“We each get something for our victory,” Ling Qi decided, casting a glance at Meizhen and Chu Song as she and Su Ling helped Li Suyin stand. Her friend’s arm was still twisted badly, and Ling Qi could see a massive bruise forming across her side through the rips in her gown. Su Ling was less badly off, being in a similar condition to Ling Qi save that she lacked the benefit of clothing that repaired itself.

  Ling Qi could feel the deep ache that she had come to learn meant that she probably had at least a slight crack in her ribs, but it felt distant compared to how such a wound had felt as a mortal. “Are you alright, Li Suyin?” she asked, looking at her most wounded friend.

  “I will be fine,” the one-eyed girl responded with a wince as her broken arm shifted. She leaned more heavily onto Su Ling’s shoulder. “C-can we finish this please?”


  “Right.” Ling Qi shared a look with Su Ling as she stepped away. “Why don’t I grab your tokens for you? Do you have a preference?”


  Chu Song let out a snort of laughter, even as the boy clenched his fists where he kneeled by the unconscious girl. Ling Qi eyed him carefully, but while she still wasn’t the best at reading people, he mostly just seemed frustrated and irritated. It didn’t look like any of their enemies was showing genuine resentment.

  “I’ll take a storage talisman if they have one,” Su Ling replied, eyeing the massive bear sitting on its haunches to their right.

  “Anything is fine,” Li Suyin said, biting her lip as she ran her free hand over her broken limb, fingers aglow with quickly guttering qi. Ling Qi did her best to ignore the grinding noise of bones being pulled back into alignment. It looked like her friend had picked up some real pain tolerance.

  She looked to Meizhen, but the pale girl simply looked back impassively before glancing at Chu Song. “I have little need for such things, but the clasp in your hair will do. That is what allowed you to resist my poison, did it not?”


  Ling Qi tuned out Chu Song’s response as she approached the boy and the downed girl, who breathed erratically, expression twisted with pain even in unconsciousness. The red lines crawling out from her shoulder wound were fading at least.

  “I request that you take your spoils from me and not from Luli.” The boy spoke up as she approached, looking her in the eyes unwaveringly.

  “.…… Sure,” Ling Qi agreed, glancing over the girl. Besides, none of the girl’s talismans she could see looked to be something she would intend to keep. The guandao lying off to the girl’s side was tempting, but a quick look revealed it to be an earth-aligned talisman. She was probably going to take something from Chu Song then. “Do you have a storage ring?” she asked brusquely.

  “Yes,” the boy replied shortly.

  Ling Qi watched him carefully, ready to respond should he try something as he slowly raised his hand and tapped his finger against the dull grey ring there. A small number of spirit stones, beast cores, and other miscellaneous goods poured out. He placed the newly emptied ring in her hand with only a slight grimace.

  Ling Qi’s eye caught on something in the pile of goods then, a gleaming dagger with a slightly wavy blade. It was a wood talisman that would be good for Li Suyin; the girl could use a holdout weapon for when she got forced into melee, and if she didn’t want the talisman, it looked like it would at least sell well in the Sect market. She crouched down and took that too, giving the boy a simple nod before walking toward Bai Meizhen and Chu Song.

  “Looking to get a piece of me yourself, huh?” the muscular girl asked as she approached.

  “No more than I deserve for the trouble,” Ling Qi said mildly, nodding to Bai Meizhen, who was studying the jade braid clasp in her hand curiously. She gave the girl’s ragged outward appearance a look over, studying the possible talismans. “I’ll take the armband,” she decided. The armband might be useful, and like Suyin’s token, it did at least look valuable.

  “If you return to this vent, Chu Song, you will not be let off so lightly,” Meizhen said quietly. “Do not invade our space again.”


