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Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
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Threads Chapter 2 - Forge of Destiny
Ling Qi carefully blotted the ink on the last string of characters describing the qi circulation exercises they were to practice before the next lecture. (...)
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I thought Shenhua had cleaned up the worst of the corruption in the Emerald Seas ministries (with sword and fire). Is the rot really that intractable?
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Su Ling's childhood is indeed a worse than normal case...her treatment at the sect, which was also a clear example of prejudice, if a less severe one, was very much the normal case, however.
The sects are a pretty recent phenomenon, using them as an example of how the spirit blooded are not being discriminated against is much like using affirmative action to say black people aren't. The two programs actually bear a lot of similarities, though the reasoning is different. Prior to the rise of the Sects, non-noble cultivators were routinely oppressed, denied opportunities the nobles have, and generally not allowed social or political power in almost any way. That certainly included the spirit blooded, and based on what evidence we have likely included things like the nobles (certainly the Hui, from what we know of them) doing things like hunting them for sport. And the social part of that discrimination didn't stop just because the Sects were implemented, just look at what Ling Qi herself has gone through as a commoner (a group with less prejudice against them than the spirit-blooded).
Even if it's true that the sects ended discrimination, though, we're talking about, to quote you 'a history of oppression' and the treatment of spirit blooded in the Mu Dynasty pre-sects is very much recent history (indeed, it's most of recent history). And, as others note, the Zheng may have done something about discrimination against the spirit blooded in their own domains (we don't know that, but it's possible), but they certainly haven't done any such thing in the Emerald Seas or the Empire more generally.
So until very recently there was exactly the kind of 'parallel, less prestigious system' you're talking about (actually, there was no system at all and they were prohibited from ever being noble or receiving meaningful legitimized social advancement or political power), it wasn't unique to spirit-blooded, but they were certainly one of the many groups discriminated against in this way pre-Sect. The fact that the system is less unfair now than it was once does not erase that history, or make the slur suddenly acceptable.
The Heavenly Peaks may discriminate against (non-dragon) spirit-blooded, but I'm not sure how much that matters in the empire as a whole.
The Bai are blatantly racist against non-sneks and it seems reasonable to assume that the Xuan and the Zheng also favour their kin over their other subjects.
Basically, what I'm saying is that the duchies that are dominated by spirit-blooded will discriminate against non-spirit-blooded, and the duchies that are dominated by non-spirit-blooded will discriminate against spirit-blooded. Humans are inherently clannish and will instinctively dislike people who are too different.
The Bai are blatantly racist against non-sneks and it seems reasonable to assume that the Xuan and the Zheng also favour their kin over their other subjects.
Basically, what I'm saying is that the duchies that are dominated by spirit-blooded will discriminate against non-spirit-blooded, and the duchies that are dominated by non-spirit-blooded will discriminate against spirit-blooded. Humans are inherently clannish and will instinctively dislike people who are too different.
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True to some degree, though I'll note that the Emerald Seas are very much in the 'not run by spirit blooded' camp and that's primarily where we're talking about seeing discrimination against the spirit-blooded.
On a more philosophical note, while humans are clannish, it is very possible to influence what clans they choose to identify with. That's a large part of the point of Ling Qi's insights into community and forays into building the mythology and concept of a nation for the Emerald Seas, and is true in reality as well...get people to see how they are the same as others, and you can grind away specific prejudices, even if some sort of prejudice is inevitable in any large enough group of humans.
Lady and the Brute 4
Bai Mingzhu glowered down at the floor of the hall from the balcony above, standing in the shadow of the pillars. Imperiously, she swept her gaze over the gathered individuals, the young generation of the Empire gathered here in the capital with only a few minders from their elders. She was thoroughly sick of it.
Sick of the cool dry mountain air of the peaks, sick of the miserable trash of lesser provinces chasing after her skirts and offering naught but dull obsequience, and sick of blundering idiots who made her look like a fool…!
She took a deep breath, shooting a waspish look at the shock of red hair she could see towering over the crowd. It infuriated her, the way that woman simply ignored her castigations. She arranged for her to be publicly caught in compromising positions? Laughed off. Minor poisons to spoil wine and induce humiliating bodily functions? Detected or dismissed with a disgusting belch. Arranging a discovery of some personal correspondence unflattering to other important figures. Shrugged off, apologies made without even a hint of injured pride.
She hunched her shoulders, frowning fiercely as she stepped back into the shadows, avoiding the returning gaze.
Worse was the chiding she had gotten from her Mother.
"Hmph, do you think your little tantrums escape my sight daughter? You edge upon spreading your embarrassment to the clan." Cold yellow eyes and acid words in the sitting room, backed only by the quiet sound of fountain arranged in the Bai clans chambers to give the air a more comfortable moisture.
