Ling Qi cast a glance up at Cai Renxiang, who despite her minor injuries showed not the slightest hint of lacking confidence. No, in this case, the heiress had indicated that she should continue retreating, and that meant Cai Renxiang had something in mind. She did not want to interfere with it out of some misplaced and pointless courage.

  She caught Gu Xiulan’s eye and jerked her head in the direction of the plaza and the lecture hall, playing all the while. They needed to get moving. Her friend hesitated only a moment before nodding.

  “Keep moving!” she said harshly, causing the two remaining boys to jerk slightly as she caught their attention, drawing it away from the confrontation. “There is no reason to intercede here. It will only trouble the Lady.” Ling Qi didn’t miss the way Xiulan’s gloved fist clenched when she said that, but it was an issue they could discuss when they were safe.

  Ling Qi cast one more glance at the floating heiress before turning on her heel and dashing away, heading for the hall. In that last glance, she had glimpsed a tiny blade held discreetly in Cai Renxiang’s left hand. Despite the oddity, she did not look back again. It didn’t concern her.

  They ran across the flagstones of the plaza, now scorched and broken in several places but mostly clear of disciples. None of the remaining disciples tried to stop the speeding cloud of roiling mist. Ahead, Ling Qi could see four battered looking disciples wearing Cai’s mark standing guard over the main path, and the last of the wounded she had brought in were being helped into the lecture hall.

  Then the sky bloomed with radiance behind them. She would have called it a second sun, but even on the hottest day she could remember, the sun’s light had never been so harsh. It was no color and every color all at once, somehow utterly heatless even as it washed out all color from her sight and screaming winds ripped across the plaza, tearing at her mist and bowling over more than one surprised disciple too close to the far side where they had come from. Leaves and peach blossoms rained down on the plaza, torn from the decorative gardens.

  Glancing back, she saw that every tree in the copse of trees they had emerged from was stripped of its leaves and half of its branches, the bark bleached a stark white. Gan Guangli was still standing in the epicenter of the blast, seemingly unharmed. Though his armor itself gleamed with colorless light, Cai still outshone him, a blazing spotlight overseeing the broken trees where their pursuers had stood.

  Yet their enemies were not beaten. A noxious looking purple mist exploded violently from the broken and bleached trees, writhing like a thing alive as it consumed Gan Guangli, and at least three shadows blurred out to assault him.

  They were nearly to the lecture hall, Ling Qi found herself noting. No further foes lay ahead, and allies were close by. She was not entirely without tricks even at this distance. Her music cut out as her flute dematerialized, replaced with a sleek horn bow. As her friend and remaining allies sped out of her now stationary mist, she drew back the string, time seeming to slow as heaven qi surged through her channels, sparks crackling along her hands and arms.

  Her new armband burned hot as her qi reached it, flooding her tired limbs with energy, and Ling Qi fired. The first shot struck one of the darting shadows around Gan Guangli dead on in a blinding flash, but the second sailed through out of her sight in the mist, dodged by the target. The third and the fourth exploded in displays of brilliance, and she thought she caught the distant sound of a cry of pain. Ling Qi didn’t stick around and dashed through the gates of the lecture hall.

  Gu Xiulan stood just inside, flanked by Fan Yu and the other boy. “You just couldn’t help yourself,” she drawled, casting a wary eye at the battle in the distance.

  “I did have a clear shot,” Ling Qi pointed out. “It would have been a waste not to.”


  Gu Xiulan let out an irritable sound but didn’t question her further. “Well, is there a plan as to what we do now?” she asked, turning to question the heavy-set boy who stood at the doorway wearing one of Cai’s bands.

  “Lady Cai has rented the use of a lecture room as a place of recovery,” the boy said with a slightly stiff bow. Ling Qi could see that he was injured himself. “The others you sent have already gone ahead.”


  Ling Qi frowned. She didn’t like the idea of just sitting out the rest of the fights, but she was on the verge of qi depletion and she really needed to let Zhengui out and comfort him. His alarm was sharp in her mind.

