Li Fei handed the [Longevity Fruit] to Margaret.
If this thing could be produced at scale—not apple-cheap, two coppers a pound, but at a cost under ten thousand gold coins apiece, with an annual yield of over a hundred—it would be an enormous help to Li Fei.
Never mind anything else. Toss a few each year to the Demon Suppression Bureau as year-end prizes for their demon-slaying champion, and Li Fei's experience gain would double at the very least.
"It really is a variety I've never seen before."
Margaret sniffed it, her big tail swishing lazily behind her.
"I'm leaving it to you. Whatever results we get, we split fifty-fifty."
"Huh? But that's a terrible deal for me!"
The little fox started haggling.
Li Fei pretended not to hear, and handed her a new job instead:
"Process these for me too."
Plans never keep up with changes. Not only had the joint research partner for the [Longevity Fruit] been switched to the Potioneers' Guild, but the Young Madam, mindful of how Lady Zhihua had been coming home late and leaving early lately, had decided to pick a different tool to handle the Demon-Sealing Continent materials for the time being.
Most of the less valuable ones could wait until Lady Zhihua had some free time. But the [Vermilion Fruit], the [Demon King Crystal Core] and the [Thousand-Year Tree Demon's Sap] were better processed sooner, so she could enjoy the results sooner.
"If you want me to brew potions on commission, my fee is very steep, you know."
At that, Margaret's tail shot straight up, and she looked smug as anything.
The little fox was undeniably cute. Her features were delicate as carved jade, and her big eyes were golden, shimmering and sparkling, the very picture of harmlessness. Today she even wore a little pink dress that gave her a ladylike air. A punch to the stomach would probably have her crying for a long time.
Li Fei hesitated. In the end she recalled the rumor that this fox could whip up a tornado with her tail, so she unclenched her fist and decided to reason with her instead:
"A single day as master and apprentice builds a hundred days of kindness. Qin Zhihua is busy right now pushing for Sequence 4. Shouldn't you, as her master, look after your apprentice's fiancée within your means?"
"Feelings are feelings, and business is business."
Margaret said it with perfect confidence. "You said so yourself, back when I named you."
Li Fei thought it over for a moment. Then she tipped backward and flopped onto the bed with a thud.
The little fox perked up her ears and put on an expression of wide-eyed, innocent curiosity.
"You just want to coerce me into doing that, don't you?"
Li Fei lay there stiff as a board, reluctant to the bone. "You people are seriously boring."
The fluffy big tail curled around, and its tip gave her apprentice's bride-to-be a tentative poke on the cheek.
Li Fei turned her head away with a cold, disgusted look and urged:
"Hurry it up. I have to get back and study."
That scornful tone landed perfectly in the rotten fox's sweet spot.
And so the big tail began to wag, cheerfully and shamelessly.
…
"Hey, are you done yet?"
"I-it doesn't feel good at all."
"Gulp…"
What goes around comes around. What Miss Imperial Physician had once done to Her Majesty the Empress was now repaid to her twofold by Margaret, in an even more outrageous way.
Li Fei spat out a few golden fox hairs with a "ptoo," then rinsed her mouth.
"Average."
"Um, I didn't know you'd used [Azure Mint]…"
Margaret's fox ears drooped like a child who'd done something wrong. She looked a little anxious, with a faint note of awe mixed in.
She had assumed Miss Top Courtesan was playing one of their usual role-play games, only with even more polished professional skill. The acting had been so lifelike, bringing to life a "straight girl who wasn't interested but had to put up with it."
Only at the final moment did Margaret notice something was off. She switched to a physical check, and that was how she learned the truth.
That surprised her even more.
How did a low-Sequence mage girl, with [Azure Mint] in her system, still manage to show an accelerated heart rate, a rise in body temperature, dilated pupils, and fluid loss?
If she was like this after inhaling [Azure Mint], what would she be like normally?
It left the fox stunned!
Next to a plush-ball constitution like that, even a succubus infected with Witch Sickness seemed far too reserved and proper.
Bang!
Li Fei showed no mercy. She shoved the materials into the fox's arms, pushed her out the door, and slammed it shut.
She stood in silence for a moment, then suddenly clutched her chest.
A heart-lake that should have stayed calm had, in the end, been stirred into a few ripples by a fox's tail.
Warm tea fragrance kept seeping out of her blood, quietly neutralizing the effects of the [Azure Mint].
She bit her lip. Her eyes were finally damp, but they hardened again quickly, and she steadied her ragged breathing with a deep breath:
"I'm still too weak."