  “Gotcha.” The taller girl sighed irritably, brushing her now partially loose hair out of her eyes. “Bei, help Luli up. Yan, back to me,” she commanded as she stood. The spirit beasts on the field dissolved, returning to their binders, and the boy finished gathering his things then picked up Luli in his arms. Chu Song slowly stood up as well and took a step back, careful not to appear threatening. Ling Qi caught recognition in Chu Song’s eyes as they flicked briefly toward Li Suyin and the spider silk on the ground, then away. “Any objections to me being on my way?”


  “We’re done here, yeah,” Ling Qi replied bluntly. Meizhen gestured for Chu Song to go and so they did. It irked Ling Qi a little to let potential enemies just walk away with their heads mostly held high, but that was the way things were, she supposed.

  “How did you know I was in trouble anyway?” Ling Qi asked Meizhen as she moved to hand over Su Ling and Li Suyin’s prizes.

  “I was informed by your companions that you were under attack,” Bai Meizhen replied, vanishing her own prize with a flick of her wrist. Ling Qi noticed a brief pause in her friend’s statement before the word ‘companions’ left her lips; she had a feeling that Meizhen had been about to call them ‘subordinates’. Still, she followed Bai Meizhen’s gaze and gave her other two friends a questioning look.

  “I was…… experimenting,” Su Ling grunted in response, not quite meeting Ling Qi’s eye as she took the dimensional ring from her. “I picked up a new trick, but it’s hard to work. I can sorta get a feel for things that are happening in the near future. It’s spotty and hard to control though.”


  “Divination is not an uncommon skill among more potent fox spirits,” Meizhen mused, giving the ragged girl an assessing look. “Interesting.”


  Su Ling bared her sharp teeth in response, but she crossed her arms and remained silent. The motion drew Ling Qi’s eyes to Su Ling’s hands, which she now noticed were covered in small burns and cuts. There was a moment of awkward silence before Li Suyin coughed into her good hand, having tucked the dagger under the sash of her gown.

  “Ah…… I am glad this turned out well and that you are safe, Ling Qi, but perhaps we should go? I suspect I will be needed at the Medicine Hall soon, and it seems like there are many other troubles brewing.”


  “Right, we should get going,” she agreed distractedly, drawing a pair of qi-restoring pills from her ring with a flick and popping the restoratives in her mouth.

  As the pills dissolved on her tongue, an alarming thought crossed her mind. Han Jian and Han Fang were both absent from the mountain as far as she knew or at least in closed cultivation of some kind. Which meant……

  “Shit,” she cursed, drawing a surprised look from her friends as they approached the cliff. “I need to check on Gu Xiulan. If there’s widespread trouble, there’s no way the people we’ve beaten are going to leave her be.”


  Meizhen frowned. “Have you and that girl truly sown so many grudges?” she asked, pausing at the cliff edge. “If this is part of that barbaric girl’s plot, I think it wiser to coordinate our efforts with Cai Renxiang to limit the damage.”


  Ling Qi looked away, glancing to her other friends. The two of them looked pretty drained, even with Li Suyin having reduced the worst of her wounds to a manageable level.

  “Maybe. But I don’t want to leave a friend at the mercy of enemies,” she replied, not quite meeting Li Suyin’s eye. “Gu Xiulan’s own allies are absent. I can’t help but think that that isn’t a coincidence.”


  Meizhen pursed her lips but nodded after a moment. “A fair point. If this is meant to damage and fragment resistance, then it is well-timed. It is likely that the barbarian has been free for at least a few days, laying low and plotting. It seems she no longer regards simple and open assaults as viable.” Ling Qi saw a brief flicker of discomfort on Meizhen’s expression as the girl looked away. “.…… Yet I would still prefer that we go to Cai Renxiang’s aid.”


  “We can split up to cover more ground,” Ling Qi proposed lightly. “I can be pretty hard to catch when I try.” Ling Qi ignored the unpleasant spike of irrational temper at her friend choosing to aid someone else over her. It was a terribly selfish thing to think, and Meizhen had already helped her a lot today. She still didn’t like it.

