The birthday girl welcomed a full, busy day.
She carried tea, calligraphy, porcelain and other local specialties from the Demon-Sealing Continent and visited her friends one by one. As she went, she casually let the spatial ring on her finger show, a ring worth far more than a pigeon-egg diamond, and said shyly, "It's a birthday present from a friend…"
What? Why wasn't you invited to the birthday party?
Haven't you noticed this girl's black hair and black eyes? We conservative, reserved Easterners don't go in for your decadent, extravagant petty-bourgeois events.
And so those cheap specialties turned into gifts of varying value.
Generally speaking, though, the people who already remembered Miss Top Courtesan's birthday had prepared fairly expensive presents.
In the morning she'd gone to the Academy and received gifts from Melodia, Nicole, Irena and her fellow students. There were also presents bought with birthday collections by a whole string of groups: [Li Fei's Sole Officially Designated Fan Club], [Fei-bao Sss-Haa Sss-Haa Fan Club], [Genius Freshman and Priestess Senior Commemorative Handbook], [Dual Special-Admission Power Station], [Three Mage-Girls Cuddle Research Institute], [Fierce Belly Strikes]… and so on.
Even Klein had very gentlemanly presented her with a ruby. A Crescent-grade one, worth over a thousand. Of course, his gentle smile couldn't hide the pain in his eyes. It seemed his finances were still in rough shape.
The afternoon was for visiting high-society ladies, including but not limited to the Mercenary Guild president's daughter, the War Academy vice dean, the Thieves' Guild vice president, the Apothecaries' Guild lifetime honorary president, the High Priestess of the Church of Life, and a unicorn and her elf maid.
The birthday girl pushed her time management to the limit, like an artist dancing on tiptoe along a machete's edge, radiant and unhurried. The gift boxes and presents in her spatial ring piled higher and higher.
By the time she was ready to head home and open her blind boxes, the sun had already set.
But on the way back, Li Fei ran into acquaintances outside a drink shop on a street corner.
Two tall, beautiful Peacekeeper ladies had apparently just gotten off work. They hadn't even changed out of their pristine, elegant Enforcement Corps uniforms, and each held a drink as they chatted outside the shop.
The taller one had enchanting blonde hair, vermilion eyes and snow-pale skin. Her figure was long and slender, the kind of supermodel build whose curves are subtle but looks good in anything. Her cold-white complexion set off her crimson lips so they outshone rose petals. Her features were exquisite, with a crisp, elegant nobility about them.
The other had chestnut hair falling like a waterfall, bright eyes and white teeth, with the refined beauty of an Eastern woman. Her figure was graceful and willowy too, but the righteousness radiating from within made her look perfect as source material for those picture-book scenes where she gets captured alive by a succubus or even an elf.
The two Peacekeepers clearly got along well. They spoke in soft voices, both looking fairly relaxed.
A pleasant greeting cut into the colleagues' conversation:
"Good evening, Sofia, and Lady Asuna~"
Hearing the familiar voice, Asuna instinctively reached for the silver bracelets at her waist.
Then she realized, stunned, that the Honorary Citizen hadn't broken any laws today!
Li Fei looped her arm through Sofia's with a sweet smile and tilted her head toward Asuna.
"Just getting off work? Hard day, huh."
"Senior, you two…"
The intimate contact left Asuna looking puzzled.
She knew this reticent but dependable senior already had a wife and daughter. Her wife seemed a little busy, busy enough to leave on a long trip right after giving birth. When Sofia had taken leave to look after her daughter, Asuna had visited her home too and even given the adorable little thing a present.
As far as Asuna could see, her senior was simply not the type to have a wife and daughter and still be carrying on with other girls.
"I'm her mother-in-law," Li Fei answered.
Hm?
The daughter of an eighteen-year-old human woman?
That's so criminal!
Who'd have thought you were the kind of senior who knowingly breaks the law.
The answer, packed with enormous amounts of information, set Asuna's pupils quaking, and out of professional habit her white-gloved left hand slid toward her waist again.
But Asuna quickly caught on.
Sofia's daughter was a hybrid sprite, which meant her wife had reached adulthood at three months old. Besides, Li Fei was a Nature-type mage. The daughter she'd borne with the Nature Goddess had been legal from the very second she came into the world.
Asuna let out a breath, relieved at the false alarm.
Meanwhile Li Fei glanced at the watermelon-juice-looking drink in Sofia's hand. With practiced ease she hooked a lock of hair behind one ear with a fingertip, revealing a luminous, flawless profile, a delicate earlobe and a graceful neck, then lowered her head and caught the straw in her teeth.
It was a simple little motion, yet it carried a restrained, heart-stopping allure. Sofia's cold heart, which had no blood flowing through it, thudded hard once.
Li Fei felt that pulse, and the corner of her mouth curled almost imperceptibly.