"Just a fox's tail, a light, half-hearted tease, and my composure nearly collapsed. If she'd really gone all out… wouldn't I have fallen back into what I used to be, all over again?"
"Wake up, Li Fei! Did you forget what you told yourself? You can do this!"
After a round of self-encouragement, Li "Straight Girl" Fei cut down her wandering heart and threw herself back into her tight, fulfilling schedule.
…
"Take it easy on the road."
"Mm."
Lady Annie watched her little girlfriend's back disappear into the night and stood at the door for a long while before she went back inside, brow furrowed.
In the bedroom she took out her manuscript pages as usual, but a full ten-odd minutes passed and she couldn't write a word.
Lady Annie sighed softly, set down her pen, and walked over to the mirror to study the familiar face reflected there.
Though she was past thirty, that face still held traces of Lilith, along with the same pure, innocent air. But time had not stood still, so compared to her daughter, the mother's features were more mature and gentle. Her slightly dulled golden hair was tied back, and the collar of her plain black dress covered half her collarbone. Porcelain-white skin gave off a cool sheen in the soft light, making her seem especially reserved and demure, with the tender, watery air of a literary-minded wife.
Only the hollowness and anxiety in her aqua-blue eyes, and the thousand words that seemed hidden beneath her faintly pressed lips, gave her the look of a woman weighed down by worries, and amplified the fragile charm unique to a decent married woman.
"Have I gotten old…?"
She rose slightly onto her dainty feet, wrapped in sheer stockings, and examined herself in earnest, hunting for the flaws that time had left. She found none, yet it still couldn't smooth her furrowed brow.
Three full days now. She and her girlfriend had spent fourteen hours and twelve minutes together in the bedroom, plus twenty or thirty seconds or so, and that was counting mealtimes. Through all of it, Li Fei had been utterly single-minded. Even when their legs or arms brushed by accident, she hadn't noticed at all.
So the relief had quickly turned into fretful worry, even fear.
Lady Annie no longer had to worry that Li Fei was burning too much time and energy on extracurricular knowledge and falling behind in her studies. She no longer had to clamp a hand over Li Fei's mouth in terror, lest her daughter hear something improper. And she no longer had to face the lingering guilt that struck every time she wiped the frame of her wedding photo.
But Annie Teresa had to admit it: the girlfriend who clung to her saying "I'll definitely study hard next time" had put her more at ease.
Had she grown tired of her?
No, she wouldn't. She wasn't that kind of person. She might be fond of the new, but she never tired of the old.
But then why…
Lady Annie couldn't find an answer. With a sigh, she walked straight to her daughter's bedroom door and knocked.
"Are you asleep?"
"No."
The mother pushed open the door and found the lights off.
The girl with skin like ice and bones like jade sat cross-legged on the bed, her blue eyes giving off a deep, strangely beautiful glow in the dark.
Lady Annie sighed again and gently switched on the light, then smiled warmly:
"I remember you were very afraid of the dark when you were little."
"That's all in the past."
Lilith kept her eyelids lowered.
"Our little Lilith has grown up."
Lady Annie ruffled her daughter's silky hair and gazed at her graceful, slender figure, her tone both proud and wistful.
"Mm."
Under her mother's gaze, Lilith drew up her knees, bent over, and hugged her glossy white calves, cutting the line of sight between her mother's eyes and her belly, though it was still flat and slender for now.
"Come to think of it, even though Mom isn't a Transcendent, I've been writing a novel with a female Transcendent as the lead lately, and I've hit a bit of a wall… Could you tell me what you went through in Folded Space with her? And I've always been curious. What Legacy did our family's priestess get, to suddenly take [Death Magic] as an elective?"
Lady Annie put on a girl's liveliness, pressing her palms together like a girl begging her best friend, "Just one sip of your milk tea!"
But after living so long with only each other, mother and daughter had long been of one mind, and both knew the truth: a power-fantasy novel needed inspiration like a hole in the head. Lady Annie just wanted to talk with her daughter and learn a little more about her.
Yet to Lilith, every word of it stabbed straight into the heart.
The stepdaughter buried her head deeper, and her snow-tender toes curled, gripping the bedsheet.
The last person to obtain [Life Reaper] had been Diana, Lady Annie's wife, who had vanished without a word.
As for the trip to Folded Space, two people and two sprites had gone in. Many more had come out, including the "Forbidden life" now growing inside Lilith's body.
"There's nothing much to say."
Lilith's voice came out muffled. "She already told you what happened in Folded Space, didn't she?"
