Threads 333 Tension 1

There were drums, Ji Rong had said. Drums always beating. Ling Qi pondered that statement as she soared in the sky over mountain and valley, river and cliff.

She was proceeding ahead of the carriage to arrive at the summit location in time to arrange the schedule for Renxiang and to give herself time to think and cultivate. She’d not had much time for cultivation in a while, and it was making her anxious.

Her meeting with Ji Rong and Sun Liling would come soon after her arrival, and the impending event had left her wondering on the nature of what Ji Rong spoke of. She considered the surface-level impression of Sun Liling when the princess had arrived at the summit location. She had felt the fertile, bloody earth, claws bared at the world. But there was a bitterness in it too, buried deep beneath blood and earth and under blade and claw. Bitterness. Resentment. Rage.

The feelings had a familiar tint to them. Ling Qi was loath to turn over the memory of her first nightmare tribulation. The tribulation setting had been the memory of the Mason War and had featured the King of the Wild Hunt. It had been there where her newfound resolve to be better had met reality and failed. She had recovered. She was better now. The fragile Ling Qi of back then could not have faced the Emerald Mourner and stole back Sixiang in her latest tribulation, refusing to follow the nightmare’s will.

But she still remembered her first. Remembered it down in the shard of her soul that she had etched into isolation. She remembered being a rat with bloody teeth and not the slightest shred of kinship, merely a blood-hungry beast that devoured whatever fell in its path.

Sun Liling radiated a different sort of hunger, a different sort of desperation and rage. As a rat, she had been a weak and cowardly vermin that could only move as she was told lest she die. Sun Liling reminded her far more of the hunter whose shadow was like the beasts of the Emerald Seas.

Ling Qi wondered now at that cloak of beasts that the hunter in the first nightmare tribulation had worn. The other phantom Weilu had recognized her Thousand Rings art. If she went now, would the hunter recognize the Dirge of the Beast Kings?

She could see the cut mountain and the observatory rising high ahead. Ling Qi spiraled down toward it as she contemplated blood and hunger, rats and hunters, and jungles and forests.

Unfortunately, what awaited her were not simple procedures.

***

“Excuse me, what happened?” Ling Qi asked with dawning horror.

Jin Tae stroked his chin. “My, Lady Ling should listen more closely.”

Inside the imperial embassy, now fully built out over the Hui bunker, Ling Qi had arrived to some very disturbing news. She had been less than impressed at her arrival when she had been ushered into a dim office, not even fully furnished yet, lit only by a single paper lantern. But its security was complete, which was what mattered, she supposed.

Jin Tae had been waiting for her there, garbed in his dark ministry robes, his white mask tied up to the side of his head. He was entirely too cheerful.

“As I said, during daily work upon the meeting hall, our methods came in conflict with the foreigners’, and as a result of the flaws in such experimental construction, the geomancy of the site was undermined. When an argument broke out over this, one of the foreign guards struck an imperial artisan with her fist. There were some further fisticuffs, but your Xia Lin stopped steel from being drawn. This is quite grave, no? It’s unacceptable behavior.”

Thanks the moon for Xia Lin. If steel had been drawn, she doubted the general would have restrained herself.

Ling Qi narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes, we cannot allow violence between us. Where are the people involved now?”

“The foreigner was rushed off to their redoubt,” Jin Tae said, studying his fingernails. “The poor artisan was taken to the medical pavilion. I am told she is having a tooth regrown.”

“I see.” Ling Qi sighed. “I don’t suppose you know more details, do you, agent of the ministry?”

“Did I not say everything that needs to be known? These barbarians will need to tender an apology at minimum.” Jin Tae said.

She gave him a hard look, and he sighed. “This happened but a few hours ago. Efforts have been focused on preventing conflict from spreading.”

“A simple fight triggered so much chaos?”

“Tensions are high.”

“Ruined geomancy can fray tempers and damage inhibition,” Ling Qi retorted.

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“It was considered,” Jin Tae allowed. “Will you accompany my investigation then?”

“I will,” Ling Qi said firmly. “I need to speak with everyone and determine the circumstances.”

“My, you are meticulous. Shall we, Lady Ling?”

“Are the Jin prone to conclusions without seeing all angles?” Ling Qi wondered, following him out of the office as the silencing seals on the doorframe deactivated, letting them out into the embassy.

“We choose to be efficient and seek advantage. Circumstances can matter, but the results of this are clear, no? We must demand a formal apology and punishment of the instigator. To do otherwise would show us as feeble indeed.”

“Most likely,” Ling Qi agreed grumpily. She understood that. Even if there were complicating factors, letting this pass would infuriate quite a lot of imperials participating in the summit. “But we need to understand the whys of it if further incidents are to be prevented.”