"Here."
Li Fei opened her palm, holding out a crimson crescent-moon pendant and a jade slip of the same make as Lilith's.
[Little Ghost Pendant]
Item Rating: Starlight
Description: Can house one low-Sequence ghost.
Price: 200 Wealth Points
[Type N-42 Voice-Transmission Disc]
Item Rating: New Moon
Description: Once charged with energy, it can carry sound to any disc on the same frequency, effective radius fifteen kilometers.
Price: 1000 Wealth Points
Qiao'er had barely gotten a good look at the two things before Li Fei's instructions reached her ear:
"There's a Heaven Realm female ghost sister sealed inside this pendant. I've broken her in properly, so she's trustworthy… and this jade slip can carry a voice across distance. If anything unexpected happens, let the female ghost out, pour ghost qi into the slip, and call me with it."
As she spoke, Li Fei gently swept aside the hair at the back of Qiao'er's head and tied the crimson pendant around that porcelain-white nape with her own hands, then circled around to the front to inspect her work, clapping softly in admiration.
"Sister Qiao'er looks so lovely."
"Thank you."
Qiao'er pinched the smooth, warm jade slip between her fingertips. Li Fei's body heat still lingered on it.
"Sister Qiao'er, Funing Palace struck me as a rather lonely place. When you have time, do keep Her Majesty the Empress company more often."
Li Fei coaxed her along step by step. "From now on, whenever I go into the palace to treat Her Majesty, you contact her every two hours. Try to keep her spirits up. A good mood helps her condition too…"
"Understood."
Qiao'er had no idea what Li Fei was really scheming, but she nodded all the same.
Seeing that, Li Fei's smile grew even brighter.
She would have loved to spend more time pressed close to Her Majesty herself, but medical resources couldn't be squandered like that.
With Qiao'er assisting, this humble imperial physician should have time to see other noble patients. Hee hee.
Stepping out of the room, Li Fei ran into a man wearing wind and frost on his shoulders. His face was dark, as though he were sitting on a lit fuse.
"Oho, who's gone and provoked our Hero Nie?" Li Fei asked with feigned surprise.
"You know perfectly well." Nie Yunyi snorted, though his expression eased a little.
Ever since arriving in Lin'an, one nuisance after another had clung to him. Either an old friend was being impeached, or some commoner was raising the banner of righteousness in the middle of the street, kowtowing and begging him to arbitrate over some moldy grievance dug up from decades past.
Clearly Lu Qianfan was the hand behind it all, doing everything possible to sniff out Nie Yunyi's plans and scatter his attention.
And with the Demon Suppression Bureau's informants blanketing the capital, Nie Yunyi got no peace wherever he went. Some irritation was inevitable.
Fortunately, the two of them had expected exactly this situation from the start.
The Great Song had stood for a thousand years, and it wasn't as if no dynasty had ever appointed a female official. But every such case had been an exception granted by special favor, and the posts had been trivial ones.
Li Fei, on the other hand, was a woman who had appeared out of nowhere. The more unfathomable her origins, the less the Song Emperor and the entire court would dare place the Demon Suppression Bureau, that sword that guarded the realm, into her hands. Aiming for the seat of Commander of the Demon-Suppression Bureau was pure fantasy.
So Lu Qianfan's whole faction had concluded that Li Fei was nothing but a smoke bomb meant to muddy their vision, and had focused every ounce of attention on Nie Yunyi — never guessing that Nie Yunyi was the piece who had volunteered to draw the fire, and that Li Fei genuinely wanted to become Commander of the Demon-Suppression Bureau.
"Hero Nie has worked hard."
Li Fei's manner was perfectly respectful. She went back to her room and returned with a bottle of fine liquor. "Have a little tonight, wash the weariness off."
Over the years, no one knew how many corrupt officials and great merchants had hauled over mountains of gold and silver trying to bribe Nie Yunyi, and he had never so much as blinked. Yet the drinks, the instant noodles, the fine liquor Li Fei sent him — those he accepted without exception.
"For this alone, these last few days of suffering weren't wasted."
