Threads 252-Capital 4

Ling Qi sucked in a breath. “It’s a wonder that it’s still here.”

“The ones who ascend can’t disappear so quickly, especially not right where they ascended.” Sixiang circled her like smoke as if at any moment that hidden light could lance out and destroy her.

When a cultivator reached the peak of the eighth and final realm and then ascended yet again, they ceased to exist in the mortal world, writing the Law they had built in their lives into the fabric of the world. The Palace of One was one such Law. It had once been the first Matriarch of the Hui clan after all, who had overseen their rise to the ducal palace.

It was the last thing that remained of them. It remained when all else was gone. It did not even seem so terrible as an ideal. Where had things gone so wrong?

Ling Qi shook her head and reached out, taking hold of Sixiang’s hand. “Come on.”

“Where are we going? I’d have thought you’d want to poke around more,” they said, letting themselves be pulled along as Ling Qi drifted away from the central vortex.

“Maybe later. I don’t think it’s a good idea to always focus on big issues.”

“Who are you, and what’d you do with my Ling Qi?” Sixiang demanded with a laugh.

Ling Qi rolled her eyes, and they came to the shore of a dense isle of iridescent bubbles on which to stand, drifting in the wider current. “Oh, haha. I do listen to you sometimes.”

“I can’t really say that’s a great idea,” Sixiang riposted before crouching beside her, looking into the curve of a large bubble poking through the packed surface. A balding old man in a workshop was surrounded by half-painted images and landscapes, already muttering to himself as he started anew on a blank canvas.

“I’d say it’s a coinflip,” Ling Qi jabbed back.

“Aw, you’re sweet.”

They walked, or rather, floated for a time, drifting along this island made of a thousand, thousand dreams from artists and crafters, both failed and successful. There were more of the former than the latter, and it was both inspiring and dispiriting to see so many people trying and failing again and again.

She really was lucky.

“You shouldn’t pity them. That’s rude,” Sixiang reprimanded. “When people pour their soul into art, even if nobody else notices or cares, there’s some worth just in having the opportunity to do it.”

“I suppose,” Ling Qi said as they drifted away from the first isle. “Just having the opportunity is amazing. We don’t get to dream of accomplishing something great or making something beautiful when we’re scrambling to survive.”

“And just look at ‘em all, reaching for something new,” Sixiang said, looking off into the distance. “Maybe there’s a million who’ll never make their names known, but hey, there might be one that changes the world.”

Abundance bred creation and innovation. Those left in want might be clever in their own way by striving for survival, but in the end, they could only do the same activities day after day because hunger was never far away. Xiangmen was a place so rich, so abundant, that there could be this many people, this many dreams, all at once, all aching to make themselves real.

Ling Qi thought back to her journey with the moon spirits and the avatar of the Grinning Moon, so impressed with just the existence of the crowds of Tonghou. Even that was an improvement over people scrabbling desperately under the cruel hungers of bloated beasts.

But she still thought Renxiang was right. This state of affairs wasn’t good enough. The rot remained, seeping up from old wounds and new wounds alike.

She followed after Sixiang, the muse darting among the eddies and islands where the bubbles gathered. Together, they watched plays yet unwritten, comedies and tragedies and dramas, life wrought loud on the stage. They listened to poets and singers, masterful and not. They glimpsed new designs in the minds of crafters, of formation craft which might relieve hard labor, refine an art, assist a worker, or replace him whole. They saw in the art of Xiangmen a city still coming to terms with vanished chains, unsure and young, cynical and old all in one.

It was a bubbling cauldron of creation, and Ling Qi wondered if any could know what would emerge from it in the end.

“That’s the wrong way to think of it. Sixiang observed the vortex from the side of the drifting isle they had landed upon. “You think too much about endings, and sure, nothing lasts forever, but until this old tree withers at the end of the world, the dreams won’t stop.”

“I only hope the ugly ones don’t come to dominate. I don’t much like nightmares.”

“You and me both,” Sixiang agreed, sliding an arm around her shoulder. “They’re dull. Drab all the way through.”

Ling Qi laughed under her breath and simply relaxed. The auction would begin tomorrow, and they would have to turn in soon. She would seek the Dreaming Moon’s revel tomorrow night, but for now, this was fine.

***

Xia Lin’s dress was very pretty, but unfortunately, she wore it with the same air as a cat stuffed into a costume. Ling Qi felt for the other girl, and she was very glad that her own gown was also her armor.

“It’s good to see you again,” Ling Qi said, walking with her from the entrance of the auction house’s yard.

The Golden Orchid was a sprawling building some three stories tall, filling a whole block in the trunkward part of the city. It was surrounded by a beautiful garden, and the front of the building was taken up by a roofed porch that was otherwise open to the air, leaving a comfortable space for guests to wait and talk before the actual auction took place. Behind the ostentatious central building were the warehouses for the goods that would be auctioned, guarded by potent security formations that Ling Qi could sense from the front.

Although, the ones she could sense so clearly were probably there to distract and show off with other, more subtle defenses beneath. It was what she would do.

“Yes, I do not think Xiangmen agrees with me,” Xia Lin said, looking harried.

“It’s a little overwhelming, but I thought you would be more used to it.” Ling Qi glanced at Xia Lin. “Don’t the White Plumes train here?”

“Our training camp and prime staging facilities lie in the outer boroughs, not the city proper. Everything is too packed and chaotic inside,” Xia Lin explained, smoothing the trailing white and gold sleeves of her dress for the seventh time since Ling Qi had met her at the gate.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

<If this girl got to unwind, would she leap into the air like an unmoored spring?> Sixiang wondered.

“There’s something to be said for spontaneity. I’ve enjoyed touring the city. Maybe I could show you a few places after the auction?” Ling Qi offered.

Xia Lin frowned uncertainly as they mounted the steps of the porch, giving her an odd, measuring look. “If you like, Lady Ling.”

“Ling Qi, please. I think we’re past that.”

“I suppose that kind of distance is inappropriate after smiting a corpse immortal together,” Xia Lin agreed, turning an assessing gaze over the other guests. She looked like she was assessing danger in the wilderness instead of measuring a gala full of civilians.

“It is,” Ling Qi said, nodding wisely as they moved through the loose crowd of attendees. Since they were the sellers for the day’s first lot of auction items, they had been invited to review the items and observe the auction from a raised box for the duration. The man at the door bowed and let them pass.

“Are you intending to participate in the other auctions of the day?” Xia Lin asked.

“I may. Though I’m not certain what I would be looking for.”

“I am similar. I have little need for externally supplied equipment. … But I suppose if I am accompanying you and Lady Cai after this, I will need some kind of household.”

“Well, I hope the White Plumes will let you stay in their barracks a while longer. It will be some time before there’s anything but temporary construction. Still, it will be good to have you with us. There are quite a few dangerous places in the land that Lady Cai has claimed.”