"I am trying to ensure that the Zheng cannot think they can get away with insulting us," she had said, casting her eyes low.
"What insult, precisely, child?"
"I…"
"Do not lie."
She had swallowed her cover story, the embarrassment at the ball where they had met.
"You are fortunate that half of the reason we allow these gatherings is to let you children get such youthful indiscretions out in a place of little harm," mothers voice had cut through the shadowed air like a whip.
"...I cannot just accept being treated like a common trollop Mother."
"Then you should have never taken one of those idiot beasts to bed," was her reply, along with a cold snort. "They have their magnetism obviously, but what did you imagine would happen?"
She had lowered her head even further, shame coloring her cheeks. "I thought she could be a useful cudgel, if manipulated by her interest."
She tried her best not to think other thoughts surface, the way her own heart had been sent pounding by the looming figure and aggressive grin.
"At least you chose a woman, such childishness is more excusable than the alternative. Mingzhu, your mistake is the same as all who fall for the charms of those apes. A Bai should be better."
"How can they be so carefree?" frustration and humiliation brought the words boiling out. "It is as if all the world is a joke."
"It is. The Zheng are power without discipline. Without responsibility. They walk where they will, rut where they will, fight where they will. They allow their vassals to do as they please, only interfering when some slight personally offends some grinning wanderer. They call this freedom, and imagine that it is the true desire of all, that there are none responsible for the trampled lives in their footsteps. So it was with Zhi and the stone ape. Conquering and fighting and leaving the mortals and commoners behind them to scramble amidst the rubble without the strong hand that is needed for rule. Do not seek commitment or reason in the actions of a Zheng. Their birthright is anarchy and irresponsibility."
"But how can they function at all then?" Mingzhu had asked.
"Foolish, you know the one true law of the world."
"Power forgives all sins."
Bai Mingzhu took a deep breath, shaking away the memory. She was lucky that her Mother was not a truly harsh woman, her only demand that Bai Mingzhu be more discreet. But so too had she refused any further advice on the matter. This left Bai Mingzhu at an impasse, nothing she had been able to inflict on that creature was accomplishing anything, nothing to match…
The feeling like a dagger thrust in her heart, when she had looked into those eyes and realized that nothing of the day and night before had meant a single thing to Zheng Lei.
The unfulfilled grudge roiled like a furious serpent in her stomach, and Bai Mingzhu stalked away from the light and sound of the gala below, moving out onto the balcony that overlooked the mist shrouded foot of the peak below the palace.
She folded her arms in front of her hands vanishing into her sleeves as she strode of to the bannister, sending a scathing look at the shadows which scattered from the artfully arranged hedges. Hmph, idiot children.
She turned her eyes back to the faint lights in the mist of the town below the palace. She wished, not for the first time, that she had her Viper, her Xiao Yin, along, but she had been assigned training with her Mother's viper for the duration.
It was a bit childish, Xiao Yin was good for two things, Killing and listening, and while she might have liked to indulge the latter, it would have been empty. The girl only said what she wanted to hear. She wondered sometimes at the advice of her seniors towards one's Viper. They were useful but hardly confidants. One might as well be whispering secrets into a teapot, like a children's tale.
No, Bai Mingzhu thought, she would have to work through this problem on her own, find a way to resolve her mistake and her grudge.
"Yo, thought I saw you slither on out here."
Bai Mingzhu stiffened at the sound of that woman's voice, and whirled about to see a tall silhouette standing outlined by the light of the gala.
"How did you…"
"We're a lot sneakier than folks give us credit for," Zheng Lei replied with a lopsided grin. "You'd be surprised how often that comes up."
Bai Mingzhu narrowed her eyes. She did not fear violence, 'quiet' or no such a thing would be felt by the chaperones. "I have no words for you ape, why not return to the tables and resume guzzling all of our hosts wine."
"Well it's kinda sweet for my tastes," Zheng Lei replied. Her footfalls carried her closer.
Bai Mingzhu drew herself up, but it hardly matched the barbarous woman's looming height. "I do not care. As I said, I have no words."
"Well, I have words," Zheng lei said crossing her arms. "So hear 'em, and if you still don't like 'em I won't bother you again."
Bai Mingzhu glared imperiously, and considered brushing past, leaving Zheng Lei standing alone in the dark.
But, what words could she possibly have to speak?
Sick of the cool dry mountain air of the peaks, sick of the miserable trash of lesser provinces chasing after her skirts and offering naught but dull obsequience, and sick of blundering idiots who made her look like a fool…!
