Ling Qi’s week only grew busier as time went on. She had managed to get Meizhen to agree to train with her, but she almost immediately regretted it. The other girl was absolutely pitiless in training, pushing her to the edge of her ability to keep improving her movement art. Ling Qi found herself coming up short, unable to fully sheath her body in dark-aligned qi as the next step demanded.

  The fact that she had asked Meizhen to help her train her mental defenses just made the spars worse. Several times, Ling Qi had been nearly reduced to tears by Bai Meizhen’s powerful, fear-inducing techniques, cracking her newfound confidence.

  Meizhen had somewhat awkwardly offered her salves to heal the wounds inflicted during their training sessions, but when Ling Qi found herself having a hard time trying not to flinch in the other girl’s presence, she couldn’t help but wonder if the training was really worth it. Meizhen’s stiff expression and posture in the aftermath seemed to display similar thoughts on her part.

  Ling Qi’s cultivation at the vent was more relaxing, the simple steady feeling of progress as her spirit expanded to catch up with her physique. Her practice with Suyin also went well; the other girl had improved a great deal over the previous weeks and had now reached Late Gold. Su Ling, on the other hand, had withdrawn into the woods this week to attempt her breakthrough into Yellow Soul.

  Despite Suyin’s focus on cultivation, it had been pretty trivial to convince Li Suyin to continue studying formations with her, which lead to them breaking off training a bit early to settle in for a study session at the pair’s cave home.

  “Next week then?” Ling Qi asked casually as she found a seat in the cluttered cave, withdrawing the stack of copied notes she had made from some of the archive texts in preparation for this. “I’ve noticed that you stopped cultivating your spirit this week.”


  Li Suyin blinked, pausing before nodding sheepishly and finding her own seat at the battered table the pair had found to furnish their cave. “Ah, yes. I’ve actually begun already. One more push should do it. I just wanted to master the next stage of my new art before I fully broke through.”


  “I’m happy for you,” Ling Qi said brightly, examining her friend’s face. “What do you want to do after you’ve kicked that girl’s ass?”


  Li Suyin looked briefly uncomfortable at the use of vulgar language but shrugged awkwardly. “I will keep trying to grow stronger I suppose,” she said with uncertainty. “That is what cultivators are meant to do, right?”


  “Well, yeah,” Ling Qi said, paging through her scribbled copies to search for the ones which should have been on top; the pages had gotten jumbled up in her ring somehow. “What do you want to do though? Are you going to try for the end of year tournament? If you try, you can probably be in late second realm by the end of the year.”


  “Ah, I don’t think so. I could never keep up with you, let alone the others at the top.” Li Suyin fidgeted with her sleeves. “What do you think I should do, Ling Qi?”


  Ling Qi did her best not to frown. “I think you should do what makes you happy. Your cultivation should be about the path

  want to walk,” she said, stressing her words. “Anything else is just going to hinder you. If you really still don’t know, you might not want to break through yet.”


  “O-oh,” Li Suyin replied, sounding a little discouraged. “I suppose I will need to think on it then. Um – Anyway, which part did you want my help with?”


  Ling Qi decided to let it lie for the moment and slid a page across the table to Li Suyin. “This part right here, talking about the linking and layering of characters. Can you try to explain more clearly?”


  Li Suyin furrowed her brows, squinting at the markings on the paper. “Ah, just a moment. I can hardly make out the hanzi on this,” she murmured in consternation.

  “Ah-ha, I don’t really have much practice with my calligraphy,” Ling Qi admitted with a slightly sheepish laugh. She probably could have done a decent job if she had slowed down, but she had been in a hurry too.

  Li Suyin stilled, and Ling Qi started to worry that she had said something wrong.

  “.…… You shouldn’t be practicing formations if you aren’t in practice with your brush.” Ling Qi blinked as the one-eyed girl actually scolded her. “It’s dangerous. Do you know what could happen if you mix up your strokes like this with formations characters?” Li Suyin asked, gesturing to some of the more ill-formed characters on the page.

  “It won’t work?” Ling Qi responded, not entirely sure where the heat in her friend’s voice had come from.

  “It could explode, damage your channels with the qi backlash, or plenty of other bad things!” Li Suyin exclaimed. “It’s very important not to be lax about your brushwork. You could get hurt badly otherwise!”