  “How about we all get to the market first?” Su Ling spoke up carefully. “It’s best to stay together until we get our wounds tended at least, right? Then Suyin and I can lay low, and you can both do your thing.”


  “We shouldn’t delay too much regardless, especially if trouble is happening as we speak,” Li Suyin added quietly, glancing between Ling Qi and Bai Meizhen with a worried look.

  She was right, so they got underway, going as quickly as could be managed without splitting up. Between her salve and Li Suyin’s help, Ling Qi felt much better by the time she split from her friends with a grateful thanks to seek out Xiulan.

  However, despite Su Ling giving her a vague directive to search around the base of the mountain, her search did not go smoothly with all the chaos. More than once she passed ongoing duels and other less fair fights, often between members of Cai’s enforcers and other disciples but also between white armband wearing disciples. Ling Qi couldn’t quite bring herself to ignore the fights. While she refused to become embroiled in combat, there was no reason she couldn’t sink an arrow into the lower back or leg of those ganging up on singular enforcers.

  Despite her speed though, the base of the mountain was a large area, and it took some time before she received a hint of her friend’s location on the word of a girl she had helped. Apparently, Xiulan had been challenged to a series of duels before the chaos had broken out.

  Ling Qi soon found further evidence in the form of a rather damaged battlefield and a groaning boy who was likely to be spending the next few months regrowing his hair and eyebrows. He needed a few rough shakes to regain consciousness, but given his depleted qi and the fact that he had apparently already been thoroughly looted, she was rather confident that he wouldn’t try anything, particularly with her knee on his chest and a knife hovering just above his eye. It would be a shame if he struggled too much and made her slip after all. That excuse had worked fine for the one who assaulted Suyin.

  “Don’t move,” she said harshly as the boy stirred, becoming alert. Looking closer, she vaguely recognized him as one of the older disciples she and Xiulan had beaten, furthering her suspicion. “I know you were fighting Gu Xiulan,” she bluffed. “So tell me what you and your friends were up to and where they are.”


  To his credit, the boy didn’t fold immediately. “I do not need to tell you anything. You cannot do a thing to me under Sect rules,” he responded scornfully, glaring at her past the knife in his face.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Ling Qi said coldly. The enforcer’s recitation on what had happened with Xiulan with first one challenger, followed by another after another, wearing her down until the enforcers had been drawn away, dampened any sense of fair play she might have had. “At the very least, I can strip you down to your small clothes and make sure the rest of your year is miserable. Lady Cai supports her allies, you know? And she doesn’t approve of rebels.” Ling Qi didn’t hesitate to make use of the girl’s name as a threat, whatever she might think of her. “Of course, I can make you pretty miserable myself now. Talk, or my hand might slip. I’m just a clumsy peasant after all.”


  “You wouldn’t dare,” he hissed, seeming slightly less sure. “My family would……”


  “They won’t do a thing,” she bluffed again. He was only just into the late second stage of his physique with his spirit lagging, and he was at least a year or two older. “Not for a crap talent like you,” she said bluntly. “Are you an idiot? Gu Xiulan has a sister nearly in the Core Sect, and I’m friends with the heir to the province and a scion of the Bai. That’s not even mentioning the Han family. Look me in the eye and tell me you think I wouldn’t get away with it.”


  She was playing by ear, but it sounded good to her, and going by the sweat on the boy’s brow, he was beginning to believe it himself. If she were a better person, she supposed she might feel bad, but right now, her friend was in danger.

  “It was Brother Renshu’s idea!” the boy exclaimed as her knife traced the skin just under his eye. “He-he said that…… that there was a plan to get back at the first years and that we could take care of the Gu girl and he would make sure no one interfered! It was only meant to be a humiliation,” he responded defensively. “But after she defeated three of us in a row, Brother Renshu’s associates attacked everyone, Lady Cai’s subordinates, us, and her as well. I don’t know any more than that! Her and that boy with her ran off to the east.” He carefully pointed out one of the several trails where it looked like a fight had exited the clearing.

