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[fic] free to be the greatest

7 February 2024

This fic is also on AO3, if you find it easier to read there

Fandom: TGCF
Focus: omniscient pov, ling wen
Setting: post-canon
Length: 1,457

Themes:

Ling Wen 4 Heavenly Emperor

Summary:

Ling Wen's back. For some reason, nobody's worried.


Fic:

After Jun Wu's disgrace, Heaven was an ongoing disaster, everyone agreed. Five different martial gods seemed to think they deserved the throne of the Heavenly Emperor but couldn't convince enough supporters to back their claims—so they kept themselves occupied in fighting each other, and the throne stayed empty. The throne also stayed entirely metaphorical, since there was nobody with the authority to direct and fund extensive rebuilding of infrastructure despite the consensus that something needed to be done.

Meanwhile the rest of the work of Heaven continued, and the burden of it was once again laid with relief upon Ling Wen's shoulders.

"I don't care what she did, I'm just glad Ling Wen's back," one civil god was overheard murmuring to an especial friend as the two picked their way through the rubble of the Grand Martial Avenue on their way to a meeting. A deputy scurried behind them, arms so full of reference materials she couldn't see her feet. When the deputy tripped and nearly fell along the way, one scroll dropped and rolled into a crack between two pieces of masonry, and was left behind unnoticed.

The scroll, though ultimately not crucial, was missed at the meeting and the deputy thoroughly scolded for failing to bring it. But when the deputy fretfully retraced her steps, it was too late. One of Ling Wen's deputies had already picked it up and brought it to Ling Wen's palace archives to be catalogued and filed away against future need.

The many deputies of Ling Wen's palace were begrudgingly glad of her return as well. Nobody else had the necessary experience, knowledge, and connections to take her place, because she had taken pains to ensure it. But with Ling Wen back, they could retreat from the edge of disaster and know that their work would be effectively directed once more. Lingering resentment on the part of any deputies with particular ambition was firmly pushed back down; there was no scope for ambition under Ling Wen.

Of course, with no Heavenly Emperor, Ling Wen was busier than ever. Not that most gods bothered to notice how busy she was, as they redirected more and more of the work of running the heavens into her capable hands. Mu Qing noticed, but he just rolled his eyes about it and moved on, so that didn't make a difference. And of course her one remaining friend noticed—the other surviving member of what had once been the Three Tumours.

"Why do you let them all grind you down like this?" Pei Ming asked lazily one evening. He had draped himself comfortably on a cushion in Ling Wen's study and was snacking on youtiao even though it was nowhere near breakfast time, his legs akimbo as if he didn't care who saw him. It was only Ling Wen, after all, and various of Ling Wen's interchangeable Middle Court deputies constantly coming in and out with another delivery or message.

Ling Wen, whose head had been slowly drooping lower and lower with her eyes fixed on the notes on her desk, gathered the energy to lift her eyes slightly in a glare. Ling Wen's glare was legendary, but in this case its power was lessened slightly by the way her brush was gently trembling in her hand, which was itself trembling from exhaustion.

Pei Ming was inured to Ling Wen's glares anyway. You had to be, to be a friend of Ling Wen.

"I'm just saying, you don't have to work so hard. Live a little! Or have you forgotten how?" Pei Ming laughed, an easy laugh with a trace undertone of mockery.

Ling Wen blinked once, slowly, her gaze unmoving, and set down her brush with a click. "You wouldn't know hard work if it kicked you in the ass," she said evenly, and Pei Ming laughed harder.

"Of course I don't! Why would I subject myself to that?" Pei Ming made an expansive gesture that took in Ling Wen, her desk and everything on it, a deputy hovering behind her clutching a pile of reports, the scrolls heaped on shelves beside her. The deputy noticed with disdain that Pei Ming seemed to have forgotten that he had been one of the gods who had been so eager to dump the work back on Ling Wen immediately after her return.

