Li Fei was curled up in a corner of the sofa, hugging her legs, poring intently over the [Charm Mark Reconfiguration] secret-art manual.
The difficulty of cultivating this secret art was neither especially high nor especially low—it mainly tested a succubus's willpower.
According to the description, once the Charm Marks surfaced on one's belly, shifting their position or altering their shape was no easy task. Beyond the necessary rituals and the aid of medicines, the proper timing was also indispensable.
Only by seizing the moment when the Charm Marks were at their most unstable—concentrating one's mind and using one's soul to commune with the mana within them—could one twist their form as desired.
Which raised a question:
When were the Charm Marks at their most unstable?
The answer: when the Charm Marks were being 'charged.'
The difficulty was roughly equivalent to playing the mobile game called 'Pesticide' while cuddling—you had to keep up a certain enthusiasm for the former, maintaining a full and cheerful state of mind, while also ensuring you could go god-tier and rank up in the game.
The test of willpower could not be called anything but immense.
"Mm, try a few more times and it's bound to work out..."
Li Fei muttered, firmly committing to memory the functions of the various occult runes, turning it over and over in her mind, finding it hard to make a choice.
After all, altering the patterns themselves was already rather difficult; once they formed a stable, complete occult rune, modifying them became harder still.
"Hm?"
Suddenly she sat up straight, her gaze fixed on a line of annotation on the final page:
Unless one possesses royal bloodline, occult runes are extremely difficult to alter once formed—please choose with care.
"Tsss... my kind of spell ability isn't Full Transformation — Succubus, but Full Transformation — Succubus Empress, after all...."
Having read the manual word by word, line by line, Li Fei relaxed all over and quirked up the corners of her mouth.
Barring surprises, she should be able to reconfigure her own Charm Marks however she pleased.
She might even use it to fish—to lure out those elusive succubus ladies who came and went like ghosts....
Suddenly, footsteps approached. Li Fei hastily reined in her smile, straightened her posture, and put on a grave expression.
"What's wrong? Did something unpleasant happen?"
Lady Annie came over carrying a tray, on which sat cream puffs and black tea.
It had to be said, the power of love was a great thing. On the face of this petite, soft, beautiful blonde wife, not a trace of misery or haggardness could be found anymore; in its place hung a sweet, happy smile. Her attire was still conservative and elegant, yet no longer as before, when she would wear long sleeves even in summer, wrapping her arms up tight and snug.
Her lovely hair was pinned up; a fitted white dress traced out her slender, supple figure; the lace openwork short sleeves looked light and graceful; her willow-branch arms were fair, tender, and fine. The hem fell to her knees, and pale gray stockings sheathed her firm, dainty calves.
"I..."
Li Fei's lips trembled hesitantly, like a child who had done something wrong, starting to speak and then stopping.
"Take your time, there's no rush."
Lady Annie set the tray on the tea table and sat down beside Li Fei with concern, one hand stroking her back, the other taking her hand, passing the warmth of her palm to this lover who was about the same age as her own daughter; her aquamarine eyes brimmed with the gentle light of motherly tenderness and affection.
"I, I.... I betrayed you."
Li Fei bowed her head deeply, a sob in her voice.
"..."
Lady Annie's heart clenched, a cold dread surging up within her.
She had long had a premonition, and had long been prepared; now it was finally confirmed.
Yet faced with this confession, beyond the faint threads of bitterness, what filled Annie's heart was more an anxious worry of gain and loss—there was not much anger or jealousy.
Because Li Fei was too perfect, inferiority and pressure plagued her constantly. As a single mother who had been through a marriage and raised her daughter alone, she too had tasted the warmth and coldness of human relations, and truly could not ignore the chasm-like gaps in status, identity, income, and every other respect.
All Lady Annie could do was treat her as well as she possibly could.
Yet now, fate had once again played a cruel joke on her.
——So, was all of this only a dream?
—Still, I must thank you, Goddess of Nature, for letting me experience such a beautiful dream....
Her heart spasming, Lady Annie's eyes grew hot; she gripped Li Fei's hand tightly, struggling to keep her tears from falling.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry...."
