The top-tier courtesan was a radical hedonist who believed that even the most [vulgar or cruel] desires deserved to be satisfied — and was perfectly willing to employ equally [vulgar or cruel] means to that end, including but not limited to matters of a certain intimate nature.
The upshot was that even in her lean years, Li Fei had never been content to simply lie flat and rot. With wealth and beauty as her targets, she had ground herself into the ranks of those who stood above the rest.
Now that her pockets were deep, the top-tier courtesan was equally disinclined to scrimp on quality of life — or on the occasional display of wealth.
Not that she'd spent much tonight, really.
The drinks at the venue were all top-shelf — the sort her clients usually ordered in her private booth. The food was "exquisitely delicious but not filling," priced to make one weep — and yet every last bill had been picked up by Lady Gneia as a housewarming gift.
The maids' service was impeccably professional, and the remainder of their contract had also been wangled free at the time of the property purchase. Even the money to buy the mansion in the first place had been borrowed through "connections" — a loan drawn from honest taxpayers' hard-earned blood and sweat.
All told, her only personal expenditure for the evening was the red velvet evening gown currently draped over her body.
"Feibao looks absolutely stunning. I'm done for."
Isabella sauntered over with a catwalk strut, running her tongue along her fangs.
"Don't. Even. Think about it."
Mindful of the vampire's fondness for metalworking, Li Fei puffed out her cheeks and fixed Isabella with a wide-eyed stare of pure innocence.
The original plan had been simple: invite the girls from the tavern over to the new place for a casual get-together, share a light meal, knock out the Sequence 8 advancement ritual, and then head off to work arm-in-arm.
Then Isabella had suggested, "It's been ages since we had a team outing — why not make it tomorrow night?" The idea had taken off instantly, and the Golden Kumquat Tavern was now closed for the evening.
Li Fei had therefore been obliged to put in some actual effort, dressing the venue up properly and extending invitations to additional guests.
Worth noting: Li Fei had spent a good portion of the previous night with a headache, ultimately deciding to keep the guest list to close friends and a handful of less familiar acquaintances. Mrs. Annie and the other "regulars" had not been informed. The evening was also split into two halves.
The first half would be held outside the villa — a proper, respectable dinner.
The second half would move indoors, where certain colleagues would arrive to liven things up and give the top-tier courtesan a firsthand taste of decadent aristocratic life — all in the name of future critique, naturally.
"Klein, Brother Cowell — good evening."
Leaving Isabella behind, Li Fei moved forward warmly to greet her two "comrades-in-arms."
As she drew close, she paused, then gave a graceful, coquettish little curtsy — lifting the hem of her skirt with both hands, knees dipping slightly — and turned a bright smile on the woman beside Cowell. "First time meeting you. May I ask your name?"
"Lilian."
The woman, with a head of brown curls and an air of capable warmth, smiled broadly. "The beauty of the Solitary Isle Angel is truly breathtaking."
"Just call me Li Fei."
Li Fei waved a resigned hand. "I take it you must be Brother Cowell's wife, Lilian?"
"That's right."
Cowell put an arm around his wife's waist, laughing openly. "I'd been meaning to treat you to drinks sometime — never expected to end up crashing your dinner party instead…"
— Lucky his wife isn't a knockout, otherwise after one drink tonight you'd be…
Li Fei mused inwardly, but kept her smile perfectly in place:
"Oh, you can just treat me next time — easy."
"Nothing else I can promise, but the drinks tonight are first-rate."
"Ho, and so they are."
Cowell glanced at the Dragon Flame and Bloody Mary being carried past on an attendant's tray and clicked his tongue in appreciation. "Well, don't mind if I do."
"Please, help yourself."
Li Fei saw them to their seats, threw Klein a couple of compliments on his evening look, then turned to attend to the other guests. Besides the three of them, she had also invited a number of nobles she'd met at the auction, along with some classmates.