"Two energetic kids in their rebellious years, off somewhere so far away for over a month. Surely you got up to some mischief? Like secret dates with a princess from another world, or stealing treasure from a dragon's lair? Plots like that come up all the time in stories."
Lady Annie blinked. "Tell me. It'll be a secret just between us, mother and daughter. I promise I won't tell her."
Her tone was still playful, but she had clearly reached out to rest her hand on her daughter's cool instep, and there was a pleading look in her eyes.
She likes feet too…
The strange thought surfaced unbidden, and the warmth from that soft palm scorched Lilith's heart.
So she chose to run away once more. She yanked her foot back as if shocked by lightning and curled up like a hedgehog, her voice muffled again:
"Nothing like that happened…"
A few minutes later, Lady Annie tiptoed out of the bedroom and shut the door.
She went back to her own room, opened the window, found a cigarette case from a cabinet where she seldom looked, took out a slim cigarette, and lit it.
The gray smoke was as melancholy as her mood.
The little girl who once couldn't sleep for fear of the dark and clung to her, begging for a lullaby, now liked the dark more and more. She never turned on a light when she cultivated in her room at night.
The girl who had chosen [Life Magic] without a moment's hesitation because she didn't want to hurt anyone had told her yesterday that she was taking [Death Magic] as an elective, and the Academy had already approved her application.
The daughter who used to tell her everything now couldn't even meet her eyes.
In her memory, Lilith had been radiant and carefree the first time she put on the white priestess robe and refused to take it off. That image overlapped with the tense, curled-up heaviness she'd just seen, and it cracked open in Lady Annie's heart along with everything else.
What on earth had happened to make the two most important people in her life turn strange at the same time?
Two people…
The starlight reflected off her wedding ring stung her eyes. Lady Annie glanced back at the wedding photo by the bed on instinct. The blonde bride and the silver-haired bride were smiling like flowers, and those sweet years of love and harmony were still vivid. When Lilith was born, she had likewise believed there were two most important people in her life, forever unchanging.
"Is this what I get for being unfaithful…?"
Lady Annie gave a bitter laugh. The fear of possible loss left her fingertips icy.
But fear awakens courage.
The delicate lady began to rub her wedding ring without thinking. Yet what filled her mind was no longer the wife who had put the ring on her finger, but the young woman who stroked the ring with the same motion, and who had taken this ring in with a heat so scalding it could nearly melt fingers.
Facing a back that was drifting further and further away, this time she did not want to wait passively.
She would find the answer to all this herself, and fix it.
Lady Annie took another drag. Her gaze, deep in concentration, turned a little shadowy, and the faint outline of that woman could just be seen in it.
Beneath the ring, the groove left by more than ten years of wearing it itched a little. Fine cracks were spreading, forming eerie, ghostly patterns. But Lady Annie had no attention to spare for that. Only one question filled her mind:
Where would the answer be?
Soon, a short-haired girl, far too pretty and so quiet it made your heart ache, surfaced in Lady Annie's mind.
She always came along with Lilith and Li Fei when they visited. At the school competition, the three of them had fought side by side and won the championship.
Miss Grace had to know something, and perhaps even…
A bold guess surfaced in Lady Annie's heart.
Three Transcendents who had braved life and death together, as close as siblings.
Until two of them fell in love with the same girl on the team, and the team began to fracture, even turn on each other…
A story like that was far too common, whether in novels or in the heroic tales sung by wandering bards.
Then she thought of the signs in her daughter's words and behavior, as if she were secretly pining for someone.
And of how, when her stepmother had visited recently, Lilith no longer squabbled with her but kept her distance and spoke as little as possible, hiding something with the stubborn self-deception of someone covering her ears to steal a bell.
Lady Annie had it figured out.
Those two kids weren't sulking at all. They had become love rivals!
How else to explain why both of them were acting so strangely, while Grace alone was the same as ever?
Just then, a desolate, resonant horn sounded, from some training ground, though no one knew which.
But to Lady Annie's ears, it was clearly the horn of a counteroffensive.
The night wind stirred her soft hair. As if waking from a dream, the lady stubbed out her cigarette, her aqua-blue eyes full of resolve.
She closed the window and turned toward the door.
Zzzip—
The zipper of her flat-heeled boots went all the way up, and the ever-gentle lady threw on a trench coat.
She would verify the answer herself, and she trusted that quiet, well-behaved, dependable girl to give it to her.
Before long, hoofbeats sounded like falling rain. A blonde woman rode off on a rented horse, her figure melting into the night.
The fading hoofbeats were clearly headed toward the lumber yard outside the city.
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