The Demon Suppression Bureau—the most mysterious, the most terrifying, and the most notorious institution in the entire Song Court, bar none. Its very name was enough to silence a crying child.
At its founding, this institution had taken as its sacred duty the slaying of demons and the warding of the realm's four corners—no less than the Sea-Calming Needle of the imperial court.
But as the Demon Suppression Bureau racked up merit after merit and recruited one powerhouse after another, the deeply corrupt court found itself with no rewards left to bestow. It could only make concessions elsewhere, granting the Bureau license to "act at its own discretion in urgent matters" while carrying out its duties... Until, at last, this colossus slipped its leash.
It wielded authority like the Embroidered Uniform Guard, yet could be as "flexible" as the Eastern Depot—conducting its affairs without due process, its oversight a mere formality—and it commanded a martial might that even the Ministry of War dreaded. In the end, the Demon Suppression Bureau became, in many eyes, something more terrifying than the demons themselves. Both devoured people, after all—but at least dying in a demon's jaws was a swift, clean end.
Even the court ministers lived in fear for their own skins, thinking only of how to curry favor with the Bureau. For one, an arm simply couldn't out-wrestle a thigh; for another, they dreaded demon raids and counted on the Bureau's might to shield their families, young and old. Day by day, year by year, the Demon Suppression Bureau's standing had become utterly unshakable.
Once, the Bureau had still shown the Song Emperor some measure of face and hadn't dared act without restraint. But after the Nine Thousand Years took office, the Bureau's arrogance reached its zenith, all but rising above imperial authority itself.
People might dare to run their mouths about the Empress herself, but not a soul dared breathe a single word against the Demon Suppression Bureau—to do so was to invite the ruin of one's home and the death of one's family.
Foolish as Wang Yutong was, she had never forgotten the words her father had drummed into her since childhood, warning her a thousand times over: Never, ever offend the Demon Suppression Bureau.
When she heard that men from the Demon Suppression Bureau had come to inspect the estate, Wang Yutong could no longer sit still. She rose and began pacing back and forth—then, feeling this cost her too much face, she forced a smile at Li Fei and said,
"My father is acquainted with people in the Bureau, you know. I expect they've just come to visit. Haha—"
"Oh? Is that so." Li Fei smiled faintly. "Then have a seat, and let's carry on with our tea."
"Ah, right."
But no sooner had Wang Yutong's backside touched the stool than she shot up again, mouth agape, staring at the party approaching the pavilion from afar.
Her own father, Squire Wang, led the way in person, his face wreathed in an ingratiating smile, chattering ceaselessly, his manner both eager and humble. The household servants were hushed as cicadas in the cold, not daring to so much as breathe, as they clustered around a soldier and a man clad in a blue-black python robe at their center.
"It's a Duty Chief," Qiao'er murmured under her breath.
Every member of the Demon Suppression Bureau wore a python robe, and one could tell a man's rank by its color. From lowest to highest they ran: black, brown, blue-black, dark crimson—and, at the very top, the Nine Thousand Years' signature robe of brocade red.
"Lord Lü, I beg you to see clearly—I have always done good works and stored up virtue, and my loyalty to the court is as plain as the sun and moon. I would never, ever dare to harbor filth and vice."
Squire Wang was a round-faced, fair-skinned, beardless middle-aged man with a kindly countenance. Mopping the sweat from his brow, he vowed, "But rest assured, my lord—should any fiend truly have dared to sneak in, I will cooperate with all my might to help you seize the demon."
"Whether there are demons or not, we'll only know once we've searched." Lü Zhengchun spoke with unhurried deliberation, his low tone like the flickering tongue of a venomous serpent, enough to send a chill down the spine.
"For my lord to be so devoted to his duty, keeping the realm at peace and the people secure—it is a blessing upon all the common folk under Heaven." Squire Wang heaped on flattery without pause.
Lü Zhengchun paid him no further mind, for his gaze had already locked firmly onto the women within the pavilion.
The eldest young miss of the Wang house was said to be one of the two or three greatest beauties in the whole city. But out of regard for Squire Wang's old ties with a colleague of his—and because the man had been so shrewd as to present a lavish gift the moment Lü entered the city—Lü Zhengchun had let him off the hook.
Now, though, Lü Zhengchun rather regretted it.
He'd never imagined that Miss Wang's handmaid would turn out to be so exquisitely lovely.
Still, better to arrive at the right moment than to arrive early. That golden-haired, blue-eyed demoness could already be called flawlessly beautiful, with an air of pure, wholesome grace that made him fall for her at first sight—yet set beside the nation-toppling demoness in the white dress, even she seemed to pale.
