"The path of the Transcendent is full of hardship — and human strength has its limits…"
Li Fei's gaze stayed locked on the transfer agreement, her thoughts drifting with the moment: "Cultivation, cultivation — what you're really cultivating isn't the art of fighting and killing. It's connections."
This single document had lifted Li Fei out of the landless-proletariat bracket entirely, launching her from night-shift tavern warrior straight into landed gentry — and the land in question was a Transcendent structure, no less.
Transcendent structures were nothing like ordinary homes. They could only fulfill their true potential when built upon locations that satisfied specific "mystical requirements" and consecrated through the appropriate ritual. The parallel to secret advancement potions was apt: take the Druid potion as an example — if you simply drank it outright, you might end up as some grotesque mass of flesh-and-bark. But if you first planted an oak sapling, nurtured it to a height of ten meters, and then consumed the potion, the door to the Transcendent path would open before you.
Just as advancement rituals varied in difficulty, so too did Transcendent structures — and the greater and rarer the structure, the more exacting its requirements for location.
Take the Secret Garden, for instance. Its grade was low — it was suited only to fairy habitation — yet in terms of category, it was extraordinarily rare. It was, in the truest sense, a "treasury-class" Transcendent structure.
As far as Li Fei knew, if you counted the jurisdictional area outside Loxibrook's city walls, there were at least several hundred fairy woodlands of various sizes scattered across the region — and more could always be cultivated if needed. But Secret Gardens? There were exactly two. Both were habitats for fairies, yet where the former was merely a place for fairies to breed and thrive, the latter also produced a rich and varied bounty of rare treasures.
And what Leona had gifted her was precisely the Secret Garden discovered in Viranean — one that had not yet been "domesticated." According to the textbooks, a "wild" Secret Garden of this type could typically yield a one-time windfall ranging anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of gold coins; if claimed as one's own, it would generate a fixed monthly output thereafter, with the yield scaling proportionally to the number of fairies residing within.
To Leona, a single Secret Garden was no great thing. But to Li Fei, a Secret Garden was a genuinely lavish gift.
Not to mention the twelve thousand gold coins' worth of goldsmith's notes on top of that. The Mercenary Guild's fencing channels were prized for their speed and convenience — but the payout was typically only seventy to ninety percent of market value, and if the goods were forbidden, dangerous, or of suspicious origin, the price dropped even further. This time, however, was an exception: the sum Li Fei received actually exceeded the wealth value the System had assessed — which inevitably raised the suspicion that Leona had appraised the equipment herself, quietly made up the difference out of her own pocket, and then handed it off to her people to quietly offload at their leisure.
"I even have house-buying money now — though I have absolutely no time to go house-hunting…"
Li Fei swung her legs contentedly, voicing this complaint with great happiness.
She shook her head back and forth, pulled out her notebook, and settled in: sipping at the red tea she had brewed with Lucky Fountain water, she began itemizing everything she needed to accomplish, one by one:
Buy a house.
Take possession of the Secret Garden.
Attend class.
Pro~~stitute~~ (crossed out) Sell wine.
Find teammates for the exchange event, plus necessary training.
Learn a foreign language.
Financial management.
Meditation.
Plan Eve's wedding.
Grind for experience.
Contact the Witches.
Prepare for the Sequence 8 advancement.
Gacha and stat allocation.
…
Li Fei chewed on the end of her pen, racking her brains over the scheduling logistics for the days ahead.
Buying a house was the top priority — it had to come first. Attending class, selling wine, learning a foreign language — none of those could be delayed either. The Secret Garden: the sooner she took possession, the sooner she could enjoy the benefits — once she'd picked a house, she'd head straight to Viranean. The exchange event was a month out, so finding teammates could sit on the back burner for a few days.
Grinding experience — no rush there, Turtle Island wasn't going anywhere. Meditation — no rush on that front either; Miss Zhihua was far too alluring, and there simply weren't enough hours in the night for sleep as it was…
The wedding — cross that out, cross it out. A banquet and a proper send-off into the bridal chamber was more than enough; what was the point of all that elaborate ceremony? The one thing Li Fei had always loathed most in life was feudal pageantry… though the betrothal gifts and bride price were absolutely non-negotiable. Not out of greed, mind you — it was simply a matter of tradition that could not be allowed to lapse.
