yrsillar

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 137(Red+)

Ling Qi had not been idle on other tasks while working on the garden. Each morning, she would either attend sparring with Wang Chao and his group or perform some private cultivation, further refining her new combat arts.

Starless Night’s Reflection continued to come easy to her, and she soon ironed out inefficiencies in the techniques, and prepared to begin working toward the art’s capstone technique. She still had some ways to go, but she was confident that she would soon have the ...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 136(Red+)

There were more pieces of advice, both from Xuan Shi and from loaned books. Avoid assuming their intentions, clarify her own, cut idioms out of her speech where she could, be observant, and try to decipher body language as well as speech. In the end, it mostly boiled down to being mindful and observant, the same sort of skills she had been working to polish for interacting with other nobles.

The stakes were just higher in this case. It helped to shake off her lingering dislike for the s...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 135 (Red+)

Ling Qi held her new earrings in her hands, watching how they glimmered in the workshop's light. The Dusk Wind Studs were silver, relatively plain in make, but each was set with a dark blue gem which darkened to near purple at the center. Peering at them, Ling Qi could see the shimmer of the sky at dusk in their depths.

“They’re as beautiful as I’d expect,” Ling Qi said, looking back to Lin Hai.

“They are not too complex on their own, but such accessories are more a comp...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 134 (Red+)

Ling Qi closed her eyes as she caught her breath. The dirt of the training field was warm under her feet, and the crackle of the small fires and patches of ice throughout the field loud in her ears. She was no Gan Guangli, but there was a certain peace in physical exertion, a comforting simplicity to it.

“Ho, there! That last attack wasn’t too much, right, Miss Ling?” Wang Chao’s voice boomed in her ears.

Ling Qi smiled, idly brushing dust from her gown. She stood at the b...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 133 (Red+)

It was a frightening thing to have the attention of the court of Emerald Seas. It was a pressure weighing down on her, a static skittering across her mind, and a prickling on her skin. It made her wonder what in the world had possessed her to want to speak here and why Cai Renxiang had agreed to allow her to.

But Ling Qi was reminded of the last time she had faced power like this in the Bloody Moon dream. She did not intend to let fear control her again.

“Because of my role as s...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 132 (Red+)

The medicine hall was a hive of frantic activity. Disciples rushed back and forth with supplies and equipment. Potent medicinal energies suffused the air, filling it with conflicting scents of flowers and spices and blood.

Ling Qi stood in the entrance hall, one among many. On the wall before them was posted a roll of names. There were fifteen of them in total now, but Ling Qi knew that more had been added since the first posting. It was a list of the Inner Sect disciples who had died.<...

Threads patron Preview Interlude: Summer's End(Red+)

“Junior Brother Yan, you are in charge of completing the stabilization arrays,” the core disciple said distractedly. “I have been called to assist the front line.”

“Yes, Senior Brother,” Yan Renshu grunted, keeping his eyes fixed on the smoothed stone in front of him. Already, tens of thousands of characters had been carved, inked, and etched into it. The formation arrays being established here were of staggering complexity. Even his own intellect could only begin to truly d...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 131 (Red+)

A spiderweb of fractures spread out from the central crack. A sickening unlight radiated out from them, and to Ling Qi’s alarm, she felt a disquieting sensation as if she were dispersing herself to hide, but involuntarily. Ling Qi seized control back of her own qi just as her fingertips began to dematerialize and drift away. The effort brought a sharp pain like a hundred needles had been jammed into her fingers at once.

She was back on her feet by then, and the others were clambering ...

Patron Exclusive: Journey to the East Chapter 2

You are well out of your way then,” Gu Xiulan replied, not letting her suspicion color her voice.

Zheng Nan chuckled. “Ain’t never been an adventure that came to a man traveling in a straight line. I’d insult my teacher, making light of my first journey like that! You gotta take the time to get lost and let your feet choose the path.”

