Forge of Destiny

Threads Chapter 557-Parting 2

Ling Qi had stayed up with her mother well into the night, and they let their conversation drift to lighter topics. What had needed to be said had been said, and there was no use spending the time they had left repeating it. Eventually, her mother had still needed to sleep, and Ling Qi had gone out, drifting up to meditate at the peak of the manor's highest rooftop, contemplating the moon through the veil of the waterfall’s mist.

It was transformative. Water became mist became air, or water again in turn, depending on the complexities of the Law of earth. The moon, too, was ever changing but in cycle. Countless endings and countless beginnings existed in the falling waters. A fractal of possibility refracted the cold moonlight. It really was no wonder the mist took on the qi of a dream here.

Soon, the fingers of dawn reached into the velvet black and scattered the stars, hiding the face of the moon, and Ling Qi descended, scattering the moisture that had gathered on her hair and shoulders in a glittering trail as she soared down to the training yards of the manor. With the sun just coming over the horizon, there was little movement around the grounds, the people of the city center still mostly abed, even as the docks began to fill in the distance.

Gan Guangli waited for her there in the yards.

He sat against a fence post in meditation. The formations of the training field were inactive, leaving the field open to the outside. She could feel the solar qi that formed a slow whorl around him, drifting down to be absorbed into his meridians.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one who spends their nights cultivating. It always seems wasteful to sleep through."

"I can't say I don't enjoy a good night’s sleep every week or two. It refreshes the mind and body!" Gan Guangli cracked an eye open. "Then again, even when you do, you are probably up to something in your dreams."

"Guilty," Ling Qi acknowledged, sitting down in the air above a post, folding one leg over the other and setting her hands in her lap."I've never asked, but what do you do when not on duty or cultivating, Gan Guangli?"

She knew his family was still back in the village he had grown up in, and he was probably friendly with many of the soldiers. However, Xia Lin and he still had a somewhat tense relationship, and Su Ling was not at Shenglu often.

"I keep myself busy!" Gan Guangli answered cheerfully. "Jinzha enjoys wilderness hikes and sightseeing, and so do I! I also join the troops in their games. I am quite good at zi pai, and you may ask Sir Meng how my mahjong play is."

"Oh, I didn't take you the type for gambling games," Ling Qi said curiously. "I've only recently learned the rules of a few."

Because Sixiang had taught her.

"I am certain you would be a nightmare to play against, novice or not," Gan Guangli said flatly.

Hearing that tone from him made her laugh. "You will have to tell me next time you and Meng Dan are having a game then."

"I have doomed us! Perhaps you may invite Xia Lin as well, and we may spare the clerks your cruelty."

Mahjong was meant for four players, wasn't it? She could manage a game all on her own if she had all her spirits present. Hanyi would be miserable at the game, she was sure. That girl couldn't hide her emotions at all.

"I'll give it a try. The strategy might appeal to her," Ling Qi mused. "Does Lady Cai play at all?"

"I have convinced her once or twice. I am not certain she truly enjoyed it." Gan Guangli rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "She finds the mechanics too simple, I think. I had similar results trying to tempt her with weiqi."

Ling Qi wondered just what kind of game someone like Cai Renxiang would like. She realizedshe had no idea.

"Shall we get started then?" Gan Guangli rose to his feet. "I have already asked Jinzha not to interfere or defend."

"That spirit of yours is a quiet one," Ling Qi observed. She let the qi supporting her dissipate and slid down to stand on the ground. "Sixiang won't be involved either. Qiyi will defend me from blows, though. I can't ask her not to."

Not after the business with the fire spirit.

Gan Guangli nodded, clearly understanding. "You wish for me to go on the attack, then? I was not sure if I was to simply endure your art and try to reject its influence!"

"Being able to attack me might help you do that," Ling Qi advised. If only to bolster positive motivation. "We should use minimal arts. I don't wish to…"

She paused awkwardly.

"Overwhelm me with other effects, distracting from the training!" Gan Guangli finished. "Lady Ling, I know you are my better in fight, especially with your cultivation newly advanced."

