Three bright, pretty girls walked side by side along one of the Magic Academy's garden paths. The two on either side chatted and laughed together, but the blonde girl sandwiched between them looked thoroughly deflated, her twin tails drooping listlessly.
"Lilith, what's gotten into you lately?" The girl with long straight black hair held out her palm and bounced the ends of Lilith's golden twin tails up and down with practiced ease. "You've had that kicked-puppy look for days."
"Huh? Have I?"
Lilith's eyes were glassy, her voice utterly devoid of life.
"Definitely a breakup," the short-haired girl on her right said with a grin. "The Isle Angel stopped sending her cakes."
"She did not! I mean — that's not — !"
A devastatingly gorgeous face flickered through her mind. Lilith's twin tails bristled like a startled cat's fur. "I barely even know that woman…"
Before the words were fully out, a wave of tea-scented warmth washed over her from behind.
"Good afternoon!"
With ink-black hair swaying, a slender figure bumped playfully into Lilith's back, then hooked her arm through hers as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "Lilith-senpai~"
Li Fei stood at one hundred and sixty-eight centimeters, and from her navel down, her leg-to-height ratio was a mathematically sacred 0.618 — those legs stretching past a full meter, paired with her figure's particular contours, traced a line that was at once elegantly long and sinfully indecent.
And yet this tall, heart-stopping black-haired beauty was currently leaning against the petite blonde girl like a little bird sheltering in a tree, wearing the brightest, most guileless — even slightly dopey — smile on her face. She looked exactly like the kind of doe-eyed big-sister type in a JK uniform who'd be dangerously easy to fool.
"Oh my—"
"Ahhh, so many hearts are about to break. Leave it to our golden class beauty to move this fast~"
Lilith's two friends watched the scene with teasing, ever-so-slightly sour grins.
Li Fei's breathtaking looks, her status as a special recruit, and the Isle Angel publicity had made her the subject of almost every girl in the Academy's dreams and fantasies. Being constantly approached was admittedly a little time-consuming, but Li Fei genuinely enjoyed being the center of female attention.
"Hello, senpai."
Li Fei greeted the two upperclassmen with cheerful, sunny politeness.
"Hello, kouhai."
"Good afternoon."
The two senpai smiled back warmly, their gazes drifting back and forth between the pair.
Sure, the goddess wasn't theirs — but getting to watch from this close? That was its own kind of gift, wasn't it?
"Stop saying weird things!"
Lilith snapped back to her senses with a flustered, mortified cry. In her agitation, mana began leaking from her involuntarily, and her twin tails shot straight upward like two furious antennae.
"Is Lilith-senpai still angry with me?"
Li Fei's large eyes went wide and dewy, her expression the picture of pitiful contrition. "Last time I really didn't mean to… I wanted to explain, but you've been avoiding me ever since…"
The day Asuna had personally clasped the silver bracelet around her wrist, Li Fei had taken her scheming best friend's advice and tried studying a foreign language while under the Stupefaction spell — and had accidentally ended up pressing her lips against Lilith's.
Heaven only knew why everyone else under the Stupefaction spell turned into a vacant, drooling mess, while Li Fei became a creature of boundless, uninhibited enthusiasm.
After that incident, every time Li Fei visited Mrs. Teresa's home, Lilith was conspicuously absent — clearly avoiding her on purpose. Then came the Viranean incident, taking over the Secret Garden, exploring Folded Space D-07, and a string of other events, all of which had prevented Li Fei from finding a moment to clear up the "misunderstanding" with Lilith.
But in just a few days, the Academy would be holding a fair, impartial, and transparent lottery — randomly assigning teams of lower-year students from both the War Academy and Magic Academy to cross-train together ahead of the inter-school exchange event more than half a month away.
Li Fei, who had the good fortune of having a headmistress for a mother and had "guessed" her teammates' identities accordingly, naturally needed to build some chemistry with them beforehand — she couldn't afford to crash out over poor coordination.
