It was very easy to fall into a routine. Wake up, cultivate, share a few words with Meizhen, attend lessons, and spend time with Han Jian here and there. After just a week, it felt like she had been doing this forever.

  Her newfound ability to retain information really was a boon. She could not imagine actually remembering most of the minutiae Bai Meizhen discussed with her or the dense lectures of Elder Su without the clarity of thought cultivation had brought her. She shouldn’t have been surprised; Immortals were supposed to be superior to mortals in every way.

  Her rapid awakening had actually brought a brief smile to the strict Elder Su’s lips. It was the first time in years that Ling Qi had felt genuinely proud of herself.

  Now Awakened, she was able to join the other half of the class. Han Jian was a great help in getting her through the material she had missed; most of it was an expansion on what he had been teaching her in their brief meetings.

  The second half of the spiritual class was focused on the opening of meridians.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Ling Qi admitted. “What exactly is an impurity?” she asked Han Jian as they rested on the bench beneath one of the plaza’s trees after a lesson. Despite her earlier resolve, she still lacked the confidence to ask questions in the lesson itself.

  “You could probably debate a scholar about that for weeks,” Han Jian said with a chuckle. “Basically, it’s all the toxins and impure materials that poison our bodies and spirits. We’re born with them, and they only get worse with age. Everything in the world has impurities in it, but the closer you come to the peak of cultivation, the less you have.”


  That explained why she felt like she had been crawling through a sewer pipe after a long afternoon trying to work a meridian open, Ling Qi thought sourly.

  “So meridians are actually in the body?” She asked. “Because last week, we learned that our dantians were wholly spiritual.”


  “Your meridians are what bring your qi into the physical world so they exist both physically and spiritually. But you can’t physically interact with the channels themselves except with the aid of certain arts or talismans. Where you carve the channels in your body also decides what type of energies they can carry.”


  “I suppose that makes sense.” Ling Qi sighed.

  As they parted ways, his words echoed in her thoughts. Ling Qi had advanced to the point where she would have to choose what kind of meridian to work on opening, and that would affect what arts she would be able to use at first.

  Meridians were defined by the part of the body their exit points manifested in. Meridians in the legs were primarily used for movement techniques, while arm meridians were best for energy projection and techniques focused on direct harm. Spinal meridians were primarily used for techniques which enhanced or modified the self, and the heart meridians were best used for techniques which created various effects in a field around the user.

  One could also open meridians which emerged from the head and affected the senses or those from the throat, which were associated with the lungs, and allowed the creation of qi constructs. However, Elder Su had warned the disciples that head or lung meridians were poor choices for their first because a misstep in opening those could cause major harm.

  It was just one more concern among the others that were piling up.

  Even with her quick advancement, Ling Qi was still among the weakest people on the mountain. She had never really been strong, but in her home town, that hadn’t mattered much. There were enough people that she could always slip away and vanish into a crowd, and few people – aside from the owner – really cared if several loaves of bread or a bag of rice went missing. Here, there was just over a thousand people on the outer sect mountain.

  Only one resource, the spirit stones, mattered. Ling Qi herself was beginning to feel the pinch of their limited supply. True, if she didn’t foolishly glut on the energy held within like she had the first night, a single stone could provide for a week of cultivation…… but she knew instinctively that she could advance faster with a greater supply. More than once, she had found herself considering if she could acquire more, at her peers expense.

  Of course, she wouldn’t consider doing that to Bai Meizhen. Despite the taciturn girl’s ‘friendliness’ toward her, there was always a feeling of danger around the other girl. No, she wouldn’t even dare to place herself within Bai Meizhen’s personal space without a direct invitation.

  On the other hand, some of the other girls she passed on her circuitous route out of the residential area were sloppy and inattentive in the same way that the wealthier inhabitants of her home town could be. She was fairly certain she could filch from them without being noticed.

