Threads 246-Journey 3

There was a long beat of silence in the carriage, oppressive and cloying.

“Your mother never does assign easy tasks,” Gan Guangli said, breaking it. His smile seemed dimmer, but it was firm.

Ling Qi wondered if he, too, was trying to contain a monster of incredulous fear in his chest. She managed a wan smile, resting her cheek on her hand. “I applaud your delivery, Lady Renxiang, but I hope you can tell us a little more.”

Overthrowing the Duchess. It was so utterly absurd that Ling Qi wondered if that was why her reaction was muted. It felt like it had to be some mad joke.

Cai Renxiang took a deep breath. “Thank you.”

“An odd statement,” Gan Guangli said, sitting up straighter. “It is not like you to speak unclearly, my lady.”

“I suppose it is not,” her liege said. “It is as I have said. My mother granted me insight into her nature and Way. This has explained many things to me. My mother cannot remain on the throne for the full span of an immortal’s life, though I am not certain how long we have.”

Ling Qi thought back to that strange conversation with Diao Linqin. “Lady Renxiang, I feel I should mention this now, but I had a conversation with the Prime Minister before the tournament’s end.”

Cai Renxiang frowned.”What of, Ling Qi?”

“She mostly seemed to be giving me advice on my own cultivation, but it did lead to a question. She and your mother are bound tightly. The question occurred to me then, what will happen when she is gone?”

“The Prime Minister is roughly four hundred fifty years old,” Gan Guangli said. “At two centuries your mother’s senior, and a realm beneath her, that does seem a valid question.”

Cai Renxiang considered their words. Her expression briefly became a scowl. “Then it seems we have our likely time limit. A seventh realm cultivator lives some eight or nine centuries on average.”

“I must wonder what the Duchess might do that is so far beyond the pale at that point,” Gan Guangli said. “I will not excuse the harms done to you, Lady Renxiang, but for the province, she has brought only prosperity and progress.”

“And much grumbling from the lords of the land,” Cai Renxiang said.

“I suspect that the Prime Minister… grounds her in some way. This, I saw in the insight she granted me.”

“There is that as well. My mother is a being of change, destruction, and renewal. There were very many things which required her touch in the Emerald Seas. Indeed, there are many yet still.”

“But there will not always be.” Gan Guangli rested his chin on his fist, his expression drawn down in a frown.

“That is my belief,” Cai Renxiang said. “However, let it be clear that I have no intention of attempting any military solution.”

“Is there some other way to interpret overthrow?” Ling Qi wondered.

“That seemed to be her implication,” Cai Renxiang admitted. “But I will not agree to this. I will not see the Emerald Seas razed in my ‘victory,’ and that is the only result that a war or rebellion could bring. Even if that is what she desires of me, she will not get it.”

Ling Qi blinked. In her head, Sixiang whistled. Even Gan Guangli looked briefly surprised. Ling Qi did not think she had ever heard the girl flatly reject her mother’s opinion like that.

“Then what do you plan, my lady? How does one force the abdication of an eighth realm?” Gan Guangli asked. He did not sound incredulous, only curious.

“I have seen what she is, and I am no longer an overawed child. The path to victory is to prove that what I build is the way forward, and her methods, the regression. Any conflict of ideals among sovereign cultivators is a battle of a kind, but it is here that I will make my stand. Not with armies. If I cannot do this… then I am not fit to rule.”

Somehow, Cai Renxiang’s proposal did not make it any less frightening, Ling Qi mused. Directly opposing the Way of a cultivator of the eighth realm was fighting them. It was a different sort of fight, one with perhaps less collateral, but she wondered if the consequences would be any different for her and others that stood at Renxiang’s side.

Yet if Cai Renxiang could not succeed, wouldn’t that only mean that their province would see war again, this time with itself? Whether it was one of Cai Renxiang’s siblings,Tienli or one yet to be born, or the other lords of the province, would it make a difference?

She thought of burning glades and abandoned villages, of hungry foxes and the cruelty of armies. “Well, Gan Guangli is right. She never does make tasks easy on us.”

“She does not,” Cai Renxiang agreed.

“Can you be satisfied with that?” Ling Qi asked. “Despite everything she has done to you?”

“Will destroying my mother’s works help even a single person, even myself?” Cai Renxiang asked archly. “I have no interest in tantrums.”

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Ling Qi could feel the glower in the qi radiating from Liming, and she saw the embroidery shift and tighten.Cai Renxiang grimaced.

“The past should inform, but never command,” Gan Guangli said simply, leaning back in his seat. “Look ahead. What changes in the immediate term?”

“Little,” Cai Renxiang said. “Save that the success of this project is even more vital. We have so little room for even mediocrity, let alone failure. These negotiations must be seen as a complete success by every group we wish to court. I will be relying on each of you to continue exceeding expectations on every task.”

“You can’t achieve the peak through mediocrity,” Ling Qi said lightly. “Remind me to take you on a trip some time, Gan Guangli.”

He raised his eyebrows in mock alarm. “Ah, Miss Su has warned me of this. I will prepare myself for tribulation.”