"Female ghosts really do taste rather nice…"
Li Fei lounged against the headboard and lazily lifted her right leg, the long skirt stretching into a lovely, sinuous curve; the ankle bared beneath the hem was pale as polished jade.
The beautiful female ghosts, cold and thick with yin energy, sat in a neat row along the edge of the bed, obediently drinking their medicine so their bellies wouldn't swell.
This time, though, Li Fei didn't need any.
A folded plane is a world unto itself, with its own distinct framework of laws, differing to a greater or lesser degree from the Enlos continent, and giving rise to civilizations and cultivation systems of every conceivable kind.
Rumor held that in some planes the very concept of "death" did not exist. Living things there could be ground down to their component particles and still not die, every cell enduring the agony of a thousand cuts every moment of every day. Worse than hell itself.
And according to the Magic Academy's statistical records, the law by which mere cuddling could get a girl pregnant with a daughter existed in only a handful of planes. The Demon-Sealing Continent was not among them, so Li Fei had no need for precautions.
The ghosts still did, however, because a succubus's tail carried the [Gestation] property. Whatever plane you were in, if you got close to a succubus and the tail came into it, a swollen belly was always a possibility.
"Xiao Lian, don't forget to take yours in a bit."
Li Fei lowered her lashes, her voice indolent.
"Mm."
Xiao Lian, black-haired and white-robed, knelt at Li Fei's feet. The savage edge that used to hang about her brow was gone without a trace, and her eyes shimmered like lake water — every inch the tender little wife.
"Hss…"
When those soft, cool palms closed around an ankle slender enough to circle with one hand, Li Fei drew a sharp breath. Her snowy toes curled slightly, then relaxed again, and she waited like a drowsy white kitten while the ghost drew silk stockings and embroidered shoes onto her feet.
After all that attunement, the pattern across her abdomen had grown to one thousand and thirty-five lines. The day she could one-shot Tingbao with a fireball was not far off — after achieving the astonishing feat of completing the Witch of Bliss Ascension Ritual in three weeks, Miss Top Courtesan was hardly the girl she had been. If there had been more than half a night left, she could have taken double the number of ghosts without breaking stride. It only cost her a few more liters of water.
Even fully dressed, Li Fei made no move to rise from the bed. The pointed toe of her embroidered shoe tilted Xiao Lian's snow-white chin up; the girl kept her eyes meekly lowered and kissed the top of her foot, and the freshly donned shoe and stocking came off again.
Chin propped on one hand, Li Fei played with her using the sole of her foot, thoroughly entertained.
Pleasure of the body and pleasure of the mind feed on each other. Li Fei's face could drown a mind; the Succubus Empress's tail could unmoor a body. Layer the two joys one atop the other and you wove a dream her sisters could not bear to wake from.
And so the scenes from those image sets on her phone tagged #Cow# played out for real. The ghosts who had met the tail were as high as if they'd taken something addictive, utterly gone, past all sense of themselves.
Li Fei found this deeply satisfying.
She had missed her chance to cut down their enemies for them with her own hands, and she had nowhere near enough time to nurture real affection slowly.
But she could share a demon king's Legacy with them freely, and she had promised them the five-year pact, and she had personally gone into the field to take [requests] from her ghosts all night long. The Tree Demon could never have managed any of that. Because of it, Li Fei might be able to push their loyalty up to a safe threshold very quickly.
What delighted her most, of course, was how the ghosts responded to "feminist thought." One short speech, and some of them looked as though they had grasped the ultimate truth of heaven and earth. Their eyes were shining.
Though it made sense when you thought about it. Even in a new century that had [completely eliminated poverty], such ideas spread with unrivaled force across every race. How much more so in a world this cruel, among a pack of female ghosts hounded to death with their grievances still unsettled?
— Under a feudal society, it wasn't only female ghosts who got trampled…
While her snowy toes toyed, idly or not so idly, with Xiao Lian's salivary glands, Li Fei fell to thinking.
If she spread a woman-centered doctrine far and wide, was there profit in it for her?