Showing off her charm through tiny gestures in everyday settings, conjuring an intimate or even ambiguous, dreamy atmosphere, was nothing but basic skill for Miss Top Courtesan. It was so second nature that it had practically worked its way into her DNA.
One might say that now every move of her hands and feet stirred up the scent of tea, as if she were the Way of Tea personified. Never mind that her Charm was a mere six hundred or so. In a duel of The Art of Tea, even against some titan with a thousand Charm, she might well not fall behind.
The drink hit her tongue, and Li Fei frowned.
The drink in Sofia's hand wasn't exactly bad, but you couldn't call it tasty either.
It burned scalding hot going in, though it didn't hurt. A faint taste of blood filled the mouth, followed by a sweet aftertaste. It was hard to get used to.
Having stopped her tasting, Li Fei gently gnawed the straw and glanced at the drink shop from the corner of her eye.
A listless, red-skinned demon lady was slumped inside, a long tube in her arm. Blood flowed through the clear tubing into a glass jar.
The product ad on the wall carried a bold line: "Premium demon blood! Freshly squeezed! Fake? We pay tenfold!"
Thanks to Loxibrook's prosperity, the city had a fair-sized vampire population, so this kind of "fresh-squeezed drink" sold pretty well. It wasn't hard to tell, either. That juicer lady, some kind of demon or other, had a red complexion that was actually starting to go pale…
"Is this kind of exploitation really legal?"
Li Fei lifted her head and asked the law enforcer beside her.
"If it's voluntary, it's legal."
Asuna's tone was calm. Clearly she'd long since grown used to it.
Nothing in Loxibrook was surprising. Take the Golden Tangerine Tavern, the city's most famous den of pleasure, which employed a mid-Sequence Transcendent who had fallen into the trade. Who could imagine that the hostesses who spent their days smiling for customers and selling drinks for a living were powerhouses capable of ruling over certain cities or planes?
Or take the other day, when a fairy dragon lady ran out of cash after a failed investment, only to fall head over heels for a phoenix lady. To win the woman she loved, she sold her own dragon blood and scales, scraped together enough to buy a high-end spatial ring with several hundred cubic meters of capacity, and went to confess. Only to find the phoenix lady having her wings tugged by a black dragon lady… Now the fairy dragon is in detention for drunken speeding in Flight, which disrupted traffic.
At this rate, it wouldn't even be surprising if some noble high-Sequence lady took a job at the Golden Tangerine Tavern one day.
How would Miss Bai Mengtian put it again?
This is called marketization.
"I see…"
Li Fei murmured, her eyes still fixed blankly on the shop.
Is she sympathizing with that half-blood balor lady?
So Miss Philanthropist, for all her frequent mistakes, is kind at heart after all…
Asuna lowered her eyes, recalling once more the time Li Fei had pleaded on her behalf.
In truth, Miss Philanthropist was staring at the price tag on the fresh-squeezed drinks.
Drinks for noble vampires naturally needed noble prices.
Looks like our foundation needs to launch a "Loving Blood Bank" project ASAP…
Capital… er, Miss Philanthropist quietly made up her mind.
Meanwhile Sofia stared at the tiny tooth marks on the straw, sweeter than any blood, locked in a painful dilemma.
Drink, or not drink. That was the question.
For a moment, all three fell silent.
Li Fei was the first to snap out of it. She tugged lightly at Asuna's sleeve with her fingertips:
"Treat me to a milk tea."
"No problem."
Watching Li Fei happily pick out a milk tea, Asuna felt a little puzzled for a moment.
With her daughter-in-law right there, how had it become her turn to treat?
Li Fei didn't seem to notice anything presumptuous in the request. She stood between Asuna and the counter, and a strand of her hair brushed Asuna's collar, leaving a faint scent of tea at the tip of her nose.
Asuna's heartbeat inevitably quickened. Li Fei's back looked especially lovely to her. The waterfall of jet-black hair, the snow-tender arm swaying as she pointed at the ad on the wall, all of it gave off a startling, bewitching power.
Li Fei seemed unaware of the gaze behind her. Like a carefree schoolgirl after class, she leaned her upper body over the counter, and one slender calf in a white knee-high sock hooked back, brushing against Asuna's boot.
"Oh, sorry."
Asuna jumped back half a step as if shocked by electricity. Li Fei glanced over her shoulder with an apologetic smile and finally settled on a unicorn milk tea with a cream topping.
A moment later, Li Fei took her milk tea from the bashful clerk.
The unicorn milk was as rich and fragrant as ever, and went perfectly with the silky texture of the light cream. Li Fei closed her eyes and took a sip, her face blissful and intoxicated, and sincerely thanked Asuna:
"Thank you, I really love your birthday present."
Birthday?
Asuna froze.
For a mature woman with a decent income, giving milk tea as a birthday present was bound to seem rude.
She even forgot that the two of them weren't really friends to begin with, and hurriedly rummaged through her spatial ring for something to pass off as a gift:
"Sorry, I didn't know today was your birthday, I…"
"I said, I really love this birthday present."