Now he could simply scoop them all up in one pot.
Seeing the roast duck all but within arm's reach, Lü Zhengchun quickened his pace.
Squire Wang possessed no True Qi cultivation base, so his eyesight naturally couldn't compare to Lü Zhengchun's. He could only dimly make out the pretty silhouettes of several women, cursing Wang Yutong inwardly for being such a headache and dragging him into catastrophic trouble.
This daughter, like her mother before her, was meant to be presented to a lord of the Demon Suppression Bureau in a couple of years, to safeguard the Wang family's lasting prosperity. To that end, Squire Wang had treated her exceedingly well from infancy, raising her into a thoroughly spoiled creature—over these years, the servants she'd beaten to death already numbered no fewer than ten.
But he had never dreamed that all those years of indulgence would lead her to poke such an enormous hole in the sky today!
Did she really dare to bring just anyone home?
Squire Wang tamped down the fury in his heart, resolving all the while that once he'd seen off this great Buddha at his back, he would teach Wang Yutong a lesson no matter what—one she wouldn't soon forget.
"My lord, it's them!" As the party closed in on the pavilion, the soldier's eyes lit up, his gaze sweeping greedily over the women. He pointed at Li Fei and cried out.
Squire Wang, too, now saw Li Fei's face clearly. After a brief moment of stupefaction, he forced down the surge of possessiveness welling up in his chest and barked,
"You unfilial girl! What have I always taught you? Bewitched by demonesses and not even aware of it?! Get out of the way, this instant—don't obstruct Lord Lü of the Demon Suppression Bureau in the execution of his duties!"
"What?" Wang Yutong's powder-stuffed head hadn't yet caught up. Half in disbelief, she said, "They're demonesses?"
Seeing her "love rival" about to meet disaster, Qiao'er felt no gloating in her heart—instead she let out a long, mournful sigh. She cast a look of regret and sympathy toward Li Fei and her companion, then lowered her head, stepped forward to pull away the still-befuddled young miss, and whispered,
"If the lords of the Demon Suppression Bureau say so, then it must be so."
Wang Yutong trembled and shot a grudging glance at Li Fei. But the terror of the Demon Suppression Bureau, planted deep in her heart since childhood, in the end made her let Qiao'er obediently draw her aside.
"Insolent demoness! Sneaking into my Wang household, holding my daughter hostage—what are you scheming?!"
Squire Wang strode up to the entrance of the pavilion. First he bristled and glared, hurling the accusation that settled the matter's nature outright—yet his gaze lingered reluctantly on Li Fei. At last, with regret, he shouted, "Guards! Seize these two fiends at once and hand them over to Lord Lü for interrogation!"
The words had scarcely left his mouth when the burly, towering guards and manservants surrounded the pavilion so tightly that not a drop of water could have leaked through, their eyes gleaming as they fixed upon the several young women—flower-lovely, soft and delicate of frame.
"Whether the demoness took your daughter hostage, or your daughter colluded with the demoness—we'll only know once we've interrogated them."
Lü Zhengchun stood where he was, eyes narrowed as he scrutinized Li Fei's features, his left hand rising to his chin to stroke his beard back and forth, his heart both startled and delighted.
What sort of dumb luck had a backwater like Luyuan County stumbled into, that treasures of such rarity should keep emerging one after another?
At these words, not only did Qiao'er and Wang Yutong go pale—even Squire Wang's heart lurched with dread, and he silently cursed the dog for being so unabashedly greedy at the trough.
If his own daughter were handed over for his "interrogation," would she come out whole?
The welcome gift I gave to wash away the dust of your journey the moment you entered the city, and the sweeteners I pressed on you just now when we met—all thrown into a dog's belly for nothing, is that it?
But the Demon Suppression Bureau was not to be trifled with, and the figure standing behind Lü Zhengchun was more terrifying than King Yama himself. Squire Wang could only swallow his broken teeth along with his blood, and said with a fawning smile,
"My worthless daughter has been honest and dutiful since she was small—how could she commit such a treasonous act? See clearly, my lord, see clearly..."
So saying, he bore the pain and fished out yet another stack of silver notes, pressing them into Lü Zhengchun's hand.
"For the sake of Squire Wang's unwavering loyalty to the court, then, I'll just take the other three back for questioning first."
Lü Zhengchun finally relented.
In a mere handful of words, they had decided the fates of several women, without ever once asking after their thoughts or wishes.
"No need for you to trouble yourself, my lord—this humble one will bind these demonesses at once."
The soldier seized every opening, unwilling to let slip even the slightest chance to show his worth, angling only to latch onto a powerful thigh.