"Where's the money? Where is my money?"
Li Fei spared one glance for a government treasury bare enough to starve a mouse, then caught the City Lord by the collar and hauled two hundred pounds of fat man clean off the floor, her voice cold.
"Peace, my Lord, peace! These are unsettled times. There simply isn't much left to squeeze out of those wretches…"
The City Lord stammered out his explanation, every roll of fat on his face quivering.
Seeing this, the new secretary sidled up with a face full of smiles and, in the humblest of tones, laid out the reasons for Li Fei.
Demons and monsters ran wild, which had gutted both agriculture and trade. The court had sent armies to hold a portion of the good farmland, yet the common people still went hungry as a matter of course, and meat had become a luxury. The effect on tax revenue could be imagined.
Worse, to hold off the demons, every city and town maintained a permanent war footing. Even the most rotten of corrupt officials never begrudged military spending, and they spared no effort courting masters and building up a core fighting force. That kept the demons out — and it also kept the populace under their rule from doing anything desperate.
As a result, the court running a deficit was simply the normal state of affairs. The pitiful trickle of tax revenue was peeled away layer by layer by the officials, and whatever remained had to be poured wholesale into the military: forging demon-slaying weapons and treasures, keeping masters fed while they cultivated…
Never mind tiny Luyuan County. Even if Li Fei went and robbed the Lin'an national treasury this instant, she would be hard-pressed to turn up much coin or grain.
As the secretary talked, he threw the City Lord a look.
The City Lord mopped at his sweat without pause and offered Li Fei a gold note in the denomination of one thousand taels.
"My Lord is generous indeed."
Li Fei's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "There isn't a single string of copper coins in the treasury, the dead and wounded among the people haven't seen a copper of compensation, and yet you produce a thousand taels of gold just like that… If I took this money, my conscience would trouble me."
"My Lord, it is only a small token of respect…"
The City Lord was drenched in sweat, unable to withdraw the note and unable to press it on her either.
"This money I most certainly will not take."
Li Fei spoke without hurry. "However… demons have been rampant of late. They even murdered a Demon Suppression Bureau envoy. So I've assigned my most capable subordinates to guard your person in shifts, night and day. They work very hard. Their wages will have to be paid."
"One thousand taels a day. Real gold. Don't try to fob me off with scraps of paper. Understood?"
Over these past few days Li Fei had heard a thing or two about the credit of the court's banks. Gold notes that couldn't be cashed were the norm; if you had no serious backing behind you, a thousand taels of gold might lose nine hundred to "melting fees" and another ninety to handling charges, and no one would find that strange. It couldn't hold a candle to the goldsmiths' notes of Enlos. Squire Wang had fled with his whole household and still insisted on hauling heavy gold rather than converting it to notes — that told you everything.
The City Lord's mouth opened and closed. In the end, under the enchantress's faintly smiling gaze, he wiped his brow and nodded.
"Yes, my Lord."
For three days running, Li Fei's life was regular and dull.
Out of the city to slay demons, attune her ghosts; back at daybreak to rest, chat with Qiao'er, wander the streets with her.
"Qiao'er, dear, why so distracted?"
Li Fei tilted her head and studied the quiet girl, who these days carried an ever stronger air of the scholar about her.
"It's nothing."
Qiao'er shook her head.
"Is that so?"
Exactly the right measure of jealousy surfaced on Li Fei's face. "Or could it be you're still thinking about your dear Sister Yutong?"
Caught out in a single stroke, Qiao'er felt a twinge of guilt — and a secret flush of pleasure at that jealousy.
Clearly the precocious girl was still green in some ways. She went on believing that Wang Yutong's growing gauntness came from missing her family, a sickness of the heart that had left her looking so wan.
"…A little."
After a moment's hesitation, Qiao'er told the truth.
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks, gripped Qiao'er's hand tighter and marched her toward an apothecary at the roadside, her tone deliberately sulky.
"Then we'll simply buy her some tonics to build her strength back up."
