"Teacher Annie!"
Annie Teresa opened the door — and there stood the girl she had been thinking about day and night, bright and vivid in the afternoon light.
Li Fei's outfit today was simple and fresh: a white button-up shirt that traced the elegant curve of her slender waist and gently swelling chest; below, a pair of casual trousers and ankle boots. She wore a radiant, sunny smile — like a small white flower blooming at the riverbank on a summer afternoon, the kind that made you want to gather it close and hold it.
She was carrying a paper bag in one hand, a shoulder bag slung behind her. There was a faint sheen of sweat on her forehead, and her breathing was a little quick. Annie pulled her inside at once, reaching up to wipe the beads of sweat from her brow with her own hand, her voice gently reproachful:
"Is something the matter? You're all worked up."
"I haven't seen Teacher Annie in two whole days. I missed you."
Li Fei smiled sweetly, the new earrings she'd just put on swaying with the motion.
A fastball, straight to Annie's heart. Her pulse began to quicken before she could stop it, and the still, undisturbed surface of a heart that had been at peace for years rippled outward in slow, spreading rings.
"Silly girl — class doesn't start for another hour."
Annie drew Li Fei over to the sofa. "Sit and rest. I'll brew you some tea."
"Mm-hm."
Li Fei held the paper bag out to Annie with both eyes shining bright, like a small dog wagging its tail in hopeful anticipation of a pat. "I made these cakes myself — try one, Teacher! They're still warm."
Annie took the bag. She could feel the lingering warmth of the cakes through the paper. Her lips parted slightly, but she couldn't find the words.
So that's why she came rushing over… she was afraid the cakes would go cold before they reached me.
She cradled the bag carefully against her chest, as though holding something precious — terrified that one careless movement might damage it.
Oh my. You're blushing.
Li Fei studied Annie with quiet, knowing eyes.
The Annie she knew always dressed with prim, conservative restraint — always covered up, always composed. But today, she had changed into a short-sleeved midi dress, and the smooth, flawless ivory of her arms was on full display.
The hem of the blue-grey skirt just barely cleared her knees, swaying gently with each small movement. Her slender, soft calves were sheathed in glass-clear stockings, and a tiny mole on one calf flickered in and out of view.
Through the nearly transparent fabric, one could just make out the pale pink nail polish on her toes — lending those already dainty, lovely feet an even softer, sweeter quality.
Some color had come into her always-slightly-pale face, too. Her cheeks were faintly flushed, and her delicate lips carried a moist, luminous sheen — the unmistakable trace of a clear lip balm.
That frail, otherworldly crape myrtle tree — the one that asked nothing of the world and seemed too fragile to withstand even a breeze — had, in quiet secret, begun to bloom. Exquisite flowers swayed on its graceful branches, releasing a scent that was intoxicating, that made you want to reach out and pluck one.
Li Fei, whose phone and computer hard drives were perpetually packed to the brim, knew exactly what that meant.
After filling Li Fei's teacup with red tea, Annie finally seemed to realize she was still holding the paper bag and that she'd made a fool of herself. Li Fei stepped in just in time to cover for her:
"Go on, try one. Tell me how the cakes turned out."
Those dark, gleaming eyes were practically screaming compliment me, compliment me — Annie thought she could see right through the girl's transparent little heart, and couldn't help covering her mouth with a smile as she pulled open the bag.
Her left hand had just reached inside when it paused. Something seemed to surface in her memory. A shadow crossed her eyes — and it was her other hand, the one without a wedding ring, that lifted the cake out.
"You know, Teacher Annie deserves some of the credit for these cakes!"
Li Fei declared this with obvious pride. "Last night, while I was making them, I suddenly thought of you and got distracted — I accidentally poured in too much honey. To keep the cakes from being too sweet and wasting the ingredients, I decided to just substitute the honey for white sugar entirely. And somehow the cakes turned out even better than I expected."
Listening quietly, Annie took a small bite of the cake.
The texture was as soft and warm as the girl's own heart. The honeyed sweetness spread from the tip of her tongue all the way to her core — softening the bitterness, dissolving the loneliness, blurring the already-fading image of her wife a little further.
"Is it good?"
Li Fei was leaning in closer with every passing second.
"So sweet…"
Annie murmured — whether she meant the cake or the girl, even she couldn't have said.
When she looked up, she found, with a small jolt, that Li Fei's face had drawn impossibly close. Annie's gaze darted and wavered — struggling, resisting — but in the end, it dissolved into the clear, guileless light in the girl's eyes, going soft and hazy.
The room… why is it getting warmer…
A restless flame had caught on the dry tinder of her heart. As if moved by something outside herself, she reached out — the pad of her finger tracing lightly along the curve of Li Fei's earlobe — her gaze settling on the black earring:
"Does it hurt?"
"It does."
Li Fei gave a pitiful little nod, then broke into a smile. "One kiss from Teacher and it won't hurt anymore."
The words were barely out before a flicker of alarm ran through her. That was too forward.
