"Go wait outside. I want to talk to Eve alone."
Li Fei deployed the full authority of a fearsome mother-in-law. Lady Sofia retreated with meek, obedient little nods.
"Why don't you want to get married?"
"If you haven't seen all the options, how can you possibly choose the right answer?"
The moment Eve opened her mouth, the tea practically brewed itself.
Li Fei shot her a look of profound, exasperated disappointment:
"Who told you marriage was a single-choice question? Picking just one might lead to the wrong answer — but if you fill in all the options, at least one of them is bound to be correct, isn't it?"
The words hit the little demoness — talent in abundance, life experience sorely lacking — like a key turning in a lock, flinging open the door to an entirely new world. Like a devoted disciple hearing a great monk's sermon, those deep crimson eyes began to shimmer with the light of revelation:
"Mother. I understand now."
"Good."
Li Fei stroked her beautiful hair with warm satisfaction, her voice taking on the earnest weight of hard-won wisdom: "We must cherish honest, wholehearted girls, my dear — we absolutely cannot break their hearts. Otherwise, once we've had our fill of adventure, who will we have left to settle down with?"
"Then…"
Eve seemed to grasp something deeper. She tilted her head back and, quite on her own initiative, reached up to touch Li Fei's cheek — her crimson eyes glimmering with a light that danced and shifted: "What if one has already found the most perfect option of all?"
— Very good, my daughter Eve. You have the makings of a true Tea Empress.
— If Ram had half this skill, Miss Zhihua might not have claimed the top spot quite so easily.
Li Fei smiled and said nothing.
...
Cooler than moonlight, a woman sat upright on a wooden bench, a glass of clear water cradled in her hands.
Pure white wings, flawless and unspoiled, folded neatly behind her back. Had any devotee of the Goddess of Life been present, they would have fallen to their knees and pressed their forehead to the floor in trembling reverence.
Angels — one of the highest-ranking races on the Continent of Enlos. The sacred bloodline flowing through their veins destined them, from the moment of their birth, to be great beings of the upper Sequences, standing shoulder to shoulder with mythical creatures like phoenixes and titans. The angel race was the very symbol of the Life Alignment, revered as the Goddess of Life's own messengers — carved into statues, painted onto scrolls, worshipped day and night by the faithful. Their standing was supreme, so lofty that even Champion Knights, symbols of glory and victory, could barely hope to match them.
And this pure, exalted angel appeared to be resting with her eyes closed, waiting for something. Her features were breathtaking in their refinement — a single teardrop mole frozen beneath the corner of her left eye. Resplendent silver hair cascaded like a waterfall between her folded wings, and only the golden angel's halo drifting slowly above her head confirmed this was a living angel, and not some masterwork of sculpture.
She wore silver armor that gleamed and shimmered with a cold metallic sheen, yet the craftsmanship was extraordinarily fine — fitting perfectly over a deep crimson underdress, tracing the elegant, willowy lines of her form.
"Sorry to keep you waiting."
At the sound of the door opening, Chloe finally opened her eyes, golden irises radiating an air of sacred, noble grace.
The top courtesan, dressed in a pink slip dress, pushed the door open with a pot balanced in her hands. One flick of her pink high-heel sent the private room door clicking shut behind her, and to the rhythm of tap tap tap, she carried the pot over to angel Chloe and set it down before her.
Steam rose in white billows from the pot. Inside was a tangle of noodles that looked slightly on the sticky side — the broth thick and rich, two heart-shaped fried eggs spread across the surface, with a scatter of green onion for garnish.
"Try it and tell me what you think of my cooking."
Li Fei ladled the noodles and broth together into a bowl with a large spoon, then plucked the fried eggs out and laid them neatly over the noodles, before handing the bowl and chopsticks to Chloe. She looked for all the world like a little girlfriend cooking for her senior — warm, bright, and utterly charming.
"Mm…"
Chloe — who could snap a giant's neck with one hand — accepted the bowl with both, lowered her head quietly, and lifted the noodles to her mouth.
"Well? Well?"