  “Ah, Miss Ling?” She blinked and glanced at their fourth, the early second realm who had stayed behind with them while the injured had been sent ahead. She felt like she had seen him before. Maybe he had been in Elder Zhou’s lessons? “Thank you for your efforts,” he continued at her questioning look, hastily bowing his head and clasping his hands together in front of him. “But may I go ahead? My…… There is someone among the wounded I would like to check on.”


  Ling Qi blinked again. Why was he even asking …… She scratched her cheek. She supposed she had kind of taken charge. “That’s fine. You can go ahead ……” She didn’t know his name.

  “Wei Hai,” he said easily, seemingly unperturbed. “If you require anything in the future, please feel free to ask.” He bowed again and then turned away, hurrying down the hall.

  Ling Qi shook her head and turned back to Xiulan, who was annoyedly having a murmured conversation with a browbeaten Fan Yu. She left them to it. Instead, she turned to ask the boy guarding the door. “Do you know where Bai Meizhen is? How she is doing?”


  The boy shifted nervously under her stare. “.…… Miss Bai was overseeing the organization of the forces in the residential areas alongside Sir Xuan,” he explained. “She was in good health.”


  Ling Qi let out a breath at that. She nodded her thanks to the boy and turned to head inside. Gu Xiulan caught her eye and fell in beside her with Fan Yu trailing behind, his head down.

  They rested for a time after that and soon, it seemed that the battle had come to an end.

  “Victory is ours!” Gan Guangli’s booming voice echoed through the classroom as the young man entered, his shoulders stooped to avoid having his head scrape the ceiling. He was still shrinking down toward his normal height.

  “It was hard fought and well earned.” Cai Renxiang’s voice was certainly lower in volume yet still managed to carry just as well. The girl stepped in after Gan Guangli. Her gown had returned to its normal decent state, and the marks where Ling Qi had seen blood staining the white fabric were nowhere to be seen. Only the rippling shimmer of the crimson fabric splayed across her chest belied the gown’s true nature.

  Ling Qi reluctantly joined the ragged cheer that came from the gathered crowd. She was still concerned for Meizhen and her other friends, but she wasn’t going to interrupt Cai in the middle of her victory speech.

  “Between your own efforts, our battles, and the support of our allies, Miss Bai, Sir Xuan, Sir Han, and Sir Huang, the malcontents have been driven back into their holes. The peace of White Cloud Mountain and the order of the Outer Sect which you all have fought hard to support will not fall this day,” the heiress continued with a touch of pride in her voice. It was hard not to be infected by it. Still, the girl had been wounded; it bothered her that Cai Renxiang showed no sign of it.

  “In addition,” Cai Renxiang continued, and Ling Qi was surprised to find herself the direct recipient of her gaze. “Allow me to finally dispel the rumors regarding Miss Ling in relation to the attacks on female disciples. I had hesitated to make accusations without more solid proof, but today has made it clear that the matter was an early plot by the villain Yan Renshu to undermine us and sow distrust. I will be most displeased if such rumors continue to be spread about an upstanding member of my council.”


  Ling Qi boggled. She hadn’t even really known rumors were still flying around. She really needed to pay more attention to her peers, didn’t she? Awkwardly, she bowed, hoping she was getting the posture correct. “Thank you very much, Lady Cai,” she hurried out.

  The girl gave her a sharp nod then turned her attention back to the group as a whole. “The spoils of our victory, taken from the defeated, are still being counted. I ask that you be patient, and by the morrow, you will have your rewards for this your battle. For now, return to your homes and rest.”


  Ling Qi had to wonder just how complete their victory really was, whatever Cai Renxiang might say. The mountain was huge, and there were many disciples. Cai’s forces might control the main areas, but……

  The others began to file out after another ragged cheer, but Ling Qi hung back, drifting through the crowd over to where Gan Guangli stood. “Thank you for your help back there,” Ling Qi said.

  He let out a booming laugh, drawing a few glances but little more. It was funny how much being loud and boisterous could lead to people ignoring him. “Think nothing of it, Miss Ling. Your own efforts were very valiant as well!”


