AN LING QI (安泠岐)

  Day 2, 5th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Shuishang Province, Huadu Sect

  Day five.

  Five consecutive days of controlled bloodletting.

  Thus far, I have lost approximately 1.7 litres, well within the expected tolerance range for someone of my height and weight. No syncope. Minimal vertigo. Slight tinnitus this morning, but it passed.

  My posture remained upright, unshaking, as Chen Yahui and I observed the slow, predictable flow of blood into a lacquered wooden bowl. The colour today was darker—slightly more venous—likely due to the time of draw and my current hydration status.

  It resembled cooking, in an abstract way. The vessel could have been a broth bowl, the blood a base for sauce. That comparison served no purpose but occurred anyway.

  Once the bowl was sufficiently filled, I applied a greenish salve: the standard blend of skullcap, ox resin, and radix sanguisorba. I smoothed it into the puncture with my left hand.

  “Does it hurt?” Chen Yahui asked.

  “No,” I answered. “It’s manageable.”

  She made a clicking sound with her tongue, then reached for my wrist. Two fingers at the radial artery. Her brow furrowed. “Your pulse…it's odd.”

  I withdrew and checked it myself. It was present. Thready, but consistent. Slightly depressed. Acceptable for post-venesection.

  She wandered off with the bowl. Paused. Looked at me again with a puzzled expression, then slumped like a puppet remembering it was not held by strings.

  This was not unusual for the Fate Immortal. Her thoughts flickered rapidly, often without sequence or anchor.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “Are you okay?”

  The tone in her voice had changed, designed to probe.

  “What do you mean?”

  She turned slightly, avoiding my gaze. “Do you ever feel…empty?”

  “No. Why?”

  Her fingers fidgeted along the bowl’s edge. “Hmm. Maybe I’m explaining this wrong. Think of it this way—do you find it difficult to feel things for other people?”

  She was still observing me, not for truth but for contradiction. Expecting defensiveness, or guilt.

  “I don’t think so. I care about people,” I said.

  Which was a lie. The word ‘care’ implied a spontaneous emotional investment. What I possessed was an internalised model of appropriate behaviour. I protected others. I responded to distress. These were actions I performed because they produced stability. Not because I felt compelled by emotion.

  An Lingqi, listen to me. Are you listening child? Don’t cry. Don’t smile. Don’t scream. Don’t laugh. If you do, then we’re dead. Okay? I’m not playing now. I’ve never played with you.

  Her voice is always there.

  Chen Yahui exhaled sharply and slammed the bowl down. “That is so strange!”

  She paced in erratic loops, muttering. When I turned to leave, she spoke again. “How long have you been bloodletting?”

  “Five days.”

  “Maybe you bled it away.”

  I looked at her.

  She clarified. “Your pulse. When I checked it, I couldn’t find them. Your love threads.”

  Love threads: metaphysical conduits connecting the self to others. It was said to form in early childhood, encoded in the spiritual body. Typically present in almost all Immortals by an early age.

  I said nothing.

  She must have mistaken my silence for incomprehension. “I’m the Head of Yuyan Sect. This is literally my job. I know what I saw.”

  She took my hands in hers. Her face was gently twisted into pity. “I’m so sorry,” she said. The words were weighted, meant to deliver grief.

  I catalogued her meaning. Missing love threads.

  The expected emotional reaction would be sorrow. Or at least, shock and panic. Instead, what surfaced was a curious clarity.

  Yes. That explains much.

  It had never bothered me much in the past. And if I were to analyse it, I suspected it came from the environment I was raised in.

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  An Furong had been an efficient parent—someone I wouldn’t wish on anyone—but she had taken good care of me all the same. Babies are such useless creatures, and she had every opportunity to depose of such an inconvenience.

  I learnt early on that crying was no help. In An Furong’s eyes, work came first, and I came second.

  Under such conditions, it is unsurprising that my capacity to form attachments was stunted. I would never know for certain. Either way, affection or—for that matter—hatred, had little meaning to me.

  Chen Yahui continued staring at me, waiting for some human response.

  Missing love threads.

  I should feel sad.

  I should feel terrible.

  But I feel free.

  ***

  “How is she?”

  An unusual question, coming from the Crown Prince. The she in question was Su Tang. Within a day of returning to the Crown Prince’s manor, trouble had become her companion. Her complaints about going back had proven consistent with the outcome.

  “She is better, but still unwell,” I said.

  He exhaled audibly. Whether it was guilt, indebtedness, or mere concern for appearances, I could not say. Regardless, it had no bearing on my responsibilities.

  She had spoken during intermittent moments of consciousness. The fragments she offered were vague, but I had already deduced the essential sequence of events from the moment the Crown Prince arrived at my home, carrying her in his arms. Both were covered in soil and blood.

  She had grown the flower. Against instruction. Against reason.

  To be fair, I had once asked her to grow it. But cause and effect are not the same as intent and consequence. I only asked once. She took the action repeatedly. It was her decision. Surely.

  The Crown Prince sat beside her bed. Su Tang’s skin bore the tone of calcined bone. Her lips, grey and cracked, were parted in shallow breathing. Though asleep, her brow was drawn in tension. Possibly pain. Possibly fever-induced hallucination.

  He adjusted the covers, smoothing them with practiced hands.

  “You lied.”

  He did not answer.

  “You asked me to trust you, but now she is like this.”