Faced with this sniffly, tearful apology, Lady Annie did her utmost to suppress her emotions and said with a quaver in her voice:
"Is it Grace...?"
"Mm."
Li Fei nodded, then shook her head.
Eeeee——
Lady Annie hadn't seen Li Fei's gesture; amid the ringing that abruptly rose in her ears, she once again experienced the feeling of utter despair, all hopes turned to ash.
As her heart wrenched in pain, Lady Annie forced herself upright, letting the tears fall from the corners of her eyes, and said in as calm a tone as she could manage:
"She's a good girl... very pretty, with a good temperament too, and the same age as you.... The two of you together is good, very good...."
As she spoke, Lady Annie fell silent and covered her face, weeping quietly.
Would they still be able to meet in the future?
Could they get along as friends?
——Please don't leave me, all right?
Lady Annie trembled, biting down hard on her teeth to keep herself from saying words that would have no dignity and would only trouble Li Fei.
She wanted to let go, to give Li Fei her freedom.
"Please don't leave me, all right."
But Li Fei spoke aloud the very words in Lady Annie's heart, her voice full of pleading.
The boundless dark clouds shrouding the lake of her heart were abruptly torn open with a rift.
Lady Annie looked up, stunned; even through her blurred, tearful eyes, she could feel the warmth in Li Fei's gaze.
She... wasn't trying to break up with me?
Joy, inevitably, welled up in Lady Annie's heart.
Li Fei was a bit dazed too.
I was just trying to be a bit more honest—to come clean while Lilith is away cultivating, before the number of Charm Marks explodes—so why are you acting like we're breaking up?
What a good woman! To actually think that love is a single-choice question....
Li Fei quickly fathomed Lady Annie's thoughts and began to improvise.
"In that disaster at Viranean, I was forced to become a witch...."
"Later, I inexplicably awakened powers relating to the succubus...."
"The evil instincts of the witch and the succubus torment me at every single moment, without cease...."
Li Fei recounted her unfortunate ordeal with sorrow: "I'd thought I could overcome the problem by my own willpower, so I kept it from you all this time...."
"I didn't want it to be that way, but I couldn't help it, I really couldn't...."
Li Fei shook her head, wailing mournfully, and sobbed.
Lady Annie gazed at her blankly, and suddenly felt a sense of relief, as if a weight had been lifted.
What had happened between Li Fei and another girl left her sour and despondent, yet beyond these emotions, she actually felt a few traces of a sinful, forbidden gladness.
She was no longer perfect.
She too could make mistakes, could feel fear, could feel uneasy.
She needed my company and my help.
Faced with that pitiable, panicked, helpless tear-streaked face, the inferiority in Lady Annie's heart was swept clean away.
And so, a warm and steady embrace cut off Li Fei's words.
"It's all right."
Lady Annie wiped away Li Fei's tear-stains, gazing with aching tenderness and depth at this lover who was about her daughter's age and crying like a pear blossom in the rain, and murmured softly: "I understand your pain and your sorrow... but you must remember, no matter what happens, I will never let you face all of this alone.... There's no need to be afraid, no need to worry—everything will be all right."
Cleaver -1.
"B-but...."
Li Fei sobbed, clinging yet uneasy: "I can't go back anymore."
"I can only go further and further down the witch's path.... If others find out, it might drag you down with me...."
"No, it can't be like this."
As she spoke, she struggled, trying to break free of Lady Annie's embrace.
Of course, it was perfectly normal that the witchy young lady—who had mastered Intermediate Battle-Qi and possessed street-wrecking combat power—was effortlessly subdued by a frail, literary housewife.
"Then don't let anyone find out—keep yourself safe."
Lady Annie held her, moved and aching with love, and said with unwavering firmness: "I won't leave you."
"B-but I've done so many things that wronged you...."
Li Fei added meekly: "Also, in Viranean, Sister Zhihua nearly died for me. I thought I was done for too, so I agreed to a betrothal with her—now she's my fiancée...."
Lady Annie was silent for a moment, suddenly wanting to push her away.
After a moment, she sighed, gently caressing that tear-streaked, pitiful face, and forced out a bitter smile: "I will accept all of you."