"Thank you," Qiao'er said softly.
"What is there to thank me for? You and Sister Yutong have known each other so long, of course you feel for her… besides, she and I hit it off the moment we met…"
Li Fei went on muttering, as if consoling herself.
Qiao'er followed a step behind her, and the ground under her feet might as well have been packed with cotton. Every step floated.
She kept her eyes on Li Fei's back. Strands of hair blew loose and brushed the tip of her nose, ticklish.
Amid the fragrance of good tea, the last few days rose up in her memory, and Qiao'er was struck by a sense of unreality, as if she were walking through a dream.
Ever since she had followed Li Fei, she had never once had to grovel and wait on anyone. Everything she ate, wore, and used was of the finest, and there were more books than she could ever finish. A rich man's pampered daughter lived no better than this.
And Miss Wang, whom she had adored for years and who had never spoken to her without spite, had come to her senses overnight and now sought her out for conversation constantly.
Even that beautiful, utterly untamable enchantress looked after her with real care — and was, faintly, jealous over her…
Qiao'er lowered her lashes and hooked her soft, faintly damp fingertips around Li Fei's hand, as if afraid this dreamlike life would vanish without warning.
Then a malt sweetness spread across her tongue. Qiao'er came to with a start, and only now realized that while her thoughts had been drifting she had been led all the way back to the side courtyard of the City Lord's manor. Birdsong and flowers filled her vision, and Li Fei was easing a piece of malt candy between her lips.
Her smile was radiant, and a little wicked. Her fingertip skimmed lightly across Qiao'er's lower lip, and the soft pad of it, there and gone in an instant, set Qiao'er's heart hammering.
"Is it good?"
"It's very sweet."
Qiao'er's face was burning, so she turned her head away, not daring to meet those heart-stopping eyes any longer.
"Would you like another?"
Li Fei watched her in silence, pleasure banked deep in her dark eyes, as though she were watching a little witch about to be hatched from the shell by her own hands.
"I can do it myself…"
Qiao'er's answer was barely a whisper, and yet her hand didn't move.
When that malt-scented fingertip tapped at her teeth a second time, Qiao'er found courage from somewhere and, hardly knowing why, picked up a piece of candy herself and offered it nervously to Li Fei's lips.
Li Fei's eyes creased with laughter as she caught the girl's fingers without hesitation, her warm, damp breath nearly melting Qiao'er where she sat.
Just as the heat in both their eyes was climbing, Li Fei's brow twitched. She let go and laughed.
"Oh dear, I bit you by accident."
"It's all right…"
Qiao'er felt oddly bereft, though she couldn't have said what she'd been hoping for.
Li Fei, meanwhile, slid half a step aside without a flicker of expression, counted "three, two, one" in silence, and turned her head — and a small, travel-worn figure came into view.
She clapped a hand over her mouth in disbelief, eyes brimming with delight and longing.
"Lilith!"
Even if Diana had come home with no Li Fei meddling in the picture, the feeling Lady Annie could have summoned would hardly have been more sincere than Li Fei's at this moment.
Lilith, who had raced back to Luyuan County without pause after a brutal fight, looked worn out, her golden hair in disarray, her white robe still marked with dried blood and cat-claw rents.
She stopped under the archway and swept a suspicious glance over Qiao'er, whose face was flushed and who had one hand hidden behind her back, then over the flower-heavy courtyard. After a moment's thought, her gaze went cold, and her golden ponytail lifted slowly on a bloom of escaping magic.
Eva, who had brought Lilith back, quietly flew off to a safe distance, in case things went sideways and the blood splattered on her.
"What took you so long? I was worried sick."
Li Fei struck first, hurrying to Lilith's side and poking and patting at her all over, her face the picture of distress. "Look at you, you've gotten thinner…"
"I was only gone a few days."
Lilith remained unmoved, though the magic slowly drew back in.
"A day apart feels like three autumns." Li Fei said it with perfect conviction. "If Eva hadn't stopped me, I'd have gone looking for you long ago."