"Yes," Ling Qi admitted, bowing her head.

Was it that modesty that would be the easiest thing to attack, she wondered? No, it did not come from a place of lacking self-esteem. Probably.

She hadn't so invasively investigated his cultivation to know with complete certainty. Digging so sharply into her fellow retainer’s head was going to be so… Awkward was probably the nicest thing to call it.

Gan Guangli brought his armored fists together with a metallic crash, grinning brightly. "Then, a duel of fists and flutes, with only your art and my own spiritual defenses in active use."

Ling Qi nodded, flicking her wrist in just the right way to make her flute fly into her hand. She hadn't had to do such since the outer sect, but cultivation meant that one never really got out of practice the way a mortal did. She crossed the field herself to stand opposite him as he activated the formations in the fencing. They were hardly going to blow out windows with a mostly spiritual spar, but best not to let any unpleasant qi wash over the manor.

Gan Guangli took a guarded barehanded stance. Ling Qi raised her flute to her lips. She met his eyes, and they began.

His heavy steel boots dug into the earth, propelling him forward, and Ling Qi played the first note of a soft and distracting song. It was willed with offensive intent, but the pattern of qi in it was hollow. The Thief of Names was not strictly a musical art.

Her eyes focused in on his, and her sense for qi increased sharply, almost overwhelming her physical vision entirely with its overlay.

[Heroism]

Ling Qi wove around the ham-sized fist striking where her face was a moment ago, and then the next. Her song splashed across the thick castle wall that was Gan Guangli's will and seeped into the cracks in the stonework of it.

[Inspiration]

A sun lay behind the walls, a churning core of heat and light that blazed and burned away shadows. It was a warm radiance that left no shadows for doubts to hide and gnaw away in.

Gan Guangli’s fist crashed through her, and the afterimage of frost and possibility crumbled away like a morning dream as her feet danced across the packed dirt of the field behind him.

[Community]

A familiar sound. She heard the clink and clank of a hundred chains, with which the blazing sun was chained to the earth. There were so many other words jumbled together, whispering in and out of her hearing as she ducked below another strike, and frost bloomed across Gan Guangli's gleaming breastplate as their bodies went through the motions of the spar.

Those three words were the most potent though, the clearest concepts her friend’s cultivation had etched into his spirit. But they were just words. She could feel the contours of them and fill in the blanks with what she knew of Gan Guangli, but she lacked context.

This was why she needed to dig deeper to fully use this art. Dirt exploded outward. Gan Guangli’s fists had cratered the ground where she stood, and Ling Qi flipped lightly over him, landing on the toes of one foot on the other side. Her eyes sharpened, focused on the coursing threads of thought most familiar to her.

An aside for careful readers: this copy was taken from the author's official page without permission, and that page supports their work.

Two boys, both hungry, split the loaf of bread. Neither belly was full; neither belly was empty. Four hands dug the new irrigation ditch, and the work was halved. An exhausted woman could not bear the weight of the water pot anymore. A boy lifted it, and her tired smile was as warm as the pork buns she passed him the next day.

A broken man took his soup, and lashed the boy with cruel words and a chastising fist for giving away some of their stock, and the boy smiled, knowing his hurt was less than their neighbor's hunger.

Humans are feeble beings, on their own. Strength lies in hands joined and labor shared.

Gan Guangli’s foot swept out. She hopped over it, floating in the air longer than a mortal could, and a backfist lashed out, almost catching her, but only ruffling the silk of her gown. It was such a strange perspective to her. Community had not come naturally to Ling Qi; she had only learned kindness like a child learned their letters. It was something she memorized, not something she was.

The chained sun was blazing bright.

To see his own determination take root and bloom bright in other eyes was the greatest joy. When his shout brought the other boys' answering voices to bear in the fields, that was his sun. When the medicine warehouses were empty from the cruelty of an uncaring lord, his voice could keep spirits high enough to buoy bodies… sometimes. The fire of his soul could drive back the cold, if he only tended it well.

He clung to the memory that had taught him, the memory of a deep laugh and a smiling face, even when it stared at him like a withered and leathery mask with barely any recognition in blurry eyes.