  However, it wasn’t a step she wanted to take without thought. If she did get caught, the consequences would probably be unpleasant. At the very least, it would earn her a bad reputation, and her standing wasn’t exactly very high to begin with.

  Her standing was something else that did little for her mood. Even here, she was mostly sneered at and ignored by so-called peers; only Han Jian and Bai Meizhen treated her politely. It was beginning to bother her in a way that she had a hard time articulating.

  Those thoughts returned to her again the next day as she sat beside Han Jian in the plaza gardens. She had been working on stabilizing her cultivation, smoothing out the few imbalances that her rapid growth had left in her energy.

  As the two of them meditated under the eaves of one of the entry plaza’s scattered trees, she found her thoughts bubbling with a simple question. Why was he doing this? She couldn’t really offer him anything, and yet he was helping her anyway. It was suspicious. He hadn’t even alluded to her owing him, which only increased her wariness.

  She glanced over at where he sat cross-legged in the grass, hands on his knees and eyes closed. The tiger cub Heijin was with him today although the lazy feline was asleep in his lap as Heijin was most times they did this. Finally, she could stand her own distraction no more.

  “Why are you still meeting me?” Her voice broke the tranquil silence. She wasn’t good at subtlety when it came to this kind of thing. “I appreciate the help, but it doesn’t make sense.”


  Her words pulled Han Jian out of his mediation, and he cracked open an eye to regard her curiously. “What brought this on?”


  “I’ve seen you around. You never lack someone to talk to or to partner with in exercises,” Ling Qi responded, doing her best to avoid sounding accusatory. “You have higher cultivation than me as well. So – why are you helping me?”


  She didn’t exactly stalk him, but she had…… hung around after their meetings a few times and kept a surreptitious eye on him during lessons. It seemed Han Jian knew many people, and most of them were if not friendly, then at least accepting of his presence.

  He relaxed from his stiff mediation and leaned back against the tree trunk behind him.

  “Do I need a reason?” he asked lightly, reaching down to scratch Heijin behind the ears. “You aren’t totally unpleasant to be around, you know?” he added with a hint of teasing.

  Ling Qi frowned, watching him out of the corner of his eye. There was something slightly off about his expression.

  “No one does something without a reason,” she replied stubbornly. “I know I am not…… popular, and I lack the power to make up for that. Spending time with me must degrade your own reputation too.”


  Ling Qi saw a flicker of something angry in Han Jian’s expression, a crack in his friendly demeanor, but it disappeared too fast for her to be sure she had even seen it.

  “I think you’re underestimating yourself. You broke through to the first stage in less than a week. That earned you some positive attention,” he said. Ling Qi didn’t miss the deflection in his words. “Besides, everyone can use a little down time, you know?”


  She considered his words for a few moments. “So, I’m an excuse to get away from others?” She might not be the best at social interactions, but she liked to think she was reasonably perceptive.

  He sighed, glancing up at the sky. “Don’t read too much into things, Ling Qi,” he responded tiredly. “It doesn’t do any good to get hung up on the little stuff.”


  He was right on that much, and she was better than this. She hadn’t lived as long as she had by moping about silly things even if she wished that he had said that he enjoyed spending time with her.

  “Right,” she said, not quite agreeing but unwilling to argue with him over it. “Ah, I had almost forgotten. There was something I wanted to ask you about that Instructor Zhou seemed to leave out of his lectures.”


  Han Jian smiled, relaxing now that she had changed the subject. “What’s that? He’s pretty thorough.”


  “He never explained what the levels of physical cultivation are,” Ling Qi responded with a frown. “There was some mention of a Gold rank, but I don’t know what that means.”


  “Ah, I suppose that makes sense. He probably mentioned it the first day and simply didn’t bother repeating it the second,” Han Jian responded reasonably, eyeing Heijin as the tiger cub bounded off of his lap to chase after a passing butterfly.

  “The progression is Gold, Silver, and then Bronze. There are realms after Bronze but like the spiritual realms after Green, we don’t need to worry about that for awhile.”


