Though the family banquet was a small gathering, the mood ran warm enough — sovereign and subjects passing cups back and forth, laughing and teasing and cursing each other in good humor, with more than a touch of abandon about it.
Zhao Bing put on no airs. He seemed to have genuinely cast himself as the elder of the household, and refused not one of the toasts offered by Lu Qianfan's adopted sons.
Throughout, Xu Yuzhong made a point of shooting the occasional glance at Li Fei, as if flaunting how close he stood to Zhao Bing — a bond built over years, not something a few casual gifts could paper over.
Li Fei paid him no mind at all, giving her whole attention to waiting on Her Majesty the Empress, which left Xu Yuzhong sullen and stifled, like a man throwing a punch into a bale of cotton.
"Haaa…"
Another cup went down, and the wine showed in Su Wen's eyes. The faint flush across her cheeks made her lovelier still.
She could not bring herself to give up that gaze, gentle as still water; and she feared being found out, feared the catastrophe it would bring, feared that she would never again breathe in that rich fragrance of tea… Torn between holding on and losing it, Su Wen felt a dull ache spreading across her forehead.
But this time the pain was not the anguish of soul Desiccation. For some reason her Meditation Method was advancing at speed, and her spirit swelled and grew like a balloon filling with air, until the apertures in her head throbbed from the pressure.
She pressed her temple. A faint breath of wine escaped between her lips.
"Pour."
This time, however, the imperial physician handed her a cup of hot tea instead. "Your Majesty, wine should be taken in moderation."
"It is not tea I asked for."
Even as Su Wen said it, her hand closed around the teacup.
"Her Majesty still loves to force herself, I see." The imperial physician's smile was sweet, but there was a second meaning buried in the words.
Su Wen heard perfectly well what Li Fei was implying, and a note of vexation, almost too faint to catch, crept into her voice. "I am not drunk!"
"If someone told me I was drunk, I would set the cup down — not pick up the next one."
Li Fei rose gracefully, walked around behind Su Wen, and began to massage her temples.
Su Wen startled again and glanced at Zhao Bing. Seeing him with a cup in hand, reciting poetry, she let her heart ease back down.
"Hmph!"
It was Xu Yuzhong who snorted.
This enchantress bewitches His Majesty and now she's currying favor with the Empress. A shameless flatterer if ever there was one.
"I want her to feed me!"
All at once the boy at Prince Rong's side was pointing at Li Fei and shouting.
Li Fei's eyes narrowed. So young, and already tired of living?
"Lin'er, mind your manners." Drink showed in Zhao Bing's face, but he kept enough of his wits to put on a stern look and deliver the rebuke.
"Don't go learning from those moldy scholars. See a woman you fancy, carry her home over your shoulder and get a few brats on her — that's what makes a man." Prince Rong laughed, hearty and kindly, yet the casual entitlement in those words had been soaked in the blood and tears of women beyond counting.
"You old degenerate, don't go corrupting the boy." Zhao Bing cursed him with a grin, then mustered his patience. "Lin'er, a gentleman observes propriety—"
"I won't! I want her to feed me! And I'm taking her home too!"
The little boy refused to let it go and worked himself into a tantrum. One sweep of his arm sent the dishes and wine on the table toppling off the edge — the banquet ruined in an instant.
Then a clear breeze passed through, catching bowls, chopsticks and porcelain plates in mid-fall and setting them back on the table, without so much as a drop of broth spilled.
The wine that had poured from the jade flask turned into transparent butterflies, circled twice through the air, and dropped back into the cups with a soft plop, sending ripples spreading out.
"Perfected Ge's arts are truly masterful!" Prince Rong exclaimed aloud, and even the boy stopped his fuss, craning his neck to stare at the old Daoist with his air of immortal serenity.
"My lord flatters me." Perfected Ge shook his head. "Set beside the immortal methods that turn stone to gold and overturn creation itself, this humble Daoist has merely practiced long enough to grow deft."
As he spoke, he turned a genial smile toward Li Fei.
The old fossil is stirring the pot.
Li Fei caught his meaning and met his eyes with a smile of her own.
In fairness, the old Daoist had not wasted his years. Judging by that display alone — heavy work handled as lightly as a feather — his control over power was already the equal of many an instructor at a magic academy.