Grace had already been thoroughly coordinated with for over two hours now. Li Fei, master of the balanced hand and equal-opportunity affection dispenser, certainly couldn't afford to neglect her other teammate, Lilith.
"…?"
"Wait, what happened?"
Just as Lilith was reliving that unexpected, hastily-ended first kiss with a burning face, her two best friends' eyes had lit up like lanterns, and they were already pressing for details.
"It's just, well…"
Li Fei dipped her head, voice carrying a faint note of grievance. "That day I went over to visit Lilith-senpai at her place…"
"What?! You were already at her house?!"
"We really underestimated Lilith… pass it on — Lilith brought the new freshman beauty home within three days."
The two senpai murmured to each other in delighted excitement, their sparkling eyes urging Li Fei to keep going.
"At the time I was under a Stupefaction spell, and I, um, kissed Lilith-senpai… and then I didn't see her after that…"
Li Fei dropped her gaze shyly, and with a handful of perfectly-chosen words, nudged her senpai's imaginations off a cliff and into a very specific — entirely fictional — direction.
Everything coming out of her mouth was technically the truth, yet it led these poor upperclassmen to mentally produce content that would normally require a paid subscription — and had absolutely nothing to do with reality. Language really is a remarkable thing.
"So this is who you really are, Lilith… I'm… both envious and scandalized!"
"No — wait — she only kissed her…"
The two senpai exchanged a significant look, the same weighty thought passing between their eyes.
The Stupefaction spell operated a bit like Savant Syndrome — colloquially, a "genius idiot" — where certain cognitive functions bottomed out while the aptitude for learning shot dramatically upward.
For example: cast Stupefaction on an average high-school senior girl and she might blaze through the hardest problems on a college entrance exam in seconds, but she could also wander home with the neighbor's auntie after school having been lured by a single lollipop to receive some very extracurricular education.
So the question now was this:
Kissing a Stupefaction-afflicted freshman and then disappearing off the face of the earth — objectively terrible behavior.
And yet — only a kiss. Given that said freshman's appeal exceeded even a succubus's, the self-restraint on display could no longer be described with mere words like "moral exemplar."
So was Lilith terrible, or saintly?
Impossible to say.
These two contradictory states superimposed on a single person made Lilith even more baffling than Schrödinger's cat — dead or alive, nobody could tell.
The short-haired senpai shot her friend a bewildered look:
Could Lilith possibly be… straight?
With uncanny telepathy, the straight-black-hair senpai read her best friend's expression perfectly and slowly shook her head, replying entirely through eye contact:
Being in the same room as the "Isle Angel" while she's under Stupefaction? Even a straight girl couldn't hold out.
Suddenly, as if struck by the same bolt of lightning, they gasped in unison — then turned to Lilith with expressions that were equal parts ridiculous and sympathetic:
Two zeros have no future.
"Stop thinking whatever weird things you're thinking!!!"
Steam practically rising from the top of her head, Lilith finally exploded. A flush crept from her neck all the way to her delicately pale earlobes, and with a shriek of pure mortification she whipped her head violently from side to side, twin tails lashing both girls like a whirlwind, venting every ounce of her humiliated fury.
For reasons unknown, the actual culprit — the wicked stepmother standing right there with a hand over her mouth, barely containing her laughter — escaped the whipping entirely unscathed.
"Alright, alright, Lilith-senpai."
The stepmother gently tugged at the sulking blonde girl, coaxing soothingly: "Let's head home, shall we? I still need to practice my foreign language studies."
"Ohhh~~~"
The two senpai made the same Knowing Noise again.
So that's the method she used to win over the kouhai! Noted. Filed. Stored.
"I — I didn't — "
Lilith tried to protest and sputtered into helpless silence.
"Regarding the fact that the freshman beauty rumored to be my love interest is actually my stepmother" — no matter how she tried, Lilith could not get those words out of her mouth.
In the end, she stamped her foot hard, and with the dead-eyed look of someone who had lost all will to live, allowed her beaming stepmother to sweep her up onto the broomstick.