  Ling Qi scowled at him but didn’t detect any duplicity. “If I find out you lied, I will do everything I can to make your life miserable,” she warned, pricking his skin with the tip of her knife. She didn’t bother waiting for a reply before rushing off in a blur of shadow, vanishing into the shade cast by the trees overhead.

  Threads 90-Dinner 1

  Ling Qi almost, almost blurted out a denial and a change of subject. “That sounds fine,” she managed instead. “Did you have a place in mind?”


  It happened so fast that she could have imagined it, but she thought she saw Bao Qian do a double take. “Nothing ostentatious. Perhaps the Silver Orchid?”


  That was a teahouse and eatery in the central part of the village. It mostly served traveling cultivators and sect disciples with loose income. That didn’t sound so bad. It was an open floor place. “Fine,” she replied mechanically.

  Sixiang murmured.

  Bao Qian, too, was eyeing her stiff expression with a critical eye. “Miss Ling, if you are busy, just say so. I am not attempting to call in a favor or anything of the sort.”


  Ling Qi gritted her teeth. “I’m sorry if it seemed that way,” she said. “I really don’t mind.”


  “As you say,” he said dubiously. “Well, I won’t retract my invitation. I will meet you there in one hour?”


  Ling Qi gave a shallow bow. “I will see you there,” she said politely before turning away.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  ***

  Sixiang reminded.

  “I know that,” Ling Qi hissed as she approached the gate of the town. She had settled Zhengui and Hanyi in for the night, and now, there were no more ready delays.

  She knew she was being irrational. She wasn’t being coerced into going to some seedy bar. They would be sitting in the open at a restaurant run and staffed by retired disciples of the Sect. Given her appearance, Bao Qian could not, despite his ready compliments, be particularly interested in her physically. Even if she somehow was in danger, she was strong. She was a direct retainer to Duchess Cai’s heir. Her best friend was Bai Meizhen. And she had defeated whole bands of bandits and driven off barbarians by the score.

  There was nothing to be scared of. She had power. She had control. She was not selling herself. It was fine.

  Sixiang muttered awkwardly.

  Ling Qi stepped through the village gates. No more dithering. She could do this.

  She found Bao Qian waiting outside the establishment, his arms clasped behind his back. He had changed into a different robe since she had seen him last. It was a thing of dark greens and blacks with an only mildly ostentatious gold sash wrapped around his waist. More casual than his usual wear, it hung partially open at the top displaying a slice of his broad chest. She kept her expression even.

  “Greetings, Miss Ling. I admit I was growing concerned that you had changed your mind,” the older boy greeted her as she approached.

  “My apologies. Zhengui was still a little energetic,” she replied. It wasn’t really a lie.

  “Partially my fault, I suppose. I know business negotiations can be dull for children. Shall we go in? I sent ahead to reserve us a table.”


  Ling Qi glanced inside to the brightly lit interior. Paper lanterns hung from the awning, and inside, faintly glowing lamps hung from the walls, casting the interior in warm colors. “Lead on.”


  Bao Qian nodded affably, leading her inside. Thankfully, he made no move to take her hand or arm. The inside of the Silver Orchid was nice. The floor was richly carpeted, the furniture well made, and the scent of the kitchens was enticing enough, too. Ling Qi distracted herself by focusing on these little details as a server led them to their table set against the rear wall of the room.

  “I’m surprised that places that only cater to cultivators like this exist,” Ling Qi said a touch nervously as she sat down across from Bao Qian. “It’s not like we need to eat often.”


  “Ah, but there are many things that we do not fundamentally need that we want. If needs were all that mattered, we would hardly have empires or cities,” Bao Qian replied, taking his own seat as the server gave them a quiet bow and stepped away.