  Well, thus far, Ling Qi’s focus had been on simply identifying and possibly breaking formations, not actually creating them, barring the simple bit of utility work on her kiln.

  “Sorry,” she said, holding up her hands defensively. “I’ll be more careful in the future.” She thought Li Suyin was blowing problems out of proportion, but it was nice to see her speaking up so Ling Qi kept those thoughts to herself. “So, the passage?”


  Li Suyin continued to look at her sternly but then flushed, hunching her shoulders and looking down. “U-um, right. My apologies for getting heated. The meaning of this passage is quite simple. You just have to……”


  Ling Qi rested her chin on her palm, following her friend’s more concise explanation. Formations were a bit of a pain, but she felt like it would be a good skill to have in the future. Li Suyin was pretty good at explaining things so they worked through her notes pretty easily over the course of the next few days.

  She even managed to learn the basics of a few common anti theft arrays. The Alarm and Thieves’ Bane formations weren’t too useful for her personally, but they did give her an idea of what to expect if she ever found herself having to find her way past security formations, as well as give her a foundation to learn more useful formations.

  In the end, Ling Qi felt that something more important had been accomplished. She had let Li Suyin take the lead and act as the teacher in their studies, and it seemed to have restored some of the girl’s self-confidence. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but when she left their last study session for the week, she felt like Li Suyin’s posture and body language had improved significantly.

  “Ling Qi.” Li Suyin’s words shook her from her thoughts and caused her to look over her shoulder, pausing on her way out of Li Suyin and Su Ling’s shared abode. “I know I haven’t been…… I have not been the best friend, and I apologize for that,” Li Suyin said, bowing her head.

  Ling Qi gave her an incredulous look. “Li Suyin, you haven’t done anything wrong. If anything, I should be thanking you,” she said with slight frustration, turning to face the other girl.

  “I have been very needy,” Li Suyin plowed on, more firmly than Ling Qi was used to, seemingly ignoring her interjection. “I am glad that you were willing to support me, but I – I do need to learn to stand on my own. So, I want you to promise that when I challenge that girl, you won’t interfere, even if I lose.”


  Ling Qi scowled at her friend’s words but grudgingly nodded. “That’s – I can do that. I still want to be there in case she tries something dirty though.”


  “That is fine,” Li Suyin replied, smiling slightly. “And when this is over, I would like to take the exam to join the Medicine Hall as an apprentice.”


  What could she do but smile back? Ling Qi was still worried for her friend, but it seemed Li Suyin had found her path again.

  With that weight no longer pressing down on her, Ling Qi found her cultivation of Eight Phase Ceremony proceeding smoothly. Soon, she found herself breathing in the celestial energies, letting it mingle with the qi in her dantian. It was difficult to process the more diffuse energy at first, but she could feel the qi cycling in and out of her core beginning to take on the more ephemeral qualities of lunar qi. If her Argent Foundation, which had firmly settled in her bones and muscles, was the ‘earth’ of her cultivation, then the light, misty qi formed by the cultivation of the Ceremony would be the sky, floating free above her denser qi.

  There was something missing though, a part of the information in the jade slip that remained a cipher to her. Even that was progress though as before her mastery of this first phase, she hadn’t even been able to perceive that she was missing something. Ling Qi felt confident that she would get it with time.

  Leaving aside the mystery of Eight Phase Ceremony, she still had other things that needed to be done. First, her egg needed tending. It had shifted a few times in the last week, the green veins pulsing as it drank in the heat. Once she had adjusted the fire for the egg, Cai’s mission beckoned.

  Ling Qi had learned more about the attacker’s patterns by speaking to previous victims and those who had found them in the aftermath. It was weird having people treat her as if she had authority; she even recognized a handful as girls who had laughed behind their hands at her when she had been weaker, but now, they spoke with wary respect. Ling Qi had known things had changed, but it was her first time having the change put so obviously in front of her face……

  It seemed the attacker only struck in the outermost two streets and on the road leading into the residential area. It also only struck after midnight and only if the target was alone. Everything else was as Cai said. The attacker struck from out of sight and took its victim down with a single paralyzing blow. The attacker was either using their fists or a blunt weapon because the victims had no cuts or puncture wounds. A couple of the ones she spoke to noted something else that Cai hadn’t mentioned though. They remembered hearing flute music before they blacked out.