Li Fei bent forward, both hands pressed to her knees, her tumbling hair doing nothing to hide the eager, expectant gleam in her eyes. Every last thought of praise me already was written plainly across her face.
"It's delicious."
Chloe answered without a moment's hesitation.
"Then let me have a taste too."
Li Fei tucked a strand of hair back behind her ear, tilted her face up just slightly, and opened her mouth: "Aah—"
As her lips parted, the soft, dewy pink interior of her mouth came into full view — a tongue, pliant and full of life, moving instinctively; even a fine, glistening thread formed with the motion, catching the warmth of her breath, giving it a syrupy, viscous quality.
The pure little angel, who had spent her entire life with her nose buried in cultivation, had never seen anything remotely like this.
Chloe's mind went completely blank. On pure instinct, she lifted the noodles toward Li Fei's waiting mouth.
"Sss—"
Li Fei yanked her head back as though she'd touched a live wire, then clapped both hands over her mouth, cheeks puffed out, accusing: "That's scalding hot."
"I'm sorry, I—"
Chloe shot to her feet. Her cool, composed voice carried a note of genuine apology, her expression one of complete and total helplessness.
"Girls who aren't careful like that are going to have a very hard time finding a girlfriend, you know."
Li Fei flicked the tip of the angel's nose, then rose onto her tiptoes, placed both hands on those cold, unyielding pauldrons, and pressed Chloe firmly back into her seat. Then she settled herself right beside her, reached back without looking, and pulled — draping the soft, warm wings around herself like a blanket, squinting her eyes with pure contentment: "Who feeds someone something this hot without checking first?"
"We are friends. Not girlfriends…"
Chloe corrected her, her voice faint but earnest.
"Friendship and romance are basically the same thing anyway."
Li Fei waved a cheerful hand. "If a woman doesn't want to date her best friend, it can only mean one thing — her best friend just isn't pretty enough."
The top courtesan slung an arm around Chloe's neck, intending to whisper in her ear — but Chloe was so tall that she ended up tilting her head back and addressing the side of her neck instead:
"Surely… you don't think I'm not pretty enough?"
The top courtesan's proportions were impeccable — long, perfectly toned legs supporting an enviably statuesque frame — and yet she still couldn't quite match the racial advantage Chloe enjoyed. Angels averaged two meters tall, and Chloe hit right at the mean, which meant the top courtesan had no choice but to crane her neck to speak to her.
"But…"
Chloe stumbled over her words, entirely unable to refute the top courtesan's thoroughly dubious logic. The halo above her head flickered in and out, betraying her inner turmoil.
Even the faintly luminescent snow-white skin of her face had taken on a visible flush — and that, Li Fei found very satisfying.
"If you want to make friends, you'll have to listen to me."
The top courtesan smiled pleasantly. "Vice-Dean."
Within Loxibrook's two great academies — the Magic Academy and the War Academy — Chloe was the one and only Knowledge-Sequence Transcendent with a top-tier bloodline.
It was worth understanding why that was so remarkable. The Continent of Enlos had two universally acknowledged iron laws: first, combat power bore no necessary relationship to aptitude; and second, once one stepped onto the Knowledge Sequence, one had to sacrifice the overwhelming majority of one's bloodline power.
Races with powerful bloodlines were already few in number to begin with — and with such a limited population, members with exceptional aptitude were naturally as rare as phoenix feathers. Beyond that, creatures like black dragons and phoenixes, even if they genuinely possessed outstanding aptitude, might not choose the Knowledge Sequence at all. They could simply eat, sleep, and naturally grow into terrifying Sequence 3 existences — so why take on the risks and uncertainties of the Knowledge Sequence?
Without sufficient courage, confidence, and resolve, one could not bear to relinquish the power of one's bloodline. Without outstanding aptitude, fortune, and force of will, one could not advance far on the Knowledge Sequence regardless. The result: Knowledge-Sequence Transcendents with a top-tier bloodline were vanishingly rare.
And Chloe was precisely one of the rare angels who had walked the Knowledge Sequence — and had climbed all the way to the upper Sequences along that treacherous and unforgiving road, taking on the position of Vice-Dean at the War Academy.