  “I suppose you’re right, but it still feels wasteful,” Ling Qi said, looking at the ostentatious meals being eaten by people who needed little more than a bit of bread and water every month or so.

  “If it makes you feel better, most ingredients used in cultivator cooking come from spiritually rich material,” Bao Qian said. “Hardly palatable for mortal bellies.”


  “Is that so?” Ling Qi asked, perking up. “Are there any cultivation benefits?”


  Sixiang sighed.

  Bao Qian chuckled. “Not for the fare in a place like this. Culinary cultivators do exist, but it is considered a branch of pill and elixir craft. My great-aunt Qiao is one such, and I must tell you, her meals are an .

  ”


  Ling Qi raised her eyebrows at the emphasis he put on the last word. “I think I might like to try that sometime,” she said before she could catch herself. Spirits, that was such an obvious opening……

  “Not too difficult, I think. While I must be filial, lesser culinary cultivators are not rare. You simply need to go to a proper city.”


  “I hope I can find time to travel then,” Ling Qi said carefully.

  “Your liege will likely have to tour the province or even the Empire at some point. I am sure you will have the opportunity for sightseeing then.”


  Ling Qi hadn’t really considered that.She did have a problem with being so focused on the immediate term that she was forgetting about the more distant future. “I’ll have to ask Lady Cai about that,” she demurred.

  “Naturally, naturally,” Bao Qian replied, leaning back in his seat.

  A not quite awkward silence fell between them. “So……” Ling Qi trailed off, toying with the tablecloth. “Why do you seem so interested in this music business? Is it just because your clan sent you to me?”


  “It is part of the reason I took the opportunity,” Bao Qian explained. “I enjoy music, but I have something of a tin ear, so I never followed that path myself.”


  Ling Qi regarded him suspiciously. “I doubt you would have any trouble listening to any musician you wanted to.”


  “You would be surprised,” he said. “I think the province could use more music. There is something to be gained in an art being shared more widely. Of course, it is also because I think I could grow quite wealthy and famed for proliferating such a movement.”


  Was he throwing in that last part as a self-deprecating dig to make him look better or was he just being honest?

  Sixiang analyzed.

  “What about you, Miss Ling? What ambitions do you nurse in your heart?” Bao Qian asked.

  Ling Qi didn’t answer at first. Because she didn’t have much, did she? She wanted power, of course, and maybe recognition, but there were few ways to word her lofty ambition that didn’t sound…… childish. “I suppose I want to establish a strong foundation for my family and support Lady Cai’s efforts.”


  Bao Qian frowned. “It is fine if you do not want to reveal anything private, but surely, you must have some ambition more personal than that. Something you want to do?”


  Ling Qi huffed irritably. “Fine, I want to achieve the peak of cultivation. I want to rise to the eighth realm on my own strength.”


  She expected polite laughter or perhaps a joke to break the awkward atmosphere. Instead, Bao Qian regarded her curiously, as if waiting for her to continue. When she did not, he frowned. “But what do you want to achieve? Is there some matter of the spirits you wish to change? Some goal you wish to achieve that only the peak of temporal power can allow?”


  Ling Qi shrugged uncomfortably. “It’s a private matter,” she said because she didn’t have an answer.

  Once again, awkward silence descended before Bao Qian coughed into his hand. “Yes, well, let me call the server over so we can make our order.”


  “Yes, let’s.”


  Maybe her worst fears were silly, but she still felt like this was going to be a long evening. She remained silent over the next few minutes, speaking up only to indicate that she would have whatever Bao Qian was having. It wasn’t like she had any preferences for a place like this.

  “I was half inclined to order the mapo tofu when you said that,” Bao Qian grumbled good-naturedly, drumming his fingers on the table. He was still studying her, and it made her shift uncomfortably.