Fortunately, Lilian's looks ranked solidly above average — so Li Fei had no cause to worry about anything strange happening tonight.
"I feel rather… inadequate."
Lilian took her seat and touched her own face with a wistful sigh. "Cowell, I think I'm getting old."
"In my eyes, you'll always be—"
"What I mean is, one of my subordinates bought the latest moisturizing serum from Rose Atelier yesterday…"
"I'll buy it. Tomorrow."
"That's more like it."
Lilian smiled, and poured Cowell a glass.
In truth, Lilian had a respectable career and a very comfortable income. If her own subordinates could afford the skincare, she certainly could too — it was simply that she'd never been particularly keen on beauty upkeep. Whatever she earned, beyond household expenses, went straight into savings.
"I think the two of you ought to consider the feelings of single people."
Klein lifted two plates of meat from a maid's tray, shrugged, and complained with a grin.
"If you don't want to stay single, go find someone."
Lilian said pleasantly, "There are plenty of lovely ladies here tonight, aren't there."
"As everyone in Loxibrook knows, a gentleman looking for a girlfriend first has to figure out whether the woman he fancies also fancies women."
Klein spread his hands, delivering one of Loxibrook's most classic jokes.
"Ahh, I'm absolutely exhausted."
Li Fei stretched out luxuriously across Bai Mengtian's lap, nuzzling her head from side to side. "I am never organising one of these things again. Completely pointless."
She was a social butterfly by trade — but the socialising she normally engaged in was the kind that earned both money and physical affection. A proper sit-down dinner party was a first for her, and the experience was far from satisfying.
The result: the moment she'd finished making the rounds, Li Fei had invented an excuse about needing the powder room, dragged her best friend off, and retreated to a bedroom to slack off in peace.
"Feibao's all grown up."
Bai Mengtian gave her an approving look — then, a moment later, showed her true hand: "When does the second half start?"
She was wearing her JK uniform look again tonight, though she'd swapped the red JK blazer over a white blouse with a black silk ribbon necktie for a pale sky-blue sailor dress, with a red ribbon tied at the collar. It read far more pure and sweet — almost first-love energy.
And yet the perpetually dewy shimmer in her eyes, the way her lips seemed to hover at the edge of invitation, and the way the sailor dress's lines hinted at everything beneath — it all gave off an unmistakable aura of barely-contained temptation.
Most eye-catching of all, however, was the collar-style necklace that had appeared around her neck at some unknown point — the stark contrast of black leather against the pale, delicate skin of her throat was, frankly, devastating.
Li Fei narrowed her eyes, gaze snagging on the suspicious little keyhole on the collar. She let herself absorb every detail of the image with a 1:1 fidelity, committing it permanently to memory — then glanced out the window at the still-lively dinner party below and murmured, "Mm… a little while yet. Let me have a couple of drinks with some friends first."
"If I'd known, I would've shown up later."
Bai Mengtian complained with a pout, then kicked off her little leather shoes one-two with a thump-thump, flopped onto her back across the bed, and began idly scuffing her dainty little feet — sheathed in matte black stockings, with only the faintest blush of pale, soft skin visible at the tips — against the sheets in a thoroughly mischievous fashion.
"Oww—"
In the next instant, Bai Mengtian let out a wounded cry. Li Fei had weaponised the back of her skull, driving it squarely into Bai Mengtian's stomach, simultaneously declaring with complete righteousness:
"Oh, so showing up early to keep me company is a hardship now, is it."
"Since you started it, don't blame me for fighting dirty."
Bai Mengtian puffed up her cheeks, grabbed Li Fei's wrist, and went straight for a bite.
"Hss… so it's mutually assured destruction, is it?"
Li Fei twisted nimbly and straddled her waist, left-hand fingertips zeroing in on the ribs, right index and middle finger slipping under the collar around her neck and hooking upward to lift her head: "I sentence you to the most extreme punishment."