Gu Xiulan pursed her lips. Ah, yes, she had forgotten the… unique attitudes of the Zheng clan. “Well then, Sir Zheng, can you tell me ...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 130 (Red+)

A hurricane of wind ripped through the broken wall of the caldera, and it was everything Linq Qi could do to not be blown away. She stared out through the gap at the rising cloud of smoke and debris, a tall pillar with an expanding cap which rose from a blackened crater where a valley had once been. Ling Qi dragged her eyes upward and beheld the clouds rising in a kilometers-wide funnel above the caldera, whirling walls of wind that screamed at speeds fit to tear trees and whole hills from th...

Threads patron preview 129 (Red+)

Bei Yongrui was not a warrior.

He did not wish for war the way many of his comrades did. He did not glory in battle or death. Building things, building people, and helping others rise, those were his talents.

Yet, with the single mote of attention which was on the caldera below rather than the sky around, he could admit to some satisfaction as he saw his disciples descend upon the barbarians. He saw the barbarians wheel to defend that odious stone. He saw them die, frantic and con...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 128 (Red+)

There was only one reason that Ling Qi could think of for why the barbarian had approached her like this. The proof was in the rime spreading across the bleached stone at their feet and the cold howl of the wind under the pressure of their respective domains.Standing so close, meeting the woman’s eyes, it was impossible not to feel something familiar.

But it only made the differences starker. The foreigner’s cold was not hers. It was not merely a matter of potency between their cult...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 127 (Red+)

The most effective thing Ling Qi could do would be to keep the barbarians' attention until the reinforcements arrived while Cai Renxiang duelled the shishigui envoy. Ling Qi’s eyes flicked upward to where the barbarian musician was turning, reorienting on Cai Renxiang as her saber met a fluid whip of impurity with the screaming hiss of a blazing coal being dropped into cold water.

In the cacophony of the ongoing battle, he didn’t react to the scream of one more eagle. It was a mista...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 126 (Red+)

This was a mistake.

For the hundredth time since Ling Qi had begun reporting back, the thought flitted through her mind, a stray thread in the loom. Continuing this operation in its current form was the incorrect choice. That was not to say that seeds of alliance being planted should be allowed to grow, that their enemies should return home unmolested, new resources in hand.

It was said that in the opening salvo of Ogodei’s war, a single iridescent arrow from beyond the horizon ...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 125 (Red+)

“Do you believe yourself to be prepared, Ling Qi?” Cai Renxiang asked as they approached the departure point. The forward part of the assault group was hidden in a shallow cave, while the main body waited in a river valley some kilometers back. The moment the signal was given, they would go loud, discarding stealth to move in at top speed, reducing the distance to a matter of a minute or two at most, barring interference.

“I think so,” Ling Qi said. She had been preparing for su...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 124 (Red+)

The pavilion where the meeting was to take face was filled with third realms, around two scores of Inner Sect disciples. Most, Ling Qi judged, were from the lower ranks with cultivation in the first or second stage of the green realm and bronze physique. Ling Qi nodded politely to a few who she recognized from Wang Chao’s gatherings, but she remained at Cai Renxiang’s side as they filed in.

Leaving aside herself, her liege, Liao Zhu, and Ruan Shen, there were only three other discip...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 123 (red+)

“Thus, the quality of the water is as important as the provenance of the leaves in achieving the proper flavor,” Cai Renxiang explained. As she spoke, she poured heated water into the teapot over the waiting leaves.

Ling Qi had to admit, the rising fragrance was pretty nice. However, she had to sigh at the knowledge that depending on the blend, she could ruin tea by using the wrong water. “Can I ask why you chose to heat the water manually?” Ling Qi asked. “The pot has adjusta...

Threads Patron Preview Interlude Imperturbable Stars(Red+)

When the world was young, we feared the stars.

The battle of the Unnamed was fierce, and the Mother weathered many blows defending her children. Their poison coursed deep in her veins and so when the world was wrought, the Sun blazed bright in defiance against the mocking stars, but his sister, the Moon, was born weak, her light pale and pallid. So it was that we feared the stars and the night.

