Set Clear Goals and Vision: Define your company’s long-term goals and vision. What do you want to achieve in the next few years? Having a clear direction helps you make strategic decisions and align your team toward a common objective.
Market Research and Analysis: Conduct thorough market research to understand your target audience, competitors, and industry trends. This information will help you identify opportunities and gaps in the market, allowing you to tailor your products or services to meet customer needs effectively.
Create a Solid Business Plan: Develop a comprehensive business plan that outlines your company’s mission, strategies, financial projections, and operational plans. A well-structured business plan serves as a roadmap for growth and helps you secure funding from investors or lenders if needed.
Build a Strong Team: As your company grows, hiring and retaining talented individuals becomes crucial. Surround yourself with skilled employees who share your vision and can contribute their expertise to different areas of your business. A cohesive team is essential for sustained development.
Invest in Marketing and Innovation: Develop a robust marketing strategy to promote your products or services and attract customers. Additionally, prioritize innovation by continuously improving your offerings, exploring new technologies, and adapting to changing market demands. Staying relevant and competitive is key to long-term success.
Conclusion :
business development is an ongoing process, and flexibility is essential. Regularly review your strategies, gather feedback, and adapt as necessary to stay responsive to market dynamics and customer preferences .
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6
(Thanks, as ever, to @morphia-writes and @miyuki4s for betaing!)
*
The transportation array drops them in a small clearing with a flash of fire at their feet, a few lingering notes from Chenqing, and only slight disorientation. Lan Wangji has read that the use of the teleportation talisman is heavily taxing to the spirit and can often cause physical disruption in the user, but Wei Ying shows no sign of pain or confusion, and nor do Jin Rulan or Liu Weixin, who, if the array’s design can be trusted, also contributed spiritual power to the effort. Jin Rulan even manages to look somewhat bored by the process.
“I don’t understand why we all have to come look at whatever this is,” he says as soon as Wei Ying lowers his hands and the glow of the array at their feet fades. “Why can’t we just—” he cuts himself off and stares hard at Wen Sizhui, who wears an expression of distinct discomfort. “What?”
Wen Sizhui bites his lips and looks to Wei Ying, who has gone still.
“The buildings were burned down,” Zhou Xiuying reports quietly.
Lan Wangji follows her line of sight and strides quickly through the trees, but he can already smell the smoke in the air, lingering and acrid. He reaches the edge of the forest and sees only ash and rock in the large space where the compound once sat. There are no smoldering embers and no half-burnt husks to mark the structures; only lines of soot and the pattern of paving stones show any indication of the size or use of the space.
Wei Ying grabs his sleeve, and he realizes he’s walked right up to the edge of the ward’s inscription.
“Don’t touch it.” Wei Ying guides him back slightly. “How many people were here?” he asks.
“None.” The guards were dead when he left. Still, Wei Ying obviously has doubts. He raises Chenqing to his lips and plays a low and beguiling melody, coaxing and haunting by turns.
On the other side of the ward, ashes swirl in still air.
Rise.
Drift gently around ghostly faces—two, then three, the four, then more, until seven ghosts are drawing themselves together along the inside of the ward. They ripple as they cross over the etched lines, but seem to suffer no other effects; perhaps it is truly inert now, or deliberately broken.
Wei Ying cocks his head to the side and whistles, sharp and commanding. The ghosts rearrange themselves. There are men and women, some are old, others in the prime of life. Wei Ying turns and looks expectantly at Zhou Xiuying.
“What do you see?”
“They all died violently and without proper funerary rites,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest, her sword gripped tight in her hand. “They can’t move on in peace.”
Wei Ying nods and shifts his attention to Liu Weixin, who presses his lips hard together and squints at the ghosts, as if that will improve his assessment. He sketches a talisman in front of his face and pushes it outward. Each spirit takes on a dull red glow, strongest at one end of the line and diminishing with each ghoul in succession.
“You’ve put them in order by the strength of their resentment,” Liu Weixin determines. Relief spreads over his face as Wei Ying nods again.
Jin Rulan scowls and stares off at the trees instead of meeting Wei Ying’s gaze.
