Threads 272-Grudges 3

“What?!” the voice from the crystal, Yan Renshu’s voice, snarled.

“Dead men lose their hearing. Good to know,” Ling Qi said coldly.

“You… You can’t be here! This room is impenetrable without the power of a fourth realm! And what did you just do to my masterpiece?!”

She cocked her head to the side, her eyes narrowing into vicious slits. “Have you ever considered that you’re just not very good at security?”

Her response was a wordless scream of rage warbling through the crystal’s distorting filter.

<Sixiang,> Ling Qi thought.

<Sending a message out. Telling them to shut down the locations, full search, major cult attack in potentia.>

That was for the best. She could explain the details later, but at least this message would kick the city’s Ministry of Law over like a hive of irritated bees.

“This is far beyond a child’s grudge,” Ling Qi said. The qi in that worm pointed to nothing good. His words that she would be taken off the board… He had to be confident in the killing power of his work to kill one as resilient as her before the patriarch and elders of the town could react.

How many mortals and low cultivators would have died under those circumstances?

“A child’s grudge! You dare…”

“Found you.”

He spluttered, and Ling Qi grinned. She hadn’t, of course. He was speaking through a communication array that she couldn’t even parse. She had no technique which could track someone like that, and while she could maybe conceive of tracking someone down via impression in the dream, her current skills didn’t go so far.

She felt the connection cut off, and the crystal went dark. Would he dare open another connection to the city not knowing what she could do?

Ling Qi glanced down at the man groaning on the floor. Was he really trying to inch toward the transport array?

“Stop,” she spoke, and he froze. “What do you know about these ‘party favors’?”

“Seeds. Seeds in the sewers. Rat men, those corpse eaters, needed guidance. Not any formations I’ve seen before. Had… a friend in the Ministry of Works. Got maps. In the cisterns. Had to be watered regularly,” he rambled. “Lady Ling, I—”

“Not now,” she cut him off harshly. “You can speak to the Ministry. Are they still down there?”

“Yes.”

Ling Qi scowled. This was at once larger and smaller than she had feared, not an internal intrigue, but an actual enemy operation. There was much at risk here. She had stopped the immediate problem, but who knew what failsafes that worm had added or if whatever ith’ia agents below had secondary orders?

<Sixiang, relay,> she directed the muse mentally.

<What are we gonna do, big sis?> Zhengui asked.

It was tempting, so tempting, to simply rush off down into the sewers herself and dive into the thick of things. But that wasn’t the path she had chosen. She had chosen to be bound by her roots, and doing so did not dull the edge of her wings.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shape move and felt qi flicker. With a casual flick of her wrist, a diamond snare, claimed by theft from a son of the Thunder Palace, expanded and wrapped around Yan Shenyi. The man fell mid-lunge to the floor with the crack of a face meeting floor.

“Did you really believe that would work?” she asked absently, listening and thinking as Sixiang relayed communications to her. The Ministry of Law was demanding more detailed answers as to what was going on. They were moving agents to the buildings at the four sites and evacuating them of people, but that wouldn’t be enough, if what she suspected was true.

She needed them to see that. And for that, she had to do more than give terse reports. She needed to convince them.

“Was worth the attempt,” Yan Shenyi grunted, looking mournfully at the transport circle.

She could understand it. For all that she had saved him, he was still a dead man. A quick and merciful execution was the kindest path remaining. But that was the path he had chosen for himself.

“What did he promise you?” Ling Qi asked, grasping the knotted diamond wire that held him and hauling the man off the ground to dangle from her hand like an awkward and traitorous parcel. There was some actual benefit to her height, it seemed.

“Power. Position. What else could matter?” he asked darkly as she mounted the stairs. “That thing was supposed to be a cultivation aid.”

“I bet it was.” Probably not an aid for imperial cultivation though, Ling Qi thought. “But how does betraying the Empire get you position?”

“What can an easy talent like you understand? The Empire has always cheated the Yan family, always dangled the rewards we deserve just out of reach. That little bastard said the rat men needed human governers to act as go-betweens,” he said sourly. No regret in him, just spite for the one who betrayed him.

She took a little pleasure as she briefly took a skipping step across the border of dream to bypass the security door, appearing in the tearoom above, and he retched on the carpet. A glance at the door saw it bang open on a harsh breeze revealing a hall populated by servers and curious guests peering out, no doubt sensing her unrestrained qi and the frost it spread across the floor.

Apparently, one look at her expression had the guests pulling their heads back in and slamming the doors. The servers withdrew to the walls to avoid blocking her path. She glanced at one, a young man holding a tea tray to his chest.

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“Inform your employer that the Ministry of Law will be along to investigate unsanctioned construction. Any attempt to hide or destroy what I have found will go very poorly for them.”

The server visibly swallowed, nodding his head frantically as the doors in her path burst open in tandem. Ling Qi flew out, drawing a high-pitched scream from Yan Shenyi at the acceleration. People scattered away from the front of the building as she burst out, rising sharply into the sky.