"Ha. You've lost to me before."
Bai Mengtian mounted her counterattack — just as Li Fei knew exactly where her ribs were ticklish, she knew perfectly well that Li Fei couldn't stand having her neck touched.
No referee needed to blow a whistle. The moment Bai Mengtian, utterly without honour, yanked Li Fei's hair — the gloriously bilateral struggle was inevitably underway.
Amid the rolling and the indignant shrieks, the ship of friendship was listing badly and threatening to capsize entirely.
Just as the two were locked in hopeless, unresolvable deadlock, Chief Constable Kalida pushed the door open and walked in.
That oval face of hers was as mature and softly beautiful as ever — the kind of face that made people feel safe — while her figure remained absolutely indecent, her long, generously curved thighs wrapped in semi-sheer stockings, glimpsed through the high slit of a white formal gown.
She leaned in the doorway, taking in the two of them — breathless, dishevelled, their long black hair so thoroughly tangled together they looked like a pair of entwined black lotus blossoms — and smiled pleasantly: "Should I leave, or should I join in?"
"Truce, truce."
Li Fei, currently losing ground and fighting a strategic retreat, seized the opportunity to hang up the ceasefire flag. Smoothing her clothes with one hand, she beamed sweetly: "Good evening, Sister Kalida."
As she offered the greeting, Li Fei discreetly glanced at those magnificently rounded, shapely thighs — and, finding no artwork of mismatched sizes, fonts, or languages on display tonight, suppressed a quiet twinge of disappointment.
The top-tier courtesan had once said:
The Art of Tea is an art of balance.
Troubling others too frequently will inevitably breed resentment and wear away at goodwill; but occasionally making a small request actually draws people closer.
The previous evening, through Bai Mengtian's introduction, Li Fei had shared a coffee with Kalida — a woman she'd met a handful of times before. In the generous spirit of helping others and serving society, Li Fei had cheerfully volunteered to dispose of a batch of brand-new surplus military equipment for her. By the end of the evening, the two could fairly be called close friends, of the sisterly variety.
One could also technically call them something more along the lines of "wife and wife's little sister" — but out of politeness, Li Fei kept calling her "big sister" in that sweetly honeyed voice of hers.
"Good evening, two young ladies who outshine even the moonlight."
Kalida stepped forward gracefully and began untangling the knotted tresses of both women.
"Hmph."
Bai Mengtian's expression was thunderous — like a compulsive mahjong player who'd just drawn the hand of a lifetime, only to have the game forcibly called off mid-round because his wife had come to drag him home. The sheer weight of her thwarted anticipation was palpable.
"Oh my, Sister Kalida, your timing is impeccable."
Li Fei covered a laugh with her hand and patted the mattress invitingly: "Come rest with us for a bit?"
"No need — my friend is waiting."
Kalida, who was clearly already a familiar face to more than a few of the Golden Kumquat Tavern's staff, carefully separated the two women's intertwined locks strand by strand, then shifted her gaze to Li Fei. "I simply had a gift I wanted to give you in private."
"Oh, you really didn't have to."
Li Fei smiled and slipped off the bed, her soft, pale feet slipping deftly into her heels. She rummaged through the drawer, produced a small vial, and knocked it back in one go.
In moments, every scratch and red mark from the scuffle faded away, leaving her skin flawless and luminously white once more.
She warmly took Kalida's arm, and the two exchanged a knowing glance as they moved together toward the bedroom door.
"…And me?"
Left behind by both her girlfriend and her best friend, Bai Mengtian pointed at her own nose with wide, outraged eyes.
"Entertain yourself. Be good."
Li Fei, who moments ago had been showering her with terms of endearment, brushed her off without a shred of sincerity and left Bai Mengtian alone in the room.