  There was little detail to be had further than that so Ling Qi began to plan to take the attacker down. They had struck three nights ago; it was about time for an ambush to happen again. She managed to convince a friend of a victim to play bait for her. She would shadow the girl as she arrived home ‘running late’ from training.

  Ling Qi was confident that no one would see her. She had been good at sneaking before becoming a cultivator; now, she could practically become one with the shadows, flitting from one piece of cover to another with nary a sound as little more than a blur. She followed the girl she had asked to be her bait home from training, silent and out of sight, remaining tense and ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  It was a dark night with the narrow sliver of the moon concealed by clouds, but that didn’t affect Ling Qi, who saw every rustle in the trees lining the path with perfect clarity. Still, it was nerve-wracking, trailing the girl’s slow trudge back toward her house, and Ling Qi nearly jumped out every time a bird took off from the trees.

  It paid off in the end though. As the girl was approaching the top of the slope that would lead down into the residential area, Ling Qi spotted something amiss. A shift in the stone ridge on the right side of the path preceded a tall, dark figure seeming to melt out of the rock. It was shrouded from head to toe in dark clothes, including a face-concealing veil, but Ling Qi saw a long, dark braid of hair trailing behind the figure as it rushed the victim, flickering and vanishing from one step to the next.

  Ling Qi was ready, and one of her knives flashed out from her hiding place in a streak of light. It struck home, stabbing into the attacker’s lower back and causing the figure to stumble and let out a feminine gasp of pain. The noise was enough for her bait to spin around, spot the figure, and let out an alarmed shriek before dashing off toward the houses.

  She couldn’t blame the girl really, and frankly, she was glad to keep potential complications to a minimum. Ling Qi drew her flute and moved cautiously forward, only to pause as the figure did the same. The figure straightened up with an instrument in her hands and called forth a mist with the first notes played.

  Ling Qi narrowed her eyes in consternation. The tune was light and reedy and worst of all, slightly off-key. It also wasn’t her Melody, and although the mist was thick and difficult to see through, it was easily engulfed by her own mist.

  The figure seemed confused and hesitant as Diapason took hold, huddled in her own pocket of mist, and Ling Qi noted with some alarm that despite the knife in her back, the figure wasn’t bleeding. On instinct, she activated Argent Mirror, qi flooding into her eyes as she sought the truth of what lay before her. Argent Mirror’s Discerning Gaze seemed to have no effect though, aside from letting her see clearly though the enemy’s mist.

  The figure turned and rushed away from her, clearly seeking escape, but the attempt was futile. Ling Qi watched as the attacker was turned around at the edge of the mist. This was…… not impressive.

  Ling Qi lowered her flute, and another knife flew from her hand, this time striking the back of the target’s knee, causing her to crumble to the ground. Even a weaker cultivator should have more tricks than this. She stalked forward through the mist until she stood over the huddled figure on the ground. Her target was tall and thin and was struggling to get up, but the movements seemed jerky and uneven. Ling Qi was beginning to get a bad feeling as she saw some sort of fine black dust leaking from the target’s wounds.

  “Stop and surrender. Now,” Ling Qi commanded flatly, voice distorted oddly from the mist. “Or the next one takes out your other leg.”


  Unsurprisingly, the figure did not stop, managing to shakily regain its feet in an attempt to run. Ling Qi made good on her promise, and the target crashed to the ground again, twitching weirdly. Ling Qi strode over and reached down, snatching away the girl’s – no, the thing’s – veil. It was as she expected given the thing’s fighting style. She looked down at her own face, locked in a grimace of pain, eyes blank and glassy.

  The thing jerked, and its hand rose, crackling with electric qi, but Ling Qi batted the slow movement aside and drove her palm into her doppelganger’s throat. It twitched once more and let out a soft hissing sound before it crumbled. Literally. The facsimile of her appearance collapsed into a mound of black earth and dust, and laying half-buried in the center of the mound was an eerie little china doll with a cartoonish caricature of her face painted on its ceramic visage.

  Ling Qi wasn’t happy at all. Someone had tried to set her up. She picked the thing up and put it in her storage ring, dusting her hands off as she stood up. It seemed she owed Cai Renxiang a visit.

  The other girl’s appearance was as impeccable as ever despite the late hour that Ling Qi made her visit, but her expression grew stony as Ling Qi explained what had happened and showed her the doll. Ling Qi winced as one of its legs cracked and fell to shatter on the stone tiles of the path in Cai Renxiang’s front garden.