“You wanted to go night hunting,” Wei Ying says, as if this is a familiar impasse.
“This isn’t night hunting,” Jin Rulan protests, waving his arm at the line of ghosts. “There’s no hunting involved.”
Wei Ying waits.
“That one suffered lingchi” Jin Rulan huffs, gesturing at a ghoul who bears innumerable cuts on his face and hands. It’s an unusual and harsh sentence, carried out for only the highest of crimes. Lan Wangji finds looking at the marks difficult; it is too easy to remember waking to the smell of blood and rot. Jin Rulan, he notes, also averts his eyes quickly. “And that one was drowned. Happy now?”
Wei Ying just grins at him and turns to Wen Sizhui.
“These ghosts were probably suppressed when the ward was active, and the fire was built into the design.” He points to three portions of the etched diagrams. “Whoever was here, burning the buildings was always part of their plan.”
“Mn. Make a copy of the ward; it might be useful later.” Wei Ying looks back along the line of ghosts. “Shall we try Inquiry?” he asks, and wheels on his heel to face Lan Wangji.
“I cannot,” Lan Wangji admits. Even if he carried a guqin, the spiritual power required is currently beyond his grasp.
Wei Ying’s face scrunches up. “I don’t suppose you know a transposition for dixi? Or perhaps Zewu-jun has one for xiao?”
There is no such transposition. “Inquiry requires seven strings.”
Wei Ying sighs. “Well, it was worth a try. They’re not too talkative. I think some of them had their tongues cut out.” Wei Ying turns back to Jin Ling. “How do you suggest finding out more about them?”
“Evocation requires a physical medium.” Jin Ling’s nose wrinkles. “Maybe Trace?”
“Could be helpful,” Wei Ying agrees. “Do you all have paper?”
Lan Wangji watches with interest as they produce paper and grind three grades of ink, from a watery gray wash to a thick, rich black.
“One of yours?” he asks, as Wei Ying steps back to watch his disciples work. But Wei Ying shakes his head.
“He Sect. They introduced it at a discussion conference a few years ago, for determining a spirit’s location of birth and death, along with their movements in the week before they died.”
It’s clever. Without a physical medium or sufficient knowledge of the guqin, determining more of a spirit’s history could lend valuable insight to pacification efforts. A spirit’s family or the site of a disturbed grave might be found much more quickly. Lan Wangji nods approval, and Wei Ying smiles lightly.
“Come watch,” he says as Zhou Xiuying and Wen Sizhui quickly settle cross-legged beside their prepared paper and ink. Jin Ling and Liu Weixin are only a few moments behind.
It is an interesting process. The ink blooms over the pages, gradations of definition outlining mountains and forests, roads and lakes and even crisp, dark characters—town names and Sect enclaves. A trail of footprints mark the last few days of a life.
The results are mixed. Only two of the ghouls seem to have died here, a few days’ journey caught between Moling and Gusu—a man bearing a cursemark that covers his neck and torso, and a woman who shows clear signs of death by qi deviation. The lingchi victim’s map shows a death in Yueyang. The drowned ghost met his end in Caiyi. The others record deaths in Tanzhou, and Yingchuan and Qishan.
Jin Ling glares at his papers. “This can’t be right,” he says. “Maybe it didn’t work.”
“It worked,” Zhou Xiuying insists. “Trace doesn’t allow spirits to lie. It’s a physical record of the soul, not a question.”
“Perhaps someone moved them for a night hunt?” Wen Sizhui sounds doubtful, even as he voices the thought.
“Perhaps,” Wei Ying agrees, but his eyes are on Lan Wangji. It is not difficult to follow his suspicions. Liang Feihong was desperate enough to risk two souls for vengeance. Something as simple and commonplace as a planned nighthunt is unlikely to prompt such an act.
“What do we do with them now?” Liu Weixin asks.
Wei Ying’s face twists as he examines the ghouls again. “A few might be pacified by offerings, but the rest are too bound to revenge.”
“So, banishment?” Jin Rulan asks, a talisman already held between two fingers.
Wei Ying considers for a moment. His eyes slide back to Lan Wangji.
“How many spirit bags do we have?” he asks his disciples.
