With this the last week before the start of the tournament, Ling Qi redoubled her efforts to deepen her understanding of many of her core arts, building off the last few months of heavy practice. Ling Qi achieved the sixth step in her Sable Crescent Step art, gaining the coalesced Grinning Crescent Dancer technique. This was the culmination of the arts other techniques, allowing her to access the full utility of her movement art.

  When not cultivating, with the help of Li Suyin, she constructed an eagle Ossuary Horror and the bird scouts that made it up. Carving so many of the tiny formation arrays into the bones of the skulls and spines of the little birds that would make up her construct was time-consuming. Tedium aside, her efforts paid off.

  She kept it assembled and active while stored in her ring so that she would be able to release it as quickly as she could draw a weapon. With Deepwood Vitality stored in the horror, she had no doubt it would be able to serve its purpose as a screen and support in at least one battle. She would need to choose the best moment to deploy it.

  Ling Qi was spending spirit stones like water in these last few days. Even the lingering frugality of her mortal days couldn’t make her regret it. Her Sect points were spent as quickly as she gained them to receive tutoring.

  With the help of an Inner Sect tutor, she was able to work through some of the stumbling blocks that had been stymying her advancement. There was the Abyssal Exhalation Art, which she had plundered from Yan Renshu. She couldn’t help but feel that the art didn’t suit her, but she couldn’t be picky yet. She achieved the fourth breath of Abyssal Exhalation, which strengthened and reinforced the worm constructs summoned by the art. The technique to call them was qi-expensive and the summoned worms would never defeat a peer on their own, but they could harry, distract, and entangle. The rest of her time with the tutor was spent learning how to avoid disrupting them when she empowered them with her other arts, such as Thousand Ring Fortress and Argent Current.

  Ling Qi was also studying with Zeqing to Master the penultimate melody of the Forgotten Vale. She learned the Traveler’s End technique, which empowered the qi constructs of the other Forgotten Vale Melody techniques even further, making the effects more durable and long lasting. While active, the mist would not fade, even if Ling Qi ceased to play herself, and it would protect the mist by forcing absorbing any attempts to disrupt and dispel it. Truly mastering the art would require higher cultivation, but for now, she had another potent tool at her disposal.

  There was one art which she could fully complete though. Ling Qi had won the Argent Mirror Art from the same trial that had gotten her Zhengui, the trial which Meizhen and she had undertaken together. It was not a flashy art; as a perception and spiritual defense art, its effects were mostly passive. It allowed her to read qi auras and peer through illusions. Mastering the fifth and final true reflection stage was much the same. By pulsing her qi in just the right way, she could disrupt spiritual or illusory arts that had taken hold of her.

  as she cultivated the art, she began to comprehend it more. All arts were lessons. They taught their user how to manipulate their qi in the right way to alter the way the world worked, if only for a moment.

  As she sat beside the vent which she and her friends had won through investigation and battle so early in the year and cultivated the art’s final secrets, Ling Qi found herself pondering the lessons held within the art. Argent Mirror was an art about sincerity. By knowing herself, her own truth, she could in turn see through external deceptions.

  But it was hard to not lie to herself, to not rationalize or deceive herself in order to reach the conclusion that she had already decided that she wanted in the layers of the mind beneath conscious thought. In her thoughts, she found herself visualizing a mirror, a reflection. Was having that mirror always in her thoughts something she could live with?

  Ling Qi thought of her mother and the lies she had told herself to make their separation less painful. She thought of Xiulan, who had been so hurt by the quiet lie that had existed between her and Han Jian. She thought of Meizhen and the strained awkwardness that had existed between them for so many months.

  She thought that she could live facing the truth. Ling Qi would only ever be herself.

  ***

  With the week winding down, Ling Qi didn’t allow herself to forget her plans to check on Xiulan and Meizhen. She was glad that she hadn’t when she reached Xiulan’s training field early on the last day of the week.

