Threads Chapter 401-Recovery 9

    Ling Qi dipped her head in acknowledgment. "What are you thinking?" she asked Yu Nuan.

    "I have my Savage Storms Sonata. It would let someone get started on a path like mine. I''ve integrated it already, like I think you did with that mist art of yours. It calls the lightning and the thunder to your strings. Mostly for battering people around, but you can empower yourself a bit too. Or, I could gift the Lightning God''s Ladder, my cultivation art. Lady Dianmu''s showed me the higher class version, but the one I cultivated before also lets you use natural thunderstorms to cultivate. You don''t want to get struck directly like a crazy person, at least not till you''ve completed the one I''m on now, but..."

    Ling Qi shifted in her seat, thinking of Gu Xiulan.

    "... it really let me get by on not as many stones. I''m sure that''s not a problem for you..."

    "Being able to save on spirit stones is always a benefit," Ling Qi replied, considering.

    Of course, Yu Nuan could teach as she liked, but entering a person''s art into the general clan archive was more of a commitment. It was essentially making it a part of the clan''s overall identity, rather than something personal to Yu Nuan.

    "The cultivation art is more important to have in the general archive," Ling Qi decided. "I''m sure you''ll find people you want to pass your music down to individually."

    Yu Nuan gave a firm nod. "Got it."

    "Although, if Biyu decides she wants to stab bits of metal through her nose and lips for power, I am referring Mother to you." Ling Qi laughed behind her hand.

    Yu Nuan''s expression screwed up in a scowl, and Yun Long bit down on his own laughter when her glare turned on him, pointedly becoming very interested in the clouded gray sky.

    "Kid doesn''t have the temperament for it. I kinda doubt she has the temperament for yours either," Yu Nuan shot back.

    Ling Qi''s smile faded. "Obviously. There''s no need to be so serious about the possibility. Mother might be put out, but I had to be lit on fire from my dantian out to get her truly angry with me."

    Yu Nuan snorted. "That’s ‘cause you''re her actual daughter. She''s always keeping me on my toes when I''m here."

    "Yu Nuan, are you saying you feel bullied by my first realm mother?"

    Hanyi desperately covered her mouth with her hands. Ling Qi shot her an unimpressed look, and she straightened up, looking innocent.

    "I didn''t say that," Yu Nuan complained. "She just... I dunno... makes me feel weird. It''s that disappointed look she makes when I try to blow something off, you know? It makes me feel like I’m the worst."

    "Ah, I can understand that," Ling Qi replied.

    That was probably worse than being shouted at. Mother was very reticent with her, still so reserved with her feelings. Her injury had cracked that shell, but still, she felt some envy for Yu Nuan.

    "Mother is not too different from me in some ways. She won''t accept you simply being a business attachment. You''ll just have to endure her efforts."

    "When you say it like that, you make me feel like I''m an asshole," Yu Nuan griped. "Guess you are kinda similar. Hey, Yun Long, not gonna support me here?"

    "No. I feel like I might be inviting my own Lady Mother’s wrath if I did. You know her eyes see very far and clear," he replied candidly.

    "A request I am pleased to answer positively," Ling Qi replied imperiously. Hanyi turned her, and Yu Nuan approached, lowering herself into a bow. "You swear then to bring honor to my Ling clan, to be filial in all of your days, and to bring us success and great merits?"

    The whole formal speech was still tedious in her opinion, but she was well past grumbling about necessary social theater.

    "I do so swear to repay your kindness with duty and your welcome with meritorious deeds," Yu Nuan pledged. "So it shall be for myself and all of my descendants, who shall know no name but Ling."

    "Then let it be so." Ling Qi clapped her hands once, and the earth rumbled.

    She mentally thanked Zhengui for the effect. A part of the stage opened, coming apart, and roots crawled out, bearing on them a small but well painted cabinet, worked and etched with silver and painted blue and black.

    Ling Qingge, who had been silent until now, stepped forward, and pulled open the cabinet doors. Inside were velvet lined shelves and a small number of wooden tablets, each intricately carved with artistic patterns and a single name in bold characters extending from top to bottom.

    There were five such tablets, each bearing a name: Ling Qi, Ling Qingge, Ling Biyu, Ling Zhengui, and Ling Hanyi. One other had been added, its face yet blank.

    Ling Qi didn''t know when her mother had commissioned a set of ancestral tablets, but she had been pleased to see them. There was something good and solid about them that left her qi feeling settled.

    A humbler, plainer tablet—bearing the name He Qingge—burned, taking a life up in smoke with it.

    She supposed Mother had her own reasons to be so focused on making their Ling family right.

    Mother took the blank tablet from the cabinet and presented it to Yu Nuan, who took it and looked down at the polished wood with an unreadable expression.

    "Carve, paint, and mark your name then, you who will be kin to us." Mother''s voice was far quieter than hers, and Ling Qi signaled Sixiang to provide some amplification of the sound. "And I will place it alongside those to which it belongs."

    For a cultivator, it was not difficult to perform small acts of physical art, and Yu Nuan was prepared. She cradled the tablet in one arm and reached out to take the carving blade Mother had held out in the other hand. The scratch of metal on wood could not be heard over the rain and thunder, but curls of cut material accompanied by wood dust drifted to the stage.

    Ling Qi held her peace, as did everyone else, leaving only the cry of the wind and the patter of the rain and the occasional rumble of thunder to pass over the silent gathering. When wood chips ceased to fall, her mother, given Ling Qi''s storage ring for the ceremony, produced a brush and inks and took back the carving knife.

    Soon, the other girl straightened up, though her head remained bowed. She held out a tablet with her new name, Ling Nuan, carved deep into the tablet. It was inked artfully in dark blue, framed with lighter carvings to match those on the other tablets, characters for good fortune and aesthetic lines, though Ling Nuan’s were more jagged like falling lightning.

    Mother accepted the tablet, making a show of looking over it and nodding with satisfaction. "I see before me a daughter of Ling, as true as blood. What say you, Honored Clan Head?"

    Ling Qi craned her neck as her mother turned toward her, doing her part to examine the tablet. "I, too, see before me a daughter of Ling, a sibling true and loyal. Place her among her kin."

    The tablet was set on the bottom row, beside Hanyi''s. There was a great crack then, and a number of gasps and cries arose as lightning struck the dome of air over the garden before scattering in a thousand glittering trails down its sides.

    That had been well timed. She silently thanked Sixiang for handling the signaling to Yun Long.

    "Rise, Sister. Rise, Ling Nuan. Be welcome among your family."