand turning to look back over her shoulder, laughing, her hair dancing, water droplets and skirt-hem flying together in a beauty so striking it made the chest ache.
Qin Zhihua rose to her feet and touched the hand of the beloved in the painting with her fingertip, her smiling eyes brimming with tenderness.
Meeting Li Fei was the greatest stroke of fortune in her entire life.
Li Fei had given her not only the courage and resolve to break free of her cage — even her martial talent, which had always been somewhat overshadowed by her rare and exceptional gift for alchemy, had burst into brilliant bloom once she shattered through and rebuilt herself, finding the Way through love.
The True Qi flowing ceaselessly within her followed a path far less intricate and arcane than the techniques passed down through her family — its purity, too, was somewhat inferior. But this was a cultivation method Qin Zhihua had created herself. What that meant, someone raised in a family of such deep tradition understood better than anyone.
High Sequence had once been the furthest horizon on the path of martial arts — the very limit of what Qin Zhihua could hope to touch in her entire lifetime.
But after walking toward death and surviving it, after shattering the cage she had built around herself, the road to true mastery had, without her even realizing it, cracked open just the tiniest sliver.
"My lady!"
As Qin Zhihua pushed the door open and stepped out, Su Ling'er's delighted cry reached her ears. But she turned her head away and looked instead at the pristine moonlight pouring in through the window.
"How beautiful…"
Qin Zhihua murmured in quiet wonder — whether she was moved by the moon itself, or whether she was whispering to the phantom of a smiling beloved that existed only in her eyes, no one could say.
*
"Careful, it's hot."
The golden-haired woman, blooming like a tree that had found water after a long drought, gazed at Li Fei with eyes soft as still water, warmly beguiling.
"Teacher's cooking is absolutely amazing."
Even as Li Fei flirted, she glanced sideways at the scarf sitting nearby and politely — and silently — amended the compliment: Your wife's cooking is absolutely amazing.
"Stop calling me Teacher."
Mrs. Annie made a faintly reproachful sound, her expression a little conflicted.
"Then I'll call you Annie-classmate."
Li Fei smiled with her eyes.
"What are you talking about."
Mrs. Annie's cheeks went pink.
"But you were just calling me Professor Li — ah—"
Her blush deepening, Mrs. Annie couldn't help pinching Li Fei's waist.
It wasn't much of a pinch, but Li Fei still yelped, grumbling under her breath: "Betraying your teacher, disrespecting your elders… mmph, mmph…"
In the middle of their playful bickering, Li Fei noticed a bruise on Mrs. Annie's arm that hadn't faded yet, and her smile froze.
She had only grabbed her carelessly, and yet — with Mrs. Annie's Constitution sitting below 5 — even that had caused her pain and injury. In fact, Mrs. Annie had been silently enduring it the whole time; by the time Li Fei noticed, she was already black and blue all over.
"Does it still hurt?"
Li Fei set down her chopsticks, retrieved the wound salve Zhihua-jie had prepared for her, and began applying and gently massaging it in while asking with a pained look in her eyes.
"It's fine, really."
Mrs. Annie shook her head.
But Li Fei couldn't bring herself to smile. She frowned a little.
A gap in physical Constitution alone was manageable — at worst, she could set up a [Balance Crystal] every time they got close to suppress her own strength. But the disparity in Constitution led her thoughts down toward the wretched question of lifespan…
Mrs. Annie's wife had once prepared an anti-aging elixir for her, so Mrs. Annie's appearance would never grow old — she would simply fall into a sleep she would never wake from on some day, decades from now. And then there were the fairies.
Considering the absurd prices of lifespan-extending Transcendent items in her System Panel and the limits on how many times they could be used, Li Fei realized she needed to add a new item to her long-term plans: "Seek or develop a reusable method of immortality."
"Come on, eat."
Seeing that Li Fei intended to apply the salve to every last bruise on her body, Mrs. Annie felt a little uncomfortable and quietly drew her arm back.
She hadn't noticed it herself — that the deepening of her feelings had not, in fact, eased her sense of inferiority. If anything, it had grown. This meant that Li Fei's every act of care left her restless and overwhelmed, as if she could not bear the weight of it — even when that care was nothing more than the tenderness she was plainly owed.
