Threads 188-Return 7

Leaning back against Zhengui’s side, Ling Qi listened to the beat of his hearts. It was a strange sound, a subaudible rumble that belied his shrunken mass. If Ling Qi closed her physical senses and listened and felt with spirit alone, the rumble was that of the towering beast he was and was becoming.

Two heartbeats, reverberating over each other, vied for attention. Fire and Destruction. Wood and Growth. A beast like Zhengui was as much spirit as flesh, not like the lesser beasts whose bodies conformed to mortal limits. Zhengui was the bubbling of fire beneath the earth and the rustle of fresh leaves.

She extended her senses to the garden and listened. His qi was in every blade of grass and every swaying branch. It was a glittering web of life and light, growing from the ash and death of their previous attempts, lying thick in the churned soil.

Music was not just sound. It was expression, a message conveyed from musician to listener. Sometimes, it was a truth of spirit, and sometimes, it was simply a tale or a scene like poetry or a painting.

Was it different from what she had crafted here, together with Zhengui? She listened closely, and in the beat of Zhengui’s hearts, she heard the slow pulse of sap in the trees and the faint current of the breath of plants, taking in the last of the fading solar qi from the sky. No, it wasn’t so different. She hummed and felt the qi in the trees stir.

“What is Big Sister thinking about?” Zhengui asked, making her open an eye.

The comparison she had made raised a question. What was it Zhengui was trying to express with this work?

“Sister?” Zhen echoed, peering up from where he had laid his head across her lap.

“I was just thinking about the garden,” Ling Qi replied, tracing the lines of qi radiating out. Even with the darkness and the mist cloaking the woods, wildlife was beginning to creep in. Insects, field mice, and wild faeries, all of them were drifting into or blinking into existence in this newfound environment. With each one that came, each one that alighted on glistening needles or nibbled at the waving grass, the garden was changing subtly, growing away from Zhengui.

For all that, he remained at the core. Each newcomer flickered with the tiniest mote of her brother’s spirit.

“You’ve been feeling really stifled, huh?” Ling Qi observed.

“Gui is still growing, so this is fine,” he said.

“But you’ll be happy to leave the Sect,” Ling Qi concluded. “This… It’s fun, but it won’t really give you what you need, will it?”

“I, Zhen, am looking forward to going on another adventure with Big Sister to claim a home,” Zhen answered. “This is good practice…”

“So this makes us happy,” they said together.

A xuanwu was not just a beast. They were in a class all their own like dragons. They were an embodiment of environments like the Storm Lord she had met with Yu Nuan, like Zeqing, or even like the ice spirits in the south. The greatest xuanwu of the north were living islands, carrying immense ecosystems around themselves. Feeling every creeping bit of life entering this place begin to take on some hue of his spirit made her realize that.

In the growth around her, embers of fire flickered as well, the catalysts for their Ending and new birth. It wasn’t so different from the death by winter and rebirth by spring intrinsic to some of her insights.

“Gui hopes Big Sister will be patient with Gui. He will definitely start growing better soon!” he said brightly.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Ling Qi said.

“Yeah, she puts up with me, and I can barely be bothered to cultivate at all,” Sixiang said flippantly.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Ling Qi rolled her eyes at the muse’s joke.

Ling Qi absently touched her chest where the pains of her heart demon occasionally emanated. She had not had the time to think about why that promise to her family had hurt her so much. She knew how valuable her companions were in battle. Against Ji Rong, it was one of the things that had allowed her to overwhelm him. In the caldera, the fire drawn by Zhengui had helped her survive those first few frantic moments without being wounded.

What rankled her wasn’t just a matter of her spirits not being able to keep up. She hadn’t felt any twinges in her cultivation while assisting Zhengui. So what was it?

<Of course this wouldn’t hurt. You’re helping him grow and cultivating yourself. Even if you’re branching off a bit, you haven’t slowed down at all,> Sixiang said in her thoughts.

Ling Qi frowned a little. <Sixiang?>