  “I would hardly say that,” Ling Qi demurred. “I did want to ask though, is there anything I should watch out for on my way home? And do you know where Bai Meizhen is?”


  “Miss Bai is very well to my knowledge,” he replied more quietly. “Your home is safe, but I believe Miss Bai may have a few matters to speak with you about.” She got his meaning, as he had gotten hers. Cultivators had sharp ears; it was best to discuss such things in privacy.

  The residential area was a mess, if one that was being rapidly cleaned up. The mansion Sun Liling had claimed during the first half of the year seemed to have borne the worst damage, being little more than a smoldering, broken wreck. The rest of the damage was more superficial. Her home had a few broken windows and some holes in the roof and outer wall, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be repaired.

  Once she had a chance to finally speak with Meizhen that night, events became more clear. Sun Ling had been driven out of the main part of the Outer Sect, but it might be better to say that she had simply retreated. Xuan Shi, who had been overseeing Kang Zihao’s confinement, had been overwhelmed by the combination of Sun Liling and Ji Rong, and Kang Zihao was broken out. Things had spiralled from there.

  Sun’s subordinate, Lu Feng, had apparently been slinking about gathering dissenters, and they had all risen at once, some from within Cai’s ranks. It had been Cai’s intention to use Fu Xiang to ferret out such turncoats, but there had simply not been enough time to get everything done before this second uprising. The attack had been made worse by the fact that Sun Liling had convinced a healthy fraction of the older disciples to time their own bids at vengeance to coincide with hers.

  Ultimately, Cai still controlled the first year residences and several other key areas, but the balance was tenuous. Sun Liling and her allies were holed up on the mountain somewhere, plotting away, and the confidence of the older disciples had been bolstered by the minor victories they had won across the mountain.

  The battle lines had been drawn.

  threads 93-Diplomacy 2

  They spent a while longer at the archive, discussing lighter topics of cultivation and music. Ling Qi workshopped the songs she was intending to play at Lady Cai’s next gathering. Ruan Shen shared some details of a composition he was working on as part of his training with an elder which he had won through a trial before the incursion started. Even Yu Nuan had been coaxed to share a few bars of a song she was working on for a visit to the Thunder Palace.

  So it was with a light heart that Ling Qi found her way back home to the balcony that overlooked the garden to cultivate the Harmony of Dancing Winds. With the soft strains of that melody drifting through the house, Ling Qi found her awareness drifting. She could feel Biyu valiantly fighting sleep as her mother read to her a story of a brave princess and her animal friends questing against an evil spirit. She was aware of the servants, gathering in the kitchens to have their own meal, full of chatter and laughter and gossip about their lives in the greater town. She felt the shadow of other households, warded by muting formations, and people in the streets returning home with one eye on the sky.

  It was, in a way, like a pond where one set of ripples would spread and spread, affecting others, or perhaps, as her liege might say, a loom where each individual was a thread, intersecting and weaving through others’ lives. The lessons of the Harmony of Dancing Winds arts slipped through her thoughts as she played, refining the notes to mastery.

  Ling Qi had long decided that she would not stop walking the path forward. She would do so even when obstacles presented themselves and even when things grew difficult. She had decided that on some matters, there could be no compromise or retreat and that small endings were both acceptable and inevitable. But she did not want to be alone again.

  The words and emotions of her family at her decision during the three villages sect defense mission stung, and the pain in her dantian, that grinding feeling of something broken, was real.

  She needed to race forward without slowing.

  She did not want to be alone.

  Her melody faltered as her breath hitched, a sharp pain traveling up her spine. The distress arose from her, but its source was elsewhere. It came from the faint strands that stretched back into the house away over the hills where Zhengui rested and Hanyi composed. It came from up in the mountains where her friends resided.

  In moving forward blindly, she hurt others. Through others, she hurt herself. By hurting herself, she had slowed down. This thought circled in her mind, chasing its own tail. She half expected Sixiang to comment, but the moon spirit was silent, respecting her need for introspection.