Of course, Li Fei had never quite figured out why this socially withdrawn angel girl — who had devoted herself to battle and cultivation from childhood, sacrificing everything for the power she now possessed — had suddenly developed the notion of "making friends." One inquiry led to another: a tavern was apparently a good place to make friends; another inquiry established that the Golden Kumquat Tavern was the best tavern in Loxibrook. And so Chloe, having been attended to by Li Fei herself, had become a living illustration of the phrase "one encounter with the top courtesan, and your whole life is ruined" — one fast-forward button away from laying an angel egg.
"I understand."
Chloe gave a nod.
"Try again — open up. Aah…"
This time, under Chloe's painstakingly careful, treat-it-like-defusing-a-bomb feeding technique, the top courtesan finally got to taste the noodles she had cooked with her own hands.
The texture was somewhere between instant noodles left to boil a minute too long with not quite enough water added — the strands soft and giving, the broth thick and clinging. The verdict, generously rendered, was "barely qualifies as delicious."
"Congratulations, Miss Chloe, you have now mastered the art of hand-feeding. You are one step closer to making a friend."
The top courtesan gave her thigh a pleased little pat in encouragement. The texture was smooth and springy.
But then Li Fei's brow furrowed. She rapped her knuckles against the silver armor, producing a crisp, clear ring: "You were supposed to wear a skirt, though. What kind of angel shows up to visit a friend in a full suit of plate armor?"
"I've never worn one. I'm not used to it."
Chloe was quiet for a moment before answering.
…So, Miss Angel — you're telling me you've worn nothing but armor your entire life and have never once put on a skirt?
Li Fei pressed a hand to her heart, feeling a tide of maternal warmth surge within her — because honestly, faced with a socially withdrawn little angel sister who was fair-skinned, gorgeous, long-legged, silver-haired, with a teardrop mole and an air of cold refinement, and who was furthermore extremely easy to fool, how could anyone not feel their maternal instincts ignite?
But then she glanced at the System Panel, noted that Miss Chloe's armor carried an equipment rating of "Radiant," and quickly returned to her senses.
She was an angel. A high-Sequence powerhouse. Vice-Dean of the War Academy. The scrap metal alone from a few chipped corners of that armor would fund a lifetime of selling wine for this young lady!
Feel sorry for her? I don't have the right.
The top courtesan made short work of talking herself out of her softer impulses, and turned her attention instead to running her palm back and forth across the pure white wings.
Admittedly, Margaret the contemptible little fox's ears and tail were quite satisfying to handle — soft and warm, with a wonderfully fluffy texture. But they simply couldn't compare to an angel's wings.
And as Li Fei's hand moved in its idle, unhurrying way, Chloe's spine straightened a fraction.
The power that came with each ascending Sequence was all-encompassing and left no gaps — if an angel's wings were the kind of weakness that made one go weak all over at a single touch, then a race burdened with such a glaring soft spot would have vanished from the history of the Continent of Enlos long ago.
Sensitive yet resilient. Powerful yet agile. When undamaged, wings could deflect a flood of spells or cleave through a giant's stone-hard body; even battered and torn from prolonged battle, they would never impede movement. That was the true nature of a high-Sequence being!
Of course, being touched did feel rather pleasant…
"Next time I'll ask you out shopping and help you pick a skirt."
Li Fei bent down, rapped on the silver metal boots with her knuckles, and said with a wrinkle of her nose: "Leaning against armor is like leaning against a wall — hard and cold, not comfortable at all."
And then, quite naturally, she laid her hand on the snow-white expanse of thigh between the hem of the robe and the top of the boots.
In terms of raw combat power, angels might fall slightly short of black dragons, behemoths, and other savage, titanic existences. But in terms of sheer beauty, angels were the one and only race on the Continent of Enlos that could stand alongside succubi — outclassing even Blood Clan and elves without contest.
