Threads 251-Capital 3

<Ah, you’re too hard on yourself,> chided Sixiang.

Maybe, thought Ling Qi, leaving the misty grounds behind. She rejoined the main street that wound along the immense branch of Xiangmen with the leafy green canopy still so unimaginably far above.

It was strange that there wasn’t a single person walking around below the second realm. There was much less of the reflexive obedience she had grown used to from the residents of the sect town. The palanquins and processions of greater nobles still earned that reaction here, but Ling Qi felt mundane. She was someone of status, but not someone of note.

It was a confusing feeling. Her life had gone from one extreme to another, and now, she didn’t know how to feel about balancing in the middle.

Everything was so bright up here with all the lanterns, qi lights, and paints that lit up with inner flame. The upper reaches of Xiangmen were a riot of competing artistry, each building seeming to metaphorically shoulder to the front of the crowd as if to proclaim “Only I deserve attention!”

Tonghou was a hideous little hovel of a city, wasn’t it? But did it have to be? If a few stones spilled down from these branches and into those streets, wouldn’t they be transformed?

Probably not, ruminated Ling Qi, stopping to look through the window of a shop. From the looks of the shop, it sold glass ornaments and statues. Beautiful work, really, even if a little gaudy. If those stones did spill down, they would only vanish into powerful pockets, and the streets would never see them.

<Feeling philosophical, huh?> drawled Sixiang. <I think you know it doesn’t have to be that way.>

Maybe not. Well, not everywhere at least. She didn’t know much about ruling, but she liked to think she could at least do better than Tonghou.

<Nobody should be hungry,> proclaimed Zhengui solemnly.

Ling Qi hid a small smile behind her sleeve and stepped into the shop. She emerged a few minutes later with a small padded package in her storage ring. Her mother would probably appreciate the blown glass flowers. A novelty from a world far away for her.

<What’s the plan?> Sixiang asked. <It’s getting pretty late.>

They would drop off Hanyi and Zhengui and then, she and Sixiang would have a night on the town.

<Hah! That’s more like it! If the mortals are this lively, my side is gonna be great!> Sixiang exclaimed.

<Not fair that I have to stay here,> grumbled Hanyi.

<Big Sis got hurt last time. Shouldn’t Gui come too?> asked her little brother worriedly.

Having more people along would make things harder, not safer, thought Ling Qi. She stepped to the side of the street as a well-dressed nobleman’s procession passed by. The noble was a fourth realm, and he was from a comital clan, though she couldn’t remember which one. She caught him glancing her way, and she could see him trying to place her for a moment before dismissing her.

There was still some value in not being too well-known.

<Yeah, I gotta agree… We need more practice before we can bring you guys along. Give us a little time,> Sixiang supported her.

Her other spirits grumbled and complained a little more, but she knew they understood.

The trip back to their guest home passed in peace. She left Zhengui in the garden and Hanyi in her room with a promise that she’d take her out dress shopping tomorrow morning to mollify her complaints. She stopped by Cai Renxiang’s room and left a note stating that she would be out for cultivation until morning.

Then it was back out into the darkening streets. Xiangmen, unlike many places, didn’t seem to fully shut down with the falling of night. There were less people, and some venues were closed, but music and voices and shouts still filled the arboreal street.

“Do you actually know where you’re going to go?” asked Sixiang curiously, materializing a physical form to walk beside her. Slender and pale in a cream-colored dress with shimmering, prismatic embroidery, they looked like an androgynous girl her own age. Even their hair was half-tamed for once, tied back in a braid and only very slowly changing color through the spectrum.

“Not yet,” replied Ling Qi thoughtfully. “I think I need to experience the city a little first, and I wouldn’t mind some more time to think.”

“Well, let’s hit the town then!” said Sixiang cheerfully, bumping her shoulder. “Just follow my lead. Pretty sure I know how this works.”

“Lead me not into vice, you miscreant,” Ling Qi sniffed, imitating Meizhen to her best effort.

“Oh, you don’t even know.” Sixiang laughed, taking her hand as they stepped along the brightly lit street. “Let’s see what weird little corners we can find.”

For all that Ling Qi had been born in a city, this was the first time she had really explored one. Actually, Xiangmen was still so massive that it was hard to think of it as one city. If she looked into the distance, she could see glittering constellations of stars in the distance that were the other settled branches. If she looked down, there was the faint light of the terraces and great city windows shaped in the bark. If she looked up, there was the great green dome of the leaves that reached beyond the limits of the sky.

It was dizzying.

For now, she chose to stick to this one branch for tonight’s exploration. She knew it was officially called the “Seventh Cloudspire District,” but from listening as she strolled, Ling Qi learned its colloquial name was the “Cerulean Garden.” She was curious as to the provenance of the name, and a few questions brought her toward the tip of the branch where it narrowed to only a few dozen meters across and the broad, village-sized leaves clustered close.

What she found was a bit mad in her opinion. Built onto the largest of leaves and the branch itself were sprawling apiaries and artificial fields, holding tea plants whose leaves ranged from the deepest indigo to the palest sky blue. They buzzed with bees, mostly normal in size, but there were a handful the size of horses with dark blue carapaces. Human workers and soldiers rode these, dangling from complex slings and harnesses of wood and leather. Once she spotted them, she understood the purpose of the oversized apiary that hung below the branch, suspended on cords of woven metal.

She spent some time wandering the public part of the garden, observing the workers performing their tasks before heading back trunkward. Elsewhere, these gardens would be a wonder fit to build a whole settlement around, but in Xiangmen, it was but the jewel of a single district.

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In the more densely-built part of the district, she came across a theater giving late-night performances. By coincidence, she arrived at the start of a show, and after a moment’s thought and some goading from Sixiang, she spent stones on a ticket. The theater was neither low-class nor lavish, but comfortably middle-class. There were a handful of boxes for high nobles arrayed about, but Ling Qi chose to merely purchase a seat in the tier above the standing ground.

She hadn’t even looked at the name of the show, so it was with some surprise that she found herself a rather crass kind of comedy. Despite herself, she couldn’t hold in a snort of laughter as she observed an actor, painted up in the most exaggerated fashion of a courtier, wailing in outrage after a pratfall into his own lavish office’s garden pond.