Today's breakfast at Li Fei's house was dumplings with assorted fillings. The pleats were pinched with delicate care and the fillings were generous, so they all looked plump and pale.
Lady Zhihua had even mixed a dipping sauce of vinegar, chili oil, and garlic paste for her fiancée, down to the exact ratios Li Fei liked. It was thoughtful and meticulous.
Li Fei picked up a dumpling at random, never mind the filling, and rolled it twice through the sauce. The pearly wrapper was instantly coated in black and red, with a layer of minced garlic clinging to it.
"Ah-mm—"
She leaned in and bit down, only to find it was a pork and egg dumpling. The savory meat had just the right bounce, and best of all, it was full of juice, the kind that spilled soup when you bit it in half. Back on Earth, dumpling shops from the Northeast had been on every street, plus Cantonese-style dumplings and Daniang Dumplings, but Li Fei had always preferred frozen Wanchai Ferry. For nothing else but that mouthful of soup inside.
Still, plain meat filling was no match for just gnawing on a big meat bun. Li Fei picked and chose a few dumplings with meat-and-vegetable and corn fillings, and thanks to the thin, translucent wrappers she could tell the filling by color at a glance.
"Try this one. Ling'er made them."
Seeing Li Fei being picky, Lady Zhihua used a porcelain spoon to scoop two orange-red dumplings onto her plate, and the Young Madam accepted them happily.
They were shrimp and crab roe. One bite told her the shrimp paste had been pounded from fresh, live shrimp, because nothing else could give that sweet, firm, springy texture. It was so good that Li Fei hardly wanted to dip them in vinegar, for fear of ruining the taste.
The crab roe mixed in was the finishing touch. Every bead was distinct, with a clear spring and chew, like tiny popping boba, and when she chewed she could faintly hear soft little pops.
—Praise Viranean.
Li Fei thought, and dug in with her bare hands, polishing off an entire plate of shrimp and crab roe dumplings.
Ever since that primordial island had been annexed by Loxibrook and folded into the City Hall's development plan, seafood prices in the city had kept falling while quality kept climbing. Ordinary citizens earning twenty or thirty copper a day could now and then buy a lobster bigger than an Australian lobster and feast on it, and the better-off families could use caviar like salt.
Beyond that, Li Fei's gig as the aquarium spokesperson was tightly bound up with Viranean's inva… development. The booming ocean industry had given Loxibrook a flood of new jobs. For example, several Golden Tangerine-style taverns had recently introduced a number of new sea-folk sisters, fully demonstrating the great city's tolerant, equal treatment of the natives.
All in all, breakfast was a delight, as long as you ignored the fluffy fox tail swaying around the table.
"No."
Margaret's big fox ears stood straight up. Without a flicker of hesitation she pushed away the vegetable dumplings her beloved disciple had scooped for her and grabbed dumplings with both hands, left and right, her cheeks bulging.
Qin Zhihua had no choice but to tip the vegetable dumplings onto her own plate. She patiently waited on the two little tyrants at the table, and her gentle, gracious smile clearly carried a thread of helplessness.
Her feelings toward Margaret were complicated and awkward.
They said the kindness of a teacher weighed heavier than a mountain. The little fox was not only Qin Zhihua's guide in potionmaking, but had also brought her all the way from the Eastern Continent to Loxibrook. That was no different from carrying a canary's gilded cage from indoors to outdoors, and both had changed Qin Zhihua's fate.
Not to mention that Margaret had looked after the Qin family business more than once. With her connections as Lifetime Honorary President she had introduced talent and sales channels, and single-handedly turned an obscure Eastern grocery into a thriving chain of potion shops. Even Qin Zhihua's first meeting with her fiancée traced back to the tipsy little fox, who on her birthday night had dragged her off to the Golden Tangerine Tavern and handed over her own reserved Miss Top Courtesan to Lady Zhihua…
Her childish looks and childish antics could not hide Qin Zhihua's respect for Margaret. What really made Qin Zhihua uneasy was that this fox had harbored ulterior motives at first, wanting her beloved disciple to bear her little foxes…
Even after they had spent more time together and Margaret had run into a few soft walls, the Trash Fox's feelings had soured into something like a sisterly bond with her beloved disciple. Even so, Qin Zhihua habitually kept a certain distance from her master, to avoid any suspicion and any violation of propriety.
By comparison, a murky relationship between master and her disciple's wife was a small matter. After all, there were plenty of women entangled with her fiancée. With over two thousand Charm Marks on that snow-white belly, one more for the fox hardly mattered.
"Pour me some more garlic paste."
"I want the fish ones!"
"What about the dumpling soup?"
"Me too."
Since Li Fei was heading out on a long trip, Qin Zhihua had volunteered this morning to take over Ram's duties and look after her master and her fiancée alone. After ten-odd minutes of bustling about, her forehead was already damp with sweat, mostly from the mental drain of tending small children.
At last Li Fei was full, but that didn't stop her from dragging her chair next to Margaret's and stealing the fish and shrimp dumplings off the fox's plate.
