A good pot of tea has to be made with heart.
That was why, even though she'd thrown herself into the service industry, Miss Top Courtesan had always kept a true craftsman's spirit.
Take a seductive glance, for instance. It wasn't simply a matter of controlling the muscles of the face.
Without a genuine desire to stir up the other person's feelings, a glance might be pretty, but it was soulless, and hardly something you could call alluring.
Which meant that when she dealt with anyone outside her type, Miss Top Courtesan's skill, The Art of Tea, took a serious hit. In most situations it was still good enough, of course.
Yet Li Fei now discovered, to her horror, that although she was sitting very close to Lady Gnaea, her heart was a still pond. Not a flutter, not a single deer crashing around in her chest!
Unscientific. And very un-Li Fei.
—Maybe she was just badly frightened.
Li Fei consoled herself and tried to find her form again.
So she studied Lady Gnaea's gentle, enchanting oval face with great care.
Nothing.
She lowered her head, her gaze sliding over the plump, rounded figure before flicking to the snow-white, soft thighs. Draped in a nightgown, Gnaea hadn't yet pulled on her stockings, so the lines of her legs weren't as taut as usual. Yet there wasn't a hint of bulk to them. They were round and long, with just the right amount of fullness.
But the hand pressed to her own pulse still detected no acceleration in her heart rate.
Finally, she leaned back, lifted the chestnut hair and stared at the porcelain-white, graceful nape for a good while.
Her heart stayed a stagnant old well, utterly free of any worldly desire.
Uh-oh!
Li Fei's eyelids trembled as the seriousness of the problem sank in.
—Is the rest of my life going to turn into some clean, chaste, pure-love story?
—Lady Zhihua, Lady Grace, Teacher Annie… I'm sorry. From now on, you may have to live as widows with a husband still alive.
The thought brought a wave of grief, and she snatched the pipe out of Lady Gnaea's hand.
"No—"
Gnaea didn't get a chance to stop her. Li Fei took a drag.
"Cough, cough… how much mint did you put in this?"
Miss Top Courtesan choked, yet her tone remained strangely calm.
She actually liked mint. But this mint was so strong that her whole body felt chilled, as if what she'd swallowed wasn't smoke but a block of ice that hadn't melted in ten thousand years.
"You know, rare as they are, there are still a few good girls among us witches who keep themselves chaste for a girlfriend or a wife. Or who have to stay pure for certain reasons."
Gnaea's gaze was complicated. "And among the mainstream witch classes, besides Wrath, Greed, Pride, Envy, Gluttony and Sloth, there's one more. To put it euphemistically, they're called Cuddle Witches."
"To keep their class from influencing them, they have to rely on outside aids to settle their emotions."
"Take [Azure Mint], a Transcendent material born deep in the glaciers. It can calm even a black dragon in the throes of puberty."
"I see."
Li Fei glanced at the bluish "tobacco" in the pipe, unruffled.
Originally, she'd only caught the faint wisps of smoke Gnaea exhaled. The ferociously potent drug, filtered by a high-Sequence witch's constitution, hadn't had much effect. She'd simply not felt like cuddling, and it would have faded soon enough.
But she'd just taken a big drag, and now her whole being was utterly clear and transparent. It seemed that even if the sky fell, not a ripple would stir the lake of Miss Top Courtesan's heart.
As for Gnaea's reason for using [Azure Mint]…
In her normal state, Miss Top Courtesan would surely have asked anyway, pretending not to know, then flirted on purpose to test whether her charm was stronger, or the mint that was said to chemically purify black dragons.
But at this moment, Li Fei was single-minded. She only wanted to go home early and practice her spells.
Women only slow down my cultivation! Rua!
"Do you need me to dispel the effect for you?"
Gnaea asked.
"No."
Li Fei was curt.
"A moderate amount of [Azure Mint] can calm the mind."
Lady Gnaea reminded her. "But the concentration I use clearly isn't suited to you. You're not calm right now. You're cold."
"That's fine."
Li Fei held to her view.
"All right, then."
Lady Gnaea didn't argue further. "With your constitution, the effect will fade within a week at most."
"Is [Azure Mint] expensive? I feel great right now. I'd like more."
Li Fei wore the look of a sage who had attained great enlightenment. "In the past, I wasted too much time on unnecessary things. From now on, I only want to focus on cultivation."
"If you still feel that way after the effect fades, I'll give you a pound."
The corner of Lady Gnaea's lips curled.
"Deal."
Li Fei nodded earnestly.
"Twelve hours until the New Year."
Lady Gnaea took a sip of her drink and asked about Miss Top Courtesan's willingness to work. "Would you consider seeing in the New Year with a client? Spending it with Miss Top Courtesan is an [Auction Item]-grade service, you know."
Making money meant better spell cultivation. But after rational consideration, Miss Top Courtesan declined anyway. "No. In this state, I'm afraid I couldn't satisfy a client."
"Fine, then. An early Happy New Year to our Miss Top Courtesan."
