Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.
-[X] Convince Fu Xiang to drop the framing part of the plan, it would be best to avoid further abuses.

I'm glad the rewrite spelled out more of the issues here, but I still don't think Cai told us any great secret. And that's ok, its a first step and she ma not have any earth shattering secrets, but thats no reason for Ling Qi to destroy herself over this.

Alectai said:

To be far, the biggest issue we have here is blackmail.

Fu Xiang doesn't want to offend Cai Renxiang, but he's in a good position to destroy us if someone can make a sufficiently good offer. And given how many of our rivals have very deep pockets...

Which isn't to say that he'd do this cheaply--especially once he's committed in earnest--he'd get some blowback too, but ultimately, he's made it clear to us that he's in this for his own gain above all else. Someone makes him an offer that guarantees him a cushy spot in an Imperial position? If he's got a way of stabbing first, or blackmailing us, he'll probably do it.

Mind you, this would require someone to know that he and Ling Qi conspired in the first place to do this, or someone to bring a very big prize to him to opportunistically sabotage Renxiang's business from the inside. But it's a legitimate risk--if a long shot.

And we do know for a fact that many of our rivals have very deep pockets.

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Blackmail is not really a credible concern here because unless Fu Xiang is literally a god tier spy he doesn't have any evidence on us doing it and us getting any opportunity to shout 'Hey Fu Xiang put me up to it and provided me a target list' will do him over as well given our political connections and lack of motive against crafters.

EDIT: Actually I just realised it's an even worse idea for him as our Alibi was that we were with him disussing strategy. So he'd have to admit to lying previously as well.

wankongyew said:

If we drop the framing part of the plan, what happens then? Ling Qi and Fu Xiang go back to Cai and report, "Nope, we have no idea who did this. It's a total mystery"? So weird, especially since Ling Qi already said that they have some leads and Fu Xiang just needs to verify the evidence.

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It's fairly simple, Fu Xiang goes back and says nope, evidence didn't work out, exhausted all leads for the moment. Crimes, even big ones, go unsolved in the real world every day or can take years of concerted effort to sort out. Failing to solve one is a minor bit of egg on his face at best and he's already got a tonne out of working for Cai.

wankongyew said:

It may not matter to other people but I have a hard time imagining that it would not matter to Cai if it comes out in a few months after Ling Qi has already accepted vassal status. I'm torn between admitting guilt or not myself but if Ling Qi does remain silent, I am never going to vote for accepting Cai's offer. That's just asking for even more trouble down the road.

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Arkeus said:

I'll probably hesitate a bit more, but "accepting punishment" seems to lead in the direction of the Ling Qi I prefer: one who is honest with those she wants as friends. If we do end up as CRX' vassal, I very much prefer Ling Qi having a relationship of honesty with her, rather than one that won't have us be honest when it cost us.

Still, It WILL cost us. We musn't assume that there will be some kind of "punishment will be good for us" thing, here. It will be painful.

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If we actually take vassal status (which is not certain despite how some people are framing it) that's a few months we have to get a better relationship with Cai and prepare the groundwork so that even if it somewhat damages our friendship with her it can be repaired with effort. It is also a few months in which we can work on our other relationships and position so taking a punishment will be more bearable to Ling Qi personal circumstances.

Ling Qi doesn't like lying to people who aren't lying to her and that's good. But that doesn't mean that Ling Qi should suddenly become a martyr to the truth. We can go away and try to mitigate the issues with the scheme we were practically forced into. Hell we can even send an anonomous tip to the guy that we framed that he's being framed if we have to, but not telling Cai, who we barely know at this point, this one very personally damaging truth in return for a totally undamaging bit of personal information does not mean Ling Qi is going to take up habitual lying to her friends in future.

Ling Qi is human, and frankly I feel it makes much more sense for her character to take the route of mitigating her actions on her own than to 'come clean' and potentially destroy everything she's worked for. Her domain is 'home and family', not 'friends and aquaintances'. It makes much more sense for Ling Qi to pick the home and the connections she's been building up to this point over leaping into the unknown abyss with Cai in the hopes she'll instantly jump up to a four dot family relationship.