And Chloe was a standout beauty even among angels. Though she stood over two meters tall, her proportions were utterly flawless — above and below the waist dividing perfectly along the golden ratio of 0.618. Her extraordinary long legs were graceful and evenly shaped, looking full of elasticity and strength yet losing none of their feminine softness. Her luminescent white skin carried the faintest iridescent glow; the texture was silken and warm, giving slightly under gentle pressure before springing back — not unlike a slime jelly, but considerably firmer.
Also, her fingers were, by visual estimate, approximately three centimeters longer than Miss Zhihua's — a racial trait, and a frankly terrifying one.
"But…"
The little angel appeared to have strong reservations about skirts and attempted to argue the point.
"Attractive clothing is an indispensable part of the social experience, you know. If you don't believe me, just think — if I weren't this pretty, would you have been willing to befriend me in the first place?"
Li Fei posed the loaded question with a guileless smile.
The little angel lowered her head with a faint air of guilt, picked up her chopsticks, and lifted a few noodles into her mouth.
...
By the time Chloe was seen off, the night was deep — but the break room of the Golden Kumquat Tavern blazed with light, dozens of lovely, blooming hostesses gathered together, laughing and talking with easy warmth.
They were celebrating the top courtesan's triumphant return after a week of playing truant, and her ascension to the Transcendent realm — her true initiation as one of their kind.
At this gathering, none of them bothered to conceal their Transcendent auras any longer.
"You absolute snake."
Li Fei grabbed Agatha's cheeks and yanked, voice seething with indignation: "You lied to me!"
"Ehehe."
The black-haired human woman, her smoky makeup and air of languid dissipation as intact as ever, tilted her head to one side with a cheeky grin, stuck out her tongue, and attempted to wriggle out of it: "That's just my character, darling~"
"Oh, right. Pretty women, not a word they say can be trusted."
Li Fei said flatly.
Agatha was the tavern's resident legendary stamp collector — she had declared on multiple occasions that she would "never in this lifetime have a chance at becoming a Transcendent, and only hoped to leave beautiful memories with Transcendent women of different classes before retirement." Her collection had reached fifty-three varieties — and if counted by sheer quantity rather than variety, the number could be multiplied by at least five.
Li Fei had once genuinely believed her nonsense. Now that she herself had entered Sequence 9, she took another look — and found that this woman's Transcendent aura ran considerably deeper than her own. Heaven only knew what Sequence she had actually reached.
And it wasn't just Agatha. Every single hostess in the break room was a Transcendent — seated in a ring that looked half-deliberate, half-coincidental, with Li Fei at the very center. She recalled that on the day she had stormed Qin's Apothecary, some of these very women had been present — and she had sensed not the faintest trace of Transcendent aura from any of them at the time.
Clearly, the Golden Kumquat Tavern harbored a mysterious and formidable organization, its members possessed of concealment techniques so extraordinary they could deceive even the high-Sequence beings within the city.
Coupled with her best friend's remark — "don't ask me about Witch business; you'll find out when you're next on shift" — the answer had become glaringly obvious.
"So — this place is a Witch coven gathering point, is it?"
Li Fei swirled the wine in her glass with an air of casual indifference.
"One of our bases."
Isabella, the Blood Clan Witch, made herself comfortable with her head pillowed on Li Fei's thigh, closing her eyes with a contented sigh as she answered.
"And when did you all know I was a Witch?"
"Witches are drawn to each other, you know~"
Isabella rubbed her pointed fangs idly against Li Fei's leg, her voice lazily indistinct: "The stronger the Witch, the more keenly she feels the call of shared blood… In truth, less than a month after you joined the tavern, the sisters had already reached a consensus — you were a born Witch. After all, we simply could not imagine how any human woman could walk into a tavern full of Witch hostesses and walk out wearing the crown called 'Top Courtesan.'"
____
________________________________________
🌸 Help Love Bloom!
Our girls need a little push... and you can help!
💖 Gift for Everyone: Once we hit 50 Powerstones, I'll release +1 bonus chapter to warm your hearts.
🚀 Community Reward: If we reach 20 supporting members, we'll have a +5 chapter marathon across all stories! The romance won't stop.
👻 Come to our secret corner: Search for GirlsLove on (P). You know that's where the magic happens... 😉