In the days that followed their expedition Li Suyin vanished into her workshop almost completely, and Ling Qi did not begrudge her for it. She hadn't missed the way that Li Suyin's eyes had lit up when she handed over the bandoleer she had torn from the beast's corpse. She expected her friend would be doing the equivalent of closed door cultivation for most of the month's remainder. Ling Qi's plans were not so far from that. Between the expensive pills purchased from the Sect at the cost of most of her points, and her newly improved cultivation, Ling Qi planned to make this a very productive month. However, the days when Ling Qi would thoughtlessly retreat into meditation without consideration for anyone else were well past, and so Ling Qi was sure to take care of her obligations first.
Her friends were all settling into their own routines. Meizhen was getting comfortable in her new home, which wasn't much larger, but was definitely better appointed. Xiulan was enclosed in cultivation, catching up arts whose advancement had been stymied by her partial breakthrough. Everyone was quite busy it seemed, and so Ling Qi found herself drifting to the archive when she was not making preparation for her upcoming cultivation binge, or attending to Cai Renxiang while she made her preparations. It was a center of activity after all, and Ling Qi still needed to keep an eye on her peers. While she wasn't sure if she intended to challenge this month, she could still be challenged.
She hadn't expected it to be so dull though. Sitting off in a corner, a tome on imperial history open in her hands, Ling Qi tried to keep her mind from wandering. Keeping her ears open, listening the murmur of small conversations throughout the archive, she thought she might go a little stir crazy. While she knew that she wouldn't get anything really interesting with this method, the mundanity of peoples day to day lives still surprised her sometimes.
Remembering the cavern, and the nightmare before it, it seemed so incongruous that people could still be interested in petty little concerns when they were, one and all, people with real power at their fingertips, in a world filled with tribulations and challenges. She supposed she wasn't any better, hadn't she spent yesterday morning just chatting with Meizhen about nothing in particular?
She was being unfair she knew, but it didn't help that even Sixiang was silent again, leaving her alone in her own head to try and focus on other people when the siren call of cultivation was singing in the back of her mind. Sighing, Ling Qi refocused her eyes on the text in front of her, listening carefully to the snippets of conversation that reached her ears. Only a few minutes later she found herself distracted again. This time, by the feel of a familiar aura moving through her senses. A bolt of lightning stalked the archives, tense and crackling, tiny arcs of electricity snapping and coiling at any that dared approach it. There was only one person Ling Qi knew who cultivated heavenly qi to such an extent and singular purpose. At his side moved a frolicking wind, that danced around the lightning poking prodding and floating away laughing when the lightning snapped and crackled in turn.
"...Junior Brother Rong, to make an enemy of the archivists so early in the year. You truly do excel," she heard the second of the pairs voice at first, and it conjured to her the image of a rather pompous fellow.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, this is all the books right?" The living lightning snapped testily. Ji Rong was as taciturn as ever she supposed, but it looked like he had made a new friend? That was something to make a note of.
"Just the one more," the other voice replied lightly, and Ling Qi heard the sound of leather striking flesh. He had presumably tossed Ji Rong another book.
"...Fu Fan's Guide to Administration for the Simple… are you making fun of me you windbag?" She could practically here the twitch of Ji Rong's eye.
"Hmph, Hmph, to show so little respect for your kind senior, Junior Brother Rong, where did I go wrong in raising you?" The stranger laughed. "Off to the reading room you, this Senior Brother has his own tasks to attend to."
Ling Qi caught sight of the second speaker then, moving swiftly between the aisles in front of the reading area she occupied. His mustache was rather ridiculous looking, but he seemed pretty unassuming otherwise. That set her on edge a bit, she couldn't clearly read his aura. He was also gone as fast as he appeared, not even glancing her way.
"Jackass," Ji Rong muttered to himself as he slouched around the corner, cradling an armful of books. "What I get for askin that guy for help."
He looked up then as he trod on the plush carpeting that marked out one of the reading areas in the archive.
Ling Qi restrained herself from matching his grimace with her own. "You never struck me as the type, Baron Ji," she said dryly, eyeing the titles of the books he held. Treatises on leadership, logistics, and yes, administration filled out most of the stack.
"What's it to you," he replied, meeting her eyes defiantly. "You think I'm too stupid to learn anything but punching or something?"
Ling Qi debated just leaving, but curiosity drove her to ask. "...Why though. Did my phantoms jar something loose when they were spinning you around?"
He looked like he wanted to spit blood at the reminder of his loss. She found it funnier than she probably should have. "Dunno, why do you care about the past all of a sudden?" He spat in return.
Ling Qi glanced down at the book in her hands that she had been casually perusing. "...Even if it doesn't matter, seeing the patterns is important I think," she replied, thinking back to her encounter in the dream and Senior Brother Liao's own words on the futility of it. "I'll leave you to your study," Ling Qi said, closing her book and standing. There wasn't much point in antagonizing him, aside from petty satisfaction.
...And she had already indulged in that, doing more would just be gluttonous.
As she moved to pass him by though, he spoke. "They aren't any different," he said. "But that doesn't change the fact that I've been a shit Boss."
Ling Qi paused, eyeing the scarred boy without turning her head. "Are you making the comparison that I think you're making?" She asked, vaguely incredulous.
He let out a bitter laugh. "Yeah, Guess I am, Gang Boss, Baron, Duke, Emperor. It's all a matter of scale, innit." He shook his head. "I'm never gonna be leading packs in a fight like that Cai or or pet giant, but if a Boss is what I am, I'm not gonna be a shit one."
"That's not the kind of thing you should say Sect Brother," Ling Qi replied dryly. "Please consider your words more before you tarnish the Sect's reputation."
"Whatever," he snorted. "I'm outta here in a couple years anyway. Not gonna run off and leave her alone like the rest of those parasites," he turned away from her then, resuming his path toward the reading desk in the far corner.
Ling Qi shook her head as she began to move toward the archive's exit. She supposed that at least answered clearly what was going on between Sun Liling and Ji Rong.
"Ling Qi, are you busy?" She paused, her step faltering as Sixiang spoke. Something about the spirit's voice felt… insubstantial, or even fragile. It didn't sound right.
'I'm not,' Ling Qi thought back immediately. 'What's wrong?'
"Nothing, nothing," Sixiang laughed. "It's just uh… might've put a little too much into my project, I'm almost done, I just need a little more…. Could you...find somewhere with better background Qi...please?" Sixiang's voice seemed to fade and waver in and out alarmingly with every word.
What in the world had they done? Ling Qi thought with alarm, picking up her pace. Why would they do something dangerous without even telling her? Why… Ling Qi had a sudden sinking feeling that she now knew how Meizhen felt sometimes.
Choosing to ignore that moment of self reflection for the moment along with thoughts of old enemies and collating the gossip she had gathered. She made a beeline for the archive's exit, barely pausing to turn her book in. The moment she stepped outside, her feet left the ground, her gown snapping and rustling in the wind as she soared away from the archive.
[] She flew back home to the Argent Vent, with its solid foundation building qi
[] She flew to Zeqing's home, the single most potent qi locus she could think of
[] She flew to the Silent Stones, though she disliked the implications, it was the only moon site she knew
