Money didn't just make you stronger in a fight — it made you improve faster than everyone else, because it bought you access to superior teaching resources. The time and personal attention of high-Sequence powerhouses, for instance.
Li Fei had seen those requests posted at the Mercenary Guild — commissions seeking high-Sequence Transcendents as sparring partners, priced in Sacrifice Gems, a treasure rarer than gold or mana crystals, rare enough to actually tempt someone of that caliber.
The thing was, high-Sequence Transcendents had processing speeds and reaction times so terrifyingly fast that when they got serious, the ceaseless current of time itself seemed to slow — even stall — around them.
Which meant that with a high-Sequence Transcendent watching over the session, a sparring partner could genuinely go for the kill without any real risk of actually dying — and that made for far greater gains than stopping politely at first contact. On a tangentially related note: how on earth did the Bat Man knock out the Red-Underpants Cape Guy, who moved at the speed of light, with a Kryptonite smoke grenade? In Li Fei's personal ranking of unsolved mysteries, that one sat just below "How did Guo the Great Hero hold Xiangyang."
"I'll take my leave."
Yusura dipped his head respectfully toward the Dean before shuffling away, still catching his breath.
A full morning of fighting hadn't been easy on him either. Li Fei had left marks on him — some light, some not so light — more than once. Anyone with less steel in their will might have walked away with genuine psychological scars.
As for Li Fei, who had been gutted and split open more than a dozen times over — she was still lying in a puddle of her own blood, whimpering softly. The nerves that had been subjected to that relentless violence kept faithfully relaying every throb of pain straight to her brain, making her feel like a ragdoll that had been torn apart at every seam.
"You worked hard."
The grey-haired woman's eyes curved with warmth as she stepped quietly to Li Fei's side.
With each step she took, the blood pooled across the ground transformed into vivid, dewy rose petals. Even the bloodstains and grime on Li Fei's body dissolved into fine particles that were gently drawn away.
Nicole crouched beside Li Fei, tenderly cupped her face in both hands, and produced a deep blue vessel. She tilted it slowly, and a single drop of cool liquid fell onto Li Fei's lips.
A rush of dense, overwhelming vitality exploded outward from that one drop, spreading from between her teeth through her entire body. Like a sleeping beauty kissed awake by a queen, Li Fei's paper-white complexion flooded back to a healthy rose in an instant.
In mere seconds, every ounce of pain vanished without a trace. Even the vital energy she'd burned through from excessive physical contact was completely restored. Every single cell in her body broke into jubilant celebration, brimming with energy that nearly overflowed — Li Fei felt an almost irresistible urge to leap to her feet right then and there, crank out a thousand weighted push-ups, smash ten steel plates, then go home and snuggle with her fairies.
What on earth was this stuff?
One drop and it was already this potent — if she downed an entire bottle...
Li Fei glanced at her System Panel.
[Water of Life]
[Description: Spring water drawn from the Fountain of Life. Cures all ailments, regenerates bone from nothing, permanently increases lifespan, immunity, and wound recovery speed...]
"Mmph — still hurts everywhere, though."
Li Fei, her color fully restored, said in a weak little voice: "Not enough. Give me more."
"It seems your willpower is distressingly fragile," Nicole said with a benevolent, grandmotherly smile. "There's a teacher at the Academy who specializes in the Sensitivity Aura. Starting next time, have her cast it on you before your sparring sessions."
"The teaching method is admittedly a little harsh — there have been a few incidents where students suffered mental breakdowns or complete psychological collapse — but those who came through it without losing their minds can now take a sword through the kidney from a warrior without so much as changing expression, continuing to cast and counter-attack without missing a beat."
Li Fei shuddered violently and sat up from her carpet of rose petals. "That's completely unnecessary. Truly unnecessary."
"I think I'm already fully recovered."
Nicole's expression shifted into something faintly regretful.
Li Fei climbed to her feet without a word, put some distance between herself and that dangerous woman, drifted over to Irena's side, and helped herself to a fried potato strip from the paper bag Irena was cradling. No ketchup, but the salt-and-pepper seasoning was honestly pretty good.
"Your progress is impressive," Nicole said, turning around to offer her assessment. "Your resilience is better than I expected too... And that movement style of yours — is that Qinggong?"