  I waited for emotion to follow the words, but there was none. Intellectually, I registered anger. In practice, it manifested only as mild irritation. I pressed my nails into my palms, a functional technique to simulate emotional distress. But it was ineffective.

  “I reminded her.”

  “You reminded her?” I said. “She is not a puppet, Your Highness.”

  It wasn’t right for me to speak in this way. But he had trusted me enough to bring her here, and I had evaluated that the probability of reprimand was low. He needed to hear this.

  The Crown Prince viewed others as instruments of purpose, tools not people. Even I, in my apathetic, still recognised the difference.

  He stood. “I came at the wrong time. Tomorrow, I will visit again.”

  How depressingly calm. The Crown Prince didn’t care at all. He turned aside, but I blocked him with my arm.

  When he moved to leave, I blocked his path with one arm.

  He looked down at me. “Stop acting. It doesn’t suit you.”

  The Celestial Maiden.

  That was who I was. That was who I would always be. The Celestial Maiden didn’t have feelings.

  She was An Furong’s dutiful daughter.

  “Your Highness should take your own advice.”

  He frowned. “This is not helpful.”

  “Of course,” I replied.

  He said nothing further. His lips twisted, so slightly that I might have missed it, the micro-expression of regret. Whether it was his first time regretting a decision or one of many hidden instances, I couldn’t be certain. The conclusion held no strategic value.

  Let her stay here.

  She can’t.

  Unspoken, but understood. He had demoted her to protect her from Zhao Lili. Now, he reversed his decision upon discovering Su Tang had circumvented protocol and placed herself in Lady Ze’s residence. Those acts, as with most of her actions, were both audacious and ill-advised.

  “Today, the Empress came to my residence,” he said. “She offered me a new attendant. I accepted her.”

  An anomaly. He never accepted his mother’s informants. But by doing so, he had redirected suspicion away from Su Tang.

  It seems she has some value to you.

  Why?

  He gave her one final glance and then left the room.

  ***

  “The cure to cure all ills,” the Empress said. She pinched the phial of medicine between her fingers, turning it with careless precision, as if it were no more than a hair strand that had drifted onto her sleeve.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” I said.

  She twirled the phial once more before setting it down on the table before the Emperor. He did not touch it. Instead, he lifted his hand with the slow authority of ritual.

  “Eunuch Sun,” Emperor Tai Quan said.

  “Your servant is here,” Eunuch Sun answered, stepping forward.

  “Give An Lingqi the tally.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Eunuch Sun approached, his posture exact. He held out the tally with cupped hands. The object was cold and unyielding in mine: cloudy grey jade carved into the shape of a falcon. It had belonged to Grand Chancellor Deng. Whoever held it controlled the gate to Zhouwei Province. It was a token of trust and a mechanism of responsibility—both irrelevant without the solution to the epidemic.

  I had the solution. But I was not interested in taking responsibility without terms.

  I curtsied. “Your Majesty, may I have a word?”

  The Emperor’s eyebrows lifted slightly. He leaned forward with the barest inclination of interest.

  “I want a promise.”

  He frowned. The Empress’s expression contracted.

  “The phial in Your Majesty’s hand contains only half the cure,” I said.

  Both monarchs turned their gaze toward the phial.

  “Where is the rest?” the Empress asked, her tone sharp.

  “I want a promise,” I repeated.

  The Emperor tilted his head. “Are you threatening me? This is unlike you, Blossom Deity.”

  “I wouldn’t dare, Your Majesty,” I said.

  I simply want a promise. From you.

  The facts were clear: Zhouwei Province had become a fracture point. The unrest was no longer theoretical. A manmade epidemic in the capital of a politically volatile province was sufficient to dissolve allegiances. This cure was leverage.

  The second half of the cure, more so.

  “What is the promise?” he asked.

  “I will inform Your Majesty at the appropriate time.”

  His gaze sharpened. “You are playing a dangerous game, Blossom Deity.”

  And you are not?

  He gripped the phial more tightly. “Very well. I will agree—on the condition that you solve the epidemic.”

  “Verbal promises are insufficient.” I drew a blood contract and a ceremonial blade from the folds of my robe. The paper gleamed faintly with an embedded spell matrix. I extended the blade toward him, hilt-first. “Only blood will bind this.”

  Eunuch Sun shifted forward. “Blossom Deity. I recommend that you choose your next words carefully.”

  “I have already done so,” I replied.

  There was no sound.

  Then, the Emperor stood. The blade floated toward him of its own accord, guided by his will. He did not hesitate. He sliced his palm, extracted a single drop of blood, and signed the contract by pressing his fingertip into the scroll’s fibre.

  The glow of the paper dimmed as the spell sealed.

  I rolled up the contract and took the tally from Eunuch Sun. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

  He dismissed me with a flick of the wrist.

  I moved to retreat.

  I was almost at the exit when he spoke again.

  “You are not An Furong.”

  I raised one hand slightly in acknowledgment and kept walking. I passed through the throne room, descended the palace steps, and teleported to Shuishang. I did not pause. I did not allow space for uncertainty.

  He was correct.

  I was not An Furong.

  She could make a deal with the devil and parade about with a clean conscience.

  Everyone who sought her help, left with a debt.

  She lied through smiling teeth.

  She killed without a care.

  She was bitter.

  She was the woman who birthed me.

  You aren't An Furong.

  But I can pretend. That’s what she trained me to do.