  Her friend looked positively haggard, her normally immaculate appearance disheveled and smudged by ash. Xiulan’s aura had grown significantly more potent to Ling Qi’s senses despite having not broken through in her physique. The other girl appeared to have spent this final week building her qi reserves in preparation for the tournament. She had also reduced the training field to a barren, charred plain with whole stretches of the soil glimmering like glass.

  “Xiulan, when was the last time you slept?” Ling Qi asked as she approached the other girl, picking her way through the field. “Or bathed for that matter?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  Her friend shot her a dirty look as the blazing flames leaking from the corners of her eyes and the tips of her fingers faded. “Just last evening,” she sniffed. “You shall excuse me for not wishing to waste scents and cosmetics in the midst of a stretch of intense training.”


  As if that itself wasn’t a great change from the girl she had met at the beginning of the year, Ling Qi thought. “And sleeping? Xiulan, you are beginning to resemble a racoon dog.”


  Xiulan raised her uninjured hand, touching her cheek just below where the dark circle under her eye ended. “.…… Perhaps three months ago,” she muttered. “What did you want, Ling Qi? I cannot imagine that you took time from your own training merely to comment on my appearance,” she demanded.

  “I didn’t,” Ling Qi admitted. “I took some time out because I wanted to speak to you about taking a break.”


  “I hardly have the time. The tournament will start in a matter of days,” Xiulan snapped. “Ling Qi, we cannot all……”


  Sixiang murmured.

  “You are more intelligent than this, Xiulan,” Ling Qi said flatly. “I do not know what it is like to have lightning on the brain,” she began, using the Argent Mirror to eyeher friend’s nigh blinding aura and its crackling radiant core, “but I know what the tempting whispers of the dark are like. Gu Xiulan, this is not you.”


  Xiulan scowled and opened her mouth to speak before stopping herself, her eyes narrowing. Her aura shuddered, flickering wildly, before the blazing furnace of her spirit dimmed, grounded and banked. “Spirits,” Xiulan said. “I am a bit of a mess, aren’t I?” She looked down at her charred and soot-stained gown. “Ancestors above, Mother is coming for the tournament! If I appear like this……”


  “It will be fine,” Ling Qi said, patting her friend on her good shoulder. “It’s nothing a night out and a good sleep won’t fix. I just wanted to make sure you got that before you ran out of time.”


  “Even now, I want to refuse and resume training,” Xiulan grimaced. “Perhaps Sister Yanmei was correct about including a calmer element in my repertoire.”


  “That might not be the worst idea,” Ling Qi said agreeably. “Will you be alright now though?”


  “I think I will,” Xiulan replied, looking down at her good hand and flexing her fingers as sparks danced between the digits. “I should thank you.”


  “Think nothing of it,” Ling Qi dismissed. “Just do the same for me, if you would.”


  “Of course,” Xiulan said. “I suppose you had something in mind?”


  “I had considered a trip to that shop with the shaved ice desserts to cool your head,” Ling Qi teased, relaxing now that her friend seemed to have regained her senses. “But perhaps a visit to the bath house first?”


  “That seems acceptable,” Xiulan agreed, stepping past her, the glassed soil crunching under her shoes. “I shall have to see if I can do anything with that tangle on your head. I am not the only one who has let themselves go.”


  “I let my hair hang free as a choice,” They were easily falling back into their old rhythm.

  “Foolish girl, you will be standing before half or more of the notables in the Emerald Seas next week. You cannot seriously mean to go out without even styling your hair.” Xiulan rolled her eyes as they exited the ruined training ground.

  If her friend’s smirk was a bit brittle and her playful tone a bit forced, Ling Qi chose not to notice it.

  ***

  Ling Qi was in good cheer as she made her way up the street of the residential district, having parted ways with Xiulan. Their day together had been nostalgic. This past year seemed longer than several of the previous put together. She still worried for her friend, but she wouldn’t infantilize the other girl by following her home to ensure that she went to rest.

  Ling Qi found herself strolling along the street slowly, observing the little homes in their neatly laid out rows. She would miss this place. Despite the troubles she had faced in the Outer Sect this year, this had been her first real home since she had been very young. Although she had decided to leave it behind, she didn’t think she would ever quite shake that connection to the Argent Peak Sect.