Zhou Xiuying, Liu Weixing and Wen Sizhui between them produce four such bags.
“Build a shrine,” Wei Ying directs his nephew, “We can’t offer burial, but we can do that much. Perhaps some only want to know they’re remembered. We’ll see how many are left afterward.”
Jin Rulan’s shoulders slump, but he does as he’s been told and soon there is a small offering of their combined supply of travel food, a selection of loquats and a few handfuls of paper money to burn.
Wei Ying steps close and stands warm at Lan Wangji’s shoulder as Wen Sizhui starts the fire.
“Does burning paper money work?” he asks, soft enough that their companions won’t hear. “Did you get any?”
“It is not a Lan custom,” Lan Wangji tells him, because it isn’t. He doesn’t elaborate. He does not know how to put into words the vagueness of his thoughts on his own death, the lack of distinct memory combined with the iron-hard certainty that he did die.
“I burned some for you.” Wei Ying is watching the flames dance in the steel bowl Liu Weixin had produced for the purpose. “I—” his mouth snaps shut with a click and he steps away, careful space reinserted between them. Lan Wangji watches as he crosses his arms over his chest, clearly discomfited.
“Thank you.” It is … gratifying, in a way, to know that Wei Ying mourned him.
Wei Ying shrugs the thanks away. “Doesn’t matter much if you didn’t get it.” He coughs. “Looks like we’ll have to take care of a few of these the hard way after all,” he says, nodding at the spirits. Only one, the weakest, has responded to the offering. Lan Wangji lets the change of subject pass without remark.
“The ones who died here might be most useful,” he says instead. “They carry some of the strongest resentment, and likely saw their murderers. Xiongzhang could ask after the focus of their vengeance.”
“And Zewu-jun is too honest to hide their answers,” Wei Ying agrees, nodding. “Will you go to Gusu then?” he asks. “Or can I tempt you to Yiling first? I’ll give you the talismans I have made, of course, but in Yiling we could try other methods, and Wen Qing might know—” he talks faster with every word, like he thinks he has to be convincing.
“Yiling is fine,” Lan Wangji assures him. The curse’s implications eat at his thoughts, and he would like to have more evidence than a selection of angry souls to present to his brother. And of course, Yiling has the benefit of Wei Ying’s presence.
“Oh.” Wei Ying smiles, something tentative in the expression. “Good then.”
“Wei-zongzhu?” Liu Weixin approaches them. “Which spirits should we keep?” he asks, twirling his pair of bags around his fingers.
Collecting four ghouls does not take long—one for each bag, Wei Ying tells his disciples, as these spirits are more likely to tear into each other than not. Then he pairs them off and frees the remaining two ghouls from Chenqing’s control, for suppression and elimination. Jin Rulan in particular takes evident satisfaction in the act; Wen Sizhui, in contrast, is the most efficient in his movements, and Zhou Xiuying’s sword work betrays her He Sect training.
“It’s a shame we couldn’t get anything else,” Wei Ying says as Liu Weixin dispatches the last spirit, a grasping ghost with needle teeth and a hollow in its belly. “Though I suppose we should count ourselves lucky there was anything left at all. If these souls were gathered for a purpose, they should have been dealt with before the fire.” He holds out the collection of spirit bags with a curious quirk of his eyebrow, and Lan Wangji carefully adds them to his qiankun pouch.
“Lianfang-zun has such a clear memory,” Wei Ying sighs, “He hardly writes anything down if it’s not official business. If this really is his doing, it’ll be difficult to prove.”
Lan Wangji nods. Even in his own memories, on occasions when he knew for fact that Jin Guangyao exaggerated a recollection, or misspoke, it had been difficult to sway others’ belief in his words. The position of Chief Cultivator would seem to convey more respect on his shoulders, not less.
“Tomorrow, tomorrow,” Wei Ying says as he turns back to the forest, and the dim but still-glowing transportation array. “Today, we have other worries.”