"How dare you!"
The little fox was a bit possessive of her food. Seeing a snowy paw reach into her plate, her fluffy golden tail shot straight up and she demanded in a milky little voice.
But Li Fei turned a deaf ear. She had abandoned her chopsticks too, snatching dumplings by hand and sending them into her mouth, fast, vicious, and precise. In the time it took Margaret to say that one line, two more dumplings had vanished from her plate.
The little fox let out a couple of whimpers and threw herself into the dumpling war with Li Fei.
Qin Zhihua watched them, and for some reason thought of Bai Mengtian.
If she were at the table too…
—May our friendship stay evergreen and never spoil. Fei-men.
As Qin Zhihua silently prayed, a heaping plate of dumplings vanished in no time, leaving only the last one.
Neither Li Fei nor Margaret would yield. They wriggled their hips, trying to shove each other aside. Li Fei even broke the rules of martial ethics and struck first by blowing on the fox's ear, and the fox tail immediately countered, its tip reaching down to tickle Li Fei's ribs.
The table began to shake. Li Fei brought out her succubus tail too, swaying it eagerly, and it looked like things were about to escalate.
Pap.
With a soft sound, Lady Zhihua set her chopsticks down on the table.
Under Su Ling'er's stifled-laughter gaze, the girl and the fox fell quiet at once and looked up at Qin Zhihua like good children.
Her fiancée and her master were both equally dear to her. Qin Zhihua, impartial, picked up the last dumpling and put it on her own plate. Then she took a napkin and wiped both their mouths, and said with a warm smile:
"Are you full?"
"Full, full."
Li Fei nodded repeatedly, then hauled the Trash Fox into an empty room nearby and got straight to the point:
"The goods?"
"The money?"
Margaret shot back.
Only when she saw Li Fei pull out a goldsmith voucher did the little fox swish her tail and produce a big bundle.
This was Li Fei's "east wind."
After receiving Miss Phoenix's letter last night, Li Fei had immediately asked Qin Zhihua to gather a batch of materials, in case they came in handy in Folded Space B-01. Lady Zhihua's connections weren't enough to collect everything in one night, so she had turned to her all-capable fox master.
The fox had come this morning to deliver the materials. As for the Demon-Sealing Continent specialty Li Fei had asked her to handle a couple of days ago, that would have to wait until she got back from this trip.
"That'll be 125,103 gold coins."
The little fox held out her palm.
"Is that a discount?" Li Fei asked, surprised.
"Of course not."
The little fox said, perfectly righteous: "Time was too tight. We're still missing one item, [Withered Purple Dream-Demon Eyeball]."
"Lifetime Honorary President? That's all? How very funny."
Li Fei deliberately drawled the words out.
The little fox puffed out her cheeks and followed up with face-saving lines like "Dream-demon eyeballs are everywhere, but the kind you want is very special and has few uses, so nobody stockpiles it" and "It needs at least two days to prepare."
"All right, thanks."
Li Fei quickly checked the materials and tucked the whole bundle into her spatial ring. Then she rubbed the little fox's ears, planted a kiss on her forehead, and said warmly, "You came all this way first thing in the morning. Thank you for your trouble."
The little fox, having been given her sweet date, started swishing her tail again:
"It's nothing, really."
Li Fei went straight for the dagger hidden in the scroll: "So… can I get a discount?"
Under the little fox's watery, furious glare, Miss Top Courtesan painfully paid full price. Her little treasury shrank drastically once more, leaving barely enough to cover one installment of the goblin lab's loan. Of course, "full price" meant what Margaret had paid. If sold slowly on the market, they'd fetch at least three, four, five, six thousand more, and some auction-grade materials would go for even higher premiums if they met a desperate buyer.
The one missing ingredient was no great problem. Li Fei had bought the fourth layer of Furnace Battle-Qi and still had 180,000 Wealth Points left, and her businesses had been steadily paying in lately. If she hadn't held to the principle of "use gold coins instead of Wealth Points whenever possible," she could have bought a batch of common materials on the market without calling in any connections, and redeemed the rest from the Mall.
After a carefree goodbye to her family, Li Fei walked toward the Magic Academy in the morning sun.
A hard fight was coming, and she didn't want to be hauled into the station by a righteous Miss Constable for illegal use of a flying mount. That was no auspicious omen.
Of course, she didn't idle on the way. She kept drawing the three weapons [Quietsong], [Blade of Joy], and [Dark Night] from her spatial ring and putting them back, switching two-handed weapons at a dizzying speed until it became muscle memory, so that she wouldn't lose the initiative or fall behind in real combat by being "slow on the draw." She even remembered to practice quick-swapping brooches. The [Gold-Grade Magic Apprentice Brooch] added few stats, but its enchantment, [Void], was powerful, and might come in handy at any moment.
The strength granted by the gear she carried, one Firefly, one Starlight, six New Moon, four Full Moon, and three Dawn-grade pieces, kept welling up inside her. Her mana felt unbelievably light, and the dormant crimson battle qi stirred restlessly, like a vicious dragon waiting to devour someone.