It was well known in Ling Wen's palace that the Three Tumours spent more time sniping at each other than acting like friends should, and a significant minority of her deputies believed that the so-called friendship was merely a loose grouping of allies due to convenience; eventually Ling Wen would leave the other two behind, they were sure. Shi Wudu’s disgrace and death only reinforced these beliefs.

The currently hovering deputy was more understanding of the vagaries of friendship, but was still a firm believer that it was only a matter of time before Ling Wen took her rightful place above all other gods, and spent much of her time developing her own secret plans for how to take advantage of the upset in the heavenly civil power structures that would ensue.

With a quiet sigh, Ling Wen leaned back from her desk and rolled her shoulders one at a time, then stretched her fingers. "Of course," she said to Pei Ming a pitying tone. "You wouldn't know real power if it kicked you in the ass either."

Ling Wen's palace ran on the understanding that civil power was ultimately more important than martial power, even if most martial gods would dispute the idea if they ever heard it. The assertion that setting her back to work in her old role was a punishment for bad behaviour was laughable; everyone in Ling Wen's palace agreed, from the most credulous of her recently-added deputies to the experienced and knowing few who had been with her since near the beginning. Ling Wen controlled everything that mattered.

Meanwhile Pei Ming was familiar with a different kind of power: ordering around whichever of his descendants he had under his thumb that century, preening under the attention of beautiful women, winning sword fights whenever he had the opportunity to, and feeling secure in the knowledge that other people (mostly) couldn't tell him what to do. So: "Kick my ass, then," he said with an eye roll.

Ling Wen tilted her head, considering. "Maybe I will," she said, then picked up her brush again with a small smile.

***

Middle Court deputies dressed in the style of Ling Wen's palace had long ago become nearly invisible as they went about their business throughout Heaven. They could walk with confidence into any building, any room, any meeting, and if another official saw them—well, that was just one of Ling Wen's people, and must be there for a good reason.

So almost nobody noticed the changes in patterns of where these deputies went, or what information they were gathering. The one exception was Mu Qing, and this time he did care. Power delegated to people everyone else overlooked: he couldn't stop himself from noticing it, and from thinking about what it meant.

Many of the rest of the gods, in fairness, were distracted at that time by the latest all-out five-way battle for the title of Heavenly Emperor, which was extremely loud and exciting and took days to bring the five to such a state of exhaustion that an unsteady and temporary pause in the hostilities could be possible. Theories flew fast in the spiritual array over those days, about who might win and what it might mean for Heaven depending on the priorities of the winner. More and more bets were made on the results, and Ling Wen of course acted as the trusted bookkeeper.

Mu Qing disdained the lot of them. He was watching Ling Wen's deputies instead, and noticing the ways they took advantage of everyone's distraction. He didn't bother to interrupt, though; he approved. Heaven was full of assholes with inflated self-importance in Mu Qing's opinion, and he always got a kind of satisfaction out of seeing people get one over the kind of smug idiots who thought themselves better than the common folks.

When Ling Wen in his male form happened to pass by Mu Qing alone during one of the quiet days following the pause in fighting, Ling Wen saw Mu Qing's thoughtful scowl and Mu Qing noticed how Ling Wen was more bright-eyed than usual. They both paused.

"What odds are you giving on us ending up with Ling Wen as the Heavenly Emperor?" Mu Qing asked abruptly.

A slow, coy smile curved on Ling Wen's lips. "I'm not considered one of the candidates," he said. "Yet. Would you like to place a bet?"


Afterword:

I'm really enjoying that this is actually plausibly going on during the year xie lian is waiting for hua cheng to return, and ling wen is heavenly emperor throughout the extras, and canon just never mentions it because xie lian doesn't care <3

Thanks to ryfkah, genarti, and b for the brainstorming help, and ryfkah especially for betaing! And to xieliansbignaturals for the prompt that inspired this fic, even though the fic ended up not exactly focusing on it. Someday Ling Wen will nonsexually dom Pei Ming as they both deserve. a remix of this fic, written by bloodletter: these are the streets of favour. I'm so honoured my fic could inspire this piece of absolute perfection, and I highly recommend reading it!


Comments:

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