When Li Fei slowly came to, the others had already dispersed. Only Consort Xiang and Consort Hui, two of the late Emperor's widows, remained, pinning her between them.
"Was my hospitality to your liking, little sister?"
Consort Hui rested her cheek on her hand, eyes lowered and smiling, as though she'd been watching Li Fei like this for ages. The poised, classical grace of a scholar family's daughter radiated from her.
Li Fei had woken first for one simple reason. This quiet, serene noble lady was the same as on previous days: the host and organizer of the feast, yet never once plunging in herself. She only took a taste and then withdrew.
Even with sweets as sweet and delicious as Miss Fairy herself, she never overindulged. She was restrained and proper.
"Of course I was satisfied. But you're far too cunning, sister," Li Fei said plaintively.
"How so?" Consort Hui's smile deepened.
"I grew up in an orphanage."
"Every New Year, Granny Director would make a dish called 'Ten-Variety Dish.' It was fragrant and delicious, and we all loved it," Li Fei said softly.
"But she only made it at New Year, and each of us was allowed one big spoonful a day, no more. No matter how much we coaxed and begged, she never gave us extra."
"Later, I met a rich older sister who took me out to eat, and I ordered 'Ten-Variety Dish.'"
"It was made by a brilliant chef, with ingredients far richer and finer than anything Granny could prepare. A huge platter, and if it wasn't enough, they'd keep adding more. All you could eat."
"But in my mouth, it just didn't have that flavor I used to long for."
Consort Hui's face softened with pity as her slender hand stroked Li Fei's cheek.
"You're sharp, little sister."
By Li Fei's meaning, the noble lady before her was just like that Ten-Variety Dish: never enough to fill you, never enough to satisfy you.
Miss Top Courtesan understood the philosophy of The Art of Tea well enough. But this time, she, who always excelled at borrowing from every school, found nothing she could borrow.
Keeping someone on tenterhooks when there's no cuddling to be had is one thing. But in the end, every way of tea exists for the sake of better cuddling. Sacrificing the cuddling itself to wield The Art of Tea would be abandoning the root for the branch, wouldn't it?
Their soft conversation finally woke Consort Xiang, who had been sleeping with her arms looped around Li Fei's neck.
To the gentle chime of her silver bangles, Consort Xiang stretched long and lazily. Her waist bent as supple as a snake's, and her waterfall of black hair, a little tousled, clung to her cool skin and made her shoulders look even more luminous. The two complemented each other perfectly.
She rubbed her eyes. Languid allure drifted through the reddened rims, and her first words came out sweet and coquettish:
"Oh, why is it already light out?"
"It is. Good morning." Li Fei nuzzled against her.
Consort Xiang's body was cool and Consort Hui's was warm and soft as jade. Pressed together between them, it was warm in winter and cool in summer. It was just hard on frail girls: get squeezed between these two noble ladies by accident, and the swing from hot to cold might well bring illness.
"Stay with me a little longer."
Seeing Li Fei about to rise, Consort Xiang pinned her shoulder down with her chin and wagged her head willfully.
"With His Majesty's body barely cold and so many urgent matters waiting, how could this humble official squander the time like this…"
Li Fei helplessly explained her predicament to a woman whose husband had only just died.
But Miss Tail refused to go along with it. Beneath the thin blanket she bobbed and wagged like a dog that had been shut indoors too long, desperate to be taken out for a walk and some fresh air.
Consort Xiang's eyes shimmered. She smiled sweetly, and her pink tongue tip ran across her lower lip as she said with deliberate meaning:
"So lively, Fairy Sister."
—She's her, and I'm me!
Li Fei laughed awkwardly, her head starting to ache. "Ah, yes, she is…"
Before she could break free of Consort Xiang's clutches, Li Fei was stabbed in the back.
Consort Hui pressed against Li Fei from behind, her slender hands resting on her shoulders, and said unhurriedly:
"I'm delighted that you're so full of vigor, little sister. But if you're like this outside, it would be quite undignified."