After closing the door and diligently reviewing her extracurricular material, Li Fei lay pillowed on a pale gauze skirt, eyes half-closed in contentment while Annie Teresa massaged her temples.
The technique was naturally nowhere near a professional masseuse's.
But the faint sweet fragrance, the soft fingertips, and the patient, gentle touch made it easy to lose track of time.
Even the slow, steady rhythm of Annie's breathing made Li Fei feel as though she had returned to the womb — peaceful and warm.
"You look terrible."
Mrs. Teresa frowned at Li Fei's ashen complexion and pressed her fingertips gently between Li Fei's brows, a note of tender concern in her voice.
"I went to the Folded Space… Grace insisted on sparring, and it drained me more than I'd like to admit."
Li Fei absently touched her own throat, vividly recalling the sensation of a COVID swab test.
"You need to take better care of yourself."
Annie said softly, then leaned down, her warm breath scattering the hair at Li Fei's temples.
"You smell like… red tea."
"When Headmistress Nicole was giving me my physical examination, Senpai Irena accidentally knocked red tea onto me… she also invited me to soak in the headmistress's private hot spring afterward. Apparently the spring had red tea added to it — she said it would make me more palatable. I mean, more restorative."
Li Fei recounted this with the lingering dread of a woman who had narrowly escaped something. She couldn't suppress a small shudder.
One person in a hot spring was already a tight fit.
Two people, though…
Irena. Irena. Irena. Warm, soft, clinging Irena…
"That must have been exhausting."
Annie Teresa brushed the gold-and-chestnut strands of hair behind Li Fei's ear and stroked her cheek with her fingertips.
Li Fei opened her eyes and nearly dissolved on the spot into those verdant green irises, so full of tender affection.
Mrs. Teresa's face was as delicately lovely as ever, a soft and touchingly pretty quality to it — only now the mournful restraint that had once shadowed her brow was entirely gone, replaced by something gentle and deeply maternal.
"Annie-sensei, besides the Common Tongue of the Order Alignment, do you know any other languages?"
Li Fei asked suddenly.
"Life alignment and Strength alignment are no problem, and I know a little Chaos alignment."
Annie smiled. "Want to learn?"
"Mm-hm."
Li Fei nodded. "Teach me."
"Of course."
Annie said without hesitation.
"Oh, also — Annie-sensei, did you used to work as an editor?"
"Yes…"
A quiet wistfulness crossed Annie Teresa's face as she sighed.
She had given up her editorial work after getting married, devoting herself entirely to running the household — and then, of course, things had taken their turn.
"Then you must have written your own things too, right?"
Li Fei wheedled. "I haven't read any of it yet."
"Just a few small poems no one ever read."
Annie tapped Li Fei's nose gently. "Are you scheming something again?"
"I'm not!"
Li Fei cried her innocence. "I just want to… co-write a novel with Annie-sensei. I have some fun ideas — I can plan the plot, and you can do the actual writing… just as a little side project whenever we have time. It'd be wonderful if readers enjoyed it, and if they didn't, no harm done…"
"I'd love to."
The corners of Annie Teresa's mouth curved into a warm smile.
With no financial worries now, she was genuinely happy to do something like this together with Li Fei — to pour their shared effort and thought into the same thing.
Night had draped itself over Loxibrook by the time Li Fei finally made it home.
She pressed her hand gently against Eve's slightly rounded belly and spoke with the gravity of someone delivering a serious life lecture:
"Take it easy these days, or I won't mind locking you up."
"Mm…"
Eve took the opportunity to be adorably clingy.
Li Fei fed her a fairy fruit, then swept her gaze across the busy flurry of fairies around her, eyes carrying a faint, fond reluctance.
Tomorrow was moving day.
It wasn't far — but she'd never again be able to throw open a window and glimpse the endlessly charming neighbors next door.
"Master."
Ram came fluttering over on her disc-shaped wings.
