Threads 271-Grudges 2

They had been watching for two days now.

Yan Shenyi was a young seeming man who bore some resemblance to his cousin. He was short and a bit broad with the rough sort of face that was not usually deemed handsome. His dark brown hair was short and closely cropped, but he had a stringy mustache that hung down around his frowning mouth.

A dour man with few friends or acquaintances. Less now than a year ago. Before his cousin’s death, he’d been more well regarded, particularly in the early half of that year when he’d become generous. That had ended swiftly, and he’d become much more withdrawn and surly than before. He’d received some sympathy when tragedy struck, but it seemed most of his co-workers had simply sunk into a mutual apathy for the man.

Ling Qi observed him walking down the hall of the ministry, a heavy bundle of letters and communications under one arm on his way to the delivery offices. She saw his eye twitch as he passed a cleaning woman in the hall.

The woman was part of her team in this, a seventh ranked officer of the Ministry of Law disguised as a mortal woman.

Well. “Disguised.”

She was one of a few such individuals, seeded around Yan Shenyi’s usual haunts, disguised mundanely but instructed to let themselves “slip” a little in their attention to the man. Today was the final day of observation, and it was time for things to become “interesting.”

The whole point was to ratchet up his paranoia after all while keeping his attention away from her, the main observer.

She had read once that official imperial rolls of spirits classified the Grinning Moon as the patron of investigators, not thieves. She’d scoffed back then, but it made more sense now. A game required more than one player.

<Even if Auntie Grinning’s a bit nicer down here, she’s still the Grinning Moon,> Sixiang cautioned.

The Grinning Moon valued cunning, action, and freedom. But the wind doesn’t care where it blows. It wasn’t bothered by results, whether it turned the sails of a windmill or blew down a house. It went where it went, and so, too, the Grinning Moon. Bound by nothing. Connected to nothing.

That was why she couldn’t serve the Grinning Moon alone, even when she exulted in flight or when her heart pounded in her chest as she raided an enemy’s lair unseen. That was part of her, a part of her she had not been able to indulge often enough, but it wasn’t all of her.

Ling Qi perked up as Yan Shenyi exited the office, having delivered his last bundle of newly notarized documents. She had watched the man scribe missives and organize documents all day, but now, maybe Yan Shenyi would do something different and interesting. The only action of note during the long, boring day of observation thus far had been the man’s frequent coughing fits and gulping down of water.

A quick check in with her contacts, who were themselves in communication with the Ministry of Communication, told her that he had reported a severe failure in opening a lung meridian some time back. Actually, it had been just before the time of the sabotage. Was this an actual coincidence, or had he actually been pressed into this scheme through some kind of curse technique?

She did think his involvement seemed awfully convenient, an attempt to incite action by her via grudge.

What she was certain about as she set out after him, strolling from rooftop to rooftop, barely corporeal, was that the plan was working. She watched Yan Shenyi mop sweat from his brow as he hurried along the main road. Just one glimpse of a hidden agent had him alarmed.

There were a few places he consistently frequented. He was a regular patron at a teahouse in the city center, the city brothel on the south side, much to her disgust, a garden in the north, and a gambling hall on the east side, and of course, his home. Now that she thought about it, his home was in the western district.

He had a wife, but they were rarely seen together and had no children. She’d gone to visit her family a few months ago. The Ministry of Law thought the family was considering how to annul the marriage, now that the Yan family had lost its rank.

She’d not seen him doing anything untoward as he cycled around those locations over the last couple days, but she couldn’t help the niggling feeling that she was missing something.

She peered down from the rooftop of some shop or another at the sweating clerk. She could see the point of damage; the radiating spiritual heat of a ruptured meridian was genuine. His qi was full of resentment and fear.

“Lady Ling, we have completed our trace of the unauthorized delivery network and secured the documents and missives he was attempting to send out. Items are being sent for decoding at base.”

The voice of an officer of the Ministry of Law whispered in her ear, transferred by the simple farspeaking talisman she’d been provided for this operation.

“Noted. Observing subject for attempts to flee,” Sixiang whispered, sending back a response to the officer with her voice.

She narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t going home.

“Deviating from observed paths,” Sixiang reported on her behalf.

Atop the roof, Ling Qi dissolved entirely, dripping like water into the shadows that lay between shingles. The world always felt strange like this, seeing and sensing the world only through qi sense. In the gray sea of mortality, lit by little flickering embers of emotion and candles of common cultivators, she followed the sickly torch of her target’s qi, bending and flowing through shadows until she occupied his.

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Where could he be hoping to go? He wasn’t heading for the stables or the gates. Instead, he was traveling toward the city center. In her senses, the city was a complex of light, criss-crossing lines of geometry that formed a cage of spiritual power between the defenses of the ruling clan’s manor and the inner wall. The only transport formation in the city was under the direct control of the viscount’s clan and lay in their manor. Was he meeting someone?

As shadow and breeze, she followed him.

Observing so closely, she actually felt some worry for the man. He was… leaking. Hot, sickly, feverish little droplets of qi were drip drip dripping into the dirt and then dissolving into the air. Was the man dying?

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