Mm-hm.
Li Fei grabbed a fistful of potato strips and stuffed them into her mouth, cheeks puffed, nodding with a squint-eyed smile.
On her attribute panel, only her Sword Mastery had gone up by one level — but she had a feeling that without resorting to Soul Burn, the current her could beat two, maybe even three versions of yesterday's her.
"Clearly a remarkably refined technique. But..."
Nicole walked toward her, step by step, placed a hand on Li Fei's shoulder, and wore that signature pleasant smile of hers.
"Why is it that a student of the Magic Academy went an entire morning of training without casting a single spell?"
Li Fei went silent.
Nicole's words cut through the joy and pride she'd been basking in from her rapid melee improvement, and dragged her back to the dream she'd had — the dream of becoming a proper mage.
"I'm... cultivating both magic and martial arts," she said stubbornly, after a moment.
And in the privacy of her own thoughts, she was already consoling herself:
The protagonists of isekai survival novels had to limp through the early game with conventional weapons and tech too, only ascending to godhood in the late game. She was just bridging the gap with melee for now. Break through to mid-Sequence first, then switch to a magic build — perfectly sound strategy. No issues whatsoever.
"I hope to see real progress from you at the exchange tournament."
Nicole clearly didn't have the patience to wait for Li Fei to slowly grind her way up to mid-Sequence. She ruffled her obedient daughter's head and said in a mild tone, "Otherwise... I may have to consider more aggressive teaching methods."
Whatever Nicole considered "aggressive" was something Li Fei absolutely, under no circumstances, wanted to experience firsthand.
And judging by the involuntary shudder that passed through Irena, she had apparently experienced it herself — and the memory had left a lasting impression.
So Li Fei nodded with the calm resignation of a condemned woman:
"Don't worry. I'll devote myself seriously to studying spellcraft."
...
"Annie... Teacher?"
Li Fei tilted her head, her voice carrying a note of puzzlement.
The moment she stepped through the door, she noticed something off about Annie Teresa — the gentle woman who always wore plain, understated dresses had today dressed herself in a conservative black gown. The waist of the dress traced the outline of a figure as slender and willowy as a withe.
Her golden-brown hair was pinned up at the back of her head in a black hairnet, lending those delicately lovely features an air of quiet dignity and cool reserve.
Below the skirt's hem, the lower half of her calves — graceful and neatly proportioned — were sheathed in black stockings.
The abstinent severity of the black set off her complexion, making it appear even more ivory and luminous — a kind of beauty that struck you across the eyes like a blow, giving vivid life to the old saying: "Want to look your best? Dress in mourning."
Annie Teresa said nothing. She stood with her head bowed, hands clasped behind her back, and in her blue eyes was a look of apology and guilt.
Li Fei glanced around the room with suspicion. On the dining table she spotted two plates of pasta in tomato sauce and a bottle of golden-orange fruit juice.
Lilith wasn't home yet, so the second serving definitely wasn't for her.
It wasn't for herself either — Annie always timed her cooking to perfection, doing her best to make sure her little girlfriend could enjoy food straight off the heat, and even when Li Fei was late she would carefully keep it warm so the flavor and texture wouldn't suffer. She would never set it out on the table in advance.
Could it be...
Li Fei's eyes went wide, as if suddenly confronted by an expanse of verdant, suspicious greenery:
Annie Teresa is sneaking someone else behind my back?
No. Impossible.
The ugly thought flickered through her mind and was just as quickly dismissed.
She trusted Annie Teresa. She also trusted her own appeal.
A woman who could endure living alone with her, suffer through repeated and deliberate provocations, and still maintain her composure — she was, in certain respects, demonstrably more reliable than a certain poker-faced lady who liked to use her fingers as cotton swabs for repeated PCR testing.
If she wasn't mistaken... today must be the anniversary of her late wife's death.
The thought clicked into place, and Li Fei smiled gently. She stepped forward, took Annie Teresa's hands in her own, and held them against her own chest.
"Will you tell me about her?"
Annie Teresa's body trembled.
"I want to thank her. For watching over you and keeping you company during all those years before I found you."
"And I'm jealous of her. For having captured the heart of the person I love most."