He snatched the hemp rope from a manservant's hands and advanced, tittering with a lewd little laugh.
He wouldn't get to eat the meat, but with beauties lovely enough to shame the moon and make the flowers blush, even copping a feel would be sweet.
"Say now—are you so certain we're demonesses? Aren't you afraid you've grabbed the wrong people?"
Li Fei set down her teacup, a look of curiosity on her face.
That bright, limpid smile put an inexplicable pressure on the soldier. He halted his steps, no longer daring to press forward.
"The wrong people?" Lü Zhengchun's expression didn't so much as flicker. He gave his long robe a shake, and the golden python upon it bared its fangs and flexed its claws as if choosing prey to devour. "The Demon Suppression Bureau represents the court! Are you suggesting the court can make mistakes?"
"The way I see it, demoness, you mean to foment rebellion... Take her down, now—I'll interrogate her good and proper."
So that's how it's done, so that's how it's done.
Li Fei quietly committed this knack for pinning labels on people to memory, then, in a honeyed tone, delivered a thoroughly snide remark:
"Lord Lü truly does throw around the airs of his office."
"Oh? You have a problem with this official?" Lü Zhengchun spoke with rising interest, a mocking glint like a cat toying with a mouse flashing through his sinister eyes. "Out with it—whose household are you from? Chancellor Liu's? Or Lord Han's?"
He had long since gathered, from the composed expressions of Li Fei and Lilith, that these two were no ordinary women—there must be a powerful backer behind them, or they'd never dare be so brazenly unafraid.
But so what?
I, Lü Zhengchun, am the adopted son of the reigning Nine Thousand Years!
In all the Great Song, only my adoptive father and those few Earthly Immortals can make me, Lü Zhengchun, lower my brows in deference and retreat three days' march. What can anyone else do to me?
And as for those few, the entire Demon Suppression Bureau, top to bottom, had committed even the faces of their kin and close friends to memory, letter-perfect—there was no chance of a mistake. Li Fei was plainly not among them.
"None of them, actually." Li Fei spread her hands.
"Well now, that really is a pity." Lü Zhengchun sighed.
What he loved most was to employ every manner of means to make women who would sooner die than yield submit to him in tears. So long as those few were ruled out, the harder Li Fei's backing, the more excited Lü Zhengchun became.
After all, the Demon Suppression Bureau already held the right to execute first and report later, and with the Nine Thousand Years as his adoptive father standing behind him, his power was boundless. Even were she the daughter of a chancellor's household or a consort of the Song Emperor, Lü Zhengchun would dare interrogate her for three days and three nights before sending her back.
So long as he was willing to bleed a little to honor his adoptive father, the nominal punishment would amount to nothing more than a docking of his salary and a suspension for a spell. Were she only an ordinary beauty, Lü Zhengchun would be unwilling to lightly offend certain powerful nobles for the sake of a pretty face—there were more than enough women in the world, after all, and making rash enemies did him no good.
But Li Fei was simply too beautiful; for her, Lü Zhengchun was willing to pay a certain price.
"Now you listen well!"
"I am Bai Mengtian's best friend, Nicole's adopted daughter, Irena's elder sister, Chloe's bosom companion, Miss System's master, Genaya's top-selling ace, Margaret's masseuse, the spokeswoman Kalida personally chose, Hathaway's old flame, Maria's... ah, right—and Gwona and I go way back, too."
Li Fei recited her list of backers one by one, then advised him with genuine sincerity, "Why don't you just call it off, Lord Lü? These are people you can't afford to cross."
"Heh." Lü Zhengchun let out a scornful snort, as though he'd just heard the biggest joke in the world.
Who was Bai Mengtian? Some stray cat or dog he'd never even heard of.
And all those bizarre names that followed—they sounded downright grating just to hear.
In this day and age, someone still dared to trot out a pack of nobodies to frighten the Demon Suppression Bureau? Did she really think its reputation for silencing crying children was just so much hot air?
A woman of such peerless beauty, and yet something was wrong with her head. What a shame...
As the last shred of misgiving in his heart dissolved, Lü Zhengchun waved his hand impatiently. "Take them."
"Yes, my lord." Grinning grotesquely, the soldier closed in on them step by step. "Best surrender quietly, young misses—otherwise, it'd be such a shame to mar all this fine, tender skin..."
"You—you stay back."
Although she wasn't the one to be seized, Wang Yutong—so haughty before her servants just moments ago—was frightened deathly pale. She retreated step by step, shivering like a quail, making Squire Wang knit his brows at the sight, feeling utterly shamed by her.
