Nepotism.
If Chao Yanlin's opinion on Hanyi is any indication, then no. She apparently expected a standard peak-flavored spirit interaction, aka either be submissive or boss them around. I think she went with the dominant approach because to her, Hanyi is a spirit bound to a cultivator that is stronger than the spirit.
Well, she doesn't believe it's sabotage. Or at least that we're being sabotaged. It's not surprising that somebody coming along and rubbing weird approaches to spirit handling in her face wouldn't be given the benefit of the doubt. Hanyi's weird, making her the centerpiece of entreating spirits on the behalf of human settlements is weird. It makes sense for Chao Yanlin to harbor suspicion towards the performance as a whole, and that's a framework that lends itself towards suspicion of us when things go wrong.
I find this a really interesting take because Hanyi is doing her part. She practiced and trained for a specific dance and it's not her fault that we were given misinformation. So Ling Qi is ensuring that the miscommunication doesn't effect Hanyi's performance. We are not bearing the full load of this. We are not doing "the work" again.
Here we are helping out Hanyi with her problems - without wishing to upstage her. We are acting in a supporting role here and thus this is not a case of us doing everything, but us enabling others to do their work. The issue with the second option is that it involves pushing Hanyi beyond what she is comfortable with.
And if we can teach Zhengui to sing properly we can have strength through harmonics.
I still wanna ride Zhen stretching through the Dream. Seems hilarious to me.
Thinking about it, it could be someone playing political games aimed at or involving particular spirits, rather than the priesthood or the Cai. E. g., this particular spirit's displeasure might show up in predictable ways, and someone wants to take advantage of that.
