"I wanna see!"
"You can look, little sister, but you have to hold very still and let me keep ahold of you," Ling Qi chided cheerfully.
"I'll be good!"
Ling Qi looked up to her mother, seated on the bench across from her and raised an eyebrow. The older woman heaved a sigh, and gave a little nod. Ling Qi tapped the shutters on the wall beside her and they swung open revealing the blurring dark green and brown and shadowed black of the path whipping by outside. None of the wind screaming outside the carriage made its way in, past the thin film of qi she could feel which blocked it even from the open window.
They had left Shenglu behind yesterday, parting ways from Gan Guangli and Cai Renxiang for now. Her liege had her own stops to make on the way to Xiangmen, but Ling Qi herself had already promised she would see at least one of her junior sisters concerts and this made a good opportunity. She trusted the guards along to escort her mother and sister back afterward.
Her carriage had plenty of security formations in it anyway. Wasn't that a strange thought. Her carriage. She'd purchased one for family use with the increased stipend Cai Renxiang afforded her. She'd chosen a sleek dark blue color, chased with silver along the wheels and roof. Now her Mother or even the staff under her could safely travel back and forth to White Cloud town for things if that came up.
The upkeep on a couple of quality spirit beast horses was barely a fraction of Zhengui's diet budget anyway.
Biyu had been VERY excited to see the 'ponies'. She was sure the groom that she'd hired with them was going to get his ear talked off.
But for now, it served to keep them comfortable as they traveled north and west, to the land of Viscount Shan, one of her letter contacts in the region and the host of Hanyi's current concert. The road they traveled on was an ancient thing, its foundations dating back to Weilu days, if now paved with good modern road stones. It had been here so long the forest had grown around it, tree trunks bent to accommodate the width of carriages with the canopy stretching overhead in an arch of green and dappled sunlight that cast small rays of brightness on the shadowed road.
"So fast!" Biyu said in awe, and Ling Qi tightened her grip around the little girl's waist as she leaned toward the open window. The wind break formation was limited after all, and even with her protection, Biyu wouldn't enjoy the actual volume of the wind screaming in her ears and ripping at her hair.
"Which is why you must keep your hands away from the window," Mother said calmly. Glancing out herself, Ling Qi could see the older woman still held some nerves about traveling, but it was much less than it had been.
Securing her arm around her sister's waist as she watched the blurring scenery she turned to look at her mother. "How has your leg come along since your last meridian opening attempt?"
Ling Qingge grimaced. "I still receive some pains, but it is only a small ache, like a strained muscle."
"You have made progress. The blockage in the meridian is much broken up. I do think you can flush the majority of the impurity with another attempt," Ling Qi said encouragingly. Li Suyin's impurity cleansing rod was too painful for mother to use, so she was progressing the normal way. Watching her mothers attempts made her appreciate more how absurdly easy opening her earliest meridians had been. She did not know if she could have easily endured having to painfully fail again and again merely to open a single meridian.
Even if she found them much more difficult now, it was trivial to just shut off the sensation around the affected area and sip an elixir while her cycling qi fixed the damage in minutes.
"I suppose I must take your word for it," Mother said. "Perhaps I will try again when you return."
"Momma is going to do more stretchies in the garden?" Biyu asked, dragging her eyes away from the outside. "Biyu will help!"
"Of course, mother appreciates it," Ling Qingge said gently.
Ling Qi chuckled. Mothers cultivation technique was all calm movement and physical balance to match and aid in balancing her qi. Biyu did sometimes like awkwardly mimicking her though she couldn't actually hold most of the stances.
"Hey, hey, Sis, will I see Hanyi soon?" Biyu asked, craning her neck to look up at Ling Qi.
"Well it's going to be some time," another six hours or so. They'd be arriving in the evening just a short time before the concert festival. She'd split off from them after, with Mother and Biyu staying the night under the viscounts care before returning to Shenglu in the morning. She'd be taking a Cai carriage to catch back up with her liege overnight.
She'd wanted to just fly, but that was a bit fraught. It was rude to just cross over lands that weren't hers offroad, to both her human peers and superiors and any spirit pacts they might have.
"How loooooong."
"...Most of the day."
Biyu looked away from the window with wide eyes. "We have to sit ALL day?!"
Mother sighed. Ling Qi gave her an apologetic look. She could only hope Biyu would be well behaved on the way back.
"You don't want to stay with your Sis all day?" Ling Qi asked, feigning hurt.
"I do! But outside!"
"Well we can't do that. Besides, if we didn't come, Hanyi would be sad. She pretends really well, but she does like you," Ling Qi teased.
Biyu frowned deeply. "Icy Sis is silly."
"She really is, but she's a good girl. Just like Biyu," Ling Qi said, giving the little girl a squeeze.
"For the most part," Mother said dryly. "Biyu, a Lady must know patience. I did bring along books and your chalk slate."
"No paint?"
"No paint in the carriage," Mother said firmly.