As she spoke, the elegant, refined classical beauty lifted a porcelain-white fingertip and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. In that careless little gesture, a married woman's allure shone through:
"And as it happens, this widow hasn't had her meal yet…"
The late Emperor's widow inclined her head and gently lifted the thin blanket.
"What about me? What about me?"
Seeing her lover about to eat alone and keep everything to herself, the other noble lady puffed out her cheeks, refusing to be left out, and pounced to scramble for her share as if it were a game.
…
By the time they were back in Lin'an it was already noon.
Li Fei wiped away a cold sweat, looking thoroughly shaken.
She had let it slip. Now both noble ladies knew that the royal child in the Empress Dowager's belly was hers.
Consort Xiang's maternal instincts overflowed on the spot, and she wanted one too. Even more unexpected for Li Fei, Consort Hui, seeing her lover about to bear someone else's child, didn't dissuade her at all. In every word and gesture she was egging them on, convinced that Fairy Sister's daughter would surely be beautiful and adorable.
Clearly, that seemingly demure, conservative daughter of the Minister of Rites, that poised and gentle widow of the late Emperor, harbored a rebellious heart that delighted in trampling on propriety. Her thinking was extremely avant-garde. In an age when "having no heir is the gravest unfilial act," she had thrown the principle that blood is thicker than water completely out the window. Instead of thinking about continuing her own bloodline, she openly and covertly pushed her lover's wishes along, eager to play stepmother to the Fairy's daughter.
But Miss Top Courtesan was in the prime of her life. One daughter would already be headache enough, and the mere thought of a houseful of daughters clinging to her knees sent a shiver down her spine and made every vital point in her body ache for no reason.
So Li Fei fought to the death to protect her own DNA, and left only after watching them drink the potions.
"Scheming women… always trying to trick me into being a mother!"
Li Fei patted her chest, still shaken, and only breathed easier when she saw her gloomy Miss Stepdaughter.
In her view, if there were a ranking of women she least wanted to have a daughter with, Lilith would take first place without question. At least until she won Lady Annie's forgiveness, there was absolutely no way she'd go scheming after Miss Stepmother's DNA!
For a moment Li Fei nearly teared up.
Compared to the others, her own girl was so much less trouble!
Under Li Fei's touched gaze, Lilith stepped forward uneasily. Her twin tails drooped listlessly over her shoulders, their luster no longer as brilliant as before.
Her lips trembled, and she spoke haltingly:
"I'm sorry! You're Mother's lover, and yet I…"
Huh?
Who wants to hear your apology?
Li Fei's face turned cold in an instant, and she spun around to leave.
"I'll… take responsibility."
Lilith caught Li Fei's wrist as if begging.
"I, I'll…"
The words "I'll take good care of our daughter" would not come out. In the end they became: "Anything you want me to do, I'll do it… And I'll never let Mother find out and ruin your relationship."
Hearing this, Li Fei glared at her Miss Stepdaughter with the look of someone watching iron refuse to become steel.
I hand you a chance, and you're useless!
Even the natives of a folded plane are more open-minded than you!
Why can't you learn something from Consort Hui?
She sighed.
"Then let's pretend nothing ever happened. Go home and keep being your good little girl."
With that, Li Fei tried to pull her hand free and leave, only to find Lilith still clutching it tightly, shaking her head hard, her eyes full of panic and pleading.
Clearly, even Lilith, so innocent and green that she'd never had a girlfriend, had learned a few truths from countless full-color picture books with actual plots:
Some things, once they happen, can never be undone. If she let go now, the two of them probably couldn't even stay friends and would become strangers. Though Li Fei only meant to leave her on the shelf a while longer and let her work out her own conquest.
Not only that, the Daoist heart Lilith had only just found gave her a conviction: no matter how dark the situation, she would never abandon that single thread of light.
So she held Li Fei's hand tight.
"What do you want?" Li Fei said coldly, her face sour.
"I, I…"
Lilith hung her head. The speech she had rehearsed stumbled on her lips and wouldn't come out.