  “Isn’t that backward? Why is Gold the lowest realm?”


  “Let me see if I can remember how my tutor put it,” Han Jian said, humming thoughtfully to himself.

  “Gold is a malleable metal, easily shaped, just like a young cultivator. Yet it is also soft and easily damaged.” He put on a slightly mocking ‘serious’ voice as he recited the words, causing Ling Qi to smile slightly.

  Returning to his normal voice, he added, “It’s also the least valuable metal for Immortals. It isn’t particularly good for talismans, and accumulating a mortal fortune is pretty trivial for any Immortal with decent skills. It just isn’t important to us in the same way as it is for mortals.”


  Ling Qi nodded thoughtfully, her smile fading. It made sense she supposed. She still couldn’t see herself turning down a pile of gold coins. She had other things she needed to ask though.

  “Thank you. On another note, would you mind if I asked you for advice on clearing a heart meridian as well? Now that I’ve reached the first stage, I want to be able to actually use my qi.”


  Surprised, Han Jian raised an eyebrow. “You’re going for heart? Most people go for an arm or the spine for the first meridian.”


  Ling Qi gave him an unsure look. “Is there something wrong with opening the heart first? You have heart meridians open too.”


  “Well yeah, but I’m expected to lead,” he responded easily, wincing as Heijin returned to nip at his fingers. He glared down at the kitten before continuing.

  “I didn’t take you for the leader type.”


  Ling Qi hunched her shoulders a bit. She didn’t really feel like she was a leader either, but she was not going to catch up in raw strength any time soon. Increasing her value as a support-type would make it easier to keep Bai Meizhen’s goodwill – or some other group’s if it came down to it.

  “I have my reasons,” she responded stubbornly.

  Han Jian regarded her quietly for a moment but then shrugged slightly. “Well, alright. First thing to keep in mind is that you need to time the qi pulses to your heartbeat. If you don’t, you’ll risk making your heart seize up. The more precise the timing, the better off you’ll be……”


  Ling Qi leaned forward, listening intently. She would do this, and she wouldn’t fail.

  Smelting 4

  Things grew rather more hectic as they reached the bottom of the path and the group splintered, various groups rushing off to secure their claims.

  For Bai Meizhen and Ling Qi, things went rather smoothly though. For all that the other girls seemed to dislike Bai Meizhen, they also seemed reluctant to confront her directly and certainly not over one of the homes in the second section. So it was with some ease that the two of them managed to secure a fairly luxurious space for themselves, or so Ling Qi felt.

  The second worst homes in the Sect were still a step above any accommodation Ling Qi had ever lived in. The squat stone building was only a single story, but in addition to a fairly spacious front room with a well kept hearth, there were also a pair of bedrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a third empty room laid out with thick mats. It wasn’t furnished with any particular luxury: simple pallets and roughly carven chests for their belongings were the only contents of the bedrooms. It did have a small backyard filled with freshly trimmed grass.

  Ling Qi separated from her new roommate to head into her bedroom and luxuriate in the fact that she

  a personal bedroom. While she feared what might come in the days ahead, for the moment, she let herself enjoy the feeling of luxury.

  It did not take long to put her things away. The chest in one corner of the room was big enough to hold all of her meagre possessions – but she took the time to put it all away neatly and give herself a chance to process everything that had happened today.

  Eventually, she found herself in the front room of the house with the sun setting outside. Ling Qi had discovered a sheet of paper on the kitchen’s countertop, which stated that food and drink would be provided from a storehouse at the center of the district. Having retrieved and cooked a simple meal, she was sitting in front of the fire while Bai Meizhen quietly tended to the tea she was brewing in the clay pot they had found in one of the kitchen cubbies.

  With her now empty bowl set on the floor beside her, Ling Qi had the scroll for the Argent Soul technique open in her lap. She tried to decipher the odd diagram and the text around it, but it seemed no more than a collection of breathing exercises interspersed with flowery philosophical nonsense. It didn’t help that her ability to read was…… rusty. She was beginning to feel irritated; she knew she was missing something, but couldn’t quite understand what.

