"In theory, the Emperor rules all of China and tells everyone what to do, but in practice the average sixteen-year-old cultivator could casually murder him if they wanted to so cultivators ignore him. He has absolute power over us as long as he never tries to use it."

..........Merrin is fairly sure that this is not what "absolute power" means actually. 

Why do they even have a word for 'a person who has completely theoretical and abstract power but in practice would have zero power but nobody is going to disrupt the illusion by attempting any kind of experimental verification.' 

....Is that even a coherent concept. It seems like it shouldn't be. 

Merrin feels like she is now confused about something here that is somehow more fundamental than physical laws over basic physical anticipations like 'you can stand on a sword and then go to space.' 

Nearly all dath ilani fiction - not that Merrin has read very much of this, in the grand scheme of things, she's busy, but she has a gestalt sense - has previously sent the message that any time you find yourself in a situation like this there MUST be some very clever reason why the aliens are doing that - 

(Which is obvious on levels other than the fiction-tropes one, to Merrin...) 

- and the story has already given you enough info to deduce it but only if you are nearly as smart as the author. 

Merrin currently feels very very stupid, which is not in itself surprising or unusual, but unlike most of the time, she has no reference source and no one to talk to and she doesn't even have a way to check if this is the right kind of reasoning to be applying here..... 

She has questions. Definitely. Specific questions that she can say out loud with her mouth, even to an alien from an incomprehensible alien world. 

"......Is the Emperor not a cultivator?" 

"No, of course not."

"But -" 

"- I don't know why not, actually. It sounds like most of your leadership positions are held by cultivators? I mean, there are a lot of questions there that I haven't asked, and a lot of other reasons I might not know yet why it wouldn't make sense, but - on the surface it seems really absurd for the single person who rules your polity to not have the kind of power that a large number of individuals have? and could if they wanted use to just take over themselves?" 

Pause. 

"..........Okay what's the horrifying downside of being Emperor. Does it permanently eat your soul so you can never be immortal as a ghost or reincarnated person or something - um sorry I just made that up on the spot but it's really obvious that there must be something -?" 

"Why would any cultivator care about being in charge of a bunch of people who aren't even cultivators? The leadership positions for cultivators are held by cultivators, and the leadership positions for people who aren't cultivators are held by people who aren't cultivators."

...That does not seem like a good way to run anything. 

Merrin is, at this point, both unsure whether she is at all capable of explaining why not, and also whether it would be a good idea for her to attempt it if she did. 

(The latter in itself is a very uncomfortable thought, one that she is not used to.)

"......Okay. Thank you for explaining. We should move on and go back to...?"  ....aaaaah what was the last non-horrifyingly-awful topic - Merrin is pretty sure it'll come back to her within ten seconds but she's still going to raise her eyebrows hopefully at Wen Ning and see if he has a better idea for what they should talk about now. 

"Oral rehydration solution, I think, Mistress Dath?"

Yep sounds great. Much better topic. They can do that. 

Merrin takes the opportunity to slip in some medical explanation of why this is the low-tech treatment of choice here. This ends up going into a digression on cellular metabolism and ion channels. She's not sure whether Wen Ning actually wants or needs to know that much detail but it's a good way to make conversation while not needing to have any original thoughts. 

Wen Ning is fascinated by this!

He thinks that the fact that qi is so important for studying medicine for them means that they haven't really studied the physical parts of the body so much. 

"- Yeah, that makes sense. Honestly I am still very jealous and want to learn how to - directly perceive how sick a person is - but I guess it's true that there are lots of indirect ways to get the same information, or even better. And dath ilan knows them. ....Although, um, I still can't personally run more than 1 of 10 of the tests I know about." 

That might change if Wei Wuxian can personally re-invent plastic for her. By itself, having plastic available as a base material plus her existing knowledge could bring it up to....possibly close to an entire 2/10. 

(Merrin's life REALLY SUCKS right now.)

"...Okay, the oral rehydration solution is ready - we should probably go check on Wei Wuxian now?"