Li Fei's gaze was sincere and ardent, her confession pouring out with quiet intensity: "Her passing gave me the chance to meet you, but I have never once felt grateful for that — because every time I think of what you must have felt, I can't breathe through the ache of it."
"I don't want you to be sad anymore."
In a voice threaded with tenderness, Li Fei slowly reached around and drew out Annie Teresa's other hand — the one she'd been hiding behind her back. Clutched in it was a pink-and-white scarf, one Li Fei had knitted herself, and one her wife had loved most of all the gifts she'd ever received.
Li Fei threaded her hand through the scarf and took hold of Annie Teresa's hand — the one with the wedding ring — and spoke with a depth of feeling that left no room for doubt:
"Annie, you don't have to forget her. Every love that has ever touched you is precious. And you don't have to feel like you owe me anything — because I want all of you, every part, and I'm willing to take you exactly as you are."
"So tell me your story together. I don't want there to be walls between us, and I don't want you to feel uneasy every time she crosses your mind... I want, in all the long years that stretch ahead of us, for my warmth to reach every part of you."
Watching Annie Teresa's tears begin to fall, Li Fei gently pressed her thumb to the tear tracks, then softened her approach with a tactful retreat:
"Of course, if you feel it's too much, or you're not ready..."
Li Fei's words were stopped by Annie Teresa's mouth.
The frail human woman erupted with a depth of strength she had never shown before. She pulled Li Fei tightly into her arms, and a moment later both of them tasted the salt of tears on their lips.
Ten years ago today, Annie Teresa had kissed her wife Diana goodbye.
Annie Teresa had bought a great many lychee-fragrant fruits, waiting for her wife to come home so she could make her favourite juice.
But her wife never returned.
She learned later that Diana — a mercenary — had gone with her team to explore a dangerous site, a tomb said to contain a sleeping Blood Prince... and none of them had ever come back out.
Upon receiving the terrible news, Annie Teresa spent nearly her entire fortune commissioning several powerful mercenaries to search for her wife. They, too, were never heard from again.
After passing through days she could barely live through — days that were nothing but tears — Annie Teresa had surrendered entirely to despair. The colour drained out of her life and never came back.
In those lightless, hollow years, beyond fulfilling her duty as a mother to raise her daughter, the only thing she could bring herself to do was this: on the anniversary of Diana's disappearance each year, she would prepare her wife's favourite meal and a glass of lychee-fruit juice, and offer her prayers to the Goddess of Nature, hoping against hope that her wife might somehow return.
But now, things were different.
Annie Teresa had felt warmth and sweetness again — something she had thought lost forever. Those feelings had seeped into the sealed, hollow chambers of her heart like rain into dry earth, and another love had taken root without her even noticing, until it had quietly claimed a place there all its own.
Annie Teresa wrapped her arms around Li Fei's neck, her delicate shoulders trembling in small, helpless shudders. Her tears soaked through the collar of Li Fei's clothes, and all the grief and anguish she had carried for so many years poured out at last in the muffled sound of her weeping.
Li Fei stroked and gently patted Annie Teresa's back, offering her warmth and patience through the quiet rhythm of her hands.
A long while passed before Annie Teresa finally lifted her head. Through the blur of her tears, with Li Fei's face at the centre of her world, brilliant colours seemed to wash outward in every direction, making everything impossibly bright and vivid.
It made Annie Teresa — still wet-cheeked, still crying — break into a smile. She didn't even notice when her late wife's beloved scarf slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor.
Li Fei bent down, cradled the scarf in both hands, dusted off the dirt that wasn't really there, and set it carefully back on the seat. Then she took Annie Teresa's hand, and the two of them settled together on the sofa, talking quietly in each other's arms.
"So... Diana — Sister Diana — she only went missing, right?"
Li Fei lovingly kissed away Annie Teresa's tear tracks, her voice carrying equal measures of concern and gentle reproach: "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
Annie Teresa smiled — a sad, rueful curve of the lips — and shook her head.
Ten years without a single trace. She had long since accepted reality and made her peace with the worst.
"I'll ask for help. Have someone go and look for her."
Li Fei turned the wedding band on Annie Teresa's finger slowly between her fingers, her voice even and unhurried but certain: "If no one else can find her, then once I'm strong enough, I'll go level that tomb myself."