"Teacher Annie is so good to me."
In the end, Li Fei had won her over, and hugged her, deeply moved.
"As it should be."
Lady Annie combed her fingers through Li Fei's hair, speaking with heartfelt sincerity.
The living room fell quiet for a moment, yet under the tender warmth of two hearts beating as one, their body temperatures kept rising and their heartbeats kept quickening.
A fatal allure was released without restraint, like a small beast baring its fangs and claws, crashing against the soft chambers of a heart left tender after such emotional highs and lows.
"So...."
Li Fei quietly lifted her head, her eyes limpid as autumn water, and made a request that was just a teeny-tiny billion bit pushing-her-luck: "Teacher Annie, could you help me with my cultivation?"
Her snow-tender little paw, well-practiced, also crept onto the back of the gentle woman's hand, her index finger and thumb ceaselessly rubbing at the wedding ring.
The mood, with a teasing little tickle, surged right up.
The cultivation of [Charm Mark Reconfiguration] had some twists and turns, but the result was reasonably ideal.
Although at first Li Fei was overly absorbed and never quite grasped the knack of cultivating the secret art.
But in the end, with the patient and considerate cooperation of the delicate housewife, she finally mastered the trick of it.
The older-woman teacher pillowed her head on her girl student's shoulder, her aquamarine pupils full of tender affection, gently stroking Li Fei's belly. On skin lustrous and white as jade, poison was in bloom; the vivid, bewitching patterns were like serpents in flight, exuding a soul-stirring allure.
"Which one... is mine?"
Lady Annie suddenly raised her head; her originally gentle, clear voice was now a little hoarse, with a husky, smoky quality.
And her blonde hair, usually always pinned up so properly, was now fluffy and disheveled, like a cat with its fur all mussed; her skin was flushed red, and in her moist eyes flowed a tenderness and charm belonging only to a mature woman.
A life-or-death question, this one.
Li Fei had no leisure to admire Lady Annie's charm; not daring to hesitate for even a moment, she pointed at one at random and, in a firm, unquestionable tone, vowed solemnly:
"This one!"
The instant she pointed at that Charm Mark, Li Fei's expression suddenly turned absent; in some dim, unseen way she saw, a thousand miles away, a sword-glint soaring straight to the heavens, its cold, clear edge sending a chill through every fatal point on her body.
——Why am I hallucinating? It must be because I miss Sister Zhihua—boo-hoo-hoo, I really do love her, I really do love her.
Li Fei pondered suspiciously, not even noticing that her Morality Value had dropped to -27.
Lady Annie, meanwhile, gazed at that Charm Mark belonging to Qin Zhihua, rubbing it with her fingertip, and finally closed her eyes, pinched up the skin of the belly, and left a mark of her own with a deep bite of teeth.
Li Fei shivered, casually flipping open the manuscript by the bed, and found that the plot of "Battle Through the Blue Sky" had already been written up to where Artoria advanced to "Battle Master" and was searching for the Green Lotus Earth-Heart Flame.
Thanks to her superhigh intelligence, Li Fei—based on the word count per page and the thickness of the manuscript paper—quickly calculated in her head that Lady Annie had written nearly five hundred thousand words in under a month, and couldn't help drawing a sharp, cold breath.
Twenty thousand words updated daily—a housewife word-churning goddess—how terrifying indeed!
Li Fei waved the manuscript in her hand and said with a beaming smile:
"Teacher Annie, I think... the stockpile of manuscript for releasing the first volume of the novel is already more than enough."
In the early morning, Li Fei gently lifted away the arm Su Ling'er had draped over her, then turned her head to meet a pair of clear-sky-blue eyes quietly watching her.
"Good morning, Miss Grace."
Li Fei greeted her softly, then got out of bed together with her, without waking Su Ling'er.
It had to be said, the older housewife-teacher's afternoon black tea and late-night sandwiches had healed the witchy young lady's body, which had been on the verge of collapse after that brutal great battle in the Secret Garden; her complexion had improved considerably.
Evidently, without her even realizing it, Li Fei had grown to the point where she could even regenerate health during small-scale, low-intensity combat.
