Threads 441-Lesson Plan 2

“The roots?”

Ling Qi pondered the unspoken question. As a teacher, Shu Yue was not one to tell her she was wrong, or even guide her choices much, so it wasn’t an oblique rebuke or warning.

“I’ve seen the clashes of high ideals and the towering perspectives of sovereigns. I’ve seen what a Way like mine could be like at those heights. My thought then was that the difference lay in the faces, the individuals of your kin and community. Letting them disappear into the whole is the start of a poor turn.” Ling Qi shrugged. “I’m already bad at remembering people who are too far away. I’ve engraved the lonely streets into my Way, but I’m not sure if it’s enough. Seeing what an unrestrained ideal can do to those beneath its notice is a lesson I will benefit from, which will sharpen my own weapons well, such as they are.”

What she had suffered, she had made her weapon: isolation, the privation of the mind. That was the cultivation she had chosen. In every art where she had the capacity to harm, there were traces of that weapon.

She knew she was going to hate looking into such a pit of ugliness in the depths of Xiangmen, but she also knew that the coming offensive against the ith would be so much worse.

“So, yes,” she continued, “the roots, down where the suffering is all the sharper for its lack of malice. As for the Palace, I have a feeling I’ll need to see it again but now is not the time. That journey should not be touched by war.”

“I will not promise to offer my guidance toward it when you feel ready. A choice made is a consequence set. Without such, they are meaningless.”

“I understand.” Ling Qi bowed her head. “May I ask how we will proceed with this lesson? I cannot disappear for long.”

“I will pose you questions and assignments, observations to make during the days of your stay. When I am satisfied with your efforts, we will descend, and you will examine those answers in the face of the nightmares. This will keep the lesson grounded in the present, as your Way must be, and prevent too much strain and mental pollution from ruining your other efforts.”

“I accept my choice.”

“Then, let it be so,” Shu Yue said gravely. They straightened to their full height. “Another guest arrives.”

Ling Qi glanced outside at the position of the sun. “Oh! Yes, Meng Duyi was meant to come by today.”

“I will not delay your meeting with the Maker of Harmonies. We will speak again when you journey north.”

“I will look forward to our lesson.”

Shu Yue’s head tilted, their ear left almost horizontal to their shoulder. “I do not know that you should, but it pleases me that you look ahead with clear eyes.”

Their form collapsed, shadows skittering away into the corners of the room. Ling Qi was once again alone, or seemingly so, anyway.

“There isn’t much reason to drive myself to distraction wondering otherwise, is there?” she wondered aloud, not expecting an answer. She didn’t receive one. In the absence of Shu Yue’s buzzing, empty aura pressing down on her, she could feel the slow approach of Meng Duyi, like a winding stream burbling over smooth river stones sedately and without excitement. His news must be nothing terrible, then.

She gestured as he arrived, and the door opened with a faint click. Meng Duyi strode through without a pause. Such efficiency was only expected when everyone involved had a certain level of perception.

“Thank you for receiving me, Baroness.”

The door swung shut behind him as easily as it had opened.

“You were my scheduled meeting. I would not dare use your time so poorly as to push it back without good reason.”

“And the shadow did not have one to report,” Meng Duyi replied agreeably.

Shu Yue had not been hiding their presence.

“We were simply discussing lesson plans.”

He pursed his lips. “I will not waste time speaking of wariness. You have already chosen a very old path when it comes to choosing mentors.”

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Ling Qi smiled. He didn’t even know about Huisheng, but his observation was still true. Learning from deadly spirits was perhaps the oldest form of cultivation.

“I have slowed down for long enough.”