Cai, by Ling's own thoughts, will have to punish both us and Fu if we confess. However I think that is ultimately something acceptable going forward if we are seriously considering accepting her offer. After all talking to Cai is for sole reason to see if we want to work for her as a her left hand, someone she can trust and Ling can trust back. Once the playground that is the Outer Sect is over do we really want to go forward with that trust built on a foundation of a lie?

redaeth said:

Cai, by Ling's own thoughts, will have to punish both us and Fu if we confess. However I think that is ultimately something acceptable going forward if we are seriously considering accepting her offer. After all talking to Cai is for sole reason to see if we want to work for her as a her left hand, someone she can trust and Ling can trust back. Once the playground that is the Outer Sect is over do we really want to go forward with that trust built on a foundation of a lie?

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Or perhaps we can have organic character growth wherin Ling Qi and Cai both open up to each other and grow closer over the course of months eventually culminating in Ling Qi admitting a painful and uncomfortable truth, rather than have her leap into truth martyrdom and potentially screwing over any option other than Cai vassalage the instant Cai so much as offers anything slightly personal?

We didn't tell Meizhen half as much personal stuff so early in our relationship, or any of our other friends. And a frankly we were much more close to them personally than we are to Cai Reixiang, who we respect but are not friends with. Relationships shoud not be founded on trading secrets, and cannot continue on that basis.

[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.
-[X] Convince Fu Xiang to drop the framing part of the plan, it would be best to avoid further abuses.

Hard decisions are hard. Daaamnit.

[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.
-[X] Convince Fu Xiang to drop the framing part of the plan, it would be best to avoid further abuses.

yrsillar said:

"Doesn't that mean the empires common soldiers are really vulnerable to spiritual attacks?"

"They are, and spirits of that sort can become a long running plague on the regions they inhabit," he answered with a frown. Ling Qi's thoughts turned to Su Ling's background, the girl didn't often talk about it, but she knew that she deeply resented her 'mother', more deeply than one would resent a dead person.

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@yrsillar Ling Qi knows Su Ling's mum's alive because she told Ling Qi of her plans for matricide. Ling Qi even offered to help.

yrsillar said:

"That's a scary look," Su Ling said, drawing her from her thoughts. "Got someone you're gonna kill?"

"Maybe," Ling Qi replied slowly. "How about you?"

"Sure," Su Ling replied. Meeting her eyes dead on. "Got a list, ending with that murderous furry bitch."

"Guess that's something we have in common," Ling Qi replied lightly. "Let me know if you need a hand."

Su Ling stood up, dusting off her pants. "...I might at that. Should probably get going though. Got a lot of work yet."

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I did like the revision though. A good job of setting up the internal conflict. I don't want to betray Fu Xiang's trust but I'm reluctant to go into such a binding relationship with a lie as our foundation. Especially when she's just opened up so much. Ling Qi pointing out CRX is unlikely to know was a good touch. Helps limit the paranoia in what seems to be a purely characterisation vote.

The consequences are made clear and half the voters immediately go into "cover your ass" mode despite this clearly being a characterization vote and the cornerstone of our relationship with Cai.

I can't say I'm surprised, but it's still disappointing to see.

[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

I'd prefer just the raw 'remain silent', to be honest, but the subvote has overwhelming traction among remain silent votes.

Cai Reixiang should know that Ling Qi would be terrible court spy, she have problem with ruining random people, she would be better used fighting cloud tribes, other threats to the province.

[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

We are not friends with Cai yet. She just talked about her desire to purge all corruption. I think it's more reasonable Ling Qi chooses not to confess right now. Voting with the assumption we will have another chance to confess should we accept Cai's offer, and we will reciprocate her talk about a personal, private matter with something similarly personal and private to us...

[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.
-[X] Convince Fu Xiang to drop the framing part of the plan, it would be best to avoid further abuses.

Black Noise said:

The consequences are made clear and half the voters immediately go into "cover your ass" mode despite this clearly being a characterization vote and the cornerstone of our relationship with Cai.

I can't say I'm surprised, but it's still disappointing to see.

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Because how dare people actually use their brains and think about the consequences of the vote beyond 'CCCCCCCCCCAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'.

The idea that this is a pure characterisation vote that won't fuck over our other friendships and potentially our ability to do well in the tournament is utter bullshit. This will effect more than Ling Qi and Cai.

Plus that frames this as a "Pledge to Cai vote" which it shouldn't be but has basically turned into.

Damnit. Taking a break from the thread again.

Kai Merah said:

We are not friends with Cai yet. She just talked about her desire to purge all corruption. I think it's more reasonable Ling Qi chooses not to confess right now. Voting with the assumption we will have another chance to confess should we accept Cai's offer, and we will reciprocate her talk about a personal, private matter with something similarly personal and private to us...