This also fully proved the correctness of the War Academy's teaching philosophy: only real combat best hones a person's abilities.
Li Fei sat down at the dining table, popped open a red can of cola with a crisp "pop," chugged it all down in one go—glug, glug, glug—then heartily slurped up noodles steeped in a broth with double the chopped scallions and Serpent-woman scales.
What? Why isn't there a blue can?
Toilet-bowl cleaner should of course be poured down the drain together with the cilantro, hee hee.
With a big bowl of steaming hot noodles in her belly, Li Fei wiped away the nonexistent beads of sweat on her forehead, casually flipped open the newspaper, and sure enough found a report about herself in it.
"Shocking! Miss Spell Encyclopedia Actually Publicly Sells Off Her Priceless Treasures!"
Clearly, Lady Kalida was quite efficient in her work, leaking the news that Li Fei intended to publicly auction off her medals and equipment.
One should understand that in the culture and values of the Continent of Enlos, equipment was one's most intimate comrade-in-arms, and honor was not to be profaned.
Not only that, but Transcendents were extremely careful each time they selected equipment, and generally only gathered higher-tier new equipment when advancing to the next Sequence rank; thus the price one could sell discarded low-tier equipment for seemed rather unimportant.
This led to a situation where, apart from a small minority of mavericks, most Transcendents—unless particularly hard-pressed—would carefully store away the equipment that had fought alongside them, and would not readily sell it.
Even if they did intend to sell, it would be done quietly, with feelings of shame and reluctance.
And yet, as an honorary citizen of Loxibrook, the universally praised Angel of the Lone Isle, and the rising star of the Magic Academy—Miss Spell Encyclopedia—she had, not long after winning the championship, openly sold off her 'comrades' and her 'honor.'
Although such behavior wouldn't go so far as to draw direct censure, some gossip and rumor were unavoidable.
This was the downside of a positive image—people would hold you to very high moral standards, and as soon as some action failed to meet those standards, it would invite criticism and reproach.
Li Fei had anticipated this well in advance.
Grace silently glanced at the report and immediately began considering which of her own equipment she could sell, intending to support Li Fei through action.
"Don't go letting your mind wander, now."
Li Fei, who could already deduce the poker-faced lady's thoughts from the slightest changes in expression, was rendered speechless; she rolled up the newspaper and lightly tapped Grace on the forehead: "I happen to cherish my own reputation very much, you know."
Grace set her mind at ease and quietly went on enjoying her breakfast.
"Ram."
Li Fei gathered the pink-haired little fairy into her arms, nuzzled her affectionately, and asked: "How many little sisters do you have now?"
Having been through that brutal great battle, Li Fei had realized that wildflowers could only be picked on occasion—otherwise there would be ill omen.
"One hundred and ninety-six."
Ram gave the answer without hesitation, evidently knowing the number of family members by heart.
As the saying goes, the eldest sister is like a mother. Ram had always cared deeply for her little sisters, thinking up names every night before bed for the fairies to be born the next day—and considering that the number of fairies now increased by six each day, and the irresponsible mother who gave birth but didn't raise them, who even had her daughters take care of her in reverse, one can well imagine the extent of Ram's worries.
"Come to think of it... I seem to be quite a derelict mother. Some of my children haven't even seen me once since they were born."
Li Fei, her face full of worry and a touch of shame, said: "A lack of motherly love isn't good for children's growth, so over these next few days, I intend to keep my daughters good company."
She turned her head and instructed the gorgeous, mature purple-haired fairy beside her:
"Sasha, over these next few days, go to Viranean with Ram each day and bring my daughters over, so I can have a good look at them...."
"Of course, too many would be too much to handle.... ahem, more than I could look after, so each time just bring twenty... make it fifty!"
After the little fairy nodded, Li Fei, with a kindly and benevolent expression, reflected:
"In the past, I was not a competent, good mother; but it's not too late to wake up now. I'm going to make up for my failings in a big way and give back to the children the motherly love that should have been theirs."
Miss Grace silently set down her bowl and chopsticks.
This breakfast—she couldn't swallow another bite of it.
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