  “Unacceptable,” the heiress’ voice cut through the quiet night air like a whip as she glared at the doll in Ling Qi’s hands. “It seems some foolish person intended to use my justice for their own ends.” Cai Renxiang sounded more than unhappy at that fact.

  “I can’t say I’m happy to have my face stolen either,” Ling Qi said stiffly, feeling more than a little irritated herself. “I want to know who did this,” she added, deference forgotten.

  Cai Renxiang looked up, expression stern and light glimmering in a corona behind her head. “As do I. You have my word that this will be investigated. Thoroughly. If I may?” she asked, gesturing to the doll. Ling Qi handed it over, wanting nothing to do with the creepy thing. “You have done well. I will have you informed when the culprit is found.”


  Ling Qi nodded, accepting the small handful of glittering stones in payment before leaving the heiress’ home. She was certainly glad that she hadn’t ignored Cai’s request. While the doll hadn’t been able to escape her, she suspected that it was never intended for actual combat. It would have been all too easy for the doll to allow a victim to catch sight of its face by ‘accident’ with time, and then she would have been in a tight spot.

  It seemed she would need to watch her back in coming weeks.

  Threads 61-Dressmaker 1

  Now that she had settled into her routine, Ling Qi began each morning at her family’s home, helping her mother take the first fitful steps with a cultivation art. Following that, she lingered long enough to have breakfast with her mother and sister, though she rarely had more than a few bites. Then it was time for a spot of private cultivation working on her arts, and after, it was either off to the lessons she had earned from the Sect, cultivating her body and spirit under the watch of an elder, or off to do military exercises with Senior Brother Liao Zhu or with her whole scouting cadre under Senior Sister Guan Zhi.

  She set aside time in the evenings to keep up with her friends, whether it was taking tea with Meizhen, window shopping with Xiulan, or having a spar with Shen Hu. Then there was some time spent with Zhengui and Hanyi in relaxation and a little cultivation. Once the sun began to dip under the horizon, Ling Qi began her cultivation in earnest.

  Having reached the temporary plateau of green foundation, she finally found time to really work on her cultivation arts. Mastering Eight Phase Ceremony was a simple matter. The final phase was simply a refinement of what had come before and a final integration of its exercises into her breathing and circulation habits. With this mastery, she would now be able to begin cultivating Songseeker’s Ceremony, the successor art that had been developed with the aid of the Grinning, Hidden, and Dreaming Moons.

  Argent Genesis, the Sect’s cultivation art, took a little more effort. However, it was a very refined art, and she had to marvel at how easy it was to pick up. Cultivating the argent qi of the vent went simply and smoothly, and the lessons on spirit bonds contained in the art allowed her to make her connections with Zhengui, Hanyi, and Sixiang much more efficient. She swiftly mastered level after level, reaching the penultimate stage, the fifth day, of the art in only a week.

  Her other goal for the month, cultivating an art she had dug out from the archive some time ago, was helped along by her scouting duties. Given her focus on preparing for the New Year’s Tournament last year and her rank challenges this year, she had neglected her more subtle abilities in favor of combat, but she was determined to change that. Ephemeral Night’s Memory was not an art of incredible potency and so, she swiftly cultivated to third fading in that art, but its techniques, which allowed for the manipulation of short term memory to improve her ability to pass unseen, were a good place to start until she could begin cultivating the wind thief art she had received from the Grinning Moon. It would also help her work on her ability to avoid spiritual attacks.

  It helped that Liao Zhu praised her efforts in that direction and freely gave pointers while they were together. Apparently, he had cultivated the art himself when he was her age, though he had long since developed his own personal variant.

  As the weeks passed and the time to begin working with Cai Renxiang on planning the next gathering came, Ling Qi entered her Sect lessons only to halt in surprise at the entrance to the lesson hall.

  “That will be quite enough gawking, girl. Take your seat. You are nearly late as it is,” Elder Jiao said dismissively, waving toward one of the empty seats in the crowded hall. Elder Jiao was seated on a hovering seat cushion behind the lecturer’s podium, one leg crossed over the other. He wore bright lilac robes patterned with horribly clashing geometric patterns around the hems. He hadn’t bothered with a cap, leaving his bald grey scalp bare. Below him, his shadow pooled like spilled ink.