Finally, she even gave a hard shove to Qiao'er—whose own little face had gone just as pale, yet who silently shielded her mistress—and shrieked,
"If you're going to grab someone, grab them! Don't touch me!"
At such a wretched spectacle, not only did the soldier laugh uproariously—even the fierce-faced guards and manservants ringing the pavilion lowered their heads, shoulders trembling, struggling to bite back their laughter lest they burst out loud and later be dealt with by this useless, grudge-bearing young miss.
Shoved forward without warning, Qiao'er stumbled and nearly toppled over. Tears in her eyes, she looked back in silence, gazing with an aching heart at the hysterical girl she secretly loved. Her lips quivered as if to say something—but she held it in.
At last, her heart like cold ashes, Qiao'er pressed her pale, trembling lips tightly together, shut her eyes, and hurled herself at a stone pillar beside her, meaning to spatter her blood on the spot rather than suffer a fate worse than death.
Such a fierce rush toward death caught everyone off guard—no one had expected this seemingly gentle, frail handmaid to have so unyielding a temper. A flash of savagery crossed Lü Zhengchun's eyes as he gathered his True Qi, meaning to break her leg—but Qiao'er's skull and the stone pillar were already all but touching, and there was simply no time to stop her.
And yet Qiao'er felt no agony of her skull shattering against stone. It was as though she had crashed into something fragrant and soft—more comfortable than lying atop a freshly sun-dried quilt, warmer than her mother's embrace in her memories, and full of yielding softness.
Dazed, she raised her head, and a pair of painting-perfect eyes filled her vision. A delicate, elegant fragrance of tea flooded her nostrils with every breath—even the finest Biluochun in the estate, more precious than gold, smelled cheap beside this scent.
A haze came over Qiao'er's eyes, and then a complicated expression surfaced on her face.
She had been saved by this woman she'd met by mere chance—yet more than gratitude, she felt reluctance and helplessness.
Because to go on living was to endure suffering far worse than death.
"I'm just like you—I like women."
With a single sentence, Li Fei had laid bare the secret Qiao'er had buried deep in her heart for years. Her tone was gentle. "Being forced into a man's arms, being touched and all that—just the thought of it makes me suffer, a suffering worse than being sliced apart by a thousand cuts."
"But no matter what straits I find myself in, I will never take my own life. I will go on living—living at any cost. Only that way is there any chance of revenge."
"After all, by what right should the ones who did wrong roam free and easy, while those who were wronged must die to preserve their innocence?"
This was a lie. Should things truly reach a point past all saving, Li Fei would not hesitate for an instant to use her garter to ignite her very soul and set off a dazzling firework display for her enemies. But the truth was never as persuasive as a lie, nor did it serve Li Fei's purposes.
"The way I see it, so long as the outcome is good, it doesn't matter how you got there—does it?"
The Miss Top Courtesan's words were branded deep in Qiao'er's heart. Before she could say anything, a soft round of applause cut their exchange short.
"I hadn't expected a demoness like you to know Qinggong." Lü Zhengchun strolled leisurely forward, voicing his admiration. "For shielding a wanted criminal, this official will be a touch gentler when he interrogates you later."
He'd sensed no True Qi cultivation base from Li Fei, and had never imagined that this gentle, charming-looking woman would know such an exquisite art of movement—it could truly be called a pleasant surprise.
Not only was the prey he'd fixed his eyes on preserved intact, but once he pried open her mouth, this movement art could become his as well.
"Son of a bitch! My lord, I'll seize them right now."
The soldier, who'd broken into a cold sweat from fright, came back to himself. He pulled the hemp rope taut in both hands, no longer daring to dawdle and savor the pleasure of tormenting helpless women, and stalked forward cursing under his breath.
He'd seen with his own eyes just how beautiful this handmaid was—had he let her dash her own brains out just now, the lives of his whole family, young and old, wouldn't have been enough to pay for it.
As for Li Fei knowing Qinggong, he paid it no mind at all. With so many people standing here, and a great personage of the Demon Suppression Bureau holding down the scene—would she really dare to resist?!
"Lord Lü, I have a question."
Li Fei released Qiao'er, paying no heed to the soldier with the vicious look on his face.
"Speak."
"When you go slandering others as demons off the top of your head—have you ever once considered... what you'd do if the other party really were a demon? And a demon stronger than you, at that?"
Li Fei tilted her head, tapping her lips lightly with her index finger, a look of puzzlement on her utterly harmless face, making her seem innocent and adorable.
But a long tail, jet-black and eerie, slipped out from beneath the hem of her dress, curling up like a scorpion's sting, its tip locking firmly onto Lü Zhengchun.
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