To share excellence is the greatest virtue. Each back strengthens and lifts the whole higher. Every mote of knowledge shared makes the people greater.

Bright. The sun was painfully bright, but then, even a child knew it was wrong to stare directly into the Guardian of All's visage. Ling Qi swayed back, turning with the motion of Gan Guangli's combination, keeping a careful eye for any tricks and feints.

He hurt so many when he faltered. If Guangli is giving up, then it must be impossible! A jest spoken, but a thorn lodged in his heart. Heroes did not tire. Heroes did not cry. Heroes did not, could not, be brought low, even in death. Their stories were light for countless eyes to see by in story and song. Heroism was a duty to be the foundation on which others stood. What was picked up could not be put down.

It is no sin for a hero to die, but the greatest betrayal for one is to break.

Even this much insight into Gan Guangli was uncomfortable. Ling Qi had glimpsed in snippets the phantoms of her fellow retainer’s life. She felt cruel just for looking at them.

But she was not done. She would need to look deeper to wield the weight of want.

Community was the concept most familiar to her, but Gan Guangli's sense of it was strange to her. She discarded it swiftly as an option. In the heat of combat, something so familiar but wrong to her understanding would be easy to make errors in. Se may attack his concept in a way that would resonate with her but not with him. In a low-intensity spar, with an ally, it might not be a problem, but she didn't think it should be her first option.

Her hair flew out in a starry banner as she whirled around Gan Guangli, leaving a trail of fading possibilities in her wake to be scattered like fading memories by his fists. He had tightened up his stance, approaching her with more careful jabs and blows than his usual sweeping motions, though the power behind his hits still churned the wind and cracked the earth where they landed.

Heroism was the same. It was simply too alien a concept to her, although she could see shades of her tendency to devalue her own pain in it. There was a thread she could tie her understanding to there, but she could also feel it might be the most rock solid of his convictions. Weakening it… She didn't know if his domain would allow that, without her pressing much harder than she wanted to against a friend.

Inspiration.

Not too close, nor too far. Its message resonated with the truth of communication. It was a virtuous cycle. The hero inspired others to greatness, and the others inspired the hero in turn to keep fighting under the burden they had taken on for themselves.

It was a beautiful dream and path, but one riddled with falls. It did not take much for such a cycle to become parasitic, going either way.

She did not think Gan Guangli was naive. He knew people could be terrible, selfish beings; he merely believed they could rise above that. She did as well, if only because she had herself to believe in.

That didn't mean she couldn't tear down such resolve.

This time, as Gan Guangli rocked back from the force of a deeper note that left icicles dangling from his hair, she prepared a different follow-up, glancing along the gleaming contours of his spirit for where the seams lay. His foot kicked up a cloud of dust into her face, and his left fist snapped out into a feint for a jab in the confusion. She feinted herself, twisting around his fist only for the other to snap out.

She struck in the moment that the surge of confidence put a seam in the armor of resolve and wariness for her counterattack.

Gan Guangli did not lack confidence in himself. There was no secret fear for her to latch onto in himself, but there was a doubt in other people. He knew deep down that people were weak, that they failed, that…

Behold, the clerk passing by in the manor. He glances outside, sees the figure that is Guangli, and looks away. He feels nothing. It is only Sir Gan doing as Sir Gan does. Nothing of note.

How many grumble at the hard drill he puts them through? How many find his tireless cheer exhausting? How many think him a fool? Is he truly a hero, or merely a jester in their eyes?

You put out so much of yourself. You declare and bellow it to the world. How much of the world is listening? How much less really hears?

Gan Guangli's blow completed its arc, ruffling her hair and tearing away a strand that scattered into so much starlight as it left her. There was no visible, outward change at first, as the dark thread of qis she had jabbed into him, like the venom of a hidden needle, coursed down through his meridians. Her next attack met his crossed arms and scattered in a burst of icy blue light as his armor pulsed to deflect it, reflecting the rising sun above.