Nie Yunyi took the bottle without ceremony and left, though as they passed each other he offered a reminder:
"Tomorrow is His Majesty's birthday banquet. You'd best be well prepared. Don't lose your nerve when the moment comes."
"Relax."
Li Fei waved a hand, then slipped through the evening dark into Miss Stepdaughter's room.
"Want to go into the palace together tomorrow?"
Miss Stepmother hopped up onto the bed without the slightest hesitation and got straight to the point.
Lilith set down the bark scroll in her hands and answered just as bluntly:
"No."
Her face was cool. Evidently some resentment still lingered over Miss Stepmother using her to sneak into the inner palace.
"?"
Li Fei pillowed the back of her head on Lilith's legs and squirmed around, wheedling, "But it's a super feast the greatest chefs in the land have spent over a month preparing…"
Silky hair spilled across her lap, quivering against the fair skin of her thighs with every movement Li Fei made. It tickled, and it gave off the scent of tea. Lilith couldn't stop herself from looking down, straight into Miss Stepmother's bright, glittering eyes, and something in her chest trembled — like a fluffy little dog romping in her arms, enough to melt a heart of iron and stone, enough to make her want to scoop the woman up and forget everything else.
"Forget it."
Lilith turned her face away in silence and shook the bark scroll in her hand. "I want to read this."
It was the Legacy of the thousand-year Tree Demon. Its demonic arts leaned toward the Death school, and Lilith happened to be a dual practitioner of life and death magic, so she had poured every hour of the past few days into it.
Knowledge had always been the most precious wealth, and no one ever complained of having too much. Even if the ceiling of extraordinary power on the Demon-Sealing Continent was somewhat low, its self-contained system of cultivation could still teach a mage of the Enros Continent to draw parallels — broadening the eye, sharpening the mind, sparking inspiration.
"Learn anything good?"
The feeling of puzzling out spells alone was something Li Fei — whose talent had barely climbed from a flat zero to the grade of "useless" — could never understand.
Lilith didn't answer. She simply raised one snowy, tender index finger.
Black magic surged, taking the shape of countless slender Tentacles like the root-hairs of a tree, dancing silently at her fingertip.
"Hsss…"
Li Fei's face turned grave, as though facing a mortal enemy.
Ordinary opponents, she could handle fifty at a time.
But ones with Tentacles or tails? That was another matter entirely.
Spells that were both lewd and lethal had always been Miss Top Courtesan's natural bane.
Thunk!
Lilith crooked a knuckle and rapped Li Fei's smooth forehead, her whole face wary. "You're not thinking something weird about my Tentacles, are you?"
"How can you smear an innocent person's name out of thin air?" Li Fei's eyes went wide with disbelief. "When you're the one hiding my picture books—"
"A classmate gave me that. I'm not like you, flirting with every girl in sight."
"You hid my picture books…"
"You're always making eyes at my classmates!"
"You hid my picture books…"
"And you keep wandering into Qiao'er's room for no reason at all!"
"You hid my picture books…"
"Could you stop harping on about the picture books!"
"Then…" Miss Stepmother mulled it over for a moment, then ventured, "Do you need a model?"
Bang!
The door slammed shut.
"Rebellion, sheer rebellion. The Li family's stepdaughter has turned on her own mother…"
Tossed out into the corridor, Li Fei grumbled to herself in low spirits, then vaulted the wall with well-practiced ease and headed straight out of the city. She found an empty stretch of ground and threw down the miniature residence.
Collecting merit right beside the imperial city was hopelessly inefficient, so Li Fei simply stopped pretending.
Subdue what demons, banish what fiends? Breaking in the female ghost ladies came first!
Li Fei gave the ghost gourd a light shake. A wisp of thick smoke drifted out, and several Kun Division female ghosts, long since drawn in by her extraordinary allure, exchanged smiles and wound themselves around her without a moment's delay. Wickedness and seduction lived together on those delicate faces; their pale white skin was like well water in summer, clear and cool to the touch yet impossibly smooth and soft.
She shook the gourd again, and only when a dozen or so female ghosts were coiling and clinging around her, giggling one after another, did she let out a satisfied hum.
As warm-ups went, that was about enough.