As for stat points — how to allocate them? For Sequence 8, should she continue deepening the Witch class, or branch into something else entirely? Better to contact the Witches tonight and think it over then; she needed to clarify exactly when she had completed the Witch advancement ritual in the first place.
Finally, Li Fei let her gaze linger on "financial management."
This was a precise and complex discipline. In Li Fei's view, the crux of the whole enterprise came down to two things: "investing" and "getting more money to invest with."
On the investment side, the goal was to convert academic credits, fortune value, cash, and unused items into resources with practical utility or appreciating value. On the income side, the avenues were — well, many, including but not limited to: swindling money from her little wings, collecting tribute from her faithful hounds, killing and looting, demanding bride price and betrothal gifts, cultivating warm ♀teacher♀student relationships as a vehicle for securing more academic credits…
Just as Li Fei was deep in contemplation, Annie Teresa walked into the bedroom carrying a fruit platter she had meticulously peeled and sliced.
She was dressed in a simple, unadorned long skirt, her silk stockings tucked into a pair of grey slippers, and the slender ankles beneath her hem revealed themselves and disappeared with each step. Her chestnut-tinged golden hair was tied back in a ponytail, her sleeves rolled up, water droplets still clinging to her fair arms — every inch the devoted, capable homemaker.
Only her blue eyes gave her away: a faint webbing of red veins, and the faintest shadow beneath her lids — evidence that the disaster in Viranean had shaken her more deeply than she let on.
"Zhi—"
A name that had grown dangerously comfortable in her mouth nearly slipped out, but Li Fei caught herself mid-drift and corrected course with a graceful swerve: "—Do you have any idea how much I've missed you these past few days, Teacher Annie!"
"Mm."
Annie Teresa gathered her skirt and settled beside Li Fei, her fingertips brushing the hair at Li Fei's ear as she studied the suddenly much more mature face before her — then drew her in close and held her tightly.
Over the years, the exquisitely beautiful Annie Teresa had never lacked for admirers, yet she had steadfastly kept vigil for a wife who had vanished without a trace, her heart a fortress of iron — but the harder one's psychological defenses, the more completely they crumble once breached.
"Here I am, aren't I?" Li Fei said, lifting her head with some effort. One hand moved in slow, light circles on Annie Teresa's back; the other cradled her face, a thumb brushing away the tears, a bright smile blooming. "You cry every time you see me, Teacher — does that mean you're tired of me?"
Annie Teresa answered that question with action rather than words.
To avoid running headlong into the lethal minefield of "why are you so practiced at this?" — Li Fei, whose kissing technique had been at grandmaster level long before her transmigration, responded with deliberately clumsy, tentative movements, held her breath, and after a moment let out a small, suffocated whimper, gently patting Annie Teresa on the shoulder.
Then, seizing the initiative, she pulled back and turned wide, aggrieved eyes on her:
"Teacher Annie… you're so good at this…"
"I… I…"
Annie Teresa, as it turned out, had no answer for that minefield either. She faltered, stammering, looking flustered and genuinely guilty.
She gazed at Li Fei's breathtakingly young face — a face capable of toppling kingdoms — and found herself thinking of her own marriage, and of the fact that Li Fei was roughly the same age as her daughter, and of how Li Fei never stopped calling her Teacher — and it sent her spiraling into a deep, genuine tide of self-reproach.
"But I'll let it slide this time," Li Fei said with a sudden playful smile, "since you did save my life."
She savored the private thrill of it — the quiet pleasure of watching a composed, dignified woman's emotions bend effortlessly to her touch with just a few careless words.
"I didn't do anything to help you…"
"You did," Li Fei said, holding her gaze, her palm moving in soft, unhurrying strokes against the curve of Annie Teresa's cheek and ear. "If I hadn't thought of you, I'm not sure I would have lasted until the very end. A debt of saving my life — how does one repay something like that? Should I offer myself to you? Or offer myself to you? Or… perhaps offer myself to you?"