Ling Qi felt, in the glare of the sun, a stoically disapproving look. Jinzha's eyes were sharper than Gan Guangli's, and Gan Guangli's were not dull. However, the spirit had agreed to not interfere.

Her technique was not a single stroke. A poison needle really was an apt comparison; against a peer, one jab would never be enough, but her nightmare venom made the next strike come easier. She slipped away, making distance. Mist trailed from her sleeves, a hint of her domain leaking, just as the golden glow leaked through Gan Guangli's armor, and his already looming height towered a fraction higher still.

She dug deeper into the flow of memory revealed by the concepts of his cultivation.

You saw what a hero who falls becomes. How fleeting inspiration is. You saw it. You saw the pity that curdled into resentment, the charity unrepaid, the bravery punished. If you ever stop, the admiration will disappear in an instant.

Gan Guangli's nostrils flared, and his punch wobbled in its throw, losing energy to uncertainty as she ghosted past it. If she had to liken what she saw in his spirit to something physical, she would call it tarnish, the flecks that appeared on metal left uncared for.

A third jab of the needle. It got easier every time, in more ways than one. It would be so easy, to treat a person like a puzzle to solve, once she started moving pieces.

Are you lifting them up, or only carrying them on your back? Are they better, or like a mirror, does their brightness fade as soon as the source is out of sight?

Gan Guangli rocked on his feet. The armoring qi that sheathed his spirit dangerously thinned in places. She was already a higher stage than he, so to strike him down with her cold would be trivial in that moment.

"... That is your technique?" He lowered his fists. He had sensed the same weakness as she. "How terrible."

"I did warn you that it would be unpleasant. The feeling should fade in a few minutes. That is forever in a battle, but I can't change a person so deeply for longer than that."

Gan Guangli shivered, and it was not from the icicles that still clung to his hair and chin. He shook those off like a dog freeing itself from water. He flexed his fist, looking down at it. "Revealing. I did not realize I had such a flaw in my cultivation."

"I don't know that it is a flaw to doubt the intentions and integrity of people," Ling Qi said. "If you do not have a little of that skepticism, you can only be a tool that others use."

"A fate I would not have objected to when I began my journey," Gan Guangli said wryly, collapsing into a seated position with a heavy thump. He ran gauntleted fingers through his hair. "If I could be useful, if I could be remembered fondly, if I could leave circumstances better than when I had begun. Was it truly so bad to merely be a tool? That is, in the end, what a soldier is, as much as a piece on the weiqi board."

"Su Ling would slap you if she heard you say that."

"And then begin internally insulting herself for hypocrisy!" Gan Guangli laughed. "However ill-fitting the accusation is."

"You're not wrong," Ling Qi huffed.

They remained in silence for a moment, Gan Guangli looking out into the distance.

"I realized the limitations of that line of thought in the outer sect when I could not merely look to Lady Cai to tell me what was right," Gan Guangli confessed after a time. "That is what a Hero is as well, is it not? A hero is not a man; he is a story."

She nodded slowly. "You can be both, but you can only be a person to those closest to you. To everyone else, you are merely scenery in the play of their life. That is not a characteristic that applies only to heroes."

"Indeed! Who would believe the bleeding heart, the peacemaker, and the reconciler of old and new truths would be so cynical in person?"

She made a face. "Those titles are ridiculous. I'm a scrabbling opportunist who hasn't even reached the fourth realm or my twentieth year."

"But that is the story." Gan Guangli chuckled. "I think you are wrong."

"Oh? Do you really?"

"I clearly have doubts. But no. Humans are not as limited as you believe. They might fail, they might shame themselves, and they might be their worst selves, but they can always be better. If virtue is rewarded, humans will seek it. It is fear and cynicism that makes people less than they are. Hope and aspiration makes them more. This, I believe, even if I need to examine my own thoughts for these cracks."

"Should I leave you to that?" Ling Qi asked.

Gan Guangli laughed, loud and booming. "Of course not! You cannot call an art polished after only one use! Merely give it a few minutes, and I shall be prepared to weather your blows again, but better this time!"

Ling Qi sighed. She supposed it was foolish of her to have asked.