Xiao Lian was already kneeling meekly at the bedside, eyes lowered. She gently lifted Li Fei's slender, snow-white ankle and tenderly slipped off her embroidered shoe and silk stocking. Only then did that exquisitely lovely little face tilt up, and in those pitch-black eyes something like reverence flickered.
Just as Li Fei favored Ram and Eva among the sprites, so with the rest of the [Kun] Division female ghosts she could only spread her favor evenly like rain and dew. But Xiao Lian, leader of the Kun Division and the most beautiful of them all, got to attend every breaking-in session, offering [guidance] from the side.
Beyond that — though Li Fei's charm was no different from poison, and she held the power, authority, and wealth to grant life or take it — the fact that the not-yet-broken-in female ghosts were so eager and so willing owed a great deal to the ideological outreach Xiao Lian carried out again and again in her daily hours, with the sisters she had already organized and broken in.
—A good girl who works hard deserves a reward.
Li Fei hooked her damp, snowy toe under Xiao Lian's chin and drawled, "Sister Xiao Lian, do you want [Dreamscape] today, or the [Tail]?"
Bliss and Partial Transformation — Succubus Empress were both lewd and formidable skills. On the lewdness front, at least, each had its own merits and neither could be ranked above the other. Paired with the Sensitivity Aura, they worked better still.
But ever since stepping into Sequence 7, Li Fei no longer dared to open up at full power. It wouldn't quite snuff out a beauty's life or scatter her soul, but it would leave her unconscious for a good while and badly drained of vitality — precisely the opposite of the [entertainment] she'd intended.
"I, I…"
Xiao Lian hesitated, torn both ways.
Li Fei didn't hurry her. She traced the pale, bloodless line of those thin lips with her small, tender toe, thoroughly enjoying the female ghost lady's tangled expression.
But Miss Tail had no patience, and made the choice for her.
…
The day of the Longevity Festival arrived at last. Throughout Lin'an, every household hung lanterns and streamers; gongs and drums thundered; fiery trees and silver blossoms lit the streets in a display of flourishing prosperity, all to celebrate the birthday of the true dragon.
The festival had existed since the founding of the dynasty, though the date shifted whenever the throne changed hands, since the celebration was born out of the emperor's own birthday. The whole nation rejoiced together and wished His Majesty boundless longevity.
"Where are the meat buns?"
Back at the Prime Minister's Residence, Li Fei helped herself to a pinch of fried, seasoned Serpent-woman scales, scattered them over her white congee, and sipped lazily while her eyes swept back and forth across the table.
"Today is the Longevity Festival. Outside the palace, slaughtering pigs and sheep is forbidden, and no criminal may be executed either. Later, His Majesty will proclaim a General Amnesty for offenders and remit a portion of the taxes in arrears, so as to secure a whole year of good fortune and blessing," Chancellor Liu explained with a genial chuckle.
"Tsk."
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks, then asked with fresh curiosity, "So what birthday gift has Lord Liu prepared for the Emperor?"
"Two baskets of melons, fruits, and vegetables from my home village." Chancellor Liu drank his congee, smiling. "In this world, there is no gift more precious than grain."
"Lord Liu's integrity soars far above mine. I could never match it."
Li Fei arranged her face into an expression of solemn respect, while inwardly resolving that this man was not someone to grow close to.
After all, if it were Miss Top Courtesan's birthday, who would dare fob her off with cheap goods… That would absolutely go down in the notebook. Hee hee.
"And what birthday gift has my young friend prepared?" Chancellor Liu asked back, quite curious himself.
"Nothing worth mentioning. Just a stone and a blade of grass."
Li Fei smiled a smile that gave nothing away.
…
Outside the majestic Golden Throne Hall, ornate canopies fluttered and guards stood in ranks.
Draped in golden dragon robes, Zhao Bing finally carried a trace of that awe that needs no anger behind it — yet the gentle, generous smile on his face let approachability smother the majesty.
And beside this feeble dragon of insufficient breath stood, unmistakably, a true phoenix.