  Ling Qi made a vague sound of acknowledgment. That wasn’t a dish she was familiar with. It also surprised her that a place like this would serve such a dish. In Tonghou, tofu was a poorer food for people who could not afford meat. Maybe cultivator tofu was made from thousand year old blood drinking beans or something.

  He shook his head in bemusement. “You had no idea what to order, did you?”


  “I’m sure you’ve researched my history. Why are you surprised?” she asked defensively.

  Bao Qian leaned back in his chair, looking mildly frustrated. “I did, but your first impression is deceptive, Miss Ling.”


  “My apologies,” she replied coolly, and Sixiang sighed.

  He clarified, “I mean only that you are surprisingly inexperienced in many things. You make a good show of having integrated with cultivator culture, but it seems that it’s rather shallow. I have misjudged you, and I find my failing irritating.”


  She eyed him warily, but the recently learned lessons of the arts she had been studying stopped her knee-jerk reaction to the seeming criticism. “I told you, didn’t I? I want to keep climbing. I have to keep up with Cai Renxiang and the Duchess’ expectations if I’m going to keep getting the resources I need, and that’s a full-time job. Lady Cai does her best to nudge me into keeping up with other things, but she’s busy, too.” She didn’t even remember the last time Renxiang had stopped for anything more than a cup of tea.

  She remembered Cai Shenhua’s ultimatum. She wouldn’t let herself be discarded, both for herself and her burgeoning family and for Cai Renxiang, who might crack under the weight if left alone.

  Bao Qian’s brows drew together in consternation. “You are surprisingly difficult to categorize, Miss Ling. My apologies, but in the future, if you lack understanding in something I ask of you, simply tell me. They do have a menu for first-time customers.”


  Ling Qi let out a breath she had been holding in. She knew she was still being a little absurd, and the knowledge that she could have asked for a menu left her feeling sheepish. “Right. Do you mind if we start over, Sir Bao?”


  “Deal,” he said with a weak chuckle. “Let us move on to lighter topics! So, what sort of inspirations do you take for your compositions, Miss Ling? From descriptions I have heard, you seem to follow Grandmistress Lei’s style, but that can hardly be the whole story. You mentioned that spirit girl’s mother?”


  She stared at him blankly, and his wide grin once again slipped. Things had become awkward enough, and her ignorance was already clear at this point. Ling Qi felt the phantom sensation of Sixiang’s hand on her shoulder and breathed out. With that breath came the Carefree Mantle of the Playful Muse’s Rapport art.

  Ling Qi coughed into her hand. How would she go about describing her mentor’s music to someone who had never and could never listen to it? Her own compositions held shades of it, and in the Frozen Soul Serenade, she aped Zeqing’s fury and deadliness, but it wasn’t the same thing. “Sir Bao, while I would be happy to talk about my mentor in the Sect, perhaps you could tell me a little about some famous styles of the Emerald Seas. It might give me a better framework to speak in.”


  “Yes, that seems like a fine idea,” Bao Qian agreed, rallying quickly.

  Threads 91-Dinner 2

  Ling Qi had a feeling that Bao Qian was out of his depth in some ways as well, though not as badly as her.

  “I shall explain from the basics,” Bao Qian began. “Please inform me if I am saying something you already know, Miss Ling.”


  An out. An unsaid assurance that he wasn’t trying to insult her intelligence. That was fine. She nodded and gestured for him to continue.

  “In the Emerald Seas, there are considered to be three primary schools of musical style. Only two, if you ask some,” he explained with a harrumph. “I do not truck with it, but certain types do not consider Grandmaster Fu’s style a school of the Emerald Seas because he achieved his greatest works in the imperial capital.”


  “The more traditional clans then?” Ling Qi queried.

  “Not just the clans. You would be amazed at the snobbery found among the small circle of those who follow musical trends,” Bao Qian said. “But regardless, I will begin with Grandmistress Lei. She was a musician of the mid Weilu period. Her original home lay in the west of the province. The name and location are no longer known, lost in the chaos. She was a lone cultivator, preferring hermitage to society. Her style was raw, and some say uncivilized, emphasizing the elements in their more primal form and often carried themes of the inevitability of natural processes and the fundamental beauty and ugliness of the world. Her preferred instruments were woodwind.”