  This affection was probably intentional.

  Sixiang whispered.

  She supposed they didn’t. As she arrived at her home, she was surprised to feel Meizhen’s presence inside, as well as Cui’s. The other girl had been busy as well, so they had only seen each other at the Black Pool this week. Stepping inside, Ling Qi made her way to the dining room where she found her friend seated at the table. Meizhen was watching the stars through the window, Cui looped loosely around her shoulders……

  “Taking it easy this last night as well?” Ling Qi asked, leaning against the doorframe.

  “I intend to be well rested on the morrow, yes,” Bai Meizhen replied softly, idly stroking Cui’s head. Her faintly glowing eyes flicked Ling Qi’s way. “And regardless of what happens, this is the last day we will be living together.”


  “It is,” Ling Qi agreed quietly, moving to take a seat beside her friend. Cui’s tongue flicked disdainfully at her. “How is Zhengui? He was cultivating in the garden when I left earlier.”


  “
” Cui hissed.

  “Thank you for looking out for him,” Ling Qi replied. “I hope he did not try your patience too much.”


  “Cui is always pleased to receive praise and admiration. Do not let her fool you,” Meizhen said dryly. Cui turned up her snout in response, not dignifying her cousin’s comment with a response.

  As the resulting silence began to stretch, Ling Qi said, “I’m thankful for everything you’ve done for me since the first day at the Sect. I know I must have been frustrating to deal with.”


  “You were,” Meizhen agreed, the corners of her lips quirking upward in a smile.

  “You aren’t supposed to agree so readily,” Ling Qi complained, her own smile putting the lie to her words. “And…… I won’t apologize again, but…… I have never meant you harm.”


  She could sense Cui’s irritation, but Meizhen simply gave the tiniest of nods, her expression serene. “I know,” she acknowledged. “And although I am no Zheng ruffian to share blood oaths, I do wish you to understand that to me, you are my closest friend.”


  “You as well,” Ling Qi echoed, leaning back in her seat. “We’ll have to seal it over a drink sometime – unless that’s too coarse as well,” she added teasingly.

  “I suppose I could look into a vintage from home,” Meizhen said, a touch of amusement in her voice. “It is always amusing to see outsiders attempt to keep them down.”


  “I’ll show you,” Ling Qi said with mock confidence before growing more serious. “I’m glad I met you.”


  “The feeling is mutual,” her best friend replied, looking back to the square of sky visible outside the window. “Good fortune to you in this coming trial, Qi.”


  “Good fortune to you as well, Meizhen,” Ling Qi murmured, resting her hands behind her head. This was a fine way to spend the last night before the tournament.

  Threads 184-Return 3

  “I’d thought of trying to convince you to come, but I never thought you’d seek it out.” Ling Qi’s voice rang out sourcelessly from the churning mist in the ruined cavern

  “And why not? I have every right to attend the gatherings of my peers,” Meizhen said imperiously. She stood upon a raised platform of stone, surrounded by clear air. Where tendrils of mist crept into her sphere, it grew dark and heavy, drizzling to the ground in fat droplets of rain to join the rippling pond of black water that had formed around her.

  “I didn’t think you thought them peers,” Ling Qi’s echoing voice admitted. The mist shifted and rang with a cold aria. Ice spread across the black pond as freezing wind whipped the air.

  Ribbons of metal flashed and skirled, and the flexible blades captured the wind, guiding it to the ground where the pond erupted into an expanding line of spiky ice. A twitch of Meizhen’s wrist sent the ribbons out, hissing like serpents as they punched holes in the mist, tearing apart shadowy phantoms. “There is no harm in being polite.”


  “You’ve changed,” Ling Qi observed. She laughed, and her laughter became a hoarfrost wind, closing from all sides.

  “I would hope so,” her friend retorted before she disappeared behind the snow and hail conjured by Ling Qi’s song.

  The mist rippled and withdrew as Ling Qi landed on the uneven ground in a crouch, eyeing the blossom of crystal ice which had formed in the center. She barely had time to blink before the first cracks formed.