*
They arrive not in the Mass Graves, as Lan Wangji expected, but in an open, airy courtyard framed on three sides by sturdy buildings and clean-swept boardwalks. The main gate, behind, is closely carved with talismans, and he can sense at least three layers of wards extending outward from his location for several li. To the west lies a lotus pond, and beyond it what looks to be an archery field. It is not Lotus Pier, in any sense, but it is clear that Wei Ying drew from his childhood home in the design of the compound, just as the dark woods and red embellishments recall the halls of Qishan Wen. The crows in flight, carved into latticed windows and screens and embroidered onto hanging curtains, seem unique to Yiling-Wei, and match the small embroidered details at Wei Ying’s collar.
Wen Qionglin is waiting for them, unchanged from the last time Lan Wangji met him but for his clothes, which are of finer fabric and much cleaner. He smiles at Wen Sizhui, and looks curiously between Wei Ying and Lan Wangji.
“Liang Feihong, patient for Wen Qing,” Wei Ying says, twirling Chenqing as he steps out of the array that, here, is etched into the stone and anchored to both the lotus pod and an encompassing iron rim. Zhou Xiuying has hardly stepped onto the boardwalk when a young woman in Wei sect colors comes running to meet her—her wife, Lan Wangji gathers, from the tone of their reunion.
“I’ll show you around in a moment,” Wei Ying tells him, “I just need to see Jin Ling off first.”
“I’m fine,” Jin Ling protests. Lan Wangji tries to focus on other things as what is evidently a long-familiar family argument erupts: Jin Rulan is adamant that he can travel alone, by sword, and that he has enough talismans, and that yes, obviously, he has his Jiang spirit bell and his Jin-embroidered protections and yes, even that charm you gave me, Dajiu, can I go now? Lan Wangji finds the looming menace of the Mass Graves as he examines the roofline, its position indicating that the Sect grounds likely sit just outside the town of Yiling itself, a guarding presence between the common people and a problem the entire cultivation world has been unable to solve for generations.
Wei Ying extracts a promise of a message by Jin butterfly as soon as his nephew reaches Lotus Pier, and then he rejoins Lan Wangji, walking with his hands clasped behind his back and looking pleased with himself.
“I think it’s the eldest sibling thing,” he says, as he draws close. “That, or he’s absorbed all the worst parts of Jiang Cheng and his father at once and there’s no room left for Shijie’s influence. A-Yuan has never been so intractable.”
Wen Yuan is inspecting a quiver of arrows and speaking quietly with Wen Qionglin on the other side of the courtyard. Lan Wangji does not comment on habits Jin Rulan might have learned from a cultivator whose general approach to rules at his age was to rather gleefully break them.
“What do you think?” Wei Ying asks, gesturing at the courtyard, the buildings, and the lotus pond. He grins, mischievous, and waves in the general direction of the Mass Graves. “You were expecting to be back there, weren’t you. In the Demon-Summoning Cave?”
Lying is forbidden, and the thought had, indeed, crossed his mind, even though the young Wei cultivators looked far too hardy to have spent so much of their daily lives among the restless dead.
“It’s still up there,” Wei Ying assures him, as if he might be disappointed if it weren’t. “I can show you later—some of my best experiments are there, still.”
Lan Wangji has no particular interest in revisiting what Wei Ying had termed his ‘blood pool,’ or any experiments of a similar nature.
“You mentioned Wen Qing,” he says.
“How’s that talisman feeling?” Wei Ying asks. “I could show you the library first—we’ve got a library, not as good as Gusu’s of course, but I think you’d like some of the collection—and, oh! We could get you a new horse-tail whisk, if you want one? Or a training sword? Or maybe you’d like to see the sword hall … ” his grin grows wider and wider as he speaks, until his eyes are nearly squeezed shut by his own mirth. “I’ll stop, I’ll stop,” he says. “You know, it’s really amazing. Your face is so different, but the expression is exactly the same.”
Something unfurls in Lan Wangji’s center like a sun-seeking flower. That Wei Ying can recognize him without the soul bond—that Wei Ying remembers him well enough, after so long a time, to make such an observation—soothes a prickle of unease in his thoughts. Small worries he hasn’t put a name to quiet as Wei Ying escorts him through the enclave’s sun-drenched pathways, pointing out lush gardens and chattering about his disciples as if he never sat in a dark, damp cave that smelled of mold and blood and called it his home.