  She was pulled from her thoughts by the whistle of the tea kettle. As much as she wanted to figure this out on her own…… she should probably ask.

  Bai Meizhen had made no indication that she was willing to help her, but after spending most of the afternoon together to collect necessities for their home, Ling Qi felt that she was beginning to get a feel for the taciturn girl. Asking for help was probably against Bai Meizhen’s nature, as was offering help on her own initiative, but Ling Qi could ask.

  “Bai Meizhen, do you know what this part means?” she asked, pointing to a block of characters next to a line pointing toward the navel of the human figure covered in lines and squiggles in the diagram.

  The other girl took a moment to look up from the brewing tea, looking faintly surprised that Ling Qi was speaking to her. She didn’t really engage verbally unless prompted. She did lean forward, narrowing her creepy golden eyes to study the scroll, which Ling Qi helpfully turned to make easier for her.

  “It is describing the state of mind one must reach to begin absorbing spiritual energy into one’s dantian,” she responded a bit condescendingly. “It is the initial step in the simple exercises for the first stage of the technique once you have mastered the first breathing method.”


  Ling Qi let out a breath, not letting the other girl’s tone bother her. The other girl didn’t mean any harm and was being helpful.

  “What is a dantian exactly?” Ling Qi asked, keeping her tone even. She hated even more that she felt she earned the condescension with her ignorance.

  Bai Meizhen frowned, pausing as she poured herself a cup of the newly brewed tea. “It is the seat of a cultivator’s power, the core from which you channel energies through the meridians in your body. Filling the dantian is required to awaken and begin production of your own Qi.” She paused for a beat to stare at Ling Qi. “Qi is the energy which allows us to do…… everything beyond the ability of mortals.”


  “I know that much,” Ling Qi responded defensively. “But how am I supposed to feel something inside of me like it says? It’s not like I can sense any of my other organs.”


  The pale girl pursed her lips in consideration. “Give me your hand,” she said brusquely, holding out her own left hand.

  “Why?” Ling Qi glanced at the girl’s hand suspiciously. She could see the movement of the small snake she had glimpsed in the girl’s sleeve a few times by now.

  “I will inject a spark of Qi into you,” Bai Meizhen responded impatiently. “It will hurt, but it will allow you to feel your dantian until it fades. You will need to practice in the future to avoid the need for such crutches though.”


  “How much pain are we talking about?” Ling Qi asked warily, even as she raised her hand. She knew everything depended on her being able to gain enough strength to defend herself by the end of three months. She was still suspicious and some part of her railed against so easily trusting the girl in front of her not to hurt her…… but could she afford that right now? Leaps of faith were all she had.

  As her housemate took her hand, Bai Meizhen answered, “It is painful, but my Aunt did this for me when I was eight years old. It should be no trouble for you.”


  Ling Qi was about to respond when she felt a sudden heat in her palm, followed by an explosion of pain in her gut. It felt as if a burning knife had stabbed into her and then violently twisted, and she couldn’t help but double over clutching her stomach. A slight whimper escaped her lips as she felt her eyes beginning to water. She didn’t know how long it was until the burning pain faded to a knot of heat behind her navel, throbbing like a second heartbeat. Was this the ‘dantian’ the other girl had mentioned?

  Speaking of Bai Meizhen, she was observing Ling Qi quizzically over the lip of her teacup, and Ling Qi noted absently that a second cup had been placed before her. Letting out a shuddering breath, Ling Qi sat up, one hand still held over her stomach.

  “That…… that was more than painful,” she rasped, glaring at the other girl.

  “Was it?” the pale girl asked, seeming genuinely surprised. Ling Qi didn’t know if she was misreading the other girl’s cues though.

  “My apologies. You can feel the dantian now though, correct?”


  “I can,” Ling Qi admitted grudgingly.