She took a deep breath, shooting a waspish look at the shock of red hair she could see towering over the crowd. It infuriated her, the way that woman simply ignored her castigations. She arranged for her to be publicly caught in compromising positions? Laughed off. Minor poisons to spoil wine and induce humiliating bodily functions? Detected or dismissed with a disgusting belch. Arranging a discovery of some personal correspondence unflattering to other important figures. Shrugged off, apologies made without even a hint of injured pride.
She hunched her shoulders, frowning fiercely as she stepped back into the shadows, avoiding the returning gaze.
Worse was the chiding she had gotten from her Mother.
"Hmph, do you think your little tantrums escape my sight daughter? You edge upon spreading your embarrassment to the clan." Cold yellow eyes and acid words in the sitting room, backed only by the quiet sound of fountain arranged in the Bai clans chambers to give the air a more comfortable moisture.
"I am trying to ensure that the Zheng cannot think they can get away with insulting us," she had said, casting her eyes low.
"What insult, precisely, child?"
"I…"
"Do not lie."
She had swallowed her cover story, the embarrassment at the ball where they had met.
"You are fortunate that half of the reason we allow these gatherings is to let you children get such youthful indiscretions out in a place of little harm," mothers voice had cut through the shadowed air like a whip.
"...I cannot just accept being treated like a common trollop Mother."
"Then you should have never taken one of those idiot beasts to bed," was her reply, along with a cold snort. "They have their magnetism obviously, but what did you imagine would happen?"
She had lowered her head even further, shame coloring her cheeks. "I thought she could be a useful cudgel, if manipulated by her interest."
She tried her best not to think other thoughts surface, the way her own heart had been sent pounding by the looming figure and aggressive grin.
"At least you chose a woman, such childishness is more excusable than the alternative. Mingzhu, your mistake is the same as all who fall for the charms of those apes. A Bai should be better."
"How can they be so carefree?" frustration and humiliation brought the words boiling out. "It is as if all the world is a joke."
"It is. The Zheng are power without discipline. Without responsibility. They walk where they will, rut where they will, fight where they will. They allow their vassals to do as they please, only interfering when some slight personally offends some grinning wanderer. They call this freedom, and imagine that it is the true desire of all, that there are none responsible for the trampled lives in their footsteps. So it was with Zhi and the stone ape. Conquering and fighting and leaving the mortals and commoners behind them to scramble amidst the rubble without the strong hand that is needed for rule. Do not seek commitment or reason in the actions of a Zheng. Their birthright is anarchy and irresponsibility."
"But how can they function at all then?" Mingzhu had asked.
"Foolish, you know the one true law of the world."
"Power forgives all sins."
Bai Mingzhu took a deep breath, shaking away the memory. She was lucky that her Mother was not a truly harsh woman, her only demand that Bai Mingzhu be more discreet. But so too had she refused any further advice on the matter. This left Bai Mingzhu at an impasse, nothing she had been able to inflict on that creature was accomplishing anything, nothing to match…
The feeling like a dagger thrust in her heart, when she had looked into those eyes and realized that nothing of the day and night before had meant a single thing to Zheng Lei.
The unfulfilled grudge roiled like a furious serpent in her stomach, and Bai Mingzhu stalked away from the light and sound of the gala below, moving out onto the balcony that overlooked the mist shrouded foot of the peak below the palace.
She folded her arms in front of her hands vanishing into her sleeves as she strode of to the bannister, sending a scathing look at the shadows which scattered from the artfully arranged hedges. Hmph, idiot children.
She turned her eyes back to the faint lights in the mist of the town below the palace. She wished, not for the first time, that she had her Viper, her Xiao Yin, along, but she had been assigned training with her Mother's viper for the duration.
It was a bit childish, Xiao Yin was good for two things, Killing and listening, and while she might have liked to indulge the latter, it would have been empty. The girl only said what she wanted to hear. She wondered sometimes at the advice of her seniors towards one's Viper. They were useful but hardly confidants. One might as well be whispering secrets into a teapot, like a children's tale.
No, Bai Mingzhu thought, she would have to work through this problem on her own, find a way to resolve her mistake and her grudge.
"Yo, thought I saw you slither on out here."
Bai Mingzhu stiffened at the sound of that woman's voice, and whirled about to see a tall silhouette standing outlined by the light of the gala.
"How did you…"
"We're a lot sneakier than folks give us credit for," Zheng Lei replied with a lopsided grin. "You'd be surprised how often that comes up."
Bai Mingzhu narrowed her eyes. She did not fear violence, 'quiet' or no such a thing would be felt by the chaperones. "I have no words for you ape, why not return to the tables and resume guzzling all of our hosts wine."