  “I would be a failure of a cultivator if I had not,” Meizhen said as the ice shattered, scattering from her. Frost and slush clung briefly to the hems of her gown as she stepped down onto the gleaming black ice. “The power behind your techniques has improved. If the potency of your art was higher, it would have broken my passive defences.”


  Ling Qi nodded as she rose to her full height. The Frozen Soul Serenade, the art taught to her by Zeqing, was beginning to fall behind as she rose through the stages of the green realm. But she was not yet ready to truly make it her own and develop her own version. She still felt some trepidation at the idea. There was a difference between tweaking a basic art from the archive and trying to make something equal to Zeqing’s song.

  “You have me at a disadvantage like usual.” Ling Qi sighed. She could feel Sixiang all but rolling their eyes. “Why did you ask that way instead of talking to me?”


  Meizhen cocked an eyebrow, resting her hand on her hip where the sash gifted to her by Bao Qingling rippled with toxic qi. “You were unavailable.”


  Ling Qi gave her a dead-eyed look, unimpressed by the excuse.

  Meizhen smiled thinly. “You have described him well enough. A request from one of my stature put him in a good, malleable mood once he got over the initial alarm, did it not?”


  “Don’t put it like that.” Ling Qi grimaced. “But yes, it did make him happy.”


  “Whatever your preferred terminology is,” Meizhen said flippantly.

  “You have changed,” Ling Qi repeated. Meizhen had always had an unshakeable confidence in her public persona, but it had deepened over the past months. In a way, Ling Qi was jealous. She still felt as if she were faking her own poise at times.

  “For the better, naturally,” Meizhen agreed, stepping up onto solid stone once more.

  “Yeah, who knew a few kisses could accomplish so much, or have you gone further than that?” Ling Qi asked idly, her lips twitching up into a smirk.

  Meizhen spluttered, color rising in her pale cheeks. “Do not just say things like that, you vulgar girl!”


  Sixiang snickered along with her, but Ling Qi raised her head in surrender as Meizhen began to glare. “Sorry, Meizhen. Someone has to tease you though, and unfortunately, I can’t rely on Lady Cai for that.”


  Meizhen made a wordless grumble, giving her a look that promised vengeance. Ling Qi resigned herself to being embarrassed in the future. The vengeance of a Bai was unstoppable after all.

  “I can sense when I am being made light of,” Meizhen warned.

  “I would never,” Ling Qi said, giving a mocking bow. “Really though, Meizhen, how have you been?”


  The other girl pursed her lips. “In all honesty, I have been frustrated. I understand why I am not deployed, but I am beginning to find it stifling. Particularly when I am the only one.”


  Ling Qi dipped her head in acknowledgement. It went without saying that the comparison was the only one out of the people Bai Meizhen concerned herself with.

  “But my growth has been good,” Bai Meizhen said. “I will not be far behind Qingling in achieving the sixth stage. However, beyond that, Ling Qi, can you tell me what has happened to Cai Renxiang?”


  “We have accepted a heavy responsibility,” Ling Qi replied.

  “That would explain a certain level of stress, but I am certain you know that is not what I am talking about,” Bai Meizhen said.

  Ling Qi considered the encounter on the mountainside, Liming, and the conversation they had earlier this month. “It is something only Lady Renxiang has the right to share. Please continue as you always do around her. She won’t appreciate anything else, I think.”


  Meizhen crossed her arms, and although frustration passed over her features, she gave a single nod. “Very well. It was somewhat rude of me to ask.”


  “It’s not rude to be concerned about a friend,” Ling Qi disagreed. “But I guess I should ask, what do you think of what we’re doing?”


  Meizhen paused, glancing back at the frozen pond and scattered ice. “I worry for both of you. I worry that you are pushing too fast and trusting too quickly. I can’t imagine my family looking upon this matter with approval.”


  Ling Qi lowered her head. She had expected that.

  “This is why I expect you to be invited to speak with us, come the tournament,” Meizhen finished, and Ling Qi looked up in surprise.