After the cuddle session, Li Fei absolutely could not let Ram call her "mama" or "honored mother" anywhere outside of bonus content. Every time she imagined it, a creeping unease settled over her — a premonition of ill omen, as if somewhere in infinite dimensions, a great crab-shaped divine beast was training its gaze upon her, ready to deliver an extinction-level strike at any moment, and not even Tingbao could save her.
Yet Ram refused under any circumstances to use the disrespectfully casual "Fei."
After much deliberation, Li Fei had instructed them all to call her "Master" from now on.
"Mm?"
Li Fei rested her cheek in her hand and made a lazy, inquisitive noise.
"Should we keep these old clothes?"
Ram held up a neatly folded stack of garments.
"Let me think…"
Li Fei narrowed her eyes.
Since advancing to Witch, her figure had… developed. She had blossomed from a gracefully slender girl into a woman of full, resplendent beauty, and naturally some of her older clothes no longer fit.
Throwing them away felt like a waste — they were all good pieces.
Sell them as merchandise to her regular clientele? With a top courtesan's looks and reputation behind them, she'd probably make a killing…
The thought was tempting, but something felt off. She tapped her fingers against the table, weighing it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The image of the half-orc tribe's battlefield, bodies strewn wall to wall, surfaced in her mind — and with it, her answer crystallized.
"Keep them."
For the sake of one of Li Fei's promises, Yusura had not hesitated to sacrifice her entire clan.
That had given the top courtesan an acutely personal, visceral understanding of what "connections" were truly worth.
Just like the most successful live-stream merchants back on Earth always knew to protect their reputation and do the occasional charity work, what mattered most to Li Fei right now wasn't making quick money — it was keeping her clients firmly, lastingly attached.
To achieve that, she couldn't cheapen herself. She had to maintain… ahem… an air of refinement.
Selling used personal clothing outright was far too low-rent. Outright gifting them would be classier.
Even if she was ever so destitute that selling merchandise became unavoidable, Li Fei would only consider handcrafted items — things like mouth-fermented wine she had personally brewed, cigarettes rolled by hand along her thigh, pickled vegetables and grape wine pressed underfoot, and so forth.
"Oh, and — Sasha."
Li Fei turned her gaze to the purple-haired fairy, who looked even more haggard and pallid than Li Fei herself.
At the sound of her name, the once proudly imperious, languidly luxurious queen of the Secret Garden flinched like a startled animal, her whole body trembling as she prostrated herself on the ground. It was clear that the past few days had been unsparing.
Just about the right amount of seasoning…
Li Fei's gaze was quiet and measured as she issued her order: "Head to the Secret Garden tonight — I want Li Yue brought to me before I move tomorrow."
"Yes…"
Sasha's face turned even paler, but she obediently kept her head bowed and accepted the command without daring to refuse.
She spent every single daytime running back and forth between Loxibrook and the Secret Garden, and every night rotating through waiting on the maid-fairies one by one — she was nothing but a small-limbed little fairy, after all. How was she supposed to endure being worked like this?
Beyond the sheer physical toll, the enormous gap between her former life and her current existence — in quality, in status, in dignity — had ground down her spirit and left deep psychological wounds.
Within just a few days, the light had gone out of Sasha's eyes entirely; her lips were cracked and dry, yet cold sweat kept beading across her skin; and her wings, once sleek and proud, were crumpled beyond closing.
I'm going to die on the road tonight.
Sasha thought, vacant and adrift. A single tear traced its way down from the corner of her dull grey eyes.
Then, warmth.
Then, a cool, clean sweetness at her lips.
"You've worked hard."
Li Fei bent down and gathered Sasha into her arms, pressing a freshly peeled fairy fruit between her lips. With her palm, she smoothed out the crumpled creases in Sasha's wings, her voice soft and gentle: "Before you go, rest properly with my Moon Pillow and get your strength back first."
A face more luminous and kind than moonlight itself lit up the fairy's dull, numb eyes.
"Thank… thank you…"
Through a voice on the verge of tears, the spark of hope reignited in the heart of a fairy who had all but given up.
In that look of desperate, trembling reverence, the small quivering hand of the self-made fairy reached up and touched the face of the fairy mother.
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