  “You should drink your tea then meditate while it lasts,” Bai Meizhen said evenly. “Otherwise, it will have been for nothing.”


  Ling Qi slugged back the tea in her cup, grimacing at the gross, bitter flavor of it then moved to stand, loosely clutching the scroll in her hand. She was still irritated and wary that she was being messed with. Sun Liling’s words echoed in her thoughts. For now, she was determined to at least try and reach this ‘awakening’.

  It had been strange.

  Ling Qi had never liked sitting still for too long before, but after she had shut the thick door to the meditation room and sat down to practice breathing as the scroll instructed, she found that her mind did not wander nearly as much as she expected it would. Rather, she seemed to fall into the pattern that the scroll described with ease as if she had been doing it for years.

  When she felt she had it down, she removed one of the glimmering red stones from her pocket and held it in her hands clasped in front of her stomach. She focused on the warmth of the stone and the throbbing pain in her abdomen and cast away her thoughts.

  The heat was all that mattered. Her body, the cold stone room – none of it mattered. Just the pulse of pain in her belly and the heat in her hands.

  She was still empty.

  Painfully so. The heat of the stone was her only hope for filling the void she could now feel.

  She focused on her breathing and began to pull in time with her breath. The energy in the stone began to move, cresting and ebbing in time with her breath, until finally, it began to flow inwards. It trickled into the slowly fading knot of pain Bai Meizhen had given her.

  Slowly, she replaced that unpleasant sensation with a comfortable warmth. It was frustrating; something was blocking the energy from entering her body and much of the energy dispersed into the air instead of being absorbed.

  When she opened her eyes and found the room dark, she felt oddly refreshed. She didn’t think she had ‘awakened’ yet, but she could feel the warm steady pulse of the spiritual energy now. In contrast, the stone in her hand had turned gray and lifeless. Rubbing it between her fingers thoughtfully, she watched as it crumbled into dust.

  She stood and stretched then quietly left the room. She felt better than she had in years, and despite some initial setbacks…… she felt like she could do this.

  Threads 4

  “Breathe in. Breathe out. Feel the flow of the qi pulsing in time with your heartbeat,” Ling Qi repeated soothingly. She sat with her mother on the veranda overlooking the garden behind the home the Sect had provided. The early light of a new day shone over them.

  Her mother sat across from Ling Qi, eyes closed, her lined features scrunched in concentration. Faint red light shone from between her fingers, the only sign of the red spirit stone clasped in her hands.

  “You can do this,” Ling Qi murmured. “You

  doing it. You just need to keep trying.” She could feel qi, tiny shreds of it, sinking into her mother’s almost non-existent aura, and with each one, her mother felt a little bit more solid, a little bit more real, to Ling Qi. She couldn’t lie to herself. Ling Qi was pushing the older woman on this as much for herself as for Ling Qingge’s sake. She knew she didn’t want her mother to disappear again in a mere few decades.

  Ling Qi was so focused on encouraging her mother’s efforts that she almost missed the tiny disturbances in the air that indicated that someone else was stirring nearby. Ling Qi glanced to the side as the sliding screen that separated the interior from the veranda slid open a crack.

  “Good morning, Biyu,” she said cheerfully, meeting the little girl’s sleepy, curious gaze.

  “.…… Morning, sis-sis,” Biyu mumbled. Her hair was loose, and seeing her in her rumpled sleepwear, it struck Ling Qi again how small and fragile she was, even compared to her mortal mother.

  Ling Qi put on a smile and held out her hands. “Come here. It’s still cold, isn’t it? Why are you up so early?” While the temperature was no trouble for her, she could see the goosebumps on the little girl’s arms. The shawl and blankets her mother was wrapped in only made it more obvious.

  Biyu nodded and made an agreeing noise, toddling over to plop herself in Ling Qi’s lap. “Lights made the dreams run away,” she said blearily, leaning back against Ling Qi as she wrapped her arms around the little girl.

