QT: Don't fall in love with the Male Lead

Xi Zirui sits up in bed and contemplates his options.

He can lie to Bai Mi, pretend that there's nothing to tell, and try to continue to sneak behind her back to get his way.

Or he can tell her the truth, and enlist her help.

The question is: can he trust her?

He knows she's upset about him going on a tribulation first, but she wouldn't take her frustrations out on him. Would she?

There's a dissonance between the sister he grew up with, and the Bai Mi he met in the other worlds. Sometimes ally, sometimes foe, always a powerful asset. 

In the end, the decision is made for him when Bai Mi tires of waiting for an answer and all but drags it out of him.

"I heard a civil goddess comment she saw you around the civil bureau," she says, her tone accusing. "Why did you tell me you were going to the woods?"

Xi Zirui considers telling her 'it was on the way', before her severely arched eyebrows make him reconsider the wisdom in that.

"Fine, I'll tell you." He gets out of bed with a sigh and points a finger in her face. "But you have to promise to help me."

---

Bai Mi hears him in silence, as he skirts around the true reason why he wants to go to a tribulation in which he can meet Han Yu.

"So...you read about him by chance in the library, and now you're convinced he's the love of your life?" She says, trying on the words for size and finding them ill-fitting. 

Xi Zirui grimaces. "That's the gist of it."

He worries that perhaps his excuse is too flimsy, and that Bai Mi won't believe something so far-fetched. 

Bai Mi shakes her head in disbelief and lets out a snort. "You would be flighty enough for something like that." 

"So you'll help me?"

"What are older sisters for?"

For a lot of things, but seldom for being helpful. Xi Zirui would describe Bai Mi as an agent of chaos, a hidden inciter of mischief and a thousand other adjectives in the same vein before ever reaching helpful.

Energized by the prospect of having something to do she bounces out of her seat at the vanity. "Let's go, with your usual means I doubt you'll get anything out of that stick in the mud civil goddess."

Xi Zirui resents that, but he follows after her anyway.

---

When they reach Li Siqi's and Liao Min's house they're informed the mistresses of the house are still resting, but are invited to wait in the waiting room.

Bai Mi has gone through three cups of tea before the two of them make their way downstairs. They look bleary-eyed and tired. Despite their impeccable robes and hair, the conspicuous flush of recent activity is apparent on both their cheeks.

Bai Mi produces a stiff fan with a long handle from thin hair and waves it in front of her face with an outraged huff.

Xi Zirui wishes he could tell her about the spectacle she made of herself when she was Ji Limei's shizun just to see her snap her fan in half with the shock.

Very uncharacteristically, Li Siqi is all smiles. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" 

She and Liao Min sit across from Xi Zirui and Bai Mi in a loveseat, their knees pointed inwards, like a pair of mandarin ducks, whose necks seem to be magnetically attracted.

"My brother is scared of his tribulation," Bai Mi says, almost pouting. "He hasn't even been able to sleep with how terrified grandfather's announcement has made him."

Liao Min doesn't look very convinced and gives Xi Zirui a searching look, which he answers with a shrug.

"That's unfortunate," Li Siqi says, for a moment the serious civil goddess Xi Zirui saw the day before again, at least until Li Siqi does something that makes her smile fondly.

Are couples in love usually this annoying?

Is Xi Zirui only now noticing because he's usually also part of a couple in love?

Bai Mi seems to share his sentiment. Her nose wrinkles in distaste at Li Siqi's and Liao Min's outpouring of domestic bliss.

"Quite unfortunate. As the goddess responsible for overseeing the tribulations I was wondering if it was possible for you to recommend a location Xi Zirui feels comfortable with to grandfather," Bai Mi says, cutting to the chase.

The look of cloying infatuation vanishes from Li Siqi's eyes. "That would be overstepping my duties. The Book of Fates is the final arbiter when it comes to tribulations."

Bai Mi nods again. "We are not asking you to overstep any boundaries or break any taboos. However, it is true that the Book of Fates gives a certain...leeway, right?"