"Mm-hm." Eva nodded again and again. "I talked her round for ages. In the end it was only because I trusted that Sister Lilith could handle things on her own that she agreed to wait here for you… she hasn't closed her eyes for nights."
"Hmph. I don't need certain people fretting over me."
Lilith tried to sound tough, but the curve at the corner of her mouth had already given her away.
And Qiao'er, abruptly left out in the cold, watched the intimacy between the two of them with a hollow ache, her eyes lowered.
— But she was the one who… all right. They met first.
Qiao'er wrapped her left palm around the fingertips of her right hand, the ones that had been caught between Li Fei's lips. The warm, damp sensation still clung there.
The sludge she'd thought was gone for good stirred inside her again.
"When I went after that Tree Demon, I happened upon Squire Wang and his family surrounded by demons, so I stepped in and saved them."
"The Wang family did feed us once, and with Qiao'er's and Yutong's safety to consider, I couldn't hold out against Squire Wang's pleading in the end. I had no choice but to bring the girls along."
Once Lilith had replenished her energy with the Moon Pillow, Li Fei sat at the edge of the bed and recounted the last few days for her, her voice threaded with self-reproach.
"It was rash of me! If I'd swallowed my pride back then, perhaps the Wangs wouldn't have had to flee in the night and drag so many innocent people into it…"
"You didn't do anything wrong. It's your own business who you travel with."
Lilith affected calm.
"But I don't want you misunderstanding me."
In a tone verging on a wheedle, Miss Stepmother cupped Lilith's hand in both of hers, leaned her head in, pressed their foreheads together and nuzzled her affectionately.
"What is there for me to misunderstand? We're only friends."
Lilith spoke stoutly enough, yet somehow she swallowed the reminder "just don't break my mother's heart" before it left her mouth — burying her head like an ostrich, refusing to bring up the matter of Li Fei and Lady Annie at all.
"Hm? We can't go any further than that? How disappointing…"
Miss Stepmother tapped her index finger against her lips and tilted her head, the breathy slowness of the words turning them soft and suggestive.
"Further? Stop letting your mind wander."
Lilith's lips curved a little, and the pressure she'd been carrying all these days quietly drained away.
In truth, ever since the joint training camp, she had grown used to Miss Stepmother's indecent way of living — had even had to play deaf and dumb and help cover it up, to spare her mother the grief.
So before she set off alone for Nan Commandery after that Corpse King, Lilith had already braced herself for the likelihood that she'd come back to find Miss Stepmother trailing a whole crowd of unfamiliar women.
To her surprise, after leaving that indecent stepmother of hers to her own devices for several days, only two extra girls had appeared at her side — and girls she'd met before, at that. In a certain sense, this counted as progress.
"It's getting late. Let's eat first."
Li Fei glanced at the sky and spoke gently. "Once we've had our fill, we can have a proper talk tonight… and set out for Lin'an in the morning."
"Mm."
Lilith threw back the quilt, finding herself oddly eager for the evening.
Perhaps it could be like that other night — holding hands, watching the stars…
Just as a yearning for a certain Forbidden sort of romance surfaced in those sapphire eyes, Li Fei gave the gourd at her waist a shake. A hazy white smoke drifted out and resolved into several female ghosts lovely enough to eat.
"…?"
The light went out of Lilith's eyes and she froze mid-motion, as if struck by a Petrification spell, staring slack-jawed at the exquisite ghosts.
"Go and pack the luggage. We leave for Lin'an tomorrow," Li Fei instructed.
At that the ghosts brightened, wearing the expressions of women about to cause a great deal of trouble.
"…Wh-what is this?"
Lilith was silent for several seconds before she came to and pointed at them.
"Ah, after I destroyed that Tree Demon, there were more than two hundred female ghosts left with nowhere to turn, and they wished to take shelter with me."
Li Fei smiled sweetly. "I couldn't bear to see them reduced to homeless wandering spirits, so with great reluctance, I brought them along."
"…"
All the life drained out of Lilith's eyes at once.
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