  “Dreams, huh,” Ling Qi said softly. she thought, just a little sharply.

  Sixiang replied in amusement.

  “It was fun,” Biyu said with a yawn. “It was warm, and there was a river! We were playing……” Her soft features scrunched up in thought. “Um…… I don’t remember.”


  “That’s fine,” Ling Qi tussled her sister’s hair. “Do you hear dream things when you’re awake, Biyu?”


  “Mhm,” the little girl said, nodding her head. “Momma said not to listen to the leafy voices. ‘Cause they’re mean.”


  “Mother is right,” Ling Qi agreed. Even if the little spirits of the forest weren’t necessarily malicious, they didn’t have a human’s best interests in mind. “If you ever hear one that’s really mean, even in your dreams, just tell Big Sister, and she’ll beat it up for you.”


  Sixiang drawled in her head.

  Biyu made a cheerful sound of agreement, wiggling a bit in Ling Qi’s lap as she began to wake up more. “Is Momma sleeping?” she asked.

  “Mother is practicing,” Ling Qi gently corrected.

  “Oh! Can Biyu play with the shiny rocks too?” she asked excitedly, looking up at Ling Qi with a shine in her eyes.

  “Not until you’re older,” Ling Qi said with a grin. “Those are grown-up toys.”


  The little girl puffed out her cheeks in annoyance, and Ling Qi ruffled her hair. She looked again at her mother. Mother would come out of her fugue soon; the light shining from between her hands was fading.

  “You’re doing well,” Ling Qi said as her mother opened her eyes. A brief look at the stone in her mother’s hands showed that it was not yet used up.

  Ling Qingge gave her a tired, weak smile. “I am beginning to grow more used to this,” she agreed quietly. She had not objected to being given more stones in some time; Ling Qi was glad that she had worn her down in that regard.

  “That’s the spirit,” Ling Qi said cheerfully. “Why don’t we head inside? I asked the housekeeper to put some breakfast on a little bit ago. I bet this one is hungry,” she added, poking her little sister in her pudgy cheek, drawing a giggling protest.

  Her mother’s expression was thoughtful, even as she nodded in agreement. Ling Qi stood smoothly and offered her mother a helping hand to do the same as they gathered the blankets and headed inside, preceded by a chattering Biyu.

  “Have you settled in well, Ling Qi?” her mother asked as they entered the dining room where three places were set out. It was a simple meal of congee with a sprinkling of rousong and a few strips of fried pastry placed on the side for dipping, along with warmed milk.

  It was simple fare, but Ling Qi knew her mother was uncomfortable with the richer sort, and Ling Qi hardly minded. For her, the food was essentially a snack regardless. “Yes, although I don’t intend to stay in one place for long,” she said brightly.

  “Ah, that is right. You change homes with your rank. How troublesome that must be,” her mother replied absently as she seated Biyu.

  “We only move when we change tiers. It would be too troublesome otherwise,” Ling Qi agreed. “But as I said, I don’t intend to stay in my current tier for long.”


  “My daughter is ambitious,” Ling Qingge said, fussing for a moment over Biyu’s disheveled look before silently deciding that it would be better to get her cleaned up and dressed after breakfast.

  “I have to keep up after all,” Ling Qi said, thinking of Cai Shenhua’s burning gaze. She held in her shudder, and her family didn’t notice. “How are things in the village?”


  “I have made…… a few acquaintances at the market,” Ling Qingge replied after a moment of hesitation, smoothing her plain gown as she sat down herself.

  “No one to play with,” Biyu grumbled around a mouthful of pastry. “Boys are dumb.”


  Ling Qi shot a look of amusement at her little sister. “I’m glad you’re settling in. We’ll be here for a couple years yet.”


  The next few moments passed in companionable silence.

  “Ling Qi, might I ask of you something?” her mother asked, surprising Ling Qi.

