Perhaps it was the influence of the qi locus they had found, or the burning of medicinal energy in her dantian from the pills and notes Li Suyin had gifted her, or simply her determination to succeed, but Ling Qi found the cultivation of the third stage of the Argent Soul Art coming to her easily.

  In the third stage, Ling Qi had to compress the qi she cultivated, carefully pressing it against the surface of her dantian until it began to congeal into a flexible layer reinforcing her dantian against rupture and damage. This thick qi could then be drawn away in strands and woven into muscle and bone, further fortifying her body.

  Ling Qi spent her afternoons between lessons on this process, gradually accumulating the Argent Qi in more potent quantities as she mastered the third stage.

  In the evenings, Ling Qi tutored Li Suyin in physical cultivation. Li Suyin’s own efforts had taken her close to a breakthrough. Once she had grasped Elder Zhou’s initial lessons as relayed by Ling Qi, Li Suyin reached the first level of the Gold Physique.

  Elder Su’s lessons continued to be trying due to Ling Q’s other classmates, but they were fruitful as well. The Elder was beginning to delve into more complex aspects of qi, which included something that had confused Ling Qi. Namely, she got an explanation for what a ‘Yin Aspected’ art was. Despite there being dozens of qi types beyond the basic elements of earth, wind, water, fire, mountain, lake, thunder, and sky, all arts fell into one of three categories.

  Yin, Yang, and Balanced.

  As the basis for everything which existed, the study of these concepts was a deep and complex subject, and even Elder Su’s lessons were only a beginner’s primer. Yin was reactive, passive, or absorbent and was more used in internal and support arts. Yang was active, aggressive, or impenetrable and was more used in the ‘flashy’ external arts typically associated with immortals.

  There were many details and many exceptions due to the sheer number of arts and the unconventional ways in which qi could be expressed. Ultimately, the most important thing was that Elder Su taught them how to feel the difference between Yin qi and Yang qi.

  Argent Soul, the Sect-given cultivation art, was an example of the third option, Balanced. Balanced was neutral with Yin and Yang equally present.

  Her other arts were exclusively yin. That wasn’t particularly surprising for the moon arts she had gained – given the moon’s traditional association with yin – but she had been unsure about Zephyr’s Breath.

  Ling Qi thought she had caught Elder Su eyeing her and Li Suyin speculatively once or twice over the course of the week. She had a good feeling about placing in the top five for the prize. She needed to keep striving for excellence. Despite how busy she was, Ling Qi had not forgotten the other task which she had set for herself in the lead up to Elder Zhou’s test. She was more determined than ever to find a way to give back to Bai Meizhen.

  One cold and windy evening when their schedules had coincided in both of them being home, she found her opportunity to ask.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any?” Ling Qi asked as she loaded her plate with the meal – extravagant for her – she had cooked. A few months ago, the idea of roasting an entire chicken for herself would have been ridiculous. Even if she had managed to steal and strangle one of the vicious, feathery little monsters, she certainly wouldn’t have eaten the whole thing. Now, she found that even if she didn’t eat often, when she did, she tended to be voracious.

  Bai Meizhen eyed the well-cooked poultry on Ling Qi’s plate with ill-concealed disgust from across the fire. It was a little insulting. Ling Qi didn’t think her cooking was that bad, especially since she had access to decent seasoning.

  “I am sure. Thank you,” the pale girl responded politely, belying her expression.

  “Alright.” Ling Qi wasn’t going to push, even if it was a bit depressing that she couldn’t even give the other girl back something as simple as a meal.

  “So…… About those two from my physical cultivation lessons……?”


  They had already spoken earlier on Fan Yu’s…… injury. While the poison Bai Meizhen had inflicted would permanently cripple a mortal, someone with qi could apparently clear the paralysis after a time spent circulating their energy and meditating. The other girl had seemed baffled at the implication that even that might have been excessive.

  “Kang Zihao, I have not personally heard of,” Bai Meizhen said, nursing a cup of tea as she usually did, Cui coiled loosely around her neck like a jade choker. “The Kang family is prominent in the capital and well favored by the Imperial court. I believe Kang Guanzhi is the current head of the Palace Guard, although that is a position with a high rate of turnover. I’m afraid I could not say if he is one of the man’s younger sons or merely a cousin however. As for Cai Renxiang, I am somewhat shocked that you do not know of her.” Going by Bai Meizhen’s raised eyebrows and stern expression, Ling Qi felt like she was being scolded for ignorance again.