But when had the top courtesan ever failed to read a situation like this? She was a far cry from those fellow transmigrators who only knew how to be gentle in the most dense, practically intellectually impaired way — utterly blind to the feelings of those around them.
The moment she sensed something was off with Mrs. Annie, Li Fei's mind shifted into a higher gear — as if someone had unlocked a third-stage gene lock — effortlessly stepping into the older woman's shoes and piecing together, more or less accurately, the state of her heart.
Snap.
Li Fei hesitated for just a moment, then let out a soft, casual laugh, and gave her elbow a small, deliberate jerk — sending a dish clattering to the floor.
"It's alright, I'll clean it up."
Mrs. Annie immediately got up to clear away the broken pieces.
How do you ease a girlfriend's inferiority complex?
Make small mistakes. Show her your imperfect side. Show her that you rely on her too. That was the answer the number-one mind in the PR industry had arrived at in a flash of inspiration — a few instances wouldn't be enough on their own, of course, but done consistently over time, once Mrs. Annie could grumble about her habits without thinking twice, the chasm carved by the difference in their circumstances would probably have been mostly filled in.
Li Fei swung her legs lazily and slowly savored her cream bisque.
She was perfectly aware, of course, that exploiting and deepening that inferiority complex was one way to get what she wanted — but feelings were a two-way street.
A drop in moral value didn't mean she'd gone cold and unfeeling. The trip to Viranean had made it abundantly clear to Li Fei that she, too, could fall for someone — and the more she was faced with someone she genuinely liked, the more her moral value drifted toward -1, that number that still held a little warmth. So she had better take advantage of her softer moments now to torment the poker-faced lady a few more times, before she got too soft-hearted to enjoy making her cry later. Heheh.
Li Fei was congratulating herself on her own cleverness when her brow suddenly knitted.
She had tasted something familiar in the soup…
Serpent-woman scales.
Was that why Mrs. Annie had gone out earlier?
Li Fei first wore a look of mild suspicion, then filled in the blanks herself and burst out laughing behind her hand.
Mrs. Annie really was frighteningly delicate — after just that, she'd already gone and bought this kind of thing… A married older woman. Honestly, that's all she amounted to.
Beside her, Mrs. Annie finished tidying up the broken dish fragments, then turned to look at her little girlfriend's pale, weary face with a pained, guilty expression, promptly ladled out another bowl of soup, and coaxed her gently:
"Drink more."
*
She was late to work that evening.
But since the client was Lady Hathaway — and since, after Lady Zhihua had crossed the finish line first, this vice-president of the Thieves' Guild had become the top contender for the runner-up spot — the top courtesan faced no reproach whatsoever, and was instead on the receiving end of fussing and inquiries about her health.
Besides, there was a perfectly legitimate reason for being late: she had personally devoted herself to honing her culinary skills to cook a meal for Hathaway-jie.
Even if said meal had been packed up and brought over from Mrs. Annie's.
But even if Mrs. Annie deserved 99% of the credit, didn't a certain Miss Li still deserve that remaining 1%? Reheating cold food was an indispensable step in the process, you know.
And so, under the top courtesan's bright, shining, expectant gaze, the refined cat-woman quietly and cleanly finished every last bite.
*
After leaving a lip-print on Hathaway's cheek by way of farewell, Li Fei walked directly over to Lady Gneia, who was sitting alone, pouring and drinking her own wine.
The purple gown traced the curves of a lushly rounded, enchanting figure — abundant as a goddess of the earth, carrying the weight of a bountiful harvest.
Li Fei poured her a glass and settled into her seat with well-mannered composure.
"Have you had your late-night snack yet?" Gneia drained her glass in one go.
"I have."
Li Fei sat up a little straighter — her own silhouette admittedly less commanding in scale than Lady Gneia's, yet equally precarious in its structural integrity — and smiled brightly: "But I could eat more!"
Gneia laughed despite herself and ruffled Li Fei's head with fond indulgence.
A moment later, a gleaming rack of lamb arrived at the table.
Fat glistening under the dim late-night light — every single bite carried a weight of sinful satisfaction.
The ever-disciplined top courtesan gnawed on her lamb chop while simultaneously practicing her smoldering-eye technique on Lady Gneia, all while maintaining that carefully calibrated push-and-pull distance between them. Working this hard on her micro-management skills even during a midnight snack — if she kept this up, wouldn't she waste away?