Lady Gnaea raised her glass.
"Happy New Year."
Li Fei clinked glasses with her lightly and downed her sparkling water in one go.
After a few more words of idle chat, Li Fei said goodbye to Lady Gnaea without a trace of reluctance, stood up and went home.
Only after watching her figure vanish did Gnaea let her gaze drift slowly to the pipe on the table.
On the jade mouthpiece, Miss Top Courtesan's lip mark still lingered, unmistakable.
The mark began to tremble, then merged with her own full lips.
The heavy scent of mint flooded her chest, and her swaying heart heaved with startling force.
Gnaea felt something scalding well up inside her, overflow and run, searing her heart.
She said nothing. With trembling, lustrous fingertips, she sprinkled another pinch of blue mint crumbs into the pipe.
Another pinch.
And another.
She raised the pipe to her lips again. The mint smoke roared into her chest like a winter gale, but all it won her in the end was a bitter smile.
Of course. What could a mere [Azure Mint] do to fill a lake whose banks Miss Top Courtesan had cracked open? What was stored in there wasn't autumn water. It was lava, formed from the instincts a high-Sequence witch had suppressed for years. Next to it, even the dragonfire that burned mountains and boiled seas seemed a little cool.
"Oh, you little tyrant…"
Gnaea's sigh echoed through the empty hall.
…
"Do I look nice?"
Su Ling'er, off work today, showed Li Fei a goose-yellow gown, as bright and lovely as an oriole.
"So-so."
Li Fei gave a perfunctory verdict and buried her face in her meal.
—Why isn't Young Madam's mouth sweet today?
Su Ling'er blinked, then asked with concern, "Did something unpleasant happen today?"
"No."
Li Fei said calmly, "I'm in a good mood, better than I've ever been. I've just worked a few things out."
After polishing off lunch in no time, Li Fei took the wet towel a sprite held out and wiped her mouth.
"Was today's new dish all right? Is there anything that needs improving?"
Ram asked.
"So-so."
Li Fei dropped the two words and, unlike usual, didn't spend a while after the meal being affectionate with the sprites. She stood and walked straight to the stairs.
Ram and Su Ling'er traded a look, both certain that Li Fei was not herself today.
"Is it because she isn't used to her short hair?"
"Surely not… short hair looks pretty good on her."
They whispered together, trying to guess Young Madam's state of mind.
When Li Fei reached her door, she found the household's rabbit-eared maid sisters waiting for her.
They had fair skin and slender frames, innocent and adorable, though their coquettish looks made them seem a little lewd. Pink satin ribbons were tied into bows on their soft, floppy rabbit ears.
"Aren't you two off today?"
Li Fei's tone didn't waver in the slightest.
"We came to bring you a New Year's present."
The elder rabbit maid leaned in, her ruby eyes brimming with tenderness.
The younger one had the same bedroom eyes. Her soft, slender calf, wrapped in translucent wine-red stockings, pressed lightly between Young Madam's pale, long legs. She licked her lips with a pink tongue tip and asked in a breathy, suggestive whisper:
"Do you like it?"
"So-so."
Unlike usual, Li Fei simply slipped past them.
Never mind the maids.
Even if Her Excellency the Dean showed up in a black-stocking bunny-girl outfit, tail and all, she'd never shake this Li's pure and spotless resolve!
The door closed. The two maids stared at each other.
Eldest Miss Qin wasn't even home, so what was going on?
…
Inside her room, the first thing Li Fei faced was a heap of gifts she hadn't gotten around to putting away.
As a Philanthropist who guarded her reputation, selling other people's gifts would clearly cost more than it earned, so the candy and snacks could be shared out among the maids.
Clothes and jewelry were sorted into categories and laid out.
The picture albums? Tossed into a box without hesitation, to be carried to the deepest level of the storage room later.
A Transcendent with real ambition couldn't waste time on that kind of trash. She might as well preview the third-year textbooks.
Finally, Li Fei carried the assorted Transcendent items back to her bedroom.
She stared at the eleven spatial devices for a moment, then set Lady Zhihua's aside first.
A sachet could hardly be as convenient to wear as a ring.
But that still left ten spatial rings, and even Li Fei in her cold state couldn't bring herself to choose among them.
Wearing all ten would be too stupid, and [Fairy Whisper] was already hogging a slot.
But if she favored some and neglected others, she'd have to consider the risk of a hatchet ending.
"In the past, I wasted too much on unnecessary things."
Li Fei murmured her self-criticism and, after rational analysis, worked out a countermeasure.
Things holding Transcendent living beings, like the [Gourd of Ten Thousand Ghosts], couldn't be stored in a storage space. But spatial rings themselves could be nested like dolls.
Li Fei put on the one with the largest capacity, a full 1,234 cubic meters, the [Cat's Eye], then stored the other nine inside it and began practicing the ring-swapping technique.
She put her hand behind her back, quickly took out another ring, slipped it on with one hand and stored the original one.
