"An engagement?"
Under the star courtesan's wide, fluttering eyes, Su Ling'er quickly laid out the whole situation.
Li Fei turned it over in her mind as she went through the potions one by one, touching each in turn. Su Ling'er scribbled furiously at her side, and before long the appraisal was finished — and Li Fei had made up her mind.
"You don't need to bring the potions to me anymore," Li Fei said, casting an idle glance at the dozen or so amber-yellow vials nestled inside the medicine case. "When I have time, I'll stop by Qin's Apothecary myself."
The last time she had mentioned wanting a way to improve her Luck, Qin Zhihua had immediately thrown herself into developing an enhanced Lucky Potion. Say what you would about the girl — her follow-through was impeccable.
She was in the business of companionship, yes — but as a consummate professional in the art of public relations, Li Fei had standards. Even that insufferable little fox of hers got something to enjoy after producing sufficient benefits. All the more reason to treat a beautiful, deeply devoted young mistress who was, frankly, her ideal type with a measure of genuine consideration.
"Ah? I'll pass the message along to the Young Mistress…" Su Ling'er said, looking a little nervous — she still hadn't fully grasped just how extensive the star courtesan's "connections" in Loxibrook truly were.
"Mm. I'm keeping this one."
Li Fei pulled out a single reject-batch vial, rose to her feet, and showed her guest to the door.
...
Late that night, after seeing off Hathaway — Vice President of the Thieves' Guild — the pleasantly tipsy star courtesan swayed her way over to Lady Gneia from behind and latched on like a pouncing tiger.
"Come home with me!"
She announced this with the absolute conviction of someone entirely in the right.
"Oh? Those are your words — remember them."
Lady Gneia turned her face sideways, her tongue tracing the corner of her lips with unmistakable suggestion.
The warm, generous softness pressing through the violet chiffon skirt sent the star courtesan's thoughts scattering in every direction — but then she remembered that a certain important ceremony had yet to take place, and her nerve quickly failed her. She abandoned her shortcut to making the Golden Kumquat Tavern her own personal domain and pivoted smoothly to a different topic.
"Lady Gneia, do you know Eidetic Memory and Stupefaction? I'm trying to master the common tongue as fast as possible."
"Oh?"
Gneia ruffled the silken hair at the top of Li Fei's head with fond indulgence, her breath warm and fragrant against her ear. "Of course. I'll dismiss that language teacher of yours tomorrow — come to me every afternoon for lessons from now on."
Absolutely not!
"I would love nothing more than to have Lady Gneia as my teacher," the star courtesan said, arranging her expression into one of great sorrow and compassion. "But that poor woman is a widow raising her child alone — it would be terribly unkind to dismiss her…"
"The trouble is, neither of those spells has a very long duration," Gneia murmured, her violet-painted fingertip tracing slow circles around Li Fei's earlobe.
As long as Li Fei didn't make outrageous demands — like a raise — Gneia doted on her top-earning star without reservation, granting nearly any reasonable request. But this was different.
She knew perfectly well what Stupefaction did to a person. The thought of sending Li Fei — dazed and pliable under that spell — off to spend the afternoon at another woman's home made Gneia feel rather as though she were getting her little sweetheart drunk just to hand her over as a gift to someone else.
"Mm… I could hire a Griffin carriage to take me there and bring me back."
Riding flying mounts within city limits required proper permits and licenses — but for Li Fei, that was hardly an obstacle.
Under the star courtesan's relentless combination of soft pleading and gentle pestering, Gneia eventually relented — and went so far as to offer the use of her own personal Griffin.
"Yes!"
The star courtesan, utterly beside herself with triumph, bounced on her heels and looped her arm through Gneia's, skipping along at her side — her head already full of Mrs. Annie's every smile and glance.
Master the common tongue, and the ceremony won't be far behind…
And that was when joy pushed its luck too far.
In a burst of grateful enthusiasm, the star courtesan planted a firm, heartfelt kiss on Gneia's smooth, luminous cheek and breathed, "Mrs. Annie is the absolute best."
"Oh?"
The words had barely left her lips before Gneia's gaze sharpened to a predator's focus — the unhurried, measuring stare of a lion surveying an endless open plain.
"Ah — no, what I meant was—"
The slip registered a full second too late. The star courtesan sobered up instantly, a cold sweat breaking out down her spine.
Thwack.
A smoking pipe descended on Li Fei's forehead — not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to make a point. Lady Gneia, in the end, forgave this exasperating little creature she could neither bring herself to love simply nor give up entirely.
What the star courtesan did not know, however, was that her raise had been quietly postponed.
...
The gentle morning sun woke the ancient academy. Every blade of grass, every leaf breathed with new life, filling the old stone buildings with a quiet vitality.
Li Fei trudged out with a glum expression and filled a flask from the Lucky Fountain.
Last night, she had returned home brimming with anticipation and settled in to absorb the spell frameworks from her three Spell Crystals.
The results had been deeply unimpressive. No matter how hard she concentrated, all three crystals felt no different from ordinary rocks in her perception.