  “Why would I know of her?” Ling Qi asked defensively after she finished swallowing her current mouthful of food.

  “One should at least maintain basic civic awareness,” Bai Meizhen responded with disappointment. “Really, if this is the state of education in these southern cities……” Ling Qi shifted uncomfortably, suddenly reminded that she had never really clarified exactly how low her birth was.

  “Cai Renxiang is the daughter and heiress to the Duchess of this province,” Bai Meizhen said. “The Cai family is very new, of course, at a mere three generations from their first cultivator, but Cai Shenhua is the youngest White cultivator in the Empire. It is not surprising that the Cai seized the governorship of a province.”


  Ling Qi really hoped that the girl’s interest in her wasn’t malicious then. “Er…… I think I can guess, but what exactly does being a ‘White’ cultivator denote?”


  Bai Meizhen sighed.

  “It is the eighth and highest realm of spiritual cultivation one can achieve in the mortal plane. To go beyond it or the physical equivalent is to become a great spirit. There are typically around ten such cultivators in the Empire at any given time.”


  Ling Qi had thought it was something like that, but the idea still boggled her mind. A person could become a great spirit? “Has that ever actually happened before?”


  “Of course. In fact, the last ascension was quite recent. The previous Emperor ascended to become an aspect of Death and is now the Great Spirit Inexorable Justice.” Bai Meizhen’s tone was grudgingly respectful even as she spoke of something absurd.

  Things like that were way too far beyond Ling Qi for her to worry about. She needed to bring the conversation back to the real reason she wanted to speak with her housemate

  “Right. That’s…… Thank you for the lesson. Putting that aside, if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you about something else.”


  Bai Meizhen nodded, seemingly content with the change in subject, although she wrinkled her nose as Ling Qi continued eating.

  “Go ahead. Is there someone else you feel concerned over? I noticed that you seem to have stirred up the rabble of lesser nobles somehow.”


  “Nothing like that,” Ling Qi responded.

  “Actually…… I talked with Cui a couple weeks ago because I wanted to do something for you since you’ve been helping me so much, you know?” The little serpent flicked her tongue at Ling Qi as she awkwardly stumbled through her statement.

  Bai Meizhen glanced down at her companion, who flicked her tongue a few more times and twisted her head to the side.

  “That is unnecessary, but I suppose I thank you all the same. I am somewhat surprised that you managed to speak with Cui. She is impatient and lazy after all.” Ling Qi didn’t think she had ever seen a snake manage to look affronted before.

  “I really do want to do something,” Ling Qi responded quietly. “Cui mentioned that you had your eye on a talisman? A jade dragon pendant some girl was wearing? I can get it for you if you want. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard.”


  Bai Meizhen blinked, then blinked again, apparently trying to remember the girl in question. This didn’t do much for Ling Qi’s confidence that Bai Meizhen actually wanted the talisman.

  Then, something strange happened. Bai Meizhen’s golden eyes widened, and she…… blushed? Her unnaturally pale cheeks went pink, and she glared down at Cui.

  “T-that won’t be necessary. Cui was simply exaggerating a passing interest.” The last words came out almost as a hiss and seemed to be directed more at her serpent companion than Ling Qi. It was odd to hear Bai Meizhen sounding almost flustered.

  Ling Qi didn’t really understand what was going on between Bai Meizhen and Cui, but surely, there had to be something she could do.

  “Alright. So you don’t want the necklace. Is there something you do want?”


  The flush was already fading from Bai Meizhen’s cheeks as she considered Ling Qi’s question.

  “.…… I am sorry, but there is nothing at the moment.” Ling Qi’s shoulders slumped slightly. Was she really that useless? “Once you break through into the Yellow Soul or Silver Physique however…… There is something you can assist me with then.” Bai Meizhen seemed slightly uncomfortable with making the request.

  “.…… Alright,” Ling Qi responded, looking down at her half-finished meal. “I won’t take too long.”


  Ling Qi felt surprisingly warm when Bai Meizhen nodded as if she really believed her.