Her black hair was coiled up beneath a dazzling phoenix coronet. A dot of cinnabar marked the center of her brow. Her eyes held neither joy nor sorrow as they looked down upon the assembled ministers. Her porcelain-white skin was like hard ice throwing back the light of a blazing sun, and her tightly pressed red lips were vivid enough to bleed color. Over her shoulders lay a great crimson ceremonial cape, embroidered with a golden phoenix spreading its wings to fly.
But even that brocade splendor could not hide the tall, willowy, gracefully curved figure beneath it. With her chin tilted slightly up, she stood a full head taller than the Emperor by height alone, and her presence overwhelmed his a hundred times over.
Her already peerless beauty, carved out further by full ceremonial paint, looked more magnificent and colder still. In a single glance she carried the killing air of the one flower whose blooming slays a hundred others — like a she-dragon who outshone the world, aloof and proud, beside whom not only the Emperor but even the towering Golden Throne Hall behind her dimmed into mere backdrop.
"It seems that immortal maiden truly does possess miraculous healing hands."
Zhao Bing turned to the beauty at his side, gratified. "The Empress's complexion has improved a great deal. I shall have to reward her handsomely."
"Your Majesty is too thoughtful."
Su Wen's voice was level, without a trace of feeling in it.
"The Empress has spent two days in the immortal maiden's company. Surely you have some sense of her by now."
Zhao Bing was quiet for a moment, then ventured, "Does the Empress believe she… truly comes from the immortal realm?"
Su Wen's eyelids fluttered, and then she answered with absolute finality:
"Yes!"
Such certainty was so far beyond Zhao Bing's expectations that his mind reeled for a moment.
The Emperor knew perfectly well that although the Empress kept a low profile day to day, she had always handled matters with steady, meticulous care, thorough and dependable.
If nothing else, she had brought that flock of pining, competing beauties in the inner palace to obedient heel without a single incident ever going wrong. How many of the exalted gentlemen at court could match that kind of capability?
Indeed, on top of governing the six palaces, this daughter of a great noble house still found the leisure to manage several imperial enterprises, and every month she set aside a considerable sum from her allowance to donate to disaster victims.
Add to that what he owed her in the matter of their marriage, and Su Wen's words carried real weight with Zhao Bing.
"Even the Empress says so…"
As Zhao Bing pondered, a eunuch stepped forward and cut through his thoughts.
"Your Majesty, the auspicious hour has come," the eunuch reported, prostrate on the ground.
"I know."
Zhao Bing waved a hand, showing a hint of impatience. "If it were up to me, all that ceremony — sacrificing the three beasts, chanting the prayer texts — ought to be scrapped. Just do it the way ordinary families hold a birthday feast: take the gifts, open the banquet. Wouldn't that be simpler?"
"Your Majesty is quite right."
Faced with a complaint straight from his heart, Su Wen's manner remained entirely official, without a single lapse of etiquette to be found in it.
Zhao Bing's interest in conversation evaporated. He sighed, dispirited — yet toward this gay man's wife who had fulfilled the duties of an empress so conscientiously for so many years, he could hardly resent her cold shoulder.
In the end he forced a smile and said to Su Wen, "Come, the Empress shall accompany me for a look. I'm curious what novelties they've managed to dig up this year."
Offerings to the ancestors, to the heavens, to the deep earth.
The recitation of felicitations.
The edict of clemency proclaimed to the realm…
By the time the interminable procedures were finished, the sky had already darkened.
—Small temple, and what a gale of demons; shallow water, and so many turtles!
—Even back at our Magic Academy nobody dragged things out this long!
Blended into the crowd of ministers, Li Fei grumbled without pause inside her own head.
Dean Nicole alone could probably sweep the entire Demon-Sealing Continent, and even her speeches were short and to the point, for fear of wasting too much time.
Whereas this wretched Emperor put on this many twists and turns just to have a birthday…
Still, after squandering an entire afternoon, the main show had finally arrived.
The ministers presented their gifts, and once the presenting was done, everyone ate.
Li Fei turned her head and saw, quite clearly, Nie Yunyi standing at a corner of the palace wall with Eva and Sasha in tow, raising his brows to signal her.
____
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