He knows the trick of it, spun fierce and glistened in Wei Ying's hand, itching for qi it has not yet been fed — a creature carved in parchment, contained. In a bustling street, they feel like two celestial bodies in a dark night, alone, known only to each other and the tired gasp of power flickered in Wei Ying's hands.
Sweeping by, a screeching cart nearly brushes the back of his silks. He drifts closer to Wei Ying, hand soft to shield away the sight of the talisman, as if the gesture alone might suffocate its strength and ambition. Empty precaution: few men here cultivate, a handful hardly read. Many will think it a missive, or a stall painting in cheap diluted inks. Still, the risk breathes long over his shoulders, bends his back into Wei Ying.
"Confinement will agitate them, if you do not overpower them absolutely." In short, the lesson long learned: aim the once, kill. Do not allow resentment to linger, bad blood to stew. A man on his rooftop should be touched once by arrow's tip, and downed. This, they bore witness to. This, Lan Wangji and a scant few others of a sprawled cohort survived to remember.
If they do this, suppression spread across a lattice of countless independent variables, men of unknown character and strength and disposition, perhaps even those possessed of intuitive skill to rebel against the sorcery — they must be certain, before they venture the first attempt. A second might yet elude them.
And if it worked in the marked territory of Wei Ying's cave, where he built of his two hands an empire, where he carved out an ally from the bones of a friend, the conditions were more suitable there, then. The task turned less feat of legend than breeze of inconvenience. "Can you?"
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Sweeping by, a screeching cart nearly brushes the back of his silks. He drifts closer to Wei Ying, hand soft to shield away the sight of the talisman, as if the gesture alone might suffocate its strength and ambition. Empty precaution: few men here cultivate, a handful hardly read. Many will think it a missive, or a stall painting in cheap diluted inks. Still, the risk breathes long over his shoulders, bends his back into Wei Ying.
"Confinement will agitate them, if you do not overpower them absolutely." In short, the lesson long learned: aim the once, kill. Do not allow resentment to linger, bad blood to stew. A man on his rooftop should be touched once by arrow's tip, and downed. This, they bore witness to. This, Lan Wangji and a scant few others of a sprawled cohort survived to remember.
If they do this, suppression spread across a lattice of countless independent variables, men of unknown character and strength and disposition, perhaps even those possessed of intuitive skill to rebel against the sorcery — they must be certain, before they venture the first attempt. A second might yet elude them.
And if it worked in the marked territory of Wei Ying's cave, where he built of his two hands an empire, where he carved out an ally from the bones of a friend, the conditions were more suitable there, then. The task turned less feat of legend than breeze of inconvenience. "Can you?"