"Three thousand paths comprise the Great Dao, and every one of them can prove out into perfect freedom, perfect ease." After they had looked at one another a moment, Li Fei said mildly, "To my mind, no art is nobler or baser than another. It is the practitioner who is high or low."
"Oh?" Zhao Bing lounged back against his chair. "Are you saying the immortal arts of the upper realm and the Daoist arts of Our Great Song cannot be ranked against each other either?"
"Each has its own strengths," Li Fei said, sounding entirely sincere.
"Where in this world are there so many things with their own strengths? The winner is king and the loser is a bandit — that is the true way of it." Prince Rong cut in. "One contest, and high and low will settle themselves."
Rivers and mountains may be reshaped, but a man's nature never changes — an eternal truth. For all the years Prince Rong had spent penned up, for all that he looked a good deal mellower now, the moment he opened his mouth the old flavor came out: overbearing, savage.
"A duel of arts sours the goodwill, but a friendly exchange should do no harm." The wine had gone to Zhao Bing's head and the idea took his fancy. "Minister Li, Perfected Ge — would you care to try?"
"This old Daoist could ask for nothing better." Perfected Ge laughed. "As they say, stones from another hill may polish one's own jade. I have heard that an immortal maiden has descended to the dust, and I have long yearned to witness the methods of the immortals. If the immortal maiden would—"
"His Majesty has spoken. My attainments are shallow, but I suppose I must make a fool of myself." Li Fei laughed easily and walked straight to the front of the table. "Only — today is His Majesty's family banquet. It would be poor manners for guests to steal the host's thunder, so let us stop at the first touch.
"One move each, Reverend. How does that sound?"
"Very good." Perfected Ge agreed gladly.
"If it's a friendly exchange, then naturally there should be a stake." Prince Rong tipped back a mouthful of wine and swept his sleeve. "This old man puts up a thousand taels of gold on Perfected Ge coming out ahead. Anyone care to bet against me?"
"Then I'll put up a demon king's crystal core, on myself." Li Fei took him up on it at once.
"She has no idea how high the sky is — parading her parlor tricks before Perfected Ge, of all people!" Xu Yuzhong said, "This official also puts up a thousand taels of gold, on Perfected Ge!"
The words had barely left his mouth before the other four of Lu Qianfan's adopted sons present fell in one after another.
"Count me in."
"Same here."
"…"
As they saw it, however many tricks Li Fei had up her sleeve, her cultivation base was a mere Heaven Realm. In a contest of arts, how could she stand beside Perfected Ge, who had held the Innate stage for two full sixty-year cycles and stood half a step from the Heaven-Man Convergence?
Knocking some of the edge off her would be no bad thing.
"Count me in as well. I wager on the physician winning."
The lightly tipsy Su Wen had spoken. She reclined against the back of her chair, her voice slower and softer than usual, with a thread of languor running through it — though her bearing remained as upright and elegant as ever.
Xu Yuzhong's stomach dropped. Something was wrong.
Ordinarily the Empress kept her cold, aloof nature folded away inside and wore a mask of warmth and kindness — but a thin coat of sugar can never quite cover solid ice. The ministers had noticed, one after another, that the Emperor and Empress had never once held hands in public, and that when Su Wen received officials on the rare occasion, she was generous and thorough with them and yet left behind a thick sense of distance.
In time, Su Wen's warm-outside, cold-inside temperament had become an open secret at court, understood by all and spoken of by none.
Yet here she was, the proud and indifferent Empress, joining a wager of her own accord — and planting her flag squarely on Li Fei's side.
Xu Yuzhong and the others exchanged looks. The problem was turning thorny.
The other ministers only knew there was unmelting ice beneath the sugar. But these men knew something more: inside that thick ice, magma ran.
Years ago, when Zhang Zhicheng had gone out of his way to court death by impeaching Nine Thousand Years' adopted son, the whole court had kept its distance from him. Only Su Wen, who owed him a debt of kindness, had fought to save his life — pleading his case to the Song Emperor in person, and even summoning Lu Qianfan to mediate.