"No."
Annie Teresa's face went pale. Her hand closed instinctively around Li Fei's.
Li Fei had enrolled in the Magic Academy a full year later than her own daughter. No matter how extraordinary her talent, she had only just set foot on the path of the Transcendent.
Letting her help pay the tuition fees already filled Annie Teresa with boundless shame and guilt — she felt like tearing out her own heart to make it right.
She could not, under any circumstances, allow this promising and devoted young woman to take upon herself a burden that Annie herself had poured everything she had into and still been unable to lift.
She pulled Li Fei into a deep, deep embrace, and with a trembling voice said, "Don't go to that place."
"I can't turn a blind eye to someone Annie cares about."
Li Fei curved her lips upward. "But trust me — I will never let you face loneliness or pain again."
"Why are you so foolish... why are you so good to me... I, I..."
Annie Teresa choked on her words, too overcome to form a coherent sentence.
"Isn't it only natural?"
Li Fei caressed her cheek, tracing the delicate lines of her features with a fingertip, and put into her gaze the same expression she'd seen Qin Zhihua wear when she looked at her: "Hasn't Annie been just as good to me?"
"...I love you, Li Fei. I love you."
Annie Teresa reached out in a daze and cupped Li Fei's face in her hands, drinking in that flawless, adoring countenance with her eyes, repeating her confession again and again.
They stayed like that for a long moment, gazing at each other, both aware of the warmth rising between them and the heartbeats that had nearly spiralled out of control.
"Annie..."
Li Fei brought her lips close to her ear and breathed the words: "Take me."
"I want every year from now on, when today comes around — alongside the memory of your parting from her — to hold the memory of your confession to me as well."
Thud. Thud.
While Annie Teresa's head was still spinning and her heart in total disarray, Li Fei had already hooked one arm beneath her knees and swept her clean off her feet. A slipper dropped to the floor.
Her slender, graceful feet were wrapped in black stockings, the very tips a shade deeper in colour, and they hung naturally now, swaying with Li Fei's movements — boneless and soft in a way that defied description.
But soon, those feet gave a few startled, instinctive kicks, the toes curling inward, betraying Annie Teresa's tangled, apprehensive emotions.
And then those feet sank into the soft give of the mattress.
...Let it be.
Annie Teresa's body loosened, little by little. From the corner of her tightly shut eyes, another silent tear traced its way down.
After a stillness lasting perhaps ten seconds or more, Annie Teresa felt warm, soft fingertips wipe away her tears — and then hot breath brushed against her ear:
"Annie — if you don't want to, I can wait."
She opened her eyes. And found that Li Fei's expression was even more anxious than her own, cheeks flushed crimson, looking altogether flustered and utterly at a loss.
The sight of it made Annie Teresa's heart ache with tenderness and guilt at her own hesitation.
How much longer are you going to keep running away?
— No matter what, she could never bring herself to let her down.
She searched her own heart and found her answer. The older golden-haired wife, dressed in mourning black, straightened up. She reached out, gently took the dark-haired student by the shoulders, eased her back against the mattress, and looked down at her — her voice a low, rough murmur, filled with feeling:
"I want to. Li Fei — I want to."
"And you... are you ready?"
"...Mm."
In a reply barely louder than a mosquito's hum, Li Fei gave a tight little nod, then turned her face away in shy embarrassment.
"Leave it to me."
Annie Teresa soothed her in a soft voice, reached up, and unpinned the hairnet, letting her smooth hair fall loose around her shoulders.
By chance, the wedding portrait on the headboard caught her eye.
Annie Teresa's body shivered — but her gaze didn't waver. She stared at the silver-haired bride in the wedding photograph for a long, long moment. In her blue eyes lived longing, heartache, and an unwillingness to let go — and then, at last, those feelings were folded away into tenderness.
Teardrops fell onto the black fabric of her skirt. Annie Teresa never voiced the apology on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she shook her head, and with slow, deliberate steadiness, she removed the wedding ring from her finger and set it at the foot of the bed.
We... are over.
A silent farewell. Then Annie Teresa leaned down over her, tears still falling, and in her eyes there was nothing left but Li Fei.
____
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