"Well it's kinda sweet for my tastes," Zheng Lei replied. Her footfalls carried her closer.
Bai Mingzhu drew herself up, but it hardly matched the barbarous woman's looming height. "I do not care. As I said, I have no words."
"Well, I have words," Zheng lei said crossing her arms. "So hear 'em, and if you still don't like 'em I won't bother you again."
Bai Mingzhu glared imperiously, and considered brushing past, leaving Zheng Lei standing alone in the dark.
But, what words could she possibly have to speak?
The Zheng possess many fearsome abilities, but the most potent one is a complete lack of shame.
- Location
- Leeds
E: Answered.
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That's not Meizhen. That is a different Bai from centuries ago.
- Location
- Leeds
Ahhhhhh, now that you mention it. Meizhens mother showing up first in a sidestory would be pretty strange.
The things you realise once its been made obvious.
Unless..... glances left, glances right, whispers: Unless that's just what she wants us to think.
TimEd
Meteor maker
Actually, sad as it is, that would be much worse considering that it is the Imperial Family that executed her.
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- He/Him
Jokes aside, this would actually be worse for everyone, as her close family certainly all believe her dead, which would mean she left them to suffer the grief of her loss, and left Meizhen to suffer a rather horribly abusive childhood due to the shame of her execution and without her protection (which nobody else was in a position to provide). Like, it would retroactively make her an actually completely terrible person and just be a really ugly situation.
Which all makes it super unlikely, since what evidence we have indicates that she was actually a pretty nice person for a Bai (which is, admittedly, a really low bar), and certainly a decent mother even by non-Bai standards.
[X] Tale of the Iron King
Interlude: Ji Rong - Forge of Destiny
His fist slammed into the wall, and just like the last dozen times, there wasn’t a single mark or crack in the smooth, featureless stone. Letting out a (...)
www.royalroad.com
Out of curiosity I went and checked this part in the original thread, and there were a lot of "aha, he was framed" reactions. But my impression is that to Ji Rong an enforcer pocketing a little extra on the side is so natural that he simply couldn't accept the notion that he'd broken Renxiang's rules, and thus thought it was a trap from the beginning. Would that be more accurate?
Chlof
Her Ladyship
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- She/Her
That was definitely my reading as well.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Indeed it would be. I believe that there's even a conversation with Ling Qi where he admits as much, though I'm spacing where.
Chapter 201-Tournament 11 - Forge of Destiny
Ling Qi wasn’t certain what to think of the girl standing next to her. There was something different about Cai Renxiang this morning, and she was not sure (...)
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Chapter 202-Tournament 12 - Forge of Destiny
Her flute formed in her right hand, and Zhengui began to take shape in front of her, a dark shadow in the grass. Even as she raised her hand to bring her (...)
www.royalroad.com
- Location
- Central Europe
The confusion likely comes down to an edit made in the RR version. There Ji Rong explains his reasoning long before the Interlude
Chapter 73-Recovery 2
Meanwhile, in the original Quest the confirmation that it was a form of socio-cultural disconnect between JR and CRX comes later.
Edit: Incidentally also why this line in the quest:
"You know, it's funny," The scarred boy commented idly, cracking his knuckles. "I don't think we've ever actually had a conversation before."
turned into:
"You know, it's funny," the scarred boy commented, idly cracking his knuckles. "We've been on opposite sides of a conflict, but I don't think we've ever faced each other directly."
Chapter 73-Recovery 2
Meanwhile, in the original Quest the confirmation that it was a form of socio-cultural disconnect between JR and CRX comes later.
Edit: Incidentally also why this line in the quest:
"You know, it's funny," The scarred boy commented idly, cracking his knuckles. "I don't think we've ever actually had a conversation before."
turned into:
"You know, it's funny," the scarred boy commented, idly cracking his knuckles. "We've been on opposite sides of a conflict, but I don't think we've ever faced each other directly."
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- He/Him
Yeah, this is exactly the bit I was remembering. It being a clarification found in the Royal Road version also makes a lot of sense with the seeming confusion in the original thread...it's exactly the sort of thing an author is gonna often want to clarify if people are confused about it.
Unless..... glances left, glances right, whispers: Unless that's just what she wants them to think.
on a more serious note though, yeah it would actually suck really bad in a number of ways if she was still alive
Getting Time Lord-ed by Xuan Shi was where it all began to go wrong for Ji Rong. Before that, he was advancing faster than Ling Qi (not surprising, what with having talent one level higher than hers).
I wonder how much better he would have done in his first year if he'd avoided fuckups like that.
I wonder how much better he would have done in his first year if he'd avoided fuckups like that.