  There was something to that thought, Ling Qi mused, even if it did not soothe the pain in her spirit. It wasn’t an answer, just an observation. It was a good one though, she thought. It might not solve her current problem, but if she wished to avoid further wounds in the future, then she could not afford to let her vision be so narrow.

  After all, even walking alone, her footfalls echoed beyond her hearing.

  ***

  Zhengui asked curiously, his thoughts echoing in her mind as she soared between mountains, heading for the peak that contained many of the Inner Sect training grounds.

  “We’re going out to do a little training, hopefully,” Ling Qi said. With no one to hear, she felt no need to keep her dialogue with her little brother silent. Of course, she had some more specific reasons for taking Zhengui along other than just getting him out of Hanyi’s hair while she composed.

  Sixiang murmured.

  She was. With the imminent arrival of what might be Cai Renxiang’s last big gathering in a while, Ling Qi really had no excuse not to act on her liege’s commands.

  It wasn’t like she had been slacking off in the interim; she had spent time looking into Wang Chao and the Wang clan in general, searching for a good way to approach them. What she had found surprised her a little. The Wang had been a viscount clan focused on architecture of all things before the rise of their current matriarch to the sixth realm at Cai Shenhua’s side.

  Wang Chao was that matriarch’s grandson, but he wasn’t particularly high in considerations of succession. One of his aunts was the head of the clan, and one of her adult sons was the heir. His father was one of their generals, and his mother was a courtier from the Celestial Peaks. He wasn’t the least talented of his siblings and cousins, but neither was he the most. He was just middle of the pack. This was something he was prickly about, going by what she had picked up.

  She did have an opening gambit, but she would have to be careful not to prick his pride too much. After all, he was eighteen years old, but she was already swiftly catching up to his cultivation.

  Ling Qi planned to go with Sixiang’s original suggestion. With the Sect at war, she could use some more pointers on tactics and battlefield planning, particularly in incorporating Zhengui. She had promised to work harder to include him in her plans, and she meant to keep that promise. Because the Wang family’s warriors specialized in tactics centered around fortresses and hardpoints, Wang Chao would be well suited to assisting her in this regard. And as Sixiang had noted, asking Wang Chao for a small favor, one he’d be able to fulfil, making him look good and magnanimous toward her, granting him some social leverage, would make him well inclined toward her. That she really could get practical use out of the instruction was a bonus.

  Ling Qi descended onto the mountain, banking toward the lower side she had tracked the young man to. She kept her qi restrained and peered down, her eyes flashing silver as she studied the training grounds. It was a public one, rather than a private one, and there were a handful of disciples about. Most, she didn’t recognize, but a few……

  She spotted Wang Chao, the stout young man armed with a heavy pike balanced on his shoulder and armored in a suit that was enameled in dark green. It wasn’t quite the full plate that Gan Guangli liked to thunder around in, but it was relatively heavy by the looks of it. He was laughing about something in one of the training rings, reaching down to help up his downed opponent. She glanced at the other boy, only to furrow her brow. Did she recognize him from somewhere……?

  Sixiang reminded her.

  “You did that on your own.”


  Ling Qi shook her head as Sixiang chuckled, deliberately ignoring the flash of well exercised pectoral muscles that the spirit flashed in her thoughts. Liang He, that was the name. If Wang Chao knew him, she supposed his grumpiness at the party made more sense.

  Her eyes wandered over the rest of the field, and she blinked in surprise as she spotted a third person she recognized. Alingge, the girl from the hunting party hosted by the Luo, was at the other end of the field, squinting down range at the targets, a long bow of white wood in her hands.

  Interesting. Maybe she could make the approach more natural if she approached Alingge first…… No, she was overthinking things again. It was an unnecessary flourish which didn’t even offer much advantage.

  Sixiang declared in amusement.

  Zhengui asked, blissfully unaware of her indecision.

