In Loxibrook, anyone who dared to [Coerce] would have their legs broken—however many they had. When necessary, fingers, tentacles, tails, tongues, and the like would be cut off too. Then they'd be dragged back for interrogation, and once everything was verified, executed on the spot.
And the definition of [Coercion] was quite broad. Not only was there no gender restriction, the criminal methods weren't limited to violence either—using mental-type spells or drugs to bewitch someone's mind was all handled as [Coercion] as well.
This meant that Li Fei could use a skill like [Full Transformation — Succubus Empress], which enhanced her own charm, to seduce a woman who already had a wife of her own, and if the latter couldn't restrain herself, it wasn't considered a crime—it could only be called a matter of personal conduct. But if she used spells like [Depravity], [Humanoid Creature Enthrallment], or [Bliss], that was a solid death sentence.
Incidentally, victims held the [Unlimited Right to Self-Defense]—they could kill the perpetrator and even claim compensation from the estate.
But the hands of the law enforcement squad couldn't reach into the Folded Space.
"This elder sister—since we've hit it off so well at first sight, why don't we find a quiet place and enjoy a cup of tea together?"
Li Fei had casually picked out a wealthy woman on the street and stepped forward to affectionately link arms with her.
Within her eyes, brilliant as stars, a pink heart flashed and vanished—the telltale sign of [Humanoid Creature Enthrallment] activating.
"Yes, yes... The town of Luyuan County hasn't been very peaceful these past few days. Why don't you come to my residence for a chat, little sister?"
Without the slightest surprise, this young mistress—black-haired, in a red dress, with a maid holding a peach-paper umbrella over her—impatiently extended her invitation to Li Fei.
"Mistress, they..."
The maid—quiet and delicate in appearance, as pitifully lovely as a little white flower—softly reminded the woman in red that she shouldn't rashly invite people of unknown origin into her home.
—Hm? She can withstand my charm?
Li Fei took a few more glances at this maid, who was even more beautiful than her mistress.
"Insolence. Since when does a servant get to interrupt when the master is speaking?"
The woman in red snapped with extreme impatience, her palm instinctively rising. The maid trembled like a startled bird, but didn't dare dodge—she merely turned her face aside with an almost imperceptible movement, as if awaiting punishment.
Fortunately, the woman in red quickly realized Li Fei was watching from the side. She merely narrowed her eyes, a fierce glint within them, and coldly barked, "Aren't you going to hold up the umbrella for her already?"
Then she turned back, her expression gentle and pleasant:
"Come, little sister, follow me."
And so, the woman in the red dress eagerly led the way for Li Fei, while Li Fei took the hand of a thoroughly exasperated Lilith and hurried toward the center of the county town, with several plainclothes guards possessing True Qi cultivation base trailing secretly behind them.
A soldier at the city gate also hastily removed his armor and, at the squad leader's beckoning wave, followed after them.
Within a dark, damp dungeon, hoarse, throat-tearing cries echoed.
A father and son were bound to the wall with iron chains, their bodies mottled with blood.
The father's patched garments had been shredded to rags, his ten fingers twisted, and he had already fainted dead away. The child, meanwhile, wailed piteously under the torture, like a rabbit being skinned alive, struggling and convulsing without end—his violent movements making the blood-soaked, slippery chains clang and rattle.
Outside the cell door, a woman knelt on the ground, banging her head against the floor with dull thuds, weeping and pleading:
"Lord Lü, they've been wronged! I beg you to show mercy, to grant our whole family, old and young, a way to live!"
Directly in front of the woman, a man in his thirties was carefully trimming his fingernails by the flickering light of an oil lamp, as though utterly deaf to the heart-rending sounds all around him.
He wore a blue-black robe embroidered with a four-clawed golden python. His figure was tall and lean, his gaze sinister and cruel, and his pallid complexion sent chills down one's spine.
The son's wails made the woman's heart bleed. Seeing that the lord of the Demon Suppression Bureau gave no response, she recklessly crawled up before him, clutching his ankles, tears streaming down her face:
"Lord Lü, I beg you, I beg you..."
"They confessed it themselves—colluding with demons, harboring wicked intentions. Such traitors to humanity deserve to be put to death by anyone."
Lü Zhengchun unhurriedly drew out a blood-stained document. "See? They've both signed and pressed their marks."
"Rather than begging me to bend the law for your sake, you'd be better off having them confess where the demons are hiding and what they're plotting, so they can be spared this bodily suffering."
—Under such brutal torture, how could they not sign?
The woman had suffering she could not voice; she could only kowtow again and again, each word wrung from her like blood: "My lord, they've been wronged. Please examine the matter down to the finest detail. Your great kindness and virtue, this humble commoner will never forget as long as she lives."