"But…"
"No."
Her little sister crossed her arms and pouted, Ling Qi wisely didn't say a word. Maybe the carriage could be easily cleaned with a good enough scrubbing reagent, but she wasn't about to contradict mother here.
"...Kaaaay," Biyu grumbled.
Ling Qi chuckled, glancing out the window herself as they rounded a bend in the road, the dense growth was thinner here, allowing a glimpse of the northern sky through the window.
"Biyu look, you can see Xiangmen," She cut in smoothly, defusing the sulk by drawing the younger girl's attention to the shadow which rose on the horizon, strangely still compared to the blurring speed of the rest of the landscape. At this distance it was only a dark pillar rising into the sky, with a haze of green like a cloud around it. The Way Xiangmen's leaves blocked no light made them look strange at this distance.
"Oh, big tree. Sis-y is going?"
"All the way to the top."
Biyu Squinted at the silhouette rising from the horizon. "Doesn;t look big."
"It is though," Ling Qi said. "It's just very far away. "It's even taller than the mountains back home."
"No! Trees aren't mountains!"
"This one is," Ling Qi said. "And people live on and in it, like beasts and birds do in normal trees. Xiangmen holds them all. More people than Shenglu, or White Cloud, or Tonghou, or even all of them put together."
"Really?" Biyu asked, her suspicions broke down easily under the cadence of Ling Qi's voice. "Can I go?"
"Not yet," Ling Qi said, raising her finger to point toward the crown. "Your sister is going all the way up there to the top. There isn't air for little girls to breathe up there though, so Biyu will have to wait for now."
"And your sister is going there on official business. Her work is very important," mother said. "It would be better to wait until she is able to show us around."
Biyu frowned, considering this deeply.
"Yes. I suppose I can't say I will have much time outside the wedding and all the meetings Lady Cai has set up. She had already heard something of the guest list, and it was intimidating."
Mother nodded, a nervous tic going in her cheek. Ling Qingge still worried over her too much.
The Empress would be there after all, if only in simulacrum form. That was one meeting she thankfully would have no part in, being far, far above her head. She felt for Renxiang though, who certainly was going to be moving in those circles during the official ceremonies.
"Oh yes, your sister will be talking about lots of boring things," she said, wisely leaving out the glamor and magnificence likely to be on display for the ceremony and the city wide festivities which would be going in its wake.
She pouted again, but snuggled up to her. "Sis-y bring presents?"
She met her mothers eyes over Biyu's head and smiled. "Of course. Hm… I remember I visited an apiary last time. There were men being carried in harnesses by the bees, out on the farthest branches. Your sister was so far in the sky she couldn't even see the ground beneath them. Does my sister like honey> I've heard the kind they make is some of the best."
"Umm," Biyu said wide eyed, turning to look at her Mother."
"You do. The 'yellow sauce', remember?" mother reminded her gently.
"Oh! Sweet! Yes, Biyu likes honey!"
Ling Qi chuckled indulgently. She'd like to try a little herself. Cai Renxiang had some she knew, but even a thief knew which treasures were not to be touched.
Especially now that Renxiang had developed such countermeasures to her teasing.
"Hey, Sis. Tell Biyu more about the mountain tree?"
She gave her sister a curious look. There wasn't much of the childish greed expected there, her sister was honestly curious.
"Well, Xiangmen IS the biggest tree. It was where everyone's greatest ancestor, Tsu, hid his family when he fought the bad beasts which ruled the forests a long time ago."
Her sister's head bobbled, even a child heard the basics of that story. "Strongest Grandpa!"
"That's right, Strongest Grandpa Tsu," Ling Qi chuckled, though her mother winced at the disrespectful title, but Biyu was still little. "Well. Xiangmen is the heavenly pillar in the story. It holds up the sky and shelters everyone in it, that's why it's so big after all, and why all of the cultivators like your sister gather there."
"I'll be a pretty fairy and go there too," Biyu said, she yawned, blinking rapidly, clearly holding off drowsiness now. Ling Qi considered her next words, what best to draw her attention away from that resistance and let nature take its course.
"Its roots go alllll the way down into the earth, beyond anyone's sight. Its trunk is wider than a mountain, people live in the big halls winding through it, in homes grown and sung from the living wood. And up at the peak, past the clouds, there are palaces in every shape and color, and countless people among them."
She let just a mote of qi work its way into her words, enhancing them. Biyu nodded absently, eyes distant, clearly seeing the picture painted with her words on the back of half closed eyelids.
"And up there in the wide blue sky on branches bigger than roads, you'll see….
[ ] Tsu's great palace, built around a single great branch, living wood and stone and glass, green and serene… (Gives Biyu a dream of the highest places and the striving to reach them)
[ ] Endless glittering lights, like droplets of dew on a spiderweb, catching the morning sun, stretching out too far for the eye to see, a constellation here on the earth to match the sky(Gives Biyu a dream of wanderlust, of traveling far and wide)
*****
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