As her heart surged, the clay figurine in her arms suddenly blossomed with black-and-white divinity. It nourished the Forbidden flower growing ever more lush in her heart, and finally turned to a deep gray in her eyes. "Could I keep staying by your side… but not tell her?"
The moment those illicit words, so far off her plan, left her mouth, Lilith felt her heart clench in waves of pain. Boundless dejection, anguish and shame welled up along with self-loathing, and specks of light flaked off her soul. Her virtue dissolved away with them.
—Isn't this the best way for all three of us?
—Mother won't be hurt, I won't have to leave her, and she won't be failed…
—As long as we reach a bright, beautiful outcome where no one gets hurt, what does it matter if the road is full of darkness, lies and Betrayal?
In her increasingly clouded thoughts, Lilith clearly heard a faint woman's voice at her ear:
Toil in darkness, serve the light.
And the holy skull figurine in her arms seemed to wake from its sleep. Its upper and lower jaws parted and closed softly, and an invisible divinity flowed through its hollow, empty sockets, then quietly seeped into her heart, where the Forbidden flower absorbed it.
At that moment the already blooming Forbidden flower shot up another notch. Its leaves unfurled and swayed with an uncanny rhythm, like a fetus stretching its limbs in the amniotic fluid.
Almost at the same instant, in the imperial mausoleum, the brush slipped from Su Wen's hand. She pressed a hand to her temple, and in her ears came the unmistakable, meaningless giggle of Miss Demon. Beyond endless time and space, Qin Zhihua opened her eyes and clutched her lower abdomen. True Qi flowed through her meridians, its profound trails weaving into a pattern lovelier than any star chart.
A Daoist heart sown with tea nurtures a demonic immortal.
After her self-created Profound Art Diagram and the demon in the mirror, yet another young deity had been born.
What they did not know was that a woman with chestnut hair falling to her ankles and a white dress like a wedding gown was also standing there, shaken and uncertain. She could faintly feel a burning sensation from the tattoo on the back of her neck, as though a life were being nurtured within it.
At her feet lay the corpse of a Sequence 4 wanted criminal.
"Hiss…"
Li Fei suddenly shivered, feeling needles at her back.
She hunched her neck and looked around suspiciously, but saw no suspicious woman holding a hatchet.
So Miss Stepmother kept up her airs, her face sour, her tone tinged with disdain and disappointment:
"What kind of person do you take me for?"
"I've always had a clear conscience in matters of the heart. Why would I need to sneak around?"
Faced with Li Fei's interrogation, the Forbidden flower rustled and swayed, whispering abyssal murmurs that dyed her pure white soul with a gray mist.
So this time, Miss Stepdaughter wasn't cowed. She stepped half a pace closer instead and whispered:
"But… Mom would be so hurt if she found out."
"You don't want to hurt Mom either, do you?"
—Hiss, how did she get so ambitious all of a sudden?
Miss Stepdaughter's murky gaze made Li Fei's heart skip. Then she said stubbornly:
"Better a quick cut than a long ache! When I get back I'll tell Teacher Annie myself. Whether she scolds me or beats me, I'll take it."
"I'll tell Mom the truth later."
Lilith cupped Miss Stepmother's face. Though tears ran silently down her cheeks, her eyes no longer dodged. "Just give me a little time, all right?"
Li Fei, faintly sensing the situation slipping out of her control, lowered her eyes and sighed.
"Don't make me wait too long."
Lilith answered with actions that showed her feelings.
…
Outside the city, in the miniature residence.
Li Fei leaned against the bedpost smoking, the taste of salty tears still on her lips.
How had she ended up being the one taken over?
Li Fei couldn't work it out. Those gray eyes made her inexplicably uneasy, and she half expected Miss Stepdaughter to pull out a hatchet the moment she let her guard down.
Of course, what puzzled her even more was this:
How are you two, mother and daughter, exactly the same?
Neither can focus on cuddling. One chokes out apologies to her wife, the other weeps nonstop and keeps confessing to her mother…
Kind of fun, actually. Cry some more.
Hehe.