  “Of course,” Ling Qi replied, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically given the way her little sister looked up from her meal, startled, a spot of congee on her cheek. Even her mother looked taken back. Too enthusiastic indeed.

  “I had hoped that you might allow me authority over the household budget. The Argent Peak Sect handles things well, of course, but……”


  Ling Qi had left all of that to the Sect staff who had been assigned to the house, wanting her mother to be able to live without worries, but she understood now that having everything taken care of may have been overdoing it. “I will put in notice for it,” she said agreeably. “I didn’t want you to have to work, but I understand.”


  “Thank you, Ling Qi,” her mother said tentatively. Biyu returned to her breakfast, losing interest in the conversation again.

  Sixiang commented absently.

  “There’s something else though,” Ling Qi said, eyeing her mother’s expression and ignoring her spirit.

  “You are perceptive,” Ling Qingge replied with a self-deprecating smile, her eyes resting on the table. “It is a selfish request, but…… do you think it may be possible that I might hire some acquaintances from Tonghou? I assure you, they are all good young ladies whose families merely fell into misfortune. The Sect staff will not follow us after all, and it is important that you have a proper household……”


  Ling Qi leaned back in her seat, understanding why her mother called this a selfish request. The people she referred to were obviously ones who had shared her profession. Ling Qi was no expert at noble politics, but even she could see that something like this could be damaging to her reputation.

  Ling Qi hesitated. She could do it, she knew. She had enough credit with Cai Renxiang that something like this would hardly cause the heiress to reprimand her, but was it worth making her family’s life more difficult?

  Ling Qi disliked the idea of bringing even minor harm to her family for the sake of strangers. But while they were strangers to her, they were not to her mother. Could she who clung to her friends so tightly rightly chastise her mother for doing the same? She was hardly in a position to judge their character preemptively. It was pure luck that she herself was not still scrabbling in the streets of Tonghou.

  That was the trouble with forming connections with others, Ling Qi thought. Each bond tied her to a wider network still.

  Sixiang teased.

  Ling Qi thought, giving her spirit the mental equivalent of an annoyed swat. “You’re going to have to make it clear that this isn’t going to be easy,” she said aloud. “We’ll be heading to the border in a couple years, you know?”


  “I am aware,” her mother replied. “Yet, my daughter, can you say that you would not have taken that chance?”


  That was fair, Ling Qi thought, glancing at Biyu as the little girl looked back and forth between them, not quite comprehending the serious atmosphere that had descended. “I won’t condescend to you about responsibilities, Mother,” she said finally. “I know you understand.”


  She wasn’t concerned about her mother’s management skills. Ling Qingge had always been good at squeezing out the full value of every copper penny in their little household. This was a bigger project, but having learned more of her mother’s background, she was certain that she had education in such matters.

  “I’ll make the arrangements,” she said.

  “Thank you, Ling Qi,” her mother said, bowing her head.

  “None of that,” Ling Qi said uncomfortably. “Are you thinking of anyone I know?” she asked curiously.

  “I doubt you would recall names,” Ling Qingge replied with a small smile, raising her head. “That was never your strong suit.”


  Sixiang drawled.

  Ling Qi coughed into her hand self-consciously. “.…… Perhaps. In any case, I will take care of the background work. I will leave the letter writing to you.”


  Ling Qi could think of a few ways to spin things and give the move some public respectability. She would run them by Cai Renxiang later as well, but for now, she was just glad to see the content expression on her mother’s face.

  She spent the rest of the morning with her family, chatting with her mother, reading to Biyu, and otherwise allowing herself a short time of relaxation. Ling Qi could not afford to do so too often, but she remembered Elder Su’s lessons. It didn’t do to lose oneself entirely in cultivation.

  ***

  As morning turned into afternoon, Ling Qi took her leave. She had another appointment to keep. Her path took her well outside the village to a travelers’ inn that sat a few kilometers down the road that led further into the province.