Li Siqi stiffens. "Well, yes, often the information can be vague when it comes to temporary things like a tribulation."

Liao Min is looking between the two of them as if she's trying to make sense of a game of go that has long ended. Xi Zirui suspects that she wishes she could be practicing her sword forms instead.

"And in Rui-er's case?" Bai Mi asks, her eyes narrowing challengingly. 

Xi Zirui is surprised by how seriously she is taking this. He never expected her to be this focused or determined in his behalf.

He's almost touched for a moment, before realization dawns on him.

She's doing this to learn more about her own tribulation -- when it comes.

Her concern over Xi Zirui is just a convenient excuse to get an edge over Ji Limei in their perpetual race to see who wins the title of Rain Goddess of the South.

Li Siqi looks from between Bai Mi to Xi Zirui. 

Xi Zirui decides it's time he delivers the final push. "I'm sorry to ask this of you, I really don't mean to be inconvenient. It's just that I have disappointed grandfather so often lately, I don't want to ruin my first tribulation by being unprepared."

Liao Min intervenes for the first time. "You should meditate to prevent inner-demons from unbalancing your qi when you travel to the human realm."

Xi Zirui smiles thinly. What a riveting suggestion, absolutely unheard of. Meditate. Novel advice.

Li Siqi smiles tenderly at Liao Min. "Great idea, general." To Xi Zirui she says, "I'm happy to assist with some guided meditation techniques that have proved very useful to me in the past."

Xi Zirui doesn't even register her dismissal because he has arrived at the conclusion that Li Siqi and Liao Min probably call each other 'general' and 'officer' in bed. And while he's horrified to have learned that about them, he also can't deny he understands the appeal.

Pity he and Han Yu never ended up in a world where Xi Zirui was a brilliant court official and Han Yu a dashing general. 

Or the other way  around. Xi Zirui isn't picky.

Bai Mi notices him spacing out and pinches the side of his thigh.

"I'm afraid that won't be good enough," she says, frostily.

---

When she was young, Bai Mi worried that her brother had gotten all the looks and that she was left with the brains.

As she grew up into a graceful young lady, she was relieved to find out she was both beautiful and smart.

It made her much kinder to Xi Zirui. 

It's always easier to be kind to people who don't represent a threat to you.

Any intelligence Xi Zirui had, he wasted it being lazy and carefree, and his beauty was never put to any use besides decorating the mirrors he walked past.

It was a relief to her that her brother lacked ambition, because it meant they could be friends. Bai Mi didn't need to watch her back when it came to Xi Zirui.

While Xi Zirui might not be ambitious, but there are many who are, and Bai Mi has her eyes set on the throne.

She'll be the next Jade Emperor if it kills her. For that, she needs to become the goddess of something important, a goddess with extreme influence and power, a goddess who receives plenty of prayers.

People are always praying for rain, whether they know it or not, and even more so since human excesses has given rise to global warming.

Someone less astute might have set their sights on being a god of wealth for this and that, but Bai Mi knows that the long game is the one that pays off. 

Her grandfather won't abdicate in a decade or two. She's looking at at least two centuries before he gives up the mantle. By then humanity will be so parched, they'll be praying for dew, let alone rain.

She needs to accomplish it by then, because afterwards the humans find a way to establish outposts in space and then all the gods in heaven will need new titles. The god of avoiding solar flares, the god of collecting space junk, and other such indignities that give Bai Mi hives just to think about.

Even if she hadn't studied the situation carefully, the Book of Fates points her in that direction.

It's a shame that it did the same for Ji Limei.

In millennia, the Book of Fates never assigned the same title to two people. Bai Mi's and Ji Limei's fates are entirely distinct, besides this single point of convergence.

And it has been vexing Bai Mi for eons.

Which is why if Xi Zirui is content to meekly stand by while a lowly civil goddess hems and haws instead of giving him what he wants, she'll need to step up and take charge.

Bai Mi doesn't ask for the things she wants, she takes.