  Ling Qi supposed that she could understand the comparison. Someone from so long ago…… Well, Zeqing or some incarnation of her had been around for a very long time too. She wondered if this GrandMistress Lei had learned her early songs from some spirit of a remote and lonely fen. “You said she was a hermit cultivator. How does anyone even know about her then?”


  “Oh, she married into the Meng clan eventually,” he said. “It is hard to call tales from that period history, but it is said that Patriarch Meng Hao heard her songs while on a journey to the south and wooed her for thirty days and nights, offering gift after gift until he was left in naught but rags. It was only his final gift, a poem written from his own lifeblood and shen, that she acquiesced.”


  Ling Qi smiled politely. That sounded a little ridiculous, and she quashed the part of her that wanted to think it was merely a cover for a less pleasant story. The patriarch of a clan would have a great deal of power over a mere hermit musician.

  Sixiang whispered.

  Maybe she was letting her own cynicism put blinders on her. Still, it was difficult to match the recalcitrant and xenophobic Meng she had read of with that kind of passion. “I suppose I won’t be able to find any recordings of her songs lying around.”


  “Not unless you intend to marry into the Meng,” he joked. “And even then, it seems unlikely. But many arts descend from the teaching of her disciples. Your song, the Forgotten Vale Melody, was it? I have heard others say that there are strong elements of her teachings in that. It was created a dozen odd generations removed, but still.”


  “And the others?” Ling Qi asked curiously. It was easier to talk with Bao Qian when it was something like this. Keeping the lessons of her rhetorical art in mind helped, blunting the edge of her anxiety, but it wouldn’t have mattered if the subject were less comfortable.

  Bao Qian drummed his fingers on the table, the flashy rings adorning them glittering in the lantern light. “There is Grandmaster Fu, who was born in Xiangmen during the second dynasty. He was able to sign on with a sect in the Celestial Peaks and grew to prominence there, being called upon to perform for the emperor more than once. He pioneered the combination of multiple, disparate regional instruments and developed some of the earliest orchestral scores. The last was the somewhat unfortunate Grandmaster Jiang.”


  “Unfortunate? What happened to him?” Ling Qi asked. She felt like she had an idea.

  “He ran afoul of Hui internal politics. A member of a branch clan, his music, which focused on passionate string and percussion performances and tended to emphasize the human element over nature or grand scores, was considered too radical. He had an unfortunate overdose of cultivation elixirs that led to his early death,” Bao Qian replied gravely.

  Ling Qi read his expression. “He was killed, wasn’t he?”


  “It seems highly likely, considering the efforts to quash his disciples in the aftermath,” Bao Qian agreed. “Alas, there is no proof, but happily, our benevolent duchess lifted the ban on his music shortly after her ascension to the provincial throne. A good thing, too, as I quite like his tenet of spreading music to as many listeners as possible.”


  Well, he was certainly persistent in trying to subtly sell her on the recording idea. She supposed she would be happy that he wasn’t going to be pushy about it. Over the next several minutes, she listened in attentive silence as Bao Qian went on about interactions between styles and the emerging divides between more modern musicians, filing away a few names into memory. She even caught some hints of the influences that arose from other provinces, though they were never the focus.

  Their meal arrived partway through Bao Qian’s lesson. It was a roast duck dish, slathered in sauce and stuffed with fragrant herbs. It seemed a terrible indulgence to her, but she had to admit that it was good, the rich flavor burned on her tongue and the wind and water qi in her channels danced, making her feel almost as if she were drifting along on a gentle river current with a clear sky overhead.

  It was only as they were finishing their meal that she finally decided on her answer to Bao Qian’s original question.