The star courtesan, coming away empty-handed, arrived at an unpleasant conclusion: until her Aptitude improved, she would likely have no choice but to spend real money on Knowledge Books to learn spells — and Knowledge Books cost ten times what Spell Crystals did.
She was already quietly regretting the purchase of the Silencing Earrings. Going forward, unless absolutely necessary, every point of her Wealth stat needed to go toward Knowledge Books — and she would buy equipment with hard cash instead.
She tipped her head back and glugged down half the flask in long, steady swallows — and then caught a flash of gold at the corner of her eye. Two bright, bouncing golden twin-tails.
Li Fei refilled the flask with brisk efficiency, switched her expression to a warm, radiant smile, and called out to her soon-to-be stepdaughter with enthusiastic cheer:
"Good morning, Lilith."
"Since when are we close enough for that."
Lilith turned her face away, presenting the back of her head.
Li Fei quickened her pace to catch up, producing a small bag of still-warm cake from inside her mage's robe. "Here, try one — I made them myself."
"Why would I want cake from you."
Lilith declined flatly. "I already had breakfast."
Li Fei's smile didn't waver. She matched Lilith's pace with a light, bouncing stride, trailing after her all the way down the long corridor, right to the edge of the classroom doorway.
"Why are you following me!"
Lilith stamped her foot and spun around, cheeks flushed with irritation.
Her voice was loud enough to draw half the classroom's attention. Curious eyes quietly gathered on the two of them.
Li Fei held out the cake, tilted her head to one side, and enunciated each syllable with deliberate, playful care:
"I. Made. Them. My. Self. ♪"
The dark hair of the would-be stepmother swayed gently — a feather-light brush against Lilith's heartstrings, sending a faint, ticklish warmth through her chest. That brilliant smile outshone the sun overhead.
"Fine, fine — and don't follow me anymore."
Lilith's heart skipped a beat. She accepted the bag with the resignation of someone surrendering to the inevitable, issued one final warning, and fled into the classroom.
Li Fei patted her voluminous mage's robe without a word. Several more bags of cake were still tucked inside.
Like keeping a pocket full of candy — small, inexpensive gifts given at irregular intervals produced an immediate and measurable boost in affection. Add the "handmade" label, and the effect doubled.
Back when Li Fei's Charisma had been a mere eighty points, she had still made a point of buying a small bag of fruit gummies every day at lunch, making her the target of every boy in school. Now that her Charisma had climbed to where it was, she had no intention of abandoning that original spirit.
— For the record: not recommended for the general population. Male classmates who tried this approach did not become popular. They were regarded as fools.
The only ones who had been put to any trouble, really, were the poor little fairies — up at the crack of dawn to bake cake.
"Impressive, Lilith."
Inside the classroom, the girl sitting next to Lilith curved her lips into a teasing smile. "I've been debating for days whether to go ask the new student rep for her contact details — and here you've already made your move."
"Right, right — three days and she's already reeled in the Eastern junior classman. That's our golden-haired class beauty for you!"
Another girl jumped in, her eyes dancing with delighted gossip.
"What are you talking about! She's my — she's my —"
Lilith shot up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, voice climbing a full octave — then slowly dropping back down, carrying a faint, wistful note she herself didn't seem to notice. "It's nothing. There's nothing between us."
"Oh?" The girl at the neighboring desk raised an eyebrow, lips curling upward. "Word is half the class is planning to ask her for her contact information. You might want to make sure you're not sprinting in the wrong direction…"
"There is absolutely nothing between her and me," Lilith said firmly.
"If you say so."
The girl shrugged and pointed at the bag in Lilith's arms. "Then… can I have a piece?"
"No!"
Lilith clutched the paper bag to her chest with both arms. Then, under her friend's knowing, amused gaze, she looked away with a red face and muttered, "I haven't had breakfast yet…"
...
When Li Fei stepped out of Teacher Melodia's office, she had exactly one bag of cake left — the one she had been saving for Irena.
Mama Nicole informed her, however, that Irena wasn't at school today.
Li Fei carried the paper bag back to the classroom at a leisurely amble.
"Morning."
"Good morning."
Classmates who had gotten to know each other over the past few days exchanged greetings as she walked in, and Li Fei returned each one. She had spent most of her class time attached to Irena's side, but she had always handled the occasional student who came over to chat with gracious composure — occupational habit, really.
She had just taken her seat when a male classmate came sprinting through the door, breathless, and dropped into the desk directly to her right.
The classroom used single desks, generously sized. As the assistant instructor, Irena had been dragging a spare chair over to sit beside Li Fei for the past two days — but with Irena absent today, the seat to her right was empty.
"Overslept?"
Li Fei smiled over at him.
"Yeah. Didn't even get to eat breakfast."
The boy wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Here."
Li Fei held out the cake.
"Ah… much appreciated."
After a brief moment of hesitation, he pressed his palms together in a brief gesture of thanks before accepting it.