  Yes, Ling Qi thought decisively, resuming her descent. She brought her scattered qi back together as well, returning her presence to a more normal level. Several people glanced up, the people she knew among them. Ling Qi offered a polite wave to Alingge, but she headed toward the training pit where Wang Chao and Liang He stood.

  She landed gracefully in a flutter of wind, bringing her hands together to offer a polite greeting bow. “My apologies for the disturbance, Sir Wang.” The less involved were already going back to their own business. “I have been looking to speak with you.”


  “Is that so?” the stout young man asked dubiously, peering at her from under his helm. He straightened up, resting his pike on the ground and offered a short bow himself. “Does something trouble our Lady Heiress then?”


  “No, nothing of the sort. Recent events have led to some troubles that I was hoping for your aid with…… It can wait if I am interrupting something.” She glanced at Liang He, who avoided her eyes. “I wasn’t aware that you were acquainted with Sir Liang.”


  Wang Chao was still looking at her like she was a snake preparing to strike, but he cracked a slightly forced grin and clapped Liang He on the back regardless. “The Liang family are soldiers in my Wang clan’s capital lands. He has been doing very well! When the barbarians came, he held a village alone until core sect reinforcement arrived.”


  “I would not take credit from the brave soldiers who manned the walls with me,” Liang He demurred with a bow. He really seemed to have trouble looking at her. Had she scared him that badly at the end of the duel? Now, she felt a little bad.

  Sixiang sighed.

  “Congratulations on your achievement anyway. I know it couldn’t have been easy,” she said, smiling. Ah, the relationship was even stronger than she had speculated. It couldn’t hurt to compliment Liang He too.

  “Miss Ling’s achievements were more impressive,” Liang He replied sincerely, raising his head and finally meeting her eyes. “You not only held the barbarians back, but also drove them off.”


  “Bah, you are too modest, Liang He,” Wang Chao complained. “But yes, I had heard that Miss Ling acquitted herself well against the barbarians as well.”


  “I appreciate your words,” Ling Qi replied. She didn’t play down her efforts, because why should she? “It was actually my experiences there which brought me to you, Sir Wang.”


  “I assure you,” Wang Chao said stiffly, “the Wang clan did our utmost against the incursion. The Sect was not the only place struck.”


  Ling Qi spoke up hastily in reassurance. “I have no doubts about the Wang clan’s defenses. It was actually your experience with such things that I was interested in.”


  “Oh,” he said, seeming nonplussed, and his fading grin became genuine. “Hah. My apologies for assuming.”


  Beside him, Liang He gave Wang Chao a sidelong look.

  “The incursion was my first real experience with a concerted enemy attack,” Ling Qi explained, bowing her head. The bandits didn’t count. “And I found myself at a bit of a loss on how best to utilize my spirit Zhengui in such a battle.”


  Wang Chao’s thick eyebrows drew together. “The xuan wu? I would think it obvious.”


  Ling Qi restrained the urge to let her eyes twitch in annoyance at his condescension. “My confusion regards how best to cooperate with him given my preferred style. I was hoping for some advice on how to marry high mobility tactics with more stationary ones.”


  “Ah, I think I understand your trouble then,” Wang Chao realized. “I do not necessarily mind giving you some pointers, Miss Ling, but……”


  “Please do not worry on my account, Lord Wang,” Liang He said with a bow. “I do not mind postponing our spar.”


  Wang Chao shot him a frustrated look, but she couldn’t quite figure out why. She didn’t get the feeling that he was trying to blow her off, more like he didn’t want Liang He to excuse himself. Ling Qi hid her puzzlement.

  “Well, then,” Wang Chao said grudgingly, tapping the butt of his pike against the packed dirt. “Is the spirit with you? I need to get a look at what we would be working with. You don’t mind if Liang He tags along?”


  “Not at all,” Ling Qi replied. It was a small request, and it wasn’t like she disliked the other boy. “Actually, do you mind if I invite Miss Alingge over as well then? I promised to show her Zhengui at Luo’s last party.”


  He blinked in surprise and then nodded enthusiastically. “Certainly. Let us make a small gathering of it then!”