Li Fei slowed her tone and repeated herself in a soft, breathy murmur, gently coaxing: "You should wish me a happy birthday, shouldn't you?"
Asuna froze again.
Although she'd been assigned to the department handling criminal cases involving Transcendents, she was a law enforcer with a fierce sense of justice and responsibility, a guardian who aspired to let every citizen of Loxibrook live in peace. She stepped in even on the pettiest public-order cases.
So Asuna had seen plenty of people thrown into chaos over debt disputes, inheritance splits, demands to return betrothal gifts and the like.
It had taught her deeply that, since marketization, every girl who could be thrilled on her birthday by a cup of milk tea carried a beautiful treasure in her heart called "innocence." And that treasure became rarer as beauty grew.
That wasn't their fault. A never-ending stream of suitors easily makes a person proud, and pride destroys that priceless treasure.
"Happy birthday."
Over her ever-quickening heartbeat, Asuna offered her wishes in as calm a voice as she could manage.
"Thank you."
Li Fei pressed down her beret, tilted her head and stuck out her tongue slyly, her voice sweet: "You wished me a happy birthday and gave me a present, so from now on we're good sisters."
A trace of cream clung to her tender pink tongue tip, a fleeting, adorable glimpse. As a Loxibrook native with little exposure to heterosexual culture, Asuna naturally wouldn't think of anything inappropriate or mood-killing.
And Li Fei happened to be dressed today in a pure yet pretty schoolgirl look, a white shirt and a light pink pleated skirt swaying in the dusk breeze, tracing a slender, graceful figure.
In almost an instant, Asuna's whole field of vision was filled by this playful, radiant, bewitching girl.
She remembered that wonderful, fulfilling time at the War Academy.
The birthday girl, however, seemed not to notice the Peacekeeper's dazed expression, and pressed her advantage.
Her method was classic and practical.
She held out the milk tea to Asuna's lips and said with a sweet smile:
"Want a taste of mine? I want a taste of yours."
…
Hehe, tea two at once? Ea-easy-peasy~
Miss Top Courtesan walked home hand in hand with Sofia, her off-duty daughter-in-law.
Ever since Eva got pregnant, Sofia had basically moved into Li Fei's house for good and rarely went back to her own place, except when she had to work overtime.
"Eeee!"
Little Yawen, who'd been chasing butterflies, saw her birth mother and Lady Mother coming home. She gulped the butterfly down in one bite and flapped her own wings, fluttering happily toward them.
How's any girl going to kiss you if you keep doing that?
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks, then her smile turned kind. She meant to correct Yawen's bad habit.
Joking aside, a daughter raised at the side of the one and only Miss Top Courtesan would be a huge embarrassment if she couldn't find a girlfriend later. Others might even think Miss Top Courtesan's Art of Tea was lacking.
Meanwhile, a gentle smile bloomed on Sofia's cold, elegant face, and warm maternal feeling rippled between her brows. Since marrying and having a daughter, this pampered little vampire princess had become full of young-wife charm, not at all like her wife, who seemed forever carefree.
Yawen sensed sharply that Lady Mother seemed ready to discipline her. She shifted her flight path slightly and dove instead into kind Sofia's arms, nuzzling her affectionately, then suddenly looked at the fresh-squeezed drink in her hand.
The half-blood sprite examined the size of the tooth marks, sniffed, then lifted her little face and asked Li Fei curiously:
"Does Lady Mother like drinking blood too?"
Sofia's heart skipped again.
Asuna hadn't tasted Li Fei's milk tea, but she'd let Li Fei taste her fruit drink.
Between girls, that was perfectly normal.
But once certain pink bubbles start to rise, even such intimate exchanges get tinted pink.
Add to that her relationship with Miss Mother-in-Law, a line that absolutely, absolutely, absolutely must never be crossed.
The straw with its tooth marks became strange. Sofia didn't dare take another sip, yet couldn't bear to throw it away, and in the end, as if possessed, she carried the drink all the way home.
Now her daughter's innocent eyes stabbed straight at Sofia, stirring an indescribable mix of panic, guilt, unease and even a thread of remorse.
"She just took a sip out of curiosity. That's perfectly normal, nothing to make a fuss over. My colleagues and I do the same sometimes…"
The vampire Peacekeeper, who aspired to be a good wife and loving mother, explained this to her daughter in a way that only made it look worse. Then she lowered her head and bit hard on the straw, destroying the traces Miss Mother-in-Law had left, and drained the pomegranate-juice-like drink in one go.
It had been an ordinary fresh-squeezed drink, made mainly from a demon lady's freshly squeezed blood.
Now it had picked up a flavor of overwhelming complexity.
Heavy bitterness, the ache of something in sight but out of reach, the scorching sting of self-reproach and shame…
And that damned sweetness.
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