Threads 421-Taming Winter 10

Ling Qi looked out over the glacier, now stained in the colors of the sunset. Her eyes followed the glittering blue trails of the streams and little rivers that trickled down to disappear beneath trees and between valleys.

The Weeping Mother’s cold was not her cold, but there was a point in the spirit’s vision which she had not properly grappled with in her own understanding.

“Stones for your thoughts?”

She glanced at Bao Qian, who had seated himself heavily on a flat stone outside the cave mouth. He was painstakingly wrapping his hands in bandages moist with some medical tincture.

“You said it,” Ling Qi said. “What matters is that you did it.”

“Haha, I’d not give my little ramble much thought. I was hardly…”

“No. I think I will.” She turned back to the sunset. “So much leaves your control, the moment you’ve acted. Too many other people are making choices. The glacier has no say in which way its child streams flow. The hills and the forests they flow through have no idea the glacier even exists. It waters them all the same. Maybe you’ll be forgotten. Maybe you won’t. Does it matter?”

Hanyi, she saw, was looking back at the entrance of the cave, her expression troubled. She didn’t think her junior sister was ignoring them, just deep in her own thoughts.

“It shouldn’t, but it hurts all the same to go unacknowledged, no matter how hard you toil.”

“Why did you insist that you weren’t hollow?”

He snorted. “Isn’t that always the accusation, said in prettier words? One who buys and sells can never be sincere or hold anything dear. No, my pride in my work can only be a salesman’s sham.”

She continued to observe the streams flowing far below through the lightened clouds.

“… It’s not wrong. Many Bao are like that. We set our eyes on the unattainable peak of the Law of Wealth and empty ourselves out as surely as any sword immortal. It is exhausting for every breath and step to be measured and weighed against an investment calculation. Easier to align yourself with it and achieve better efficiency.”

“And so, you were sent to me?”

“I am a low enough value asset that I can be invested in a risky scheme, certainly. However, you should know the planners of the Bao are not so myopic or simple as I make them sound with my grumbling. Many factors were considered, and there were many scions of the lower middle rankings that could have been chosen.”

His fingers now tightly wrapped in the medical gauze, he began to pick up the rings scattered at his feet like colorful raindrops. He scrutinized each one in turn, buffing away blood and clinging bits of tissue before returning them to storage.

“But I have found something valuable here in the south. There’s a certain rush to people’s lives down in the foothills and to the circuits I’ve made with the young miss. And though we’ve not been able to speak much, there’s something intriguing to you as well.”

She turned her head enough to look at him as he spoke.

“You are propelling something great forward, you and the heiress. And in all the thronging theaters and squabbling music schools of the north, I’ve never heard a song which tears at the heartstrings quite like yours.” Bao Qian looked up from his last ring. “I won’t pretend we’ve begun well for anything but business, but I’d like to keep my chance at your hand, Ling Qi.”

Ling Qi hummed thoughtfully. She had never disliked Bao Qian. She had merely been ill suited to the arrangement back when their formal courtship began. However, she wouldn’t lie to herself. She wasn’t sure she felt the same spark of interest in Bao Qian that Meng Dan had given her, even with a compliment like that, but on the other hand, it had only been a matter of months since she had been able to admit any such feelings at all.

“I will be very busy. Your tour is coming up. There’s also the wedding at the capital, and then the underground offensive,” Ling Qi warned.

“I will be in that offensive, if only in the supply lines. As I am here already, my clan has volunteered me for a quartermaster’s service in our contingent.” Bao Qian smiled wanly. “Hardly the place for lighter activities.”

“No,” Ling Qi agreed. “But then, you do have a point. I’ve already begun to feel like a year is less time than it ever was. Let’s see where this relationship goes this coming year. If we are still in this place at that point…”

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“Then, partners in business we remain,” Bao Qian finished, rising from his seat. “Now, we’d best start our climb down if we want any kind of comfort in our camp tonight.”

“Where’s the drama?” Hanyi complained under her breath, tucking her hands under her arms. She looked put out.

Ling Qi shot her junior sister an amused look. Hanyi really was too transparent. If her little sister had her way, Ling Qi would be surrounded by handsome aristocratic men like some kind of imperial princess. Frankly, that sounded exhausting.

Ling Qi started down the path. “Yes, we should. I do think I could go for a meal tonight. I’ve not much skill with a campfire though.”

“I can give instructions, even if I can’t tend it myself. There should still be enough meat for a good stew,” Bao Qian pondered.