  Ling Qi hurriedly bowed to the old man, even as she restrained the urge to furtively glance around. Her senses had grown greatly since she had seen Elder Jiao last, and now, she felt her hair prickling on the back of her neck as she felt and half-saw the eyes lurking in every shadow and patch of darkness in the chamber, watching and judging. He was doing it on purpose, of course; there was no way a cultivator of his skill couldn’t hide his presence better.

  As the last few minutes of the hour ticked away, Ling Qi glanced around at the others in the room, disciples who had earned intermediate lessons all. No one seemed to know what was going on. Elder Heng was the usual teacher for these lessons. Before she could do more than consider the implications however, the door to the hall snapped shut with a bang.

  “To answer the obvious question,” Elder Jiao began, “a short time ago, Elder Heng discovered the beginnings of serious degradation in his lower dantian. He will be withdrawing from public life to make his preparations for passing on. As such, I will be handling his lessons for a time. The Sect will make the proper announcements later today.”


  Ling Qi stared. It wasn’t like she had known the other elder well, and she was obviously aware that he was very old, but it still felt unsettling to be reminded that whatever they might call themselves, they weren’t really immortal. There was a faint susurrus of sound from the rest of the class, but Elder Jiao cut it off with a flick of his sleeve. Literally. The noise ceased utterly with the motion of his hand.

  “The time for paying your respects will come later. For now, we have a lesson. Today’s topic is a rather important one too. Namely, we will cover the path that lies ahead of you all should you continue to walk the road of cultivation. You all stand at the third or fourth stages of the third realm. An impressive feat.” Elder Jiao managed to make the accomplishment sound like it wasn’t impressive at all. “However, you will soon reach the point where the vast majority of even those who have great talent stumble and fail, and the obstacles will only grow higher. Your breakthroughs have thus far risked pain and setbacks, but the higher realms do not exact so lowly a price. The third realm is the last which can be achieved with effort and time alone, but it still has its own tribulations.”


  Ling Qi thought back to her harrowing escape from her mentor’s power as it went mad and turned against her will and the insight that had carried her through the trial.

  Elder Jiao let out an amused chuckle as he looked out over the sea of worried faces. “Hah, I see my words bring to mind pleasant memories indeed. Whatever tribulations you have faced, they are only the beginning. You will have to learn and master the modification and creation of arts, and in doing so, you will prepare yourself to begin moving on from such crutches. To step beyond the framing stage, you will face the most lethal and difficult trial. You will forge your childish and ill formed ways into a solid core and complete the evolution of your lower dantian, which will serve to anchor your identity as you ascend the highest realms.” He favored them with an amused grin. “And even then, many who claw their way to the peak of the third realm will fail, and in their failure, cripple their cultivation. As I previously mentioned, the higher realms are not so forgiving as the lower ones. To face your fourth realm breakthrough and the opening of your middle dantian without any but the utmost of preparations is to seek death.”


  Ling Qi glanced around nervously, an obvious question rising in her mind but hoping someone else would work up the nerve to interrupt. Thankfully, that was unnecessary.

  “I see the question in your minds, those of you with lesser backgrounds. For the vast majority of cultivators, only the lower dantian is relevant, and so, in common parlance, the dantian is simply referred to in the singular. You, however, are among those for whom the other dantians may be relevant. The middle dantian,” he said, tapping a spindly finger against his chest, “is opened in the fourth realm and acts as a forge to refine your qi into a purer form known as shen. You will sever your mortal vulnerabilities one by one, and their vital functions will be incorporated into the middle dantian as energy constructs referred to as pearls.” Elder Jiao then raised his hand, tapping once on his own forehead, directly between his eyes. “There is also the upper dantian. This is almost certainly irrelevant to all of you. Only those who rise to the violet realm need concern themselves with that.”


  He clapped his hands. “However, even the middle dantian is a distant concern to all of you. Should you rise high enough that it is a concern, you will no doubt have earned enough Sect Points to request private lessons on the matter. Today, we focus on the portion of third realm cultivation which can be taught, the customization and creation of arts. By now, you will have begun to discern the true patterns in the formations of qi which the layman refers to as techniques, and so……”


  Ling Qi leaned forward in her seat, taking in the elder’s words. There was a lot she still didn’t know, but that just meant that she needed to work harder. It seemed that she would soon have to start considering which of her arts she wanted to refine.