When the last bone was tossed onto the plate, the two of them rose with perfect, wordless synchrony and walked in silence toward the depths of the wine cellar.
"Rua!"
With that soft, baby-voiced command, Li Fei arrived once again in the desolate, lifeless Witch Coven Folded Space. The sky hung oppressively low — so close it felt like you could touch the stars just by standing on your toes.
The endless wishing ritual continued as always — wet, viscous, waves of pale flesh churning, the bewitching female voices rolling on and on in an unbroken stream, like eldritch whispers drifting from some nameless entity in the fog, luring lost girls to sink willingly into the depths.
This is so weird… I can feel my SAN points dropping.
Li Fei covered her eyes, hesitated for a moment — and then couldn't help but spread her fingers apart, two bright eyes peeking through the gap.
Just one more look.jpg
"Are you ready?" Gneia held her pipe, the wishing ritual entirely beneath her notice.
"Mm…"
Li Fei nodded, wincing a little as she extended her hand — her small, pale palm cradling a modest chunk of mana crystal she had exchanged in advance.
"Rua!"
A pink curtain of light descended. Guided by Li Fei's intent, it swept away the mana crystal she'd traded for over a thousand gold coins, while the number in the lower right corner of the light panel — corresponding to her Witch Points — flickered and jumped, finally settling on 1001.
Damn!
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks, her eyes brimming with aggrieved indignation.
The bonus hundred Witch Points she'd received as a benefit had been spent by Li Fei on cultivation materials for the secret art [Locked Emotion Blood]. The problem was, this particular technique required seven days of self-powered generation to reach completion… even a master of time management couldn't carve out that many spare hours!
"Exchange… the witch rank that belongs to me."
Li Fei exhaled slowly and steadied her nerves, then selected her exchange target.
The moment the words left her mouth, her Witch Points plummeted like a waterfall, and the towering pink curtain of light began to surge and billow. Even the waves of sound rising from the churning mass grew louder — rising and falling, pulling at the heartstrings — and Li Fei felt her thoughts drifting, a sudden wild impulse to throw herself into the generator and power the wishing ritual from within.
Evidently, the top courtesan's pain tolerance had been climbing steadily — but in certain other respects, her defenses could not be called paper-thin. They were in the negative.
Fortunately, the disturbance didn't last long. In mere seconds, the Witch Coven fell calm once more, and a column of pink light poured down into the crown of Li Fei's head while a flood of information detonated through her mind.
[Witch of Depravity]
Secret Elixir Formula: Bone Flower, serpent-woman scales of Sequence 9 or above, [illegible ingredient] with Charisma of at least 100, orange juice…
Advancement Ritual: Cause one female individual to develop [Li Fei-brand Witch Dependency Syndrome].
Holy—that is brutal.
Li Fei drew in a sharp breath.
The standard advancement ritual for the Witch of Pride was: have one hundred individuals with Charisma above 100 kiss the tips of your toes; upon advancing, you gain additional spell enhancement and acquire a quasi-spell ability to interfere with a target's emotions.
The Witch of Depravity rank that the wishing ritual had tailored specifically to her — whether it was the name, the elixir formula, or the advancement ritual — was worse than the already-quite-terrible Witch of Pride rank in every conceivable way.
Inflicting Witch Dependency Syndrome on someone meant they would be completely and utterly reduced to Li Fei's dog. The specific effect: "Go three days without physical contact with Li Fei, and the skin cracks and bleeds."
Li Fei didn't even intend to spread Witch Dependency Syndrome to her fairies or to Grace — she needed to pick one lucky audience member… She really should have let that woman who tried to kidnap her back in the Moonlight Wolf Den walk away with her life.
Now she'd have to find someone else. Right, Qin Lan?
"Well?" Lady Gneia inquired.
"What a raw deal," Li Fei said in her hometown dialect, shaking her head slowly.
Sequence 8 and already playing at this scale — what would Sequence 7 be like? Mid-Sequence? High Sequence?
She didn't dare think about it.
She turned it over in her mind, then looked at her future rank with an expression of grave solemnity and delivered her verdict:
"The corrupting influence on little witches — immeasurable."
____
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