  Threads 23-Winters Muse

  Zeqing’s home had never seemed so dark, Ling Qi thought nervously.

  For once, no one had come to greet her when she arrived on the mountaintop. There was only the wind and the dancing snowflakes. Her mentor’s home huddled darkly on its foundations like an image from an old tale. Its shutters were closed, and shadow lay deeply under its eaves despite the bright noonday sun shining overhead.

  And it was so very cold. Ling Qi shivered, rubbing her arms as she approached, footsteps light atop the snowy field.

  “Are you sure about this?” Sixiang asked, their voice drifting on the wind. “I know she’s your teacher and all, but you’re…… No one is welcome here right now. Can’t you feel it?”


  “I can feel it,” Ling Qi replied, approaching the door. “But I know my lessons aren’t complete either.”


  Sixiang said, the wind falling silent as their voice returned to her thoughts.

  Ling Qi opened her mouth, but she ended up staying silent rather than replying. She had told Cai Renxiang that she would be secluding herself in cultivation for a day or two, but there had been no reason to worry or frighten everyone else. She had already chosen to approach Zeqing again, even knowing the spirit was dangerous right now.

  “The way things are right now is partially my fault,” she finally said. “It’s only right that I help resolve it. I don’t want to……”


  Sixiang didn’t answer with words, but memories of her childhood drifted up, of stolen blankets and too slow allies.

  “No, that’s not right.” Ling Qi shook her head. “I’m still that person. I’m still selfish and afraid.” The Bloody Moon dream had proven that. The old her remained, just under the skin. “But Zeqing is my teacher. I couldn’t have gotten to where I am without her. I won’t leave her or her daughter like this,” she said, determination filling her voice. “.…… There has to be some things more valuable than safety.”


  She felt Sixiang’s mental sigh, followed by the assurance of support, settling like a warm blanket around her shoulders. With that, Ling Qi didn’t hesitate any more, and she took the last steps toward the darkened doorway and rapped her knuckles on the frame.

  For a moment, there was no reply, but then, ever so slowly, the door opened. The drawn out creak as it drifted ajar raised the hairs on her neck. There was no more invitation than that, but Ling Qi knew that if Zeqing did not want her here, she could not have forced the door even with all her strength. Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside, squinting into the unnatural darkness that shrouded even her vision. It was unsettling. How long had it been since she had last stood in the dark like this?

  The door snapped shut behind her, cutting off the last rectangle of light, but Ling Qi remained composed. “Master Zeqing, your student has come to greet you,” she said, speaking formally. Unable to see, she simply made the appropriate bow without turning. A cold breeze was her only answer, but as she straightened up, the darkness lightened a fraction, and she saw ahead of her a sitting room where her mentor waited before a hearth that guttered with heatless green flame.

  Zeqing floated before the hearth, the empty lower half of her gown folded as if she were seated upon an invisible seat. The spirit’s head was lowered, her silver hair hiding her face. Ling Qi approached cautiously until she stood within the circle of firelight, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling that she stood in an empty void from which there was no escape or exit. “Master……”


  “I am surprised to see you so soon. Are you really so eager?” Zeqing asked, her voice cold and distant. She did not look up.

  “I do not want to leave my mentor in pain,” Ling Qi replied honestly. “Where is Hanyi?”


  Zeqing let out a small huff of amusement at her hesitant words. “Safe. I left her with her father while I centered myself.” Zeqing paused then, finally raising her head to look at Ling Qi. She almost flinched at the sight of the hairline fracture running from Zeqing’s chin all the way up to her temple. It was as if Zeqing’s face was a porcelain mask, and Ling Qi could not quite find the courage to look into the darkness that lay behind it. “You have never met my husband, have you?”


  “No,” Ling Qi answered reluctantly, a sinking feeling telling her that she was not going to like this.

  Zeqing gestured with an empty sleeve, and to their right, a patch of darkness grew light. Through it, Ling Qi saw into a room, its shadowed walls stacked with toys shaped from ice and snow and rock. In the center, she saw Hanyi seated at a table, face screwed up in concentration as she messily copied the characters from a second sheet. As she finished the last brushstroke, she looked up, an excited gleam in her eyes and said something Ling Qi could not hear to the larger figure beside her.

