“This is unlike you Qingling.”

Bao Qian considered his cousin. Here, in her lair-workshop-he did mean workshop, Bao Qingling did have a different air about her. Particularly as she scuttled about at work. Moving about on the cords which criss crossed between the walls of this place, from one workstation to the next. She manipulated tools and furnaces and reagents with the mere twitch of a finger or blink of an eye, sometimes not even that. He could feel the subtle vibrations that traveled through the hair thin, not really physical threads which connected everything in the space.

That was new, Qingling was advancing he could see.

“You provided assistance when I required it. I do not leave favors unpaid,” Bao Qingling said. She landed soundlessly on her feet as she dropped down from the ceiling, several score of the little spiders she kept immediately scattering from her boots and gloves to creep back to work around the lab.

“I understand that, you are a Bao after all. Though I’m not sure a few words are worth an entry in your ledgers,” Bao Qian said.

He’d not bothered to dress up for this. He still wore his traveling clothes, thick dusty boots, sturdy red and brown garments. His driving hat hung off his back, kept on by a cord around his neck. Most of his kin would probably read that as a subtle snub, but Qingling, if she even noticed what he was wearing, wouldn’t care.

“You suggestion was a significant success,” Bao Qingling said tightly. Her head twitched to the side, eyeing the shaking furnace, a thread tugged and a bellows puffed raising the temperature of the flame.

There was something different about her here, a frenetic energy where his cousin usually kept cool and unaffected. Stoic to the point of actual insult at times.

It was… jarring. Because his instincts and observations were telling him something that seemed absolutely absurd. “Well it’s good that your courtship is going well.”

She flinched. He wondered who it was. Her story about wanting to wine and dine her client was just too far off. Maybe one of the Bai men who’d been brought in as retainers? But they’d only arrived recently and the signs had been there for longer. Someone martial certainly, given her requirements for the play. Not the Luo scion, and certainly not the Wang.

Bao Qingling went completely still, and though her dim eyes did not fall on him, he certainly felt her attention.

“...I’m hardly going to tell anyone, cousin. Your business is your business. But no one likes playing the dupe, you know?” Bao Qian offered carefully.

“...Hmph, it seems I owe you an apology for my insult,” Bao Qingling said. He still felt several hundred eyes on him prickling on his skin.

“I am a bit rough around the edges, but we did attend the same lessons,” Bao Qian said.

Really the who of it bothered him. It wasn’t his business, but the only one he had seen her spending any great time around was her old Junior Sister and her… client.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Bao Qian blinked, feeling several things click into place. Oh.

Well. That was dangerous.

“We did,” she eyed him carefully, peering down through the frosted lenses of her goggles, her arms crossed. “I apologize for underestimating you.”

“It’s forgiven,” Bao Qian said distractedly. “Though… honestly, I hope you know what you are doing cousin.”

“I am hardly the first to dabble with my own. The Duchess-”

Bao Qian blinked. “That’s not the problem, Qingling.”

She stared at him, then her eyebrows crept up. “...Ah, that clan does have a troubling reputation.”

It was a bit amusing to dance around something they now both knew.

“Understatement, you’ve a talent for it,” he said, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Honestly, it would be a coup though if you manage to go beyond dalliance. Can you even imagine our cousin's faces?”

Bao Qingling’s expression scrunched up, like she’d bitten into something sour. “The fact that this is now a possibility has been pointed out to me. I am not certain how I feel about that.”

The words were said with such a stilted and awkward air, he could almost imagine his cousin screaming internally. His smile slipped and he regarded her more seriously. “Qingling, no contracts of force, remember?”

She breathed out through her nose, and twitched her fingers, in the workshop, glass and metal wear rattled and tinkled, a dozen tasks being performed at once. “A hopelessly useless and vague decree.”

“Perhaps, all the same, work out the agreement which brings you the profit you want, the clan can come after,” he said.

“Hmph. As if I know what I want,” his cousin grumbled, surprisingly candid. “Well, this does make my repayment simpler. “My ‘client’ is well connected with yours, I am certain I can move her to recommend you.”

Bao Qian frowned. “I have my business in hand, cousin, there’s no need…”

“You have made no progress at all. I have surpassed you in this,” Bao Qingling said flatly.

Bao Qian’s expression fell. That hurt. It was rare for Qingling to acknowledge her… deficiencies in social matters, to do so merely to point out his own failures…

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “I have no idea what she wants,” he admitted plainly, moving to sit upon one of the workbenches scattered around the room. “I knew she was rumored to be skittish around men, but even the most cautious interest I showed made her act like a maid cornered in a hall by a drunken young master. By the Glittering Depths, I have never been to a dinner so awkwardly disastrous.”

Bao Qingling grunted, following at a polite distance, a hundred hundred glittering threads flashing in the air around her. “I have only spoken to her a few times. That is strange. She seems brash to me.”

“She is in most things. I rather like it,” he grumbled. “I merely wish I could say that without making it vanish. Right now it seems just maintaining our business is the best I can manage. I had some success inviting her out for a bit of work, but with this whole summit madness, there’s hardly time for me to try.”

Bao Qingling observed him for a long moment as he exhaled, the rush of words having left him. “Is that enough?”

He studied his hands. Was it? This business was lucrative. The fertilizer, the concert tours. It was what he needed to get his own fortune off of the ground, frankly. From a material standpoint, anything closer was merely… nice to have. Especially with the clan taking a more neutral stance on Cai Renxiang until she had shown that she was not overreaching herself.

Ling Qi was strange and flighty and unpredictable. Her spirits and the way she treated them, the way they were confused and discomitted him a little. His own partner was just that. A partner in business. They’d probably part ways in a few decades when their interests diverged.

“No, I don’t think it is.”