  “I think the comparison to Grandmistress Lei was not entirely wrong,” Ling Qi said, picking at a spot of leftover herb in the sauce that marked her plate. “My mentor, Zeqing, embodied inevitability. She was not kind, nor human, though she could act like it pretty well, sometimes.”


  “She sounds formidable,” Bao Qian said. He was studying her again.

  “That might be putting it too simply. She was more like a force, an aspect of nature with a woman inexpertly perched atop it,” Ling Qi said. “She was her music. She was the howl of a blizzard through cold mountain peaks, the sound of wind blowing across snow drifts, and the warmth that calls a man freezing to death to his rest.” Zeqing was, after all, a spirit.

  Bao Qian didn’t reply, listening intently. Even when she paused, he didn’t interrupt.

  “Her songs were harsh and stark,” Ling Qi mused. “But they could also be gentle in their own way like the peace of a well kept graveyard. I originally took her up on her offer of teaching because I didn’t have anyone else, but…… it spoke to me. The winter is cruel, but it’s just the world at its most honest.”


  The cold of winter would kill a person, but it didn’t deceive them and didn’t pretend to be safe. There were no pretensions to kindness or charity in the winds of winter, only the death of a year and all those without the luck or ability to stay warm, preparing the world to be born again in spring. She wanted the warmth, but in the end, she knew she belonged in the cold.

  That was Zeqing’s voice and song, the ice, cold and final, that would consume all things in the end, that said that nothing was forever, so she must cherish what was hers.

  She blinked as she realized that she had said that part aloud. That was the Carefree Mantle at work, loosening her lips as she mused on philosophy.

  “I cannot say I wholly agree,” Bao Qian said slowly. “But it is interesting to hear your view all the same.”


  Ling Qi smiled sheepishly, and for once, it wasn’t particularly forced. “My apologies. You must think I’m a little mad.”


  He chuckled. “Miss Ling, we are both practitioners of the third realm. If we were not a little mad, we would not have gotten this far.”


  She raised the cup of cider she had been served in a mock toast. “At least you’re honest about it,” she said wryly. “What madness is yours then?”


  “The gold madness, Bao-sickness,” he confessed. “No matter how masterful our works or how great our success, it will never be enough. This, I know, but I will chase the elation of success regardless.”


  Well, she could hardly chastise him for that.

  ***

  The rest of dinner had gone well enough. They had parted amicably only a quarter hour later.

  It had been…… not terrible. Once she had managed to stop flailing, it had even been educational. She still had no desire to even think of matters regarding marriage, but she could see herself working with that young man for business, maybe even becoming friends.

  She could always use more people to talk music with. She had been so busy that it slipped her mind, but she could probably do something about that. She couldn’t just coast along doing the bare minimum to interact with her peers anymore.

  “Big Sis?” Hanyi looked up as Ling Qi approached her under the moon. The young spirit leaned against Zhengui’s shell. Her little brother was asleep, rumbling like a steelworker’s forge. “What are you doing here so late?”


  “Just thinking,” Ling Qi said. “You don’t mind if I cultivate here tonight, do you?”


  Hanyi grinned. “No way! I was just thinking about what kind of song I wanna compose first, but this big doof fell asleep while I was thinking!”


  “He does that,” Ling Qi said, smiling. She sat down on the hard packed dirt, leaning against Zhengui’s shell. He was warm, not like Hanyi and not like her. She supposed he had to make up for the two of them. “Hanyi, do you want to try one or two of Zeqing’s songs? You shouldn’t copy your mother, but you should still learn from her.”


  Hanyi nodded eagerly. “Yeah! Will you sing too, Big Sis?”


  “Of course,” she replied, reaching over to tousle the young spirit’s hair. She might not really be ready for the games of nobles or courting, but she could take care of her family.

  She stayed with Hanyi until morning, and that night, snow and fog gathered around the little hilltop, save for the circle of warmth at its center.