In fact, Su Wen had succeeded. Lu Qianfan had been willing to give the mistress of the Empress's palace her face and let Zhang Zhicheng off — only the man had failed to know a good thing when he saw it, and set about gathering evidence of Lu Qianfan's crimes instead…
The day Zhang Zhicheng died, Su Wen threw a cup of tea in Lu Qianfan's face, then sent her own people to collect and lay out the dead man's bones, and moved to buy the women of the Zhang family back out of the Imperial Entertainment Bureau — and Xu Yuzhong had happened to be present. His adoptive father had shown no anger over it, but Xu Yuzhong had quietly arranged matters behind the scenes so that Su Wen's redemption plan came to nothing.
After that affair, Lu Qianfan's inner circle had taken the measure of Su Wen's character: proud and lofty this Empress might be, like the immortal maiden of the Moon Palace watching the world with cold eyes — but let someone once catch her regard, and she became all devotion and feeling, sheltering that lucky soul to the end no matter what disaster he brought down on himself, unshakable.
Zhang Zhicheng, at least, had had the luck to save Her Majesty's life. But this enchantress — what claim did she have on the Empress's special favor? How many days had she even been in Lin'an?
The same question circled in every one of their minds and would not leave.
"I did not expect the Empress to share in the fun." Zhao Bing chuckled. "Then We shall place a wager too! We back… Our beloved Minister Li."
I must report to Father the moment I return — this woman cannot be allowed to live.
Xu Yuzhong lowered his head, privately regretting that he had stuck his neck out today.
This enchantress had appeared out of thin air with Nie Yunyi standing behind her, and in a bare handful of days in Lin'an she had bewitched both His Majesty and the Empress. Let her linger three years, or five, and would the Great Song be surnamed Lu or Li? And he had already given her about as much offense as a man could!
"My lords honor me more than I deserve." Just then Perfected Ge spoke up. "Still, the immortal maiden is young in years and has not yet reached the Innate stage. This humble Daoist will naturally suppress his cultivation base—"
"No need." Li Fei smiled, eyes crinkling. "The Reverend may act with his full strength."
In terms of cultivation base alone, Perfected Ge stood at the Sequence 6 tier, a full realm above Li Fei. On top of that, he had steeped himself in Daoist arts for decades: in control, in combat experience, he was far beyond anything the Spell Encyclopedia Lady could match, and he surely held no small number of cards in reserve.
By Li Fei's rough estimate, this Perfected Ge belonged to the same class of master as the Thousand-Year Tree Demon — nothing like Xu Qianfu. In a no-rules fight to the death, she would probably need to gear up in advance, stack every buff spell she had, and open with an ambush before her odds looked good — and even a win might not be enough to actually kill him.
But if it came down to a single exchange…
Li Fei stood prettily before the hesitating Perfected Ge and waved a hand. "There's no need for courtesy, Reverend."
"Then… forgive my discourtesy."
The kindly-faced old Daoist suddenly gave off a presence like a gale and a cloudburst, overwhelming and cold. His hair and beard bristled outward; his robe billowed and snapped in the wind.
"Repel the evil, guard the true; the Dao abides. Jiji ru lüling!"
Sharp light surged in Perfected Ge's eyes, and a bolt of lightning shot toward Li Fei.
He had not used the killing move he kept at the bottom of his chest, but neither had he held back — he had gone straight to a fierce, blindingly swift art, and it would surprise no one if an ordinary Heaven Realm cultivator, caught unprepared, were wiped out by that single stroke.
As Perfected Ge saw it, however grand this immortal maiden's origins, she had not in the end taken that step of the carp leaping the dragon gate. Her cultivation base stopped at the Heaven Realm. To take this move she would have to show some genuine skill.
And if the immortal maiden could not take it, and died on the spot… Immortal maiden? What immortal maiden — there'd only be the corpse of a fraud on the floor.
Yet in the face of that lethal strike, Li Fei clasped her hands behind her back as though she had heard nothing at all, and let the bolt of lightning close in.
She didn't believe an old Daoist could break the protection of mythic-grade gear.
[Black-and-White Pendant (Unique) (Dormant)]
Equipment Grade: Mythic
Attributes:
1. Once every 60 seconds, blocks one targeted spell.
So she really is a fake?