  “Well, Lady Cai will be invited. You will no doubt attend as her retainer,” Meizhen acknowledged. “While my aunt will be busy, representatives from among her supporters will come, both for Xiao Fen’s sake and to maintain the connection with the Duchess.”


  “Oh,” Ling Qi said nervously. “Will they be ill disposed towards us, do you think?”


  Meizhen was quiet for an uncomfortably long time. “.…… They will be the friendliest audience you can expect among my family.”


  “That doesn’t give me any confidence at all,” Ling Qi groused.

  “I hope to give you and Cai Renxiang both a degree of coaching.” Bai Meizhen ignored her words. “Do you think your schedules will allow it?”


  “I already asked Xuan Shi to clear his schedule over the next few days. And I have a meeting with Bao Qian this month.” Ling Qi chewed her lip. She needed to clear time for Zhengui too, although that could be done in the evening and early morning. “But yes, please, and thank you. I am sure Lady Cai will say the same.”


  “Then it seems, we will be seeing one another more often, Qi,” Meizhen said, smiling slightly.

  “That is a silver lining,” Ling Qi said, smiling back.

  ***

  Looking up at the polished stone door which bore Li Suyin’s name on its replaceable placard, Ling Qi considered her own surprise. She had introduced Xuan Shi to her friend, but she hadn’t expected to be invited here to meet him. Raising her hand to knock, she blinked as the door creaked open on its own. Her eyes flicked up to the strands of pale white webbing attached to the upper part of the door.

  Shrugging, she stepped inside, tracing the vibrating lines that traversed through the lacey cloud of cobweb which shrouded the ceiling, feeling the echo of [communication] and [alertness] embedded in the silk.

  Sixiang whispered in amusement.

  The door drifted shut behind her with a faint, eerie creak. Li Suyin was really dedicated to her theme, wasn’t she? Walking deeper into the entry room, unconcerned, Ling Qi caught the movement deeper in the hall as the floor ground open.

  “Welcome, Ling Qi! I’m so glad that your journey went well!” Li Suyin said, beaming up at her from her seat on the back of the pony-sized white spider which had evidently carried her up the hidden tunnel in the floor.

  “Well, I hardly wanted to let everyone down,” Ling Qi replied. She met the jeweled eyes of the construct staring blankly up at her from beneath the lip of the tunnel. It was definitely a construct rather than a living spider. “You look well, Suyin. I hope you’re not letting your exercise slip, riding about like that though.”


  Li Suyin pouted at her, an expression much at odds with her dress and surroundings. “Ling Qi, it’s not kind to lead with things like that when you return from a trip.”


  “Sorry.” Ling Qi laughed. “I’m glad to see you, Suyin. How have things been?”


  “Very well,” Li Suyin said cheerfully. “Oh, do hop on. Xuan Shi is down in the testing chambers with Su Ling.”


  “Really?” Ling Qi asked as she circled the construct, eyeing the saddle bolted to its back. After a moment, she reappeared behind Li Suyin, letting her legs dangle off the side. It was a little snug being pressed against the shorter girl’s back, but she wasn’t quite as bad about that kind of thing as she had once been.

  Sixiang thought sagely.

  “Yes, I wouldn’t have imagined them getting along either,” Li Suyin agreed as their mount shuddered to life and began to skitter downward. The tunnel entrance slid shut behind them as the spider descended into the dark. “Oh, watch your head. The tunnels are a bit snug.”


  Ling Qi stared at the back of her friend's head, wondering if she was being teased in turn. Li Suyin glanced over her own shoulder, humor sparkling in her one eye.

  With much dignity, Ling Qi ignored it, peering instead at the winding tunnel descending into the earth. “Why do you put so much work into these temporary homes anyway?”


  “Practice for when I decide on something more permanent,” Li Suyin said cheerfully. “Why are you seeking out Sir Xuan?”


  “I’m going to share an interesting site with him,” Ling Qi said. “Hopefully, it can provide some balance to the favors I owe him.”


  “I do not think Sir Xuan really concerns himself with debts,” Li Suyin said thoughtfully as their ride skittered around a corner, descending toward a faint light. “He can be hard to understand, but he’s very generous.”