Not yet practiced, her movements were clumsy, and it took nearly three seconds.
The second time was much faster, finishing the swap in about a second.
But it wasn't enough.
To avoid giving herself away, she had to switch between rings freely, with the tiniest of movements, in under 0.1 seconds, and without a single mistake. Otherwise, if she swapped in somebody else's ring in front of Lady Hathaway, the situation would be rather hard to handle.
"No, wait, it's not just one-for-one. I need to practice one-for-many too…"
Soon Li Fei realized that if two or more ring owners showed up, she'd have to change more than one ring in an instant. In some situations, five or more owners might gather in one room.
So both hands needed training.
Li Fei stood expressionless at the window, arms hanging naturally at her sides. Her hands, hidden behind her skirt, twitched in tiny movements, the rings on her fingers changing in look and number with steadily rising frequency.
A minute of sipping tea takes ten years of growing it, as the saying goes, and Miss Top Courtesan never slacked when it was time to grind. For instance, although 99 percent of the "homemade cakes" she mentioned were made by the sprites, she really had learned the whole process of making honey cake, so she wouldn't embarrass herself if she was ever forced into the kitchen.
Half an hour later, Miss Top Courtesan could switch spatial rings at a dizzying speed.
Obviously, this was thanks to her outstanding finger dexterity. Her current Agility had already surpassed that of thieves and assassins of the same Sequence level, and her finger dexterity was a clear notch above her overall agility.
Of course, that was nothing. Without using her teeth at all, Miss Top Courtesan could tie three knots in a thread with the tip of her tongue in one second. We're talking a thread one millimeter in diameter, thinner than an ox hair. At the last team-building event, it left the whole room stunned, and the witch hostesses all declared her a true professional.
It wasn't the highest record, though. Currently the worst performer here was Isabella. That vampire hostess, who got her nails done at the drop of a hat, truly lived up to her titles of Disgrace of Witches, Master Metalsmith and Pillow Princess: her thread snapped before she managed a single knot. The current record holder tied nineteen in a second, and all one can say is that Lady Aurora, as the former headliner, really does have genuine skill.
Incidentally, Serpent-woman Daisha isn't allowed to compete. A forked serpent's tongue is too much of a cheat. One regular customer once got in the mood and gave a performance, setting an utterly baffling record. But the Archmage exposed the trick in front of everyone, because she'd cheated with a time spell!
To spare that would-be cheater any embarrassment, I won't name names here. Still, Tingbao looking so pitiful after being banned for life was truly hilarious, hehe.
"The basic practice is done. As long as I spend three to five minutes a day reinforcing it for a while, I should be able to handle most situations."
After this objective self-assessment, Li Fei deftly opened the wardrobe, twisted the hidden mechanism, took the notebook out of the secret compartment and began planning her schedule.
School and selling liquor: the daily routine. Skipping work is one thing, but quitting is out of the question.
Learning foreign languages: also indispensable. Universal Language is handy, but as a socially adept witch of high society, she should master at least the Common Tongue of each of the six great factions to be considered presentable. The higher the intelligence, the faster the learning, and with essential spells like [Deep Focus] and [Transcendent Memory], picking up a foreign language was hardly difficult.
Making money and gaining experience: the eternal main theme.
Go back to the Demon-Sealing Continent once a month if possible.
Ascend to Sequence 6, including the corresponding stat-point lottery, a visit to the Spell Altar and so on: postponed for now, in order to reap greater rewards in Folded Space B-01. Oh right, I still haven't gotten the gargoyle fangs or the hellhound heart, but money can solve that any time.
Gather intelligence on succubi. This concerns the Ascension Ritual for Sequence 5 Succubus Witch, so think about it once she reached Sequence 6.
Rescue Lady Diana… Ha. The me from an hour ago was such a fish-lipped fool with a head full of smut. Things between Lady Annie and Lilith were headache enough already. Wouldn't bringing Lady Annie's wife back just be making trouble for myself?
The clues about Lady Gnaea's revenge and Furnace Battle-Qi that she'd obtained through [Shroud of Destiny] hadn't come into play yet. The time wasn't ripe.
Go deep undercover at Ni— (crossed out) the Archmage's side. To be safe, I can't write her name anymore. I hope I can get more valuable intelligence, especially clues about the remains of [Lady of Sinking]. If all goes well, Lady Nicole will become my biggest source of Witch Points. Let's hope I'm not seen through. Fei-men.
Lady Wuzhui's transformation… Heavens, what was in my head before? Transform, my foot.
Persuade Isabella to go straight… no need now. Miss Vampire Hostess, Yusura is fairly reliable within the Black Gold organization, and Qiao'er takes her internship seriously, so I don't need to spend much effort. Still, I should place a little extra bet on Yusura.
Clearly, Miss Top Courtesan was still riding the high of [Azure Mint], and what she'd written in her notebook would suffer a considerable degree of revision a few days later.
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