“What are you up to cousin?” Bao Qian asked.
Bao Qingling looked down at him flatly, an irritable twitch traveling up her spine and culminating in the tilt of her head. Her cousin’s wagon was dense with qi, exhaust from a crafting project? It was a dense pressure, like waters bearing down in a spring flood or a blizzard howl threatening to bury the world. Uncomfortable, Consumptive, and difficult to ignore.
“Were my words unclear? I require your knowledge of local stage entertainnt,” Bao Qingling replied.
The wide, red and brown shape of Bao Qian shifted, straightening up where he had been bent over a crafting bench. Bao Qingling squinted down at his work. A strip of blue linen, sothing painted on it. A pennant?
“No, they were very clear. That is why I am wondering who this imposter before is,” He said dryly.
Hyperbole. Intended to be humorous, not a threat or an insult. Condescending connotation. Not intended? Probable, given the subject. “I must ensure that my client does not seek after other providers. To that end, I must… socialize. You should know this lesson better than I, Bao Qian.”
Movent, the black blur of work goggles obscuring his face being pushed up. “That I do, and that is why I know the wining is generally done before the establishnt of the contract.”
“Events have left many things in disorder,” Bao Qingling said tersely. Had this been a mistake? She should have done her own research. Pointlessly risky, seeking help-
“It’s none of my business I suppose,” Bao Qian sighed. “I’ve not had much ti lately, with my own projects…”
“What are these?” Bao QIngling asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
“Hm, oh charms, rchandise for my client's tour. Sothing to be given in return for offerings. That ice spirit of Miss Ling’s,” Bao Qian said. “Need to be affordable, overall profit is secondary to establishing the market for the mont.”
That sounded odd, even to her. Spirits were not generally so direct with their rewards for worship. Bao QIngling tilted her head. “You’ve had the spirit infuse the paint and ink?”
“Yes, it limits the color palette a bit, but the retention is good, given how cheap I’ve had to be with the materials, though Miss Hanyi’s cooperation makes the quality higher than I could have hoped for on this budget otherwise. But, returning to your problem, what manner of show do you think your ‘client’ will prefer.”
Bao QIngling’s eyes narrowed to slits, she detected the odd emphasis on ‘client’. Still it was a valid question. Correct categorization was necessary to sort the undoubtably large number of options. What then would Bai izhen enjoy in a stage play?
Analysis of Bai culture would indicate sothing with mystery or intrigue, which would preferably complete with the losing party suffering so manner of ultraviolence. However, while she had no doubt that Bai izhen enjoyed bloodshed, she was rather blunt overall. Bao Qingling’s fingers tapped against her elbow erratically as she analyzed the possibilities.
“...You are taking this quite seriously,” Bao Qian said.
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“Any matter of worth should be taken seriously,” Bao Qingling replied absently. “Vengeance, Romance, these should be the thes. A straightforward plot would be best.”
Balancing clan inclinations with Bai izhen’s softer inclinations seed best.
That is… specific,” Bao Qian said. She glared. He held up his hands in surrender. “I am sure I can think of sothing.”
She nodded sharply.
***
There were worse public venues than theaters, Bao Qingling decided. There was an elegance to the polished practice and movent of the actors, and the minor formation work built into the stage. Minor work, with low energy intensity and requirents that even low first realms could power and operate.
It was an interesting study, however, the ingenuity that their limitations forced upon them. Arrays to distort, amplify, or deaden sound which substituted ticulous encoding for the simple control that a more advanced array would allow. Lighting and stagecraft, fudging visuals and artificiality rather than shrouding in full illusions
Admirable.
Even if she found the show itself nearly incomprehensible. It was straightforward enough, but the actions taken toward advancing its plot made little sense to her. ‘Whispers under Jing’ was a play set in a fictional viscounty along the nad river. The thrust of the plot was an intrigue by which a man disposed of his brother's family to beco the head of his clan, but a surviving daughter was hidden among the servants. Scenes alternated between them until the culmination…
Crimson arced through the air, the actor playing the murderous viscounts soliloquy dying as he sank to the floor with a blade in his throat, planted there by his own son, who had fallen in love with the ‘servant girl’.
Foolish nonsense, but it was a story.
Beside her Bai izhen clapped politely as the scene closed on the murderous son being confronted by his own brother, with a dialogue unsubtly indicating that they would fight now and the kinstrife would spread, consuming all the clan for the dead fathers original sin.
At least the thes were clear. She did hate stories that tried to be clever by obfuscating what they wanted to say.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” Bai izhen said quietly.
Bao Qingling tilted her head, regarding the private box around, empty of anyone else. She considered the darkness of the theater, and the person beside her. She tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair, before slowly sliding her hand over to rest atop Bai izhen’s.
“Yes,” if not for the sa reasons a normal cultivator might.
“It was a rather amusing little cody, I must thank you for your recomndation,” Bai izhen said lightly, looking down to the stage as the curtain drew down, closing over the brothers who slumped down in the center of the stage appearing, thanks to a delightful bit of stage sorcery to have their swords thrust through each others bellies.
“I believe it is intended as a tragedy,” Bao Qingling said.
“Hm, there is so of that,” Bai izhen agreed thoughtfully. “But you cannot expect to believe that such a plot is not supposed to inspire so humor. If it were serious, the girl would have lived rather than dying so foolishly to the viscount in the scene before, only for the loose ends of her plan to continue and bring about that bumbling slaughter. It is a story about folly, and destroying that which you hope to gain.”
Bao Qingling humd, she didn’t judge it so. The story seed to her to be a vehicle beating decrying kinstrife. Not an uncommon the in Bao lands.”It is humorous in an absurd way,” she allowed.
“Different tastes I suppose,” Bai izhen said.Little lights had begun to appear casting off the darkness of the theater. “But I am happy all the sa. Our arrangent is most satisfactory, Lady bao,” she said, humor glinting in her eyes.
“...That it is Lady Bai,” Bao Qingling said, rising and offering a hand.
“Though next ti, I shall select the viewing.I will have to see if I may find sothing which keeps your attention off of the stageworkers.”
“You may certainly try.”
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