  Meizhen wanted to avoid disturbing the village, Ling Qi thought wryly as she entered. She hoped her friend’s fine control caught up to the raw power she had cultivated into her domain soon. The inside of the inn was homely, but well kept, with polished wooden floors and undamaged furniture.

  She paid her respects to the innkeeper, a wizened stick of a man at the peak of the second realm with a full white beard and many, many scars. From there, she received directions up to the room that her friend was currently occupying. It wasn’t hard to find, being one of only two rooms on the third floor. The formation work that wound around the stairwell, absorbing spiritual energy from above, was rather professionally done. She couldn’t so much as sense a hint of her friend’s aura until she reached the third floor.

  Taking a deep breath, Ling Qi stepped up to the closed door, loosened her grip on her own aura to ensure that Meizhen could sense her, and knocked. She could feel a second presence inside, but her friend’s aura rather overwhelmed it, preventing her from getting a feel for this “cousin” just yet.

  “Ling Qi, you may enter,” she heard Meizhen call from the other side of the door. Ling Qi’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She had expected her friend to be more stiffly formal with one of her family present.

  Still, she opened the door and stepped inside the meeting room without hesitation. The room was windowless and lit by a series of fireless lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Its center was dominated by a heavy polished table surrounded by nearly a dozen chairs. Clearly, this was a room meant for larger meetings.

  The ones she had come to meet rose from their seats to greet her, and Ling Qi gave Bai Meizhen a polite bow of greeting before turning her gaze to the other person present. This new Bai was…… different.

  Where Bai Meizhen was a head shorter than her and the very picture of imperial grace and beauty, outside of her odd coloration, this girl was whipcord thin and almost tall enough to look her directly in the eye. Her features were narrow and had a subtly inhuman cast. Her brows were hairless with a ridge of fine black scales taking their place, and her lips had a faint blue tinge. Less obvious signs included the precise shape of her eyes and contours of cheekbones, all of which leant the other Bai an air of inhumanness. Ling Qi was quite sure that she would have found it unsettling a year ago.

  Like Meizhen’s, the other Bai wore her hair long, but her hair was a silky black and had been gathered into a number of braids, two hanging in front of her ears and the third making a long tail that reached her lower back. Ling Qi could see the metal glinting among the braided strands. Some kind of weapon, perhaps?

  The other Bai’s gown was, unsurprisingly, one of the standard Argent uniforms, although the underlayer of the gown was black. The girl’s expression was studiously neutral, and she was of the early second realm. Ling Qi could tell that the girl was studying her intensely.

  She offered the second Bai a somewhat shallower bow and smiled as she shut the door behind her. “Bai Meizhen, thank you very much for your invitation.” She followed her friend’s lead, and sure enough, the younger Bai bristled, a flash of irritation crossing her bright yellow eyes.

  “Ling Qi, I am very glad you came,” Bai Meizhen replied evenly. “May I introduce my cousin, Xiao Fen?”


  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” Xiao Fen said stiffly.

  “I am pleased to meet you as well,” Ling Qi said. If she had to compare the two Bai, Bai Meizhen was a towering serpent, hood unfurled, radiating fear and majesty, while this girl was a tightly coiled viper, hissing in furious warning at the human whose foot had just landed in its burrow.

  “Have a seat. I have arranged for drinks to be brought shortly,” Bai Meizhen said, paying no mind to their mutual staring contest.

  Ling Qi nodded politely as they moved to take their seats. “I am curious. How are you cousins if you do not share a name?” That might have been mean, she supposed, given the way the younger girl nearly twitched.

  “We do not follow imperial convention in that regard,” Bai Meizhen answered. “The eight branches of the Bai clan are as one. We do not cast them off as separate clans. Her full name would be Bai Xiao Fen. I consider her my cousin regardless.”


  “You do me honor,” the other girl murmured, briefly taking her eyes off of Ling Qi. The look she gave Meizhen was difficult to read, but Ling Qi found herself relaxing a little. Whatever this girl was, she didn’t hold any ill will toward Meizhen.