Seeing the lightning about to land while Li Fei made no move whatsoever, Perfected Ge first frowned — then his gaze sharpened, and something like disbelief crossed his face.
No block. No dodge. No exquisite technique of shifting stars and moving constellations.
The instant the art touched her, that pure, refined magic power simply dissolved into nothing, like a clay ox walking into the sea.
Unable to find any thread that explained the eerie thing he had just seen, Perfected Ge could only heave a long sigh. "The immortal maiden's methods are truly extraordinary."
"You're too kind, too kind." Li Fei gave a sweet smile, all sunny innocence, the very picture of harmlessness. "So… my turn now?"
"Please."
Having tasted the quality of immortal magic, Perfected Ge dared not slacken in the slightest, however vast the gap in cultivation base between them. Massive magic power burst out of his body and congealed into a golden bell, runes flickering into being and out again across its surface.
This was his most dependable defense. Even an Innate master could not break the golden bell in two or three exchanges — and however marvelous Li Fei's methods, in the end she was only a Heaven Realm master.
Perfected Ge understood how this brief, courteous contest would end: with a narrow victory for Li Fei.
After all, with his far deeper cultivation base he could manage only a draw. Said aloud, it would hardly do his dignity any favors.
Watching Perfected Ge brace himself, Li Fei's smile grew brighter still, and syllables carrying a chaotic rhythm rolled out of her mouth:
"O purpureus abyssus, obsecro, vocatus meus…"
Lava shot through with black and red gathered in her palm and took shape, an irregular mass giving off a stinging reek of sulfur, as though a demon lord of the abyss were being brought into the world within it.
"How can this be? How can this be?"
Feeling that violent aura, hungry to unmake heaven and earth, Perfected Ge's expression shifted, shifted again, and settled at last into a ghastly laugh.
He simply could not comprehend it: how could a woman whose cultivation base had not so much as touched the Innate stage unleash a spell carrying the might of the Saint Realm?
Even the palace guards could no longer keep still. They closed around Zhao Bing with hands on their sabers, sweat pouring off every one of them, staring at that lava in sheer terror.
Boom!
The Abyssal Lava roared forth, dragging a boundless wave of heat behind it, like a primordial flame demon waking from its long sleep to smelt the world down to slag.
I am finished.
The omen of death detonated in Perfected Ge's mind.
And yet the mass of lava did not fall on him. It hurtled past, its rolling heat trailing behind it, straight toward the bright moon — and burst at last into a spray of deep crimson fireworks that stained the night sky red.
"Oh dear, my aim slipped."
Li Fei smiled charmingly, displaying the emotional intelligence of a top-tier public relations professional. "Reverend, shall we call it a draw?"
Perfected Ge, plainly, cared about his face. He laughed bitterly for a moment, then bowed with cupped hands, thoroughly convinced.
"The immortal maiden's arts defy understanding. This humble Daoist has lost."
"You flatter me, you flatter me. The Perfected's own arts are exquisite as well — small wonder the Mountain-Moving Sect leads the Daoist Order of the Great Song. We should exchange views more often when time allows."
Having made her stance toward the Mountain-Moving Sect pleasantly clear, Li Fei walked straight over to Xu Yuzhong and held out an open hand. "Lord Xu. A bet's a bet."
She has her eye on the Mountain-Moving Sect now too?
Xu Yuzhong's face was dark as still water as he pulled the jade thumb ring off his hand. "This should cover what I owe you."
"Lord Xu's stipend must be handsome indeed. The congratulatory gift you presented to His Majesty earlier was worth a fortune, and now a thumb ring pulled off at random is worth a thousand in gold."
Li Fei delivered the compliment with every word between the lines hinting that he had lined his own pockets at the state's expense.
Being picked apart in front of the Emperor turned Xu Yuzhong's face uglier still.
"Enough, Minister Li, don't make things hard for him."
It was the thoroughly drunk Zhao Bing who came to Xu Yuzhong's rescue. "Water too clear holds no fish. We understand that much."
This dog emperor is beyond saving. A few cups in and he's openly endorsing his ministers' embezzlement.
Li Fei fought down the urge to put a hand over her face and arranged her features into humble attentiveness instead. "Your Majesty is most wise!"
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