  Probably too much so, Ling Qi privately mused. Given her insights, she felt a niggling sense of shame for how many times she’d asked for his aid. Before she could respond though, she heard a sound echoing up from below.

  “Ugh. How is this time shit so hard?” Su Ling’s voice, tired and full of frustration, reached up the passage.

  “The Eldest does not deign care for us as our other divine siblings do.” She heard Xuan Shi next, patient and calm.

  “You’re gonna have to expand on that.” Su Ling snorted.

  Ling Qi shared a glance with Suyin, who mouthed back “shared project” as they approached the closed latch that would lead into the lower workshop.

  “Time is the Eldest, the weapon with which the Nameless wreaked vengeance for their children and introduced their siblings to death,” Xuan Shi explained. “Carved from Mother’s rib and tempered with Father’s blood, they are immutable and unknowable, the first and the last weapon. Their secrets were never shared with the mortal children. To play in their yard, we must develop understanding without tutelage.”


  “No shortcuts built into the sacred characters, huh? No wonder this is such a pain.” Su Ling paused. “Ling Qi and Li Suyin are here.”


  The stone trapdoor ground open, and the two of them emerged high on the wall. The workshop they found themselves in was at once orderly and cluttered. On three sides were wide tables and workbenches filled with alchemical equipment and the tools of other trades, and above them were carved cabinets of tiny drawers carved with meticulous labels. In the center of the room was a table which currently held a scattered pile of ceramic tokens and the shattered remnants thereof. Su Ling, etching tool in hand, stood over a table covered with ink, brushes, and papers crowded with swarms of characters and numbers which Ling Qi found her eyes sliding off of.

  Su Ling didn’t look much different from when last she had seen her, except that her tangled bushy hair was tied back inelegantly and a pair of half moon spectacles were perched on her nose. A half dozen lenses of varying thickness and tint hovered in front of one eye.

  Ling Qi started to smile. Su Ling glared at her.

  “Shut it, you. It’s a damn good perception talisman for fiddly work.”


  “I wasn’t going to say anything,” Ling Qi said airly, hopping down from spiderback to drift to the floor like a leaf.

  “Greetings, Miss Ling,” Xuan Shi said. He was dressed in thick green and black robes as per usual, but Ling Qi noticed that his hands were both encased in blocky metal gauntlets painted a drab gray that contrasted with the differently colored jewels adorning the knuckles. “Miss Li.”


  “Thank you, Sir Xuan. I gather the project isn’t going well?” Li Suyin asked, waiting for her mount to reach the floor before sliding elegantly off.

  “I’ve picked up what he has to teach. I’m figuring out the personalized bits now,” Su Ling grumbled. She glared down at the shattered token in the center of the table as if it had personally offended her.

  “Miss Su learns quickly,” Xuan Shi complimented, dipping his wide hat in her direction.

  “You don’t gotta spare my feelings,” Su Ling retorted. “That tutor made sure I understood that I’m a no talent klutz with this delicate shit. I just know the value of banging my head against a problem till it breaks.”


  “What are you working on anyway?” Ling Qi asked. Peering down at the table, she understood… maybe a quarter of what she saw there. Some kind of boundary enhancing formation?

  “I want something that can fix me and my surroundings in place,” Su Ling said. “After that trip underground, I’m pretty sick of getting jerked around by weird space labyrinths and dream nonsense.”


  Sixiang huffed.

  “What does that have to do with time arts?” Ling Qi asked, tilting her head in confusion.

  “A coin has two sides, but remains as one. So is the way of space and time. Although one face of the coin is more mysterious than the other,” Xuan Shi said, slowly standing up from the bench he had been seated on. The ring-headed staff leaning against the wall beside him rattled and jingled as it shook and then leapt to his hand. “Miss Su, this one humbly begs his leave.”


  “Yeah, yeah, have fun getting dragged into some nonsense by Miss Chaos over here,” Su Ling said dismissively. “I’ll have the basic part figured out by the time you come around next week.”


  “Do enjoy yourselves,” Li Suyin said, bowing her head. “You are both welcome back any time.”