Annie's thumb pressed a fraction harder, leaving a faint nail-mark on the rim of Li Fei's ear.
What had seemed like a playful, coy little joke had, without meaning to, pierced straight through the thin layer of paper that had been serving as a flimsy shield of self-deception between them. Annie Teresa found herself replaying every word Li Fei had ever said to her, every gesture — and she could no longer numb herself with excuses of age difference or the teacher-student line. She understood, completely and finally, what Li Fei felt.
Sunlight poured through the glass window and lay in quiet pools across the floor. In that spacious, still living room, the delicate, soft-spoken teacher and the luminously beautiful student sat together on the same sofa, gazes locked — the warmth between them building by degrees, close enough that either could have reached out and touched the other's face.
Annie felt dizzy. Elation and anguish, sweetness and shame — all of it rose at once, a tangle of contradictions. She stared at the vivid, achingly alive face of her student, and her breathing grew uneven.
"Teacher?"
Li Fei had never seen an expression so tangled, so conflicted. Annie's fine brows knitted together; the corner of her mouth pulled up, then down; the curve of her chest rose and fell in deep, unsteady rhythm; her whole body trembled slightly — like someone who had struggled in quicksand until they were spent, still fighting on reflex, but secretly longing to let go. To stop tormenting herself. To sink.
Just one more gentle push…
Li Fei lowered her lashes. She had spent so long trying to unlock Annie's heart — and now that she was standing at the threshold, one step away, she found herself hesitating, her chest a swirl of complicated feelings.
Do it?
Now?! Right here?!
"I made a vow once… that I would keep faith with her…"
Annie's voice, when it finally came, was low and hoarse — and carried, unmistakably, a note of pleading.
That trembling voice broke the spell of hesitation. Li Fei reached out and took Annie's hand — soft, fine-boned, the palm damp with nervous sweat.
What are you still waiting for, Li Fei?
Nobody said a coming-of-age moment had to happen in a bedroom.
Youth is burning hormones!
Li Fei exhaled a warm, sweet breath, drew one knee up onto the sofa cushion, and leaned forward — pressing the flustered, crimson-faced Annie back into the corner of the sofa.
The scorching, unguarded intensity of her gaze silenced the words in Annie's throat before they could form.
She recognized that look.
On their wedding night, her wife had used that exact same gaze to peel away her bridal veil.
Annie tried to pull her hand free from Li Fei's grasp — and found she couldn't. The star courtesan had endured and held herself back for this long, dreaming of this moment; but Annie, who had lived alone with her daughter all these years — had she not been lonely too?
She was only in her mid-thirties. The age when a flower stops being pretty and becomes beautiful — when it blooms fully open, radiating a fragrance that turns every head.
Slender fingers slipped between slender fingers. The girl's fair, graceful hand interlaced with the woman's soft, boneless one, and both sets of fingers curled in tight. In the warmth and dampness shared between their palms, the wedding band on Annie's ring finger grew smooth and luminous — pressing deep into the flushed skin beneath it, leaving a clear, vivid mark.
"I'm sorry… I broke my promise…"
Annie closed her eyes. A single tear traced down from the corner of one eye.
Li Fei ran her tongue lightly over her lower lip, gripped Annie's slender shoulders, and pushed her gently back. Golden hair fanned out across the cushions like a lily in bloom.
The student leaned down. The teacher moved to push her away — and accidentally brushed the yielding, human warmth of her instead, her fingertips recoiling like they'd touched something they didn't dare.
A moment later, those trembling fingertips reached out again — curving past the pale arc of her neck, threading through dark hair, pressing deep into the skin of her back, leaving long, trailing marks.
"I'm home!"
A girl with golden twin-tails threw the door open with both hands and bounced into the living room with a cheerful skip.
"Huh?"
The next second, she froze — as though struck by a Tier-4 Chaos-alignment spell, Petrification — rooted to the spot, the light draining completely from her eyes.
The dark-haired girl with her shirt half-undone startled like a frightened rabbit and shot up from the sofa. Her mother — always so composed and dignified — was scarlet-faced, fumbling frantically to straighten her clothes.
"Out! Get out, right now! Who said you could come in!"
The dark-haired girl snatched up a thin blanket and pressed it to her chest, scowling furiously. "I'm studying a foreign language in here — get out this instant!"
It took Lilith Teresa's brain several full seconds to reboot before she recognized the unexpected guest in her own home: it was the new student representative from that morning's ceremony — the girl whose speech had left such a deep impression on her.
But Lilith could not, for the life of her, reconcile that composed, gracious, staggeringly striking new student representative with the flustered, ruffled, vaguely disheveled girl standing before her now.
Li Fei had already put her shirt back on with practiced speed. But Lilith had clearly seen what she'd seen — vivid red scratch marks, bright against the pale skin of Li Fei's back. She opened her mouth. Closed it again.
She genuinely could not comprehend how, in the span of a single Academy holiday she'd taken to complete a Sequence 7 advancement ritual, she had come home to discover her mother had potentially acquired a new wife for her.