We lived beneath the earth, digging burrows like beasts, so that the Mother’s cooling...

Threads Patron Preview: Welcome to the Jungle (Red+)

“Can’t believe you lost again,” Sun Liling jibed. She leaned back against the wall of the closed carriage, her hands behind her head. “The hells do I even keep you around for?”

“Tch, you’re the one who told me I was probably gonna lose,” Ji Rong scoffed. “You can’t rile me up that easy anymore, Liling.”

She paused a beat, waiting for Dharitri’s bloodthirsty whisper, urging her to punish failure and disrespect. It never came. Sun Liling shifted uncomfortably...

Threads Patron preview Chapter 122 (Red+)

As the core disciple overseeing the match raised his hand to signal the start, Ling Qi briefly reviewed her plan. Ling Qi had considered trying to beat Ji Rong at his game, rush him down, freeze and defeat him before he could build up a charge, but that was not what she had spent the month practicing. Playing at his game would allow him to dictate the pace.

The referee’s hand came down, and everything outside the field distorted as it expanded, putting hundreds of meters of distance b...

Threads Patron preview Chapter 121 (Red+)

With the end of the month looming, Ling Qi soon turned her attention to one last art. Ephemeral Night’s Memory was a subtle little art and not something she had made great use of since she had begun cultivating it earlier this year. It was an art for muddling and snatching fragments of memory, enabling the user to more easily sneak around and avoid leaving traces. She had mostly used it as a combat trick to disorient an enemy right before striking by making them forget her position.

C...

Threads Patron preview Chapter 120 (Red+)

The wind screamed in her ears as she plunged downward, and Ling Qi’s heart pounded with it. The walls of the ravine blurred by, and the cold stone below beckoned. This was a dream, but dreams were real enough in their own way.

The Grinning Moon was many things. It rejected constraints, all constraints, and this, she refused. It loved cleverness and tricks, and this, she accepted. She recalled vaguely a text she had read last year, claiming that the Grinning Moon was the patron of clev...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 119 (Red+)

It was nothing extravagant, this celebration. Biyu awoke to her nanny’s smile and the fond expressions of the household. For breakfast, the cook made jianbing, one of Biyu’s favorites, and they ate together as a family. The wheat flour crepes and their simple fillings were certainly not made of any special ingredients, but Ling Qi found herself enjoying the flavor more than she had far more extravagant foods.

After, they had gone out to the garden where Zhengui had been waiting, and...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 118 (Red+)

In her head, she felt Sixiang wince, and her own expression froze. “I would call him a sibling, as you well know.”

“Is the adult sibling who raises the infant alone not a parent? My experience says that it is so,” the other girl replied with a shrug. “Perhaps I am wrong, but to me, your bond does not hold that tenor. My only point is that a parent and a child need not share interests to the same extent. The relationship is different.”

Ling Qi was glad that between hers...

Patron Exclusive: Journey to the East Chapter 1

The Argent Peak Sect had long vanished behind them. More than a year of battles, trials and effort, gone like the sun sinking below the horizon. It was almost hard to believe that so much had happened in so short a time. Her heart still burned with miserable indignation at Han Jian’s total rejection, nearly as potent as the memory of the searing pain that had come with accepting heavenly tribulation into her flesh.

Gu Xiulan ran her fingers along the curve of the carved jade tongue of...

Threads Patron Preview Chapter 117 (Red+)

By the time the first spark was fading, Ling Qi had raised her flute to her lips and released her grip on her domain.

The Mist flooded out, even as the lonely tones of Spring’s End Aria flowed out, calling the frozen chill of an unending winter to the subsonic background beat of Implacable Advance.

Around her, walls of fresh green wood erupted, twitching roots curling and weaving through one another to form curved barricades. Smaller than the vast rampart which Zhengui had summo...