Editing Lu Fei (section)

==A Letter From A Most Unworthy Brush==
Chang An pulled the letter out of a passing clerk's stack against her protestations.  “Wait a minute, there’s something odd about this one.”

Li took it back from him with a snatch.  “It’s in the bin for letters with no listed recipient.  This is not for your department; we’re not even allowed to read them!”

He nodded his head, as though seeing the wisdom of her words, then lunged forward and took it again.  “But it does have a listed recipient.  See?  Oh...”

“Exactly.  Just a bunch of nonsense.”

“That’s not nonsense, Li.  That’s Old Realm!”

She leaned in over him to get another look at the missive.  “Oh?”

A few moment later, Li and Chang An sat beneath the shade of a plum tree, passing the letter back and forth between them, the stack of anonymous mail forgotten.

“It must be a demon.  Demons all speak in Old Realm.”

Li responded, “Wait, do you mean that it’s from a demon, or that the letter is a demon?”

“Who knows!  Either way, just as bad.  You know what they say about the [[Nameless Ravine]]; his calligraphy is more deadly than his sword!”

“I think it’s a secret transmission to a spy somewhere in this manse.  We should search all of the letters for more clues.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

The two bureaucrats looked up in surprise as the letter was lifted from their hands.  Immediately they kowtowed to [[Sapphire River at Midnight]].

Chang An quickly said, “We’re sorry!  We’ll burn it immediately.  You know how excitable we clerks can be, eh?”

She opened the letter.  “I repeat, you’ll do no such thing.  This letter is addressed to me, and intend to read it.”

Five minutes later, she was still reading.  Ten minutes later, she sat beneath the plum tree with them.  Twenty minutes later, she began skimming.  After a half hour, she flipped to the end.

Li peered over her shoulder.  “What does it say?”

“Well, it’s a bit hard to follow... it does tend to wander about, and has some rather unnecessary digressions... but it appears to be a request for letters of ambassadorship from some team that we sent to the east... which incidentally is now in Port Calin.”

Chang An clucked his tongue.  “Are they ambassadors?”

“No... but, looking at this, I think the writer spent... yes... three pages describing my manifest wisdom, innumerable social graces... and my hair.”

Li raised an eyebrow.  “You’re not thinking of actually...”

“It took this Lu Fei ten pages to ask a simple question using the most baffling speech I’ve encountered in the threshold. I don’t see how he could do any real harm even if he was trying.  He’s painfully polite.”  She put a finger to her lips and thought for a moment.

“Is that all that’s necessary to be an ambassador of the Marukan?”

“Diplomacy can go both ways.  The way I see it, if he’s not effective, at least he’s inoffensive.  The only trouble will be the company he’s keeping... oh, never mind.”  She chuckled slightly as she reviewed the cosigners of the letter.   “Have the papers drawn up immediately.  We’ll send them by elemental before the day is out.”


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[[Heaven's Mandate]]