Suggested it before but us failing the first composure test with Meizhen and ending up living with Liling.
Alternate Roomiverse: Sun Liling Part 1
Ling Qi woke up and panicked, trying not to drown. Her hand went up, but she was sinking, falling, and-
A sudden change in the light woke her up properly.
She blinked blearily. Wh - where was she?
She looked around. It was a room. Biggest room she had ever slept in. The bed beneath her fingers was soft beyond belief, made it feel like she was sleeping on one of those soft confections that nobles ate. Was this silk? Something rarer and more valuable than that?
What was going on?
"You are a
riot, Qi," a girl said from the side of the room near the windows, clad so scantily it would have been obscene if not for the many scars which decorated her flesh, almost like tattoos, that would have made her look clothed even if she had been wearing nary a stitch. Ling Qi hadn't the slightest clue how she had failed to notice her. "Got bad dreams?"
"H-huh?" she said, clutching the blankets closer to herself.
"Ha.
Adorable. Get yourself woke and then join me downstairs for breakfast. I wanna run something past you."
"Um. Okay," she said.
Ten minutes later (she had running water! and her own bathroom! and a box of somethings that were in theory supposed to help her look prettier but in practice just served as a reminder about her mother's less salubrious intentions about pushing her towards a future occupation) Ling Qi had woken up sufficiently to remember the events of the past day.
First, she had been sent to the Argent Peak Sect. She was now a disciple. Second, she had become roommates with Sun Liling who was apparently some sort of princess? Sun Liling hadn't said so or anything and didn't even
begin to act like a proper princess, but she'd heard the whispers and the fact that Sun Liling had casually chosen the biggest possible building she could find had definitely helped in cementing the impression. She was rooming with
royalty.
Royalty that was letting her down a bit when it came to what she thought royalty was supposed to act like. Sun Liling reminded Ling Qi more of a gang leader than a noble. Someone who lead because she was the scariest, craziest, strongest person around rather than because she had inherited her rank and wealth through luck and chance. There was not a single action that Sun Liling had performed that could not be understood through the lens of a swaggering bandit chief or a prone-to-explosions-of-violence crazy.
Until now, Sun Liling had been... nice. Strange, but nice. Ling Qi kept expecting the other shoe to drop and it was with some trepidation that she made it down the stairs. Would Sun Liling expect her to act like a servant? A goon? A mook? Something worse? She didn't know, and it was with regret she considered how she had shied away from the white-haired girl who, if nothing else, looked like a girl that kept mostly to herself instead of invasively walking into a girl's room as she slept.
Still, privacy was not something she had expected on the streets, so it wasn't like it was something that had been taken away from her. She'd merely have to hone her reflexes until Sun Liling couldn't surprise her like that.
When she went downstairs Sun Liling had finally thrown on something more substantial and sat on the table at the patio, toying with something in her hand. It was glass and liquid, glittered like expensive alcohol, throwing out little bits of gold to play over the princess' face.
She seated herself in front of Liling. When the princess didn't speak, she broke the silence.
"What's that?"
Sun Liling looked up like she was seeing her for the first time. "This?" she set it on the table and pushed it between her hands with the dull, rounded sound of glass moving on glass. "It's an elixir. S'called Blood Erupting Elixir. Mostly because mortals who consume it generally, well, erupt."
"They what."
"Erupt. Like, have you heard of the fire mountains to the North? Yeah, like those. Blood everywhere, it's
disgusting."
Ling Qi carefully didn't note that she didn't sound disgusted though.
"I see," said Ling Qi.
"It's a kind of poison, but also a kind of medicine. Have you ever been to the West? No? Well, it's an amazing place. Literally everything wants to kill you. There are outhouses out there where the flies feasting on shit are actually the second leading cause of death after unidentified maurauding spirit beasts. It's a hard place to grow up in. Makes the people there strong."
Sun paused in her little game of passing the elixir to herself.
"You remember how I said living with me was going to be exciting?"
"Yes."
"Well, I don't want to disappoint." She pushed the elixir across the table. "Here, take this. If you don't die I promise your cultivation will
explode in potency."
"And if I do die?" Ling Qi said dryly, accepting the elixir, but not drinking it.
"Best you don't. It'd be awkward for everyone. Especially me."
Ling Qi considered her roommate. She had gone from her grave, 'this is me while serious' face and was now watching what Ling Qi would do as disinterestedly as a cat trying not to show interest in a piece of meat she was holding. Ling Qi remembered how Sun Liling had tried to challenge her last evening and how she'd managed to hold her ground. She, too, remembered how Elder Jiao had told her that killing other disciples was strictly off limits.
She was normally not this reckless, but Ling Qi was tired of being pushed around and of being scared. If she was going to be here at the Sect, she needed to take risks in order to gain power.
She broke the seal on the elixir and downed it in one gulp.
At first, she felt nothing and was furrowing her brow in perplexity when a sudden pressure, like a punch from
inside her aimed directly at her heart shook her body. She collapsed, gurgling. Her head felt flashes of blinding heat and painful cold. Breathing became an effort.
Sun Liling's smile grew wide and pointy.
"My girl, you and I are going to get along
great."
==> Part 2