  Ling Qi could not help but follow the young spirit’s gaze. Although her eyes saw a handsome man with ice pale skin and a bookish air smiling softly at his daughter, her other senses saw beneath the facade. It was a hideous mannequin of ice, blood, and bone. A single terrified eye stared out at her from an iced over socket, pleading for escape and release.

  Ling Qi shuddered, her stomach churning as she felt the reality of the thing that Zeqing called her husband. The bones of it were made wholly of the spirit’s power, but there were enough pieces, crudely stitched into its frame, that she could feel the shape of the man it had once been. The worst of it was that there was still a spark of life and awareness in those broken fragments of a soul.

  “Even her time with him has turned to lessons,” Zeqing sighed, resting her chin in a hand of clear ice. She glanced briefly at Ling Qi. “Hanyi sees only her father as he should have been, but I felt that you could handle the truth.”


  “.…… Why?” Ling Qi asked, swallowing the bile that wanted to rise in her throat, dragging her eyes away from the horrible thing.

  “Would any answer satisfy you?” Zeqing asked absently. “Would spinning a tale of his perfidy give you satisfaction?”


  Ling Qi grimaced. “Maybe,” she admitted. “People can be terrible.”


  Zeqing let out a small laugh. “Such honesty,” she mused. “Very well. Once, a small clan ruled this patch of land, though I and my predecessors had been here far longer. My husband was one of three brothers in contention for the seat of the clan’s heir. My husband was a scholar and a wanderer at heart, and so he discovered me.”


  Ling Qi studiously avoided looking at the subject of their conversation but nodded. She already had a feeling where this story was going.

  Zeqing turned her empty white eyes upon Ling Qi with a knowing look. “Indeed. Be aware that I had long been alone. Imperial claims in this region are recent, and I – we – were subjects of reverence and placation. The Imperial method of interacting with spirits was quite new to me at the time,” she said with a sigh. “.…… And he did have such a skilled tongue.”


  Zeqing shook her head, and after a beat of silence, she continued. “He sought to bind me of course. Power such as mine would have been a boon to his claim to the seat. He returned to this mountain again and again to woo me, and in the end, he even convinced me to bear his child as proof of our love so that I would never be lonely again.”


  Ling Qi’s eyes shifted to Hanyi, and she thought of what she knew of history. “Hanyi isn’t that old, is she?”


  “I kept her within me for the longest time. I was bitter, but I was not willing to destroy a part of myself. We get ahead of ourselves, however. For the better part of a decade did he continue to visit me, and in doing so, he changed me,” Zeqing explained wistfully, gazing at the broken, spiritually bleeding thing in the other room. “I am a spirit of darkness, desire, and covetousness. I am the cold that saps the life from a man’s bones yet allows him to drift into his final sleep feeling naught but pleasant warmth. Yet for the first time, I came to feel more than a base desire and hunger for warmth, and from the qi I took from him were born the emotions that come so easily to your kind. I fell in love, and I agreed to join my essence to his and create a new life. It was a transgressive thing, not done in all of the memories of my past selves. I am a creature of endings, not beginnings after all,” her mentor finished with a bitter laugh.

  “What happened in the end?” Ling Qi asked. She already knew the answer, at least in the broad strokes.

  “It was a ploy, and his ability to avoid my sight was not as good as he believed,” Zeqing answered clinically. “A life that bound us together would have made for an unbreakable binding with his techniques, even for me. He would then have been free to take a human wife as well, as is your people’s custom.” She gave a faint shrug. “Instead, when he returned the next time, I devoured him, body and soul, and refused to allow him his End.”


  Ling Qi looked at the thing’s single staring eye pleading for the mercy of release into death and shuddered. Could she say that he had deserved that?

  She thought of the past and the things she had seen on the streets and in her mother’s home. Leering faces and her mother’s limping steps and bruised limbs rose all too clear in her memory. She recalled well those less cunning and lucky than her, who had fallen into servitude, legal and otherwise, in the slums.

  If she met those people now, could she say that she would be inclined to treat them any better? For a moment, she brought herself to imagine that night long ago, the last one she had spent in her mother’s home. She remembered the stink of alcohol on rich robes and the feeling of a fat, sweaty hand on her shoulder before Mother had distracted him and shooed her off to her room. She imagined that hated face paling in terror as ice crept up his robes and his choked scream as winter stole the breath from his lungs.