Lü Zhengchun's eyelids drooped; he turned a deaf ear to it all.
"My lord, my lord..."
The woman suddenly lifted her head, blood from her forehead sliding down together with her tears, and said, trembling, "So long as my lord can clear their names, whatever my lord should command of me hereafter, this humble woman will obey your every wish..."
"Just look at how low you can sink."
Hearing this, Lü Zhengchun suddenly let out a scornful snort, his eyes full of contempt:
"Back then I offered you silver and you refused it. Now here you come, offering yourself up of your own accord. And here I thought you were some chaste and virtuous woman."
Faced with the humiliation, the woman said nothing; tears simply kept sliding from her dim, ashen eyes.
"Lord Lü."
Suddenly, a soldier with a face full of fawning smiles walked into the dungeon. Turning a blind eye to the shocking, gruesome scene within the cell, he sidled up to Lü Zhengchun and whispered a few words in his ear.
"Oh? These two women you speak of—are they really so beautiful?"
Lü Zhengchun stroked the stubble on his chin, a look of keen interest appearing on his face.
"My lord, how would I dare deceive you?"
The soldier, who had hurried over from the city gate, bowed and scraped. "In all my life, I've never seen girls so gorgeous! Like fairies descended to the mortal world."
"Their origins are unknown, and they're bewitchingly seductive too—they must surely be demons in disguise."
Lü Zhengchun picked up his blade and rose. "Where are they?"
"They've already gone to the Wang residence. This lowly one has kept men watching them the whole time."
The soldier bent his back as though he had no spine, flattering, "My lord need only follow me."
"Very good."
Lü Zhengchun patted the soldier's shoulder, drawing out an expression of flattered delight from him. "If it satisfies me, then these ones here will be yours to deal with."
"Thank you, my lord! Thank you, my lord!"
The soldier's face lit up with glee. "This lowly one will lead the way at once."
He was nothing but a squad leader of the most trivial rank. Bullying men and abusing women was fine enough on ordinary days, but if he truly wanted to take a life with impunity, that would require quite a bit of silver to grease the right relationships.
But now, with a single word from Lord Lü, not only would this family's entire estate become his, he'd also gain a fair-looking servant girl to beat and scold as he pleased—and he wouldn't even have to hand over the lion's share of the spoils to his superiors. It was already an enormous stroke of good fortune.
As for those two women, beautiful enough to make fish sink and geese fall, it was best to simply imagine—they weren't for the likes of him to touch.
"Lead the way."
Lü Zhengchun kicked away the woman still clutching at his ankles and bitterly pleading, then strode out of the cell. It was the soldier, rather, who—while fawning over the bigwig of the Demon Suppression Bureau—kept glancing back reluctantly at the fair-skinned, comely commoner woman, her face like pear blossoms in the rain, wriggling his brows in delight.
On either side of the vermilion gate stood guards of imposing bearing.
"Elder sister's residence is truly grand."
Li Fei ascended the steps, hands clasped before her chest, praising in a sincere tone.
"As long as you like it, little sister."
The young mistress of the Wang family, Wang Yutong, spoke in soft, gentle tones, her eyes never leaving Li Fei's figure—the more she looked, the more delighted she grew, without noticing in the slightest the lowered eyelids of her maid Qiao'er behind her.
Once inside the mansion, there was distinctive scenery within too—rockeries and towers, cool kiosks and waterside gazebos, with all the beauty of a Chinese-style garden. Li Fei, playing the part of a simple little girl who'd never seen the world, looked this way and that, marveling endlessly. Her consummate acting made Lilith roll her eyes.
Before long, they all sat down in a pavilion beside the pond. Servants brought over ice blocks wreathed in frosty vapor along with exquisite tea snacks, while maids stood submissively behind them, fanning them to keep them cool.
Decadent—far too decadent!
Li Fei silently condemned the extravagant lifestyle of the wealthy household in her heart while narrowing her eyes and popping a piece of mung bean ice cake into her mouth.
—The craftsmanship's a bit lacking; meh. Not a patch on the cream puffs from that dessert shop on the north side of Loxibrook.
"I've never eaten anything so delicious."
Li Fei's brows and eyes curved into crescents as she wore a blissful expression.
"If you like it, eat more."
Wang Yutong entertained Li Fei with a gentle, pleasant expression, but the instant she turned her face toward her personal maid, she instinctively revealed her usual shrewish air—her willow brows arched, and she said impatiently, "Aren't you going to pour tea for my little sister already?"
"Yes."
Qiao'er answered in a low voice and filled the cups for the three seated there.