While Li Fei lounged in lazy comfort, Lilith stood in the washroom, staring blankly at the tear-streaked girl in the mirror.
The golden-haired girl's gaze went from lost, to stunned, and finally to horror.
What have I done?!
How could I do something like that?
I used my mother, the one who has been my only family, to blackmail her lover into a secret affair?
This isn't what I planned at all!
Once again reason seized the high ground only after the fact. Remorse, regret, anguish, self-blame, shame… boundless negative emotions rose like a black tsunami and nearly swallowed her whole.
The room spun. Lilith felt waves of nausea. The self in the mirror looked wretched and ugly, utterly disgusting.
Her body went limp on the floor, letting out a silent wail.
In truth, Lilith had only wanted a child, and then she would have withdrawn completely.
She would have raised her daughter alone, just as her mother had.
It would have been a punishment she imposed on herself, after betraying the mother who had worked herself to the bone raising her and doted on her without reservation.
Not only that, she could have poured all her heart into her daughter and buried the feelings that would bring her mother grief and tear the family apart.
She might even have used it to break through to a higher Sequence, and guard the one she dreamed of but could no longer touch in a better state.
But what Miss Stepdaughter never imagined was that the plan would go wrong the moment she saw Li Fei.
She herself had proposed deceiving her mother.
As her heart surged, magic power began to well up through her body unbidden. It made Lilith notice an even more despairing truth: after committing such a [Filial Deed], her Extraordinary Knowledge realm had broken through to the Advanced stage, ahead of her Sequence rank…
"Heh heh, ha ha, so that's what I am to the bone. A filthy, base, despicable person, ha ha…"
Lilith laughed as her fingertips clawed at her own arm, leaving streaks of blood on the snow-soft skin, and hot tears spilled from her eyes once more.
Miss Stepmother heard the commotion and hurried over. She knelt beside Lilith, gathered her into her arms and wiped the tear tracks away with her thumb. "If it really hurts too much, we can part for a while… I'll explain everything to Teacher Annie…"
"No."
Lilith couldn't stop laughing, her body trembling nonstop, tears welling up with it:
"Isn't it fine the way things are now?"
"We don't have to part, Mom won't be hurt, and we even have our… heh, heh heh heh…"
Li Fei let out a breath of relief and asked with concern, "Is there anything I can do?"
"Sing me a song."
Lilith fell silent a moment, then said suddenly, "'A Love Letter for You.'"
"A Love Letter for You" was one of Loxibrook's most classic nursery rhymes, and Li Fei had naturally heard it.
She knew that its catchy lyrics sang of a mother's tolerance and devotion to her daughter, and urged daughters to honor their mothers and heed what they said. The gentle melody carried the greatest and most beautiful bond in the world, between mother and daughter.
"Bring the fallen star home from the sky, and we'll hold her together…"
Lilith lay in Miss Stepmother's embrace, drifting in the softly hummed tune as if she'd returned to childhood.
Back then she was small and afraid of the dark, and often didn't dare turn off the light after night fell, let alone fall asleep.
And Mom would always hold her gently and calmly, humming this song over and over without tiring, coaxing her daughter to sleep.
The familiar melody was like a warm palm, soothing and comforting the anxious, lost girl.
Only tonight, the one rowing the boat of her heart toward dreamland with song was her stepmother, the person Mom loved with all her soul.
—I can't bear to hurt you, I don't want to make you sad, but I really can't help it…
—Please forgive this dishonest, bad daughter…
In the darkness thick with the scent of tea, Lilith clearly saw her mother's smiling face.
Lady Annie was as gentle and loving as ever, and she opened her warm arms to her daughter.
"Mom, I'm sorry…"
In a whisper as faint as a mosquito's murmur, the tear-streaked girl's breathing slowly evened out, and before she knew it she had sunk into the quiet land of dreams.
Li Fei softly tucked the blanket around her sleeping Miss Stepdaughter, changed into her crimson python robe, walked out of the warm room and into the freezing night.
Tonight the moon is dark, a fine night for raiding households and wiping out clans.
____
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