Clearly, ten-odd days of relaxation hadn't dulled Li Fei. The moment she was geared up and ready, her greedy, cold-blooded, wicked instincts, full of ambition and aggression, woke with no effort at all and spread through her abyss-like soul, urging her to deceive, to plunder, to destroy.
"Good morning."
The greeting snapped Li Fei back to herself.
The Miss Constable with long chestnut hair and a bridal-white uniform was studying Li Fei, her expression complicated.
Running into Miss Philanthropist twice in a row on the street, and without a single violation, was truly unexpected.
Had she really turned over a new leaf?
As Asuna speculated, a fragrant breeze swept over her, green-tea flavored.
"Morning!"
Li Fei's overly mature figure and a Transcendent's keen senses ruled out any "clumsy schoolgirl collides with a career woman on the way to school" scene between her and Asuna. But that didn't stop the first-year girl student from looping an arm through hers:
"Can you walk me to school?"
"Sorry, I'm on duty."
The selfless Miss Constable refused at once.
"But isn't a constable's job to serve the people?"
Li Fei said, aggrieved. "I'm going to be late."
As she spoke, she pressed in a little closer, putting her physical advantages to full use and trying to win over Miss Constable with sugar-coated bullets.
The elasticity against her arm was already unmistakable, but Asuna was a rising cadre of Loxibrook and a servant of the people. How could she be corrupted so easily?
Asuna had meant to pull her arm free. It wasn't that she was reluctant, only that using force would cause more unnecessary physical entanglement. So Miss Constable turned her head away, not daring to look into those pitiable eyes, and even held her breath so as not to inhale that fragrant tea scent. Then she whistled.
A dark shadow pressed down from above, and a griffin circled and landed beside them.
"She'll take you."
Asuna said calmly.
"?"
Li Fei fidgeted. "I-is that really okay? Isn't that using a police vehicle for personal business?"
"It's serving the residents of Loxibrook."
Asuna corrected the mistaken wording. "Also, she's professionally trained and holds a [Special Flight License] from City Hall, and she's assessed every year at year's end. Besides assisting on patrol, she also escorts people injured in accidents or taken suddenly ill. So taking you to school violates neither the traffic regulations nor the flight control regulations."
"But…"
Li Fei bashfully raised her next question: "I'm afraid of heights. Without someone to escort me, I'll get dizzy and my heart will race…"
"Miss Li Fei."
Asuna sighed softly. "If I remember correctly, the time before last that I arrested you was for flying in the city without a license."
"Hehe."
Li Fei stuck out the pink tip of her tongue and tried to bluff her way through.
Without a doubt, Miss Constable's resolve was far firmer than that of a certain blonde mature female teacher, who claimed to treat everyone equally but invented new ways every class to hand credits to the dean's daughter. Corrupting her would be no one-day job.
With sweet goodbyes, Li Fei straddled the griffin and flew toward the Magic Academy. Asuna didn't even watch her go. She turned and went straight back to her patrol, seemingly calm as still water, setting the encounter aside in an instant.
Only the arm that had just been hooked hung somewhat stiffly at her side, like a pure young girl visiting her lover's home for the first time, with hands that didn't know where to go. It would probably be a good while before it recovered.
…
"It seems you two are ready."
In the dean's office, the intellectual, elegant gray-haired lady rose gracefully.
"Yes! Bringing glory to our alma mater is our bounden duty!" (brimming with vigor)
"Mm…" (meekly)
"Follow me."
Having received the expected answers, Her Excellency the Dean pushed open the door and led the two beautiful mage girls out.
Sensing that the soft, adorable, oversized white-haired beauty beside her was nervous, Li Fei very considerately took her soft, fair little hand and passed her own warmth to her.
Annesia trembled like a startled fawn.
It was warmer than Irena's hand, and the fingers were longer. The skin was a little less tender, but it had a gentle, jade-like texture.
This unfamiliar touch, not Irena's, made Annesia instinctively want to pull her hand back, but Li Fei held on tighter.
The white-haired beauty felt a strange pang of guilt, then secretly turned and glanced at her junior.
The abyss noticed the shy gaze cast her way and looked back with a smile.
Those bright, gentle eyes made the little deer in her heart bound wildly, and Annesia's porcelain-white face flushed a visible pink.
A rich tea fragrance lingered at the tip of her nose, which blurred the lovely, sparkling smile of the gray-haired girl that kept haunting her mind.
In the end, she lowered her head and quietly accepted her kind junior's care and encouragement.
Nicole's senses naturally caught both her daughter's warm gesture and Annesia's acquiescence. She curled up the corner of her mouth, her lips drawing into a meaningful arc.
She knew very well that this white-haired beauty, a girl of unknown origin in others' eyes, had been brought back to Loxibrook by Irena herself.
But clearly, in this loving mother's heart, rivalry among the younger generation brought her more delight than her own displeasure at being cuckolded.
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