He had short black hair and brown eyes, with a lean build and a face that was passable, in a modest sort of way. His shirt looked to be plain linen, and his mage's robe was clearly not a Transcendent item — compared to the rest of their classmates, he cut a noticeably humble figure.
His name was Klein. He was the only commoner student in the class, and given how close their seats were, Li Fei had exchanged a few words with him here and there.
Worth noting: as her Charisma continued to climb, Li Fei's effect on people around her — while still far from the realm of "indescribable" — was beginning to show distinct shades of something out of a horror story. In the ancient world, she would have been the kind of femme fatale who toppled kingdoms. Students in the first flush of adolescence, and even a few teachers with insufficient willpower, couldn't quite hold themselves together in her presence — fidgeting, going quiet, their eyes burning a little too bright.
Klein, by contrast, managed to hold a calm, even gaze. He looked exactly like the composed, unfazeable protagonist of every web novel ever written.
"Don't mention it."
Li Fei smiled, waved a hand, and pulled out her textbook to get ready for the day's lessons.
...
"AHHHH!"
The morning classes passed quickly. Li Fei clung to the Griffin's back, both hands white-knuckled in its feathers, and screamed at the top of her lungs.
The world streaked backward in a blur. Her hair whipped wild in the rushing wind. Her silver-white mage's robe snapped and cracked like a flag in a gale. This was the star courtesan's first taste of high-speed flight through open sky — and the raw, soaring exhilaration of it put every rollercoaster she had ever ridden to shame.
Before long, Lady Gneia's Griffin touched down before a garden in full, riotous bloom. Rich waves of floral fragrance rolled over Li Fei in warm, heady waves. A signpost stood at the garden's entrance. Li Fei read the four characters on it at a glance:
No Men Permitted.
On the way here, she had glimpsed the Rainbow Altar beside the Unicorn Forest — a breathtaking, luminous spectacle that genuinely deserved its reputation as one of Loxibrook's landmark wonders. If Transcendent structures could have a Charisma stat, the Rainbow Altar would open at one hundred and fifty, minimum.
But she hadn't lingered. She had come here with a purpose.
Last night she had received a rather good reject-batch enhanced Lucky Potion. Li Fei intended to stack her Luck as high as it would go, then pull the gacha — and according to Qin Zhihua, beyond the Rainbow Altar and the Lucky Fountain, there was one last luck-enhancing spot in all of Loxibrook: the Fairy Ring, deep inside the Secret Garden.
The Secret Garden was a sanctuary beloved by fairies — not a gift of nature, but a place shaped and tended into being by fairy hands, inch by careful inch.
Fairy communities sought out locations with abundant water, dense life-force, and favorable geomantic alignment, then cultivated the plants they loved and sculpted the environment to their liking over generations. From that patient labor, the Secret Garden was born.
Within a Secret Garden, rare medicinal herbs and fruit grew in abundance — all of them prized potion ingredients. Gems and mana crystals formed naturally from the concentrated energies within, and all of it could be harvested for considerable profit. The quality and yield of these resources scaled directly with the number of fairies tending the garden — the more fairies, the richer the output.
The legendary Lucky Four-Leaf Clover, for instance, was cultivated almost exclusively in Secret Gardens scattered across the Continent of Enlos — a Transcendent treasure that could not be bought for any price.
Li Fei had already made up her mind: once she had enough fairies, she was going to claim a Secret Garden of her own, no matter what it took.
But today, she was here for the Fairy Ring.
Two small fairies came fluttering out of the garden to meet her — one blue-haired, one pink-haired. They circled Li Fei in slow, cautious spirals, their tiny, exquisitely carved faces full of shy, tentative curiosity.
Having raised a few fairies of her own, Li Fei recognized the look immediately. They wanted to snuggle.
These were not her daughters — but Charisma didn't limit itself to humanoid races. Once it reached a certain threshold, Li Fei's pull extended across species boundaries, regardless of how different their aesthetic sensibilities might be. She was the moon that werewolves howled at, the gem that dragons hoarded, the Irena that Saya pined for, the tentacle that succubi dreamed about…
At the rate her Morality was falling, the star courtesan would one day become this fantasy world's own Tomie — a beauty beyond description, an ancient god whose fingertip brushing the earth could wake volcanoes that had slept for a billion years.
Li Fei looked at the two delicate, pretty little fairies and smiled warmly. She opened her arms, drew them in, and tipped a drop of honey off her fingertip into each of their mouths — her list of things to carry at all times kept growing, and she was increasingly desperate for a spatial ring.
The fairies were content after a little while. Li Fei produced a gold coin — the Secret Garden's entry fee.
Predictably, both fairies shook their heads in unison. One took each of her hands, and together they led her inside.
This left Li Fei feeling faintly embarrassed — fairies dressed in the minimalist fashion nature intended, their garments woven from leaves and vines, pale skin peeking through in a way that gave the impression they simply couldn't afford clothing.
The more pressing matter, however, was this: she had just freeloaded her way in on the hospitality of inadequately-dressed tiny fairies — and her Morality hadn't budged a single point.
She wasn't entirely sure whether that was good news or bad.
____
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