  Elder Jiao’s lessons proved informative, and Ling Qi was determined to push herself as far as she could for her own sake, as well as for the sake of her family and even her liege. But she didn’t want to exhaust herself too much because she was scheduled for another tour with her scouting cadre next month. As the month wound to a close, Ling Qi decided to join Bai Meizhen and Cai Renxiang for a private gathering that she had been invited to.

  ***

  Ling Qi grimaced in concentration as she wove through the storm of twisting, writhing ribbons of steel that sang through the air. Hungry strands of metal stained a deep toxic purple tore through the flickering shadow images left in her wake. With utmost care, she danced through the boiling pools that pitted the ground, bubbling not with heat but toxicity, as they devoured the earth and stone beneath her feet.

  Only her masterful skill allowed her melody to be heard over the pounding roar of the venomous rain. Despite the rain, her mist hung stubbornly in the air, thick and dark, swirling in eddies kicked up by the roaring rain. The black phantasms within howled and circled her enemy, ready to descend at her mark.

  Her opponent rose high before her, staring down imperiously from the shadows of her liquid mantle, suspended three meters in the air on coils of black water. Ling Qi faced her, flute raised, and she glowed like an emerald beacon, the full suite of techniques from Thousand Rings Fortress enough to allow her to stand tall even under the toxic rain.

  Then Meizhen’s right hand twitched, and ribbons of metal screamed as they caught and deflected Ling Qi’s singing blade and flung it away. At the same time, Ling Qi bent low, allowing the silvery edge of Meizhen’s domain weapon to pass through the air above her with a muffled boom, carried on the leading edge of a fan of water that carved a meters-deep cut into the wall of the arena behind her, and exploded into motion, soaring over the lake that churned beneath Meizhen, growing with every drop of rain that fell.

  Through her flute, she sang, and falling curtains of rain shattered as she flew through their newly solid forms. Meizhen’s free hand rose in warding as her refrain reached its crescendo, and black water froze and shattered, leaving red ice burns across her friend’s palm. Slashing ribbons carved through her verdant armor in response, but Ling Qi dissolved her form before they could touch flesh, passing through the binding coils like a shadow.

  Before she could strike again, Meizhen’s golden eyes flashed, and Ling Qi faltered, her concentration scattered as what felt like a titanic hammer of raw terror smashed into her. Paralyzed for a fraction of a second, she failed to raise a defense as a tail of black water smashed into her chest and sent her flying backward to crater the packed dirt of the arena floor. She grimaced as she stood, still feeling a little shaky as she shook off the pain of the metaphysical bludgeon Meizhen had smashed her over the head with.

  Sixiang muttered.

  Ling Qi chuckled as she raised her hands in surrender. There was no point in pushing further than this in a light spar, and they were short on time regardless. Despite the black clouded sky and churning mist, she could still sense the qi of the sun above. It was getting late. “Let’s call it here!” she called through the rain.

  The specter of terror and abyssal water that loomed above her paused, and the lashing metal ribbons slowed their dance. “Hm, yes, it seems that we allowed ourselves to be carried away.” Bai Meizhen’s cool voice echoed strangely from under her mantle, but a moment later, the toxic rain began to clear, and her watery coils began to dissolve, letting the pale girl drift slowly down.

  Ling Qi cut off the flow of qi to her mist as well, and the training field began to clear, a wide circle of packed earth encircled by sturdy qi-enhanced stone. Pools of sizzling poison pitted the field, and deep gouges and shattered stones marked the walls. “Really, though,” Ling Qi huffed. “Who gave you the idea to cultivate such an unfair art?”


  Meizhen gave her a bland look as she alighted on the surface of the largest pool, the one that formed beneath her. Her friend swiftly glided across the surface and stepped soundlessly onto the muddy earth. “I could not imagine,” she replied serenely. “An idle whim, I suppose.”


  Ling Qi cracked a grin and laughed. “Seriously, it seems like I really can’t catch up, no matter what I do.”


  Bai Meizhen raised her eyebrow. “Ling Qi, fishing for praise does not become you. That you are keeping pace with me is absurd enough given the resources that have been made available to me.”


  Ling Qi stretched her arms overhead. She was fine physically, but her whole spirit felt sore after that last hit. “Hah, sorry,” she breathed out. “Should we head on to lady Cai’s then?”


  “I believe so,” Meizhen replied, gracefully picking her way through the ruined field. As she passed by, something caught Ling Qi’s eye.