"I can't bear another loss. If you hadn't come back, I would have…"
Annie Teresa had been on the verge of speaking the thought from the deepest part of her heart — when Li Fei pressed a fingertip to her lips, stopping the words before they could form.
"Don't."
For once, Li Fei said something she truly meant: "Even if I can't come back — you have to take care of yourself. No matter what."
Her Morality had dropped, making her more selfish, more chaotic — madness and a certain darkness had taken root in the deeper parts of her heart. But that didn't mean she was without feeling. Li — Pure Love Warrior, Huntress of Hearts, Paragon of Ambition — Fei sincerely believed that things like chastity and reputation weren't worth a single copper. If she was alive, she intended to love every woman she encountered. And if she were dead — well, rather than her little wings weeping themselves into an early grave over her, she far preferred the thought of them living boldly and happily. That was far more in keeping with her own selfish desires.
Of course, if she ever did lose her life, Li Fei hoped her ashes might be scattered inside the Golden Kumquat Tavern, with its many gorgeous courtesans performing their signature "orange-themed group activities" above her grave day and night, watering her remains with "orange juice" — now that would be the height of romance, a vision truly worth aspiring to.
Oh, and naturally — anyone who went and remarried a ♂ after all that could simply go ahead and be buried with her instead.
Li Fei's gaze flickered, chaotic and cold thoughts rising and falling in the depths of her mind.
After a moment of silence — seeing Annie Teresa too moved to speak — Li Fei suddenly curved the corner of her mouth.
The fingertip still resting at Annie Teresa's lips pressed lightly inward, parting her teeth in a manner that was entirely unhygienic, and just barely grazed the tip of her tongue. Li Fei leaned close to her ear and breathed, barely a whisper:
"That 'breathtaking technique' you used just now — I'd love to learn it too. Won't you teach me… Teacher. Annie."
While Annie Teresa's face blazed scarlet, her lips caught shyly between her teeth, Li Fei let her eyes drift — languid and glittering — to the wedding portrait on the bedside table, fixing on the other bride in the photograph with a look of unmistakable provocation and smug satisfaction.
...
Though the better part of the foreign language lesson had been spent imparting "extracurricular knowledge," Li Fei's rate of learning was faster than it had ever been before.
For one thing, her Intelligence attribute had spiked dramatically — and unallocated attribute gains carried a larger amplification effect. For another, advancing to Sequence 9 and acquiring the Witch class, along with the physical transformation of her constitution and the Bloodline Witchification, had enhanced not only her combat capabilities but also her memory and processing speed. And for a third thing, Mama Nicole's Eidetic Memory was simply more effective than Lady Gneia's version.
She did idly wonder what Lilith's reaction would be when she got home and saw her mother's noticeably swollen lips.
When she arrived home, a crowd of lovely fairy maids came fluttering eagerly toward her at once — relieving her of her mage robe and staff, helping her out of her shoes, and turning on her eyes that were openly, shamelessly begging for a hug.
Li Fei looked at her capable, well-behaved little fairies — and something seemed to occur to her, her brow furrowing slightly.
Once she bought a larger house, it would need to have the kind of presence befitting a larger house. Both she and Qin Zhihua would need fairy maids to manage their daily lives, and there would have to be gardeners, cooks, and the like — a dozen or so fairies would barely suffice for that. But inside the Secret Garden, more fairies meant better; that was non-negotiable.
The bakery was on hold for now as well — Zhihua would probably open her own shop before long, and she'd need staff who were pretty, clever, and well-mannered…
And that wasn't even accounting for the future: bigger houses, more little wings to shelter, more shops to run… It wasn't enough. The fairy count was nowhere near enough.
Li Fei made up her mind: once she had the house sorted out and the Secret Garden in hand, she would pour everything into maxing out Meditation and Summoning Magic — other areas of Transcendent knowledge could wait.
Thump, thump, thump—
A rapid patter of footsteps approached. A disheveled golden-haired Blood Clan young lady came running barefoot to the doorway, her translucently pale toes curled against the floor, head bowed, greeting her with obvious discomfort:
"Mother."
"Good afternoon," Li Fei said pleasantly. "Isn't today a work day?"