A new stepmother who was also her own junior schoolmate.
"I absolutely, categorically REFUSE to accept this — AAAAHHH!"
The full weight of it finally hit Lilith — and she let out a shriek that could strip paint.
...
"WHY!"
Li Fei snarled through clenched teeth, hurling her heavy staff in a beautiful, vicious home-run swing. The Ogre-bone staff carved a clean arc through the air and crashed across three wolf skulls at once, painting the knobbed crown with thick, wet blood.
"WHY!"
She stepped forward with a thunderclap of force, twisted at the waist, and whipped her long leg out like a lash. The explosive power surged from her shin straight into a Moonlight Wolf's soft underbelly. The wolf slammed into the cavern wall with a drawn-out, pitiful howl, spraying blood and fragments of viscera across the stone, then convulsed and slid to the ground.
"I'm so furious."
Surveying the absence of anything still breathing, Li Fei drove the butt of her staff into the ground with a resounding crack. The impact sent a deafening echo rolling through the cavern and shook loose a scattering of dirt and pebbles from the ceiling.
Her sacred, magnificent coming-of-age moment — ruined by a stepdaughter.
After Lilith's return, no amount of coaxing from the star courtesan could draw a single word from Annie. Li Fei had no choice but to leave under a gaze full of silent, desperate apology.
The frustration she felt right now was probably no less than what a grandmaster cultivator experiences after pouring years into a breakthrough attempt — only to fall short at the final moment.
As a public relations professional who made her living getting women to spend money on her — someone who understood human nature down to its bones — Li Fei knew perfectly well: emotions were delicate, complex things. If she had pushed through and completed the ritual in one go, it would have been a done deal afterward. Whatever Lilith thought about it, that could be dealt with in time.
But as things stood — caught in the act, at the very moment Annie was on the verge of giving in, by her own daughter, no less, with the other party being said daughter's junior schoolmate — the shame and distress Annie must be feeling right now was beyond imagining. A lasting psychological scar was entirely possible. Even for someone with the star courtesan's abilities, walking that cat back would be anything but easy.
With nowhere to put her anger, the star courtesan had transformed herself into an unfeeling killing machine and painted the wolf den red. The steadily climbing EXP counter and the occasional piece of loot she picked up helped take the edge off her mood, degree by agonizing degree.
When she finally stepped out of the cave, Li Fei found that night had fallen. A full silver moon hung high in the sky.
But from the wolf den behind her — not a single howl remained.
Pulling up her System Panel, the star courtesan realized she had cleared the wolf den instance completely.
[Character Panel]
Name: Li Fei
Level: 10
Sequence Level: None
EXP: 785 / 1500
Class: None
Legacy: None
Mana: 32 / 290 → 32 / 300
Strength: 22 (12) → 24 (14)
Agility: 14 → 16
Constitution: 17 (12) → 19 (14)
Intelligence: 18 (15) → 20 (17)
Charisma: 197
Morality: -10
Luck: 2 (1)
Command: 0 → 1
Aptitude: 0
Achievement: Wolf Den Exterminator (Command +1, damage dealt to wolf-type creatures +10%)
Innate Talents:
1. Depravity
When Morality decreases, Charisma increases (irreversible)
2. ???
Knowledge Tree:
1. Nature Alignment:
— Introductory Natural Magic:
Can learn and use Tier-1 Nature spells.
— Introductory Cycle Principle:
Nature-alignment spell effects increased by 10%.
— Introductory Five Elements Meditation (unlocks 'Basic Five Elements Meditation' upon reaching Sequence 9):
All-alignment casting speed +20%; All-alignment spell effects +10%; All-alignment spell penetration +10%; All-alignment spell cooldown reduction -5%; All-alignment spell cost reduction -5%; All-alignment spell level +1.
Can enter Meditation state. While meditating, mana regeneration speed increases by 50%, and gradually improves Intelligence, Charisma, EXP, mana capacity, and perception.
Note: Introductory Five Elements Meditation can raise Intelligence by up to 10 points, Charisma by up to 5 points, and mana capacity by up to 100 points.
— Introductory Summoning Magic:
Automatically summons a Nature-alignment unit loyal to you each day.
2. Chaos Alignment:
— Introductory Chaos Magic:
Can learn and use Tier-1 Chaos spells.
— Introductory Five Elements Meditation:
...
Potential Points: 5
Spells: Stone Skin (Body Protection) Lv1, Dragon's Might Lv1
Combat Skills: None
Evaluation: The Moonlight Wolves departed in an orderly fashion — but not a peaceful one.
[Messages Panel]
[You have slain a Moonlight Wolf. +11 EXP]
...
[Shop Panel]
Wealth: 102
[Gacha Panel]
Remaining Draws: 8
"It looks like I'll be substituting Meditation for sleep for a while."
Li Fei stared at the System Panel for a long moment, then rubbed her temples with a sigh.
____
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