  “That reminds me, why’d you decide to change your hair?” Ling Qi asked curiously as she turned to follow her friend out. Meizhen’s hair had always been very long, reaching down to her hips after the girl’s third realm breakthrough, but she had worn it loose before. Now, starting at her shoulders, the girl’s white locks were bound by a pale blue ribbon of silk. It was hardly the most fanciful hairstyle she had seen, but it was a change all the same from her conservative friend.

  Bai Meizhen glanced back at her as she caught up. “The ribbon was a gift. It seemed wasteful not to make use of it.”


  “Something from your family?” Ling Qi asked. She had noticed the faint white stitching picking out formation characters on the ribbon, so it was obviously a talisman.

  The other girl paused, but it was so brief that Ling Qi barely noticed it. “No, it was from Bao Qingling. She wished to express gratitude for my collaboration on her projects.”


  “Ah, that silk thing you were talking about,” Ling Qi mused. Out of the corner of her eye, she studied her friend. “What does it do?”


  “It soaks in and compresses qi circulated within my poison meridians into a more potent form. By expending the refined qi, I am able to enhance certain techniques significantly,” Bai Meizhen explained. “It is inferior to the family artifacts which she is attempting to replicate, but the effort is impressive all the same.”


  “I don’t doubt it,” Ling Qi said. “I’m surprised you got her talking to you in the first place though. How did that happen?”


  Meizhen gave her a small frown as they left the training field, even as the air shimmered under the cloak of qi that kept their conversation private. “I found her rather similar to you if I am to be honest. She is not unwilling to speak on technical topics, but she does not bother hiding her disinterest in less material subjects.”


  Ling Qi winced, not sure how she should take that. Was she really that bad?

  “You’re more subtle, and better at being nice about it,” Sixiang chuckled.

  “As the muse said,” Bai Meizhen said with a faint twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

  “Yeah, yeah, go ahead and laugh it up. I’ll be the life of the party before you know it,” Ling Qi said with an affronted sniff.

  “How horrifying the prospect must be for you,” Bai Meizhen replied blandly. Ling Qi poked her irritably in the side and had her hand swatted away for her trouble.

  Ling Qi grumbled good naturedly as they made their way up the mountain toward Cai Renxiang’s current residence. However, she wasn’t done. “So, are you going to keep finding reasons to meet with her?”


  Her friend’s graceful stride paused almost imperceptibly again. “If time allows, I suppose. I believe we find each other’s company agreeable. Why do you ask?”


  Ling Qi thought about the question, trying to choose her words carefully. “I know you pretty well, I think, and I’m glad you’re making more friends. I guess……” She trailed off, not sure how to say it. Initial incident aside, she had not handled Meizhen’s interest well last year. “I’m just not sure what you’re looking for.”


  “I do not know myself,” Meizhen answered lowly. “It is not exactly a subject on which I can seek help.”


  “Nothing in the vaunted Bai archives addressing matters of the heart?” Ling Qi joked awkwardly, feeling a little sorry that she had pushed the conversation in this direction.

  “Hmph, you joke, but the answers are not pleasing,” Bai Meizhen grumbled. “Looking back on childhood memories with further context, I am quite sure that the most common answer is to make use of one’s Xiao clan companion.”


  Ling Qi did her best to keep a blank expression. Things were now veering wildly out of her comfort zone. Why had she done this again?

  Sixiang offered wryly.

  “Not what you’re looking for, I take it,” Ling Qi finally noted.

  “Xiao Fen’s devotion is admirable, but absolutely not,” Meizhen agreed. “I do not know what I want, but it is not that.”


  “I’m sorry that I can’t help,” Ling Qi apologized. “So, Bao Qingling? Why her?”


  “We share a certain interest in the less medicinal branches of alchemy, and I find her acerbic nature somewhat endearing. And, well……” Meizhen trailed off awkwardly, glancing at Ling Qi.

  Right. Apparently, tall and gangly was a type someone could have, Ling Qi thought wryly. “I wish you good luck, that’s for sure.” She just hoped Meizhen didn’t get hurt again. Still, it struck her then that Bai Meizhen was swiftly becoming better at dealing with such feelings than she was. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  “Thank you, but I think one has to know the outcome they desire before one can know whether a turn of fortune is good or bad,” Bai Meizhen said dryly. “But we are almost there, so perhaps this conversation is best set aside for now.”