  It was incredibly satisfying, made all the more so by the simple fact that if she truly wanted to, she had no doubt that she could make it reality. She had left old grudges behind these days, too busy to waste time contemplating them, but in her heart, some still simmered. She was a practical person, but she was not forgiving.

  Yet the thought of taking even that man and binding his frozen soul to her like a spirit was repugnant. To keep a source of hate and pain chained to herself…… She couldn’t imagine the satisfaction lasting long at all. It was pointless and wasteful. Though she knew it was not the same, she couldn’t see stretching out the punishment as a good thing.

  Sixiang laughed weakly in her thoughts.

  Ling Qi paused. Could she square that – the satisfaction at personal retribution and the horror at the slaughter of that civil war? Was it a contradiction in terms? She didn’t think so, but she doubted that those two long dead Weilu leaders thought any different. She opened her eyes to find her mentor still staring at her, despite Ling Qi’s minutes-long silence. The fire was gone. The image of Hanyi and her father was gone. There was only Ling Qi and Zeqing facing one another in the endless dark.

  “You should End him, Master Zeqing,” she said quietly, meeting her mentor’s empty white gaze. “Things shouldn’t persist past their Endings.”


  “Of course you would have me give up what is mine,” Zeqing said softly, tendrils of hungry darkness writhing out through the crack in her visage. “That is what you are here for, is it not, my dear student?”


  “.…… I am,” Ling Qi admitted. “Master Zeqing, you taught me to keep what I love close, but if I break those things in doing so, is there really any meaning?”


  “There is,” the spirit replied. “Even broken shards can be held close to warm you in the night. Once a thing has Ended, once it has left you, it is gone.”


  “I don’t agree,” Ling Qi said with determination. “I abandoned my mother long ago, but we’re together again. She’s still my mother, even if things are different now. Our relationship didn’t End.”


  “Can you truly say that?” Zeqing asked, a cold wind beginning to blow through the darkness. “When I have seen and felt the way that you regard her? It hurts my heart to imagine my Hanyi seeing me in such a pitiable light.”


  Ling Qi winced, shivering as the icy breeze cut through her gown and flesh alike, chilling her to the core. It was true that she didn’t tell her mother many things. She held her separate from most of her life for good reason. She knew well how far below consideration mortals were for most cultivators. “And yet I love my mother still, even if she cannot do anything for me. That……” She hesitated, unsure of how to articulate her thoughts.

  Zeqing slowly rose, her empty gown shifting as she seemed to stand. The frozen spirit seemed so terribly tall in the dark. “A Mother protects her children. She keeps them safe. She teaches and nurtures. If a child leaves her, how is she to do these things?”


  Ling Qi looked up at the looming figure of her mentor, her pale face seeming to almost glow in the absolute darkness. “Childhood has to end, sometimes sooner than it should,” she answered quietly. “I have finished my lessons, and Hanyi is growing up. Even if you stop that end from coming…… would it satisfy you?”


  For the first time since they had begun speaking, Zeqing’s mask-like visage twisted into an expression. She flinched, and the wind stopped dead as her features twisted in pain like a woman who had been stabbed. Ling Qi startled as a sharp report like a tree shattering from the winter’s cold echoed through the void. A new crack now spiderwebbed across her mentor’s face, stark and jagged. It cut through her nose and right eye, disappearing under her hairline.

  “Master Zeqing?” Ling Qi asked, her resolve shaking as she felt the deathly cold beginning to creep up through the soles of her shoes, stabbing into her feet like a forest of pins and needles.

  “Go to my daughter, Ling Qi,” her mentor ordered dully. “Your final lesson is upon you. As your teacher…… All I may do is ensure that your success is possible.” The spirit turned away, dress billowing in the howling wind that was beginning to build. “Take her, and leave the mountain.”


  To her side, pale ghost lights arose, marking out a hall that no doubt lead to Hanyi’s room, but Ling Qi hesitated, moving to follow Zeqing as she drifted into darkness, only to be driven back by shrieking winds and blowing ice that left shallow cuts across her face and hands.

  Sixiang asked, their normally joyful voice somber.

  “.…… I did,” Ling Qi agreed, straightening her shoulders as she turned on her heel to march down the hall. The time for hesitation was past.