— The Li household does not keep useless little daughters-in-law who contribute nothing!
"It's a holiday today…"
Sofia raised her head, eyes darting sideways.
Oh, ho.
Li Fei noticed that even Sofia's ruby-red lips had gone slightly pale; beneath her garnet-like eyes were deep, heavy shadows, and the overall impression was one of utter depletion — which, come to think of it, bore a remarkable resemblance to a certain someone's state earlier that morning.
Eve, however, came drifting out of the bedroom a moment later — all radiant smiles and boundless energy, swooping into Li Fei's arms like a swallow returning to its nest.
Very good. As expected of my daughter.
A true chip off the old block.
Li Fei — who was blindly overconfident in certain areas and thoroughly unclear on her own position in the hierarchy — stroked Eve's hair with great maternal satisfaction, her gaze brimming with approval.
She then turned a kind, benevolent eye on Sofia, and reached out to fold down the high collar she had pulled up around her neck — taking absolutely no notice of the deep, overlapping bite marks across the snow-white skin beneath.
Didn't you Blood Clan types like to bite other people's necks and drink their blood?
How is it that you ended up on the losing end of that arrangement?
Superior beings? This is what that looks like?
Genuinely hilarious.
Li Fei heroically suppressed the twitch at the corner of her mouth and kept a straight face. She was beginning to seriously wonder whether Eve was simply gifted beyond measure, or whether the Blood Clan's fearsome reputation had even more hot air in it than the title of "Loxibrook's Uncrowned Queen."
"There's no need to be nervous," Li Fei said, burying the thought of "kid, you're outclassed" deep beneath her composure, and said warmly: "Treat this place like your own home."
"Mm…"
Sofia still couldn't quite relax, her expression remaining visibly ill at ease.
Is she really that intimidated? Am I actually that frightening?
Li Fei shot a suspicious glance at Eve — and it suddenly registered that Eve had come flying out from her own bedroom. Li Fei had a fairly clear idea of what that implied. Her smile didn't waver in the slightest.
"Come on, then. Let's have a chat in my room."
Sure enough: the supermodel-tall, golden-haired Blood Clan girl went rigid from head to toe, sputtering: "That — that is…"
Li Fei was already pushing open her bedroom door.
And sure enough — the scene that greeted her bore a striking resemblance to the aftermath of a flood.
"Having quite the adventure in here, were we?"
Li Fei turned around with an expression that was more smirk than smile.
Even Eve shrank her head down a little, looking somewhat guilty.
"I'm sorry — it was me who…"
Sofia, who had been physically dragged in by Eve by the hair, stepped forward to take the blame voluntarily.
Li Fei sat down on the sofa without a word, crossed one leg over the other, and let her smile disappear entirely:
"It seems this mother of theirs is held in absolutely no regard whatsoever."
"So brazen before we've even exchanged vows — once we're actually married, are you planning to throw me out on the street?"
In truth, Li Fei wasn't actually angry in the slightest — she was simply planning to deliver a well-calibrated reprimand to the prospective daughter-in-law, the better to manage her going forward, and incidentally to secure an appropriately astronomical bride price. She was still in the middle of calculating exactly how much "sincerity" to extract from Sofia, when Eve drifted softly to her ear:
"Mother… I don't actually plan to get married."
Like mother, like daughter, is it?
Li Fei glanced at her with genuine surprise.
If her other daughters took more after the nature goddess — at least in Li Fei's presence, presenting themselves as gentle and kind — then Eve took after her the most. There were even signs that she might surpass the original. At minimum, Li Fei had never produced any actual casualties — she had merely enjoyed certain safe and side-effect-free recreational substances together with Miss Zhihua.
Facing Eve's stated preference, Li Fei fell into quiet contemplation.
The so-called Morality score of -17 could be broken down as: -1 toward those close to her, navigating things with a certain care (still deceptive, still manipulative, still exploiting your surplus value — but going out of her way to ensure you enjoyed the process and got PUA'd with a smile on your face); and -35 toward everyone else, doing as she pleased — averaged out to -17.
Which raised the pressing question:
How does one collect a bride price when one has no bride to give away?
Urgent. Awaiting responses online.
____
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