As she poured tea for Li Fei, the Miss Top Courtesan propped her chin in her hand and gazed at her. Inadvertently, Qiao'er's line of sight met those soul-stealing, captivating eyes, and her very soul was nearly drawn in.
—So beautiful. No wonder the mistress hit it off with her at first sight.
Qiao'er thought, somewhat dazed, her slender brows knitting slightly, a hint of desolate loneliness in eyes more serene and tranquil than the lakeside.
When she gazed into the abyss, the abyss gazed also into her.
Wang Yutong had enjoyed the finest food, clothing, and comforts since childhood, which was how she'd cultivated the bearing of a pampered noble daughter and that snow-white, delicate skin. Yet the naturally beautiful Qiao'er, dressed in nothing but an ordinary maid's long gown, could hardly conceal her tender, slender figure, her face quiet and refined, with a listless, pitiable air that made one's heart go out to her.
She just wondered—if Qiao'er were to serve a gentle mistress like Qin Zhihua, would she blossom into someone as radiant as Sister Ling'er?
"Ah."
Her attention captivated by the Miss Top Courtesan's beauty, Qiao'er carelessly spilled tea onto Li Fei's long dress.
"Useless thing! You can't even pour tea properly."
Wang Yutong slammed the table and shot to her feet, berating her with harsh voice and expression. She raised her hand and slapped Qiao'er across the face, with such force that the hairpin was knocked straight into the pond.
Having known Li Fei for no longer than it took to drink a cup of tea, Young Mistress Wang had already dropped her disguise, fully exposing her fickle, vicious, and heartless side.
"This servant knows her wrong."
Her hair disheveled, Qiao'er covered her stinging, burning cheek with one hand and instinctively knelt on the ground.
"Dear elder sister, it's all right. It's hot out—don't let your anger harm your health."
Li Fei silently released another [Humanoid Creature Enthrallment], then rose with a smile to placate Wang Yutong, easily dispelling her rage. She pulled the dazed-eyed young mistress of the Wang family back to her seat, rescuing Qiao'er from her predicament, and at the same time began to steer toward the main point.
"Where does little sister come from?"
Wang Yutong took Li Fei's hand, staring at her with a fixed, unblinking gaze.
"From the heavens."
Li Fei played the riddler for a moment, and without waiting for her to press further, began fishing for information:
"I'm not very familiar with this place. Could elder sister tell me a bit about it?"
"Of course, of course."
Bewitched into a thorough stupor, Wang Yutong nodded again and again.
Several pots of tea later, Li Fei had gained a fairly direct understanding of this folded plane.
A thousand years ago, the Six Paths collapsed, demons ran rampant, and all living beings were reduced to bloody fodder. The vast Xia Court thus fell to pieces. From then on, nations sprang up in profusion, and every faction took up arms against one another to contend for supremacy over the realm.
Of course, since none of the nations dared take the demon scourge lightly, great numbers of their elites had to remain on home soil to suppress the myriad monsters and evil spirits, leaving them powerless to expand their territories. As a result, over the past thousand years, not a single mighty ruler had been able to sweep clean the six directions; each could only close his eyes in death with lingering regret.
And so, Li Fei took it upon herself to name this Folded Space—whose central theme was the struggle between humans and demons—the [Demon-Sealing Continent].
The cultivation system of this world was also vastly different from that of Enlos. Here there was no fighting energy or magic; everyone pursued the martial path, and only True Qi cultivation was the orthodox road. Everything else was heterodox sorcery—such as talisman arts and gu-poison arts, which bore a fair resemblance to magic.
And Li Fei, this visitor from beyond the heavens, was at this moment in Luyuan County of the Great Song.
It was said that a thousand years ago, this had been a fertile plain lush with grass and trees, home to great herds of deer. The local people made their living hunting and raising deer, and grateful for the livelihood the herds provided, they would always scatter a handful of grain whenever they saw a wild deer, as a gesture of goodwill.
Of course, gratitude was gratitude, but when it came to slaughtering the deer, skinning them, carving up the meat, and cutting off the antlers, their hands showed no mercy all the same.
It was only when the demons descended, when rotting corpses crawled up from their graves and began to devour people just as people had devoured deer, that the populace could do nothing but huddle within the city walls, hunched and gasping for survival, not daring to venture out lightly—and it was thus, amid the starved dead strewn across the ground and heaps of bleached bones, that this city came to undergo a transformation of its industry and economic structure.
That hunched, gasping survival referred not merely to Luyuan County, but was a microcosm of the entire Great Song.
At court, the emperor was kind-hearted but incompetent, while the Nine-Thousand-Years of the Demon Suppression Bureau held absolute sway over all. The swarm of high officials formed cliques to attack their rivals, and not one of them spared a thought for the common people struggling to survive in dire straits. Local officials and the army were corrupt, colluding with the great noble houses to gorge themselves on the flesh and marrow of the people. And everywhere, ubiquitous demons picked out their human prey to devour.