[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.
-[X] Convince Fu Xiang to drop the framing part of the plan, it would be best to avoid further abuses.

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Why would you ever assume we'll get another chance at what is blatantly a characterisation vote?

I'll fix those.

And yeah just because you keep mum now doesn;t mean that there won't be developments that lead to further character development between the two of them later.

The subvote and non subvote will be counted together.

Alectai said:

There's a hell of a lot of legitimate targets. The problem here was that the targets were just ordinary folks who had done no wrong to anyone involved, getting fucked because Fu Xiang wasn't confident in his own abilities.

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What legitimate targets are there? Cai's controlling the whole of the outer sect now. We have no enemy faction to bully. Everyone now lies under our potential boss' aegis (except Renshu, I suppose).

Kipeci said:

Do we really need to gradually morph all MCs into friendship paladins on this site? I can grudgingly accept no assassinations for our assassin-specced character but I just can't believe that we're about to revoke advantageous omission of the facts in the wake of a sob story. Do you all think we wouldn't come across those in the secret service employ of Cai while she and her mom seek to "purge the rot"?

Also, how is this not a massive betrayal of Fu Xiang's trust? We did the mission as a favor to him for saving our skin when Princess was about to pound us into a fine pulp. How in the world do we get off as being a character who respects the trust of others by betraying him to Cai and getting him no doubt heavily punished by her, the sect or both over a matter that we volunteered to do?

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I accept the point regarding Fu Xiang but the purging rot comment just makes me want to ensure we can't be seen as any type of decay...

I'm still conflicted though. I don't want to start our emloyment on a lie but it's also true that we haven't yet chosen to work for her and I don't want to fuck over FX, for reasons of honour and pragmatism, Humbaba's points of not wanting random bursts of honesty are also pretty convincing. We don't owe this to her and we should be capable of lying. I think she needs to know before we join her but whether that happens isn't set in stone. Ling Qi is clearly uncomfortable with this so we ought to at least stop the set up, that level of corruption is likely too far.

I do quite like the idea of drawing out whether we join Cai so I'm willing to hold off on complete honesty.
[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.
-[X] Convince Fu Xiang to drop the framing part of the plan, it would be best to avoid further abuses.

[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

1986ctcel said:

Why would you ever assume we'll get another chance at what is blatantly a characterisation vote?

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Not just characterisation. Also potentially fucks over Renshu investigation and tournament chances. Even on pure characterisation, prefer Ling Qi just honest with friends, not those who confess sad backstop.

EDIT: Ninja'ed. We'll have chance to confess in future

I honestly feel that admitting it flat out is probably less likely to screw us over than convincing Fu Xiang to drop the framing. If we do drop it, it will only lead to Cai becoming suspicious and will end with her feeling that her trust has been betrayed entirely, whereas she is unlikely to ever find out if we continue as planned. I'm half-tempted to switch because of how horribly I can see it all ending.

[X] Remain silent, thank her sincerely and speak of yourself as promised.

[X] Admit to the deception. Apologize, explain, and accept the consequences.

If we are to take Cai option, staying silent is not an option.

The thing is: are we trying to be her friend, or do we just obey her?

Kai Merah said:

We are not friends with Cai yet. She just talked about her desire to purge all corruption. I think it's more reasonable Ling Qi chooses not to confess right now. Voting with the assumption we will have another chance to confess should we accept Cai's offer, and we will reciprocate her talk about a personal, private matter with something similarly personal and private to us...

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I think it's worse if we do it later since it's blatantly self-serving - I'm going to confess when we're closer as friends so you feel more obligated to overlook this and after I've extracted my benefit from your cultivation gifts! - and that it would absolutely mean she'd have to be harsher rather than the upfront, private confession here here.

Regardless of whether we've nixed the frame job or not - and note that Fu Xiang plans to tell her the "culprit" next week! - it means we'd have participated in the cover up using our official position to report to Cai. This is, to Cai, a much worse betrayal than just doing it in the first place. This is already as good as it gets: before we abuse our official position in a private place.

I don't see why you would ever vote silent unless you're not interested in ever becoming Cai's vassal. This is the type of foundational lie that festers in a relationship and makes it such that a revelation later on breaks that foundation because as a character, we would not be what Cai had looked for: a person with unshakeable loyalty to her friends and their interests.