They hadn't gone far down the corridor before Kalida stopped, produced a strikingly beautiful diamond necklace, and clasped it around Li Fei's neck herself — Li Fei never wore necklaces, since her throat disliked the feel of foreign objects against it. The top button of her shirt was perpetually undone for the same reason, and she rarely wore turtlenecks, beautiful as they were.
She'd sooner get ten more piercings and endure the brief pain than spend all day with a strange sensation lingering at her throat.
With certain notable exceptions.
For instance, Eve — that incorrigible little wretch — had discovered this particular weakness and cheerfully taken to dropping the most inappropriate comparisons imaginable, likening the Fairy Mother's white, graceful neck to a tap.
In any case, though she wasn't especially fond of this particular gift, Li Fei performed a thoroughly convincing display of delighted surprise.
"It's gorgeous — thank you so much, Sister Kalida."
Kalida used the back of her finger to brush aside a lock of Li Fei's hair, studying the cascade of brilliant diamond chips resting at the centre of her collarbone — then shook her head with what appeared to be genuine regret:
"It doesn't do you justice."
"But…"
Kalida curved her lips and brought them close to Li Fei's ear, murmuring an incantation.
"Recite this spell, and it will activate her necklace."
The Chief Constable — who looked every inch the picture of mature, maternal authority — slid a glance back toward the bedroom. "The effect is: Sensitivity Aura amplification."
The moment the words landed, all 108 ultra-high-definition reference images stored in Li Fei's memory surfaced at once, with the collar receiving a particular close-up. Li Fei's lips curved upward. She gave a knowing nod.
With this little incantation in hand, the mother-daughter power dynamic between Tingbao and Feibao — which had been subtly, alarmingly close to inverting — was firmly re-stabilised. Heh heh.
As for any concern about eavesdropping — none whatsoever. Unlike the top-tier courtesan, that master of "flexible adaptability" and "image management," the villainess operated as a tyrant who did her evildoing in broad daylight. Surveillance and prying simply weren't her style.
"Oh, one more thing."
Kalida suddenly allowed a smile to play at the corner of her mouth, with a certain pointed meaningfulness: "Just before I came over, one of my guards reported to me… it seems quite a number of sea-folk creatures in Viranean all threw themselves into the sea and drowned today."
"Ah, well…"
Li Fei's face went a little pink. So that's why you pulled me aside…
The dimwitted, depraved, pleasure-addled villainess now functioned as a strategic-tier figurehead — her actual authority had long since been hollowed out. She took no interest in Loxibrook's day-to-day affairs, only being called upon when something truly significant needed handling.
Minor incidents like a group of low-Sequence sea-folk creatures voluntarily departing the mortal coil would never reach her ears. Kalida raising the matter privately was clearly a courtesy — a way of saving face for the mischief-making courtesan and sparing her from being roasted by the others.
"S-sorry."
Li Fei stuck out her tongue guiltily, dropped her gaze, and offered an apology in her most sincere-sounding tone: "I was… completing a certain ritual…"
The top-tier courtesan had once said:
When an incident is plainly and obviously your own fault, never play the victim or feign innocence. That only makes you look stupid — and it communicates, in no uncertain terms, that you think the other person is stupid too. Nothing destroys goodwill faster. Playing dumb is strictly for low-grade green-tea types; presenting a sheepish, embarrassed expression and owning up openly is what causes people to laugh it off and even find you refreshingly guileless and sweet.
Note: not recommended for those lacking sufficient physical appeal.
"It's quite alright."
The Art of Tea (Lv. 99) activated — critical hit. Kalida's expression softened to something bordering on indulgent: "After midnight tonight, the ecological management project for Viranean will be contracted out to the Mettis family…"
"As everyone knows, Viranean has no street lighting… and after sundown the roads are dark and slippery. It would be perfectly natural for the odd sea turtle or two to stumble and fall into the water, wouldn't it?"
"Ah… yes, yes, quite right."
Li Fei cupped Kalida's hands in both of hers, her smile blooming once more.
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