From the imperial court to the marketplace, from the walled towns to the lands beyond, everywhere was a wild dance of demons, and the common folk suffered beyond words. However boundlessly splendid the Wang family might appear, Li Fei, on her way here, had seen with her own eyes plenty of ragged, destitute people selling off their sons, their daughters, their wives.
It was only because the other nations were likewise occupied dealing with demons and had no hands to spare that the Great Song hadn't long since toppled under the weight of internal troubles and external threats.
Incidentally, though both were young mistresses, Wang Yutong, compared to Qin Zhihua, was a pure, useless piece of fluff. Never mind being accomplished in the four arts of zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting—one wouldn't even demand that she be cultured and well-read. Yet she stumbled and fumbled over even common knowledge like this, forced to have Qiao'er fill in the gaps, and once the girl had finished doing so, she'd mock and jeer at her, engaging in the utmost of PUA-style manipulation. Several times, had Li Fei not been present, Wang Yutong would have raised her hand to strike—Qiao'er had done nothing wrong; the young mistress's hand had simply gotten itchy.
"Dear little sister, let me tell you—this here is rouge from the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion..."
Wang Yutong, who didn't even know how many prefectures and commanderies her own country had, expounded to Li Fei on the wonders of every women's luxury shop as though counting out her family treasures.
Li Fei feigned rapt interest, but her gaze kept drifting sidelong toward Qiao'er, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
This girl, who appeared so soft, frail, quiet, and delicate, actually had clear logic, spoke with good order, and possessed rather broad knowledge—she'd obviously read a great many books. A maid abused by her mistress since childhood, she had somehow, in such a high-pressure environment, managed to get her hands on books from who knew where, and had truly devoted the time and effort to study them. This genuinely stirred a fondness for talent in the Miss Top Courtesan, who had only Yusura as a capable helper under her command.
Loyalty and the like were entirely no issue either—after all, Yusura could only transact, whereas Qiao'er could form a deeper and more reliable connection.
But taking this maid for her own came with one small problem.
Li Fei lifted a strand of Wang Yutong's lovely hair, sniffed it with the tip of her nose, and gave a sweet smile:
"Elder sister, your hair smells so lovely."
"Of course. I use floral dew oil from the Purple Jewel Workshop, after all..."
The black-haired woman in the red dress said, her face beaming with delight.
The intimate gesture made Qiao'er's long lashes tremble, betraying a certain bitter, sour anguish.
The Miss Top Courtesan, whose perception was exceedingly keen, naturally noticed Qiao'er's infatuation with Wang Yutong.
To be honest, although Qiao'er had left a very good impression on Li Fei, when it came to Qiao'er's taste, Li Fei could only frown.
She had already fully perceived that this Young Mistress Wang was not the kind of tsundere who was harsh of tongue but soft of heart—she was a genuine, through-and-through "person above others," both incompetent and arrogant.
To put it bluntly, even if you kept a dog, after raising it for many years you'd develop some affection for it. But the sensitive, irritable, and supremely haughty Wang Yutong didn't regard Qiao'er as anything at all, beating and scolding her at the slightest provocation. With that sort of character, if she wanted to work as a hostess at the Golden Tangerine Tavern, she wouldn't even pass the interview.
Still, for Qiao'er's sake, Li Fei didn't mind an extra side dish.
"M-Mistress, something terrible's happened!"
Suddenly, a servant came sprinting over, drenched in sweat, having even lost one of his shoes.
"You wretched thing, who gave you permission to disturb me?!"
Wang Yutong, whose face had been all smiles a moment ago, changed color in an instant, snatching up a plate of snacks and hurling it straight at the servant's head and face.
The servant stood rooted to the spot, not daring to move, his legs trembling, and stammered:
"The Demon—the Demon Sup—the people from the Demon Suppression Bureau are here! They say our residence is harboring demons!"
The haughty, swaggering Wang Yutong, upon hearing those three words—Demon Suppression Bureau—went pale in an instant, and said with a fierce front masking her inner cowardice:
"How could that be? No—impossible... Quick! You dog of a servant, go tell my father at once!"
—Oh? So she knows fear after all? Seems she's not utterly stupid.
—If nothing's amiss, that so-called Demon Suppression Bureau is probably here for me, isn't it? After all, that soldier at the city gate did follow me all the way to the Wang family's front gate...
Li Fei let out a scornful snort in her heart, leisurely picked up her tea, and casually scattered a handful of fish food into the pond, admiring the splashes kicked up as the golden-red carp scrambled to snatch their food.
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