To Natsuko: "No, trade is good actually. You think that just buying and selling things doesn't create any value but actually it's really important to move goods to where people want them, that's why setting up trade routes is so important and is making the Wei sect so very very rich."

To Nelen: "So the extra stuff comes from... your people? And the peasants are still producing the same amount of potatoes and rice as ever."

"I mean, yes that's important," Natsuko says, "but specifically unloading something that you know is about to be valueless seems mean, but like Nelen said it's not important."

"The peasants will probably mostly switch away from potatoes and rice," says Nelen, "as they import ways to make each farmer able to produce more of those things, and more different things, and trade opens up and people who want potatoes and rice can get them from other sources. The Vanda Nossëo basic income is mostly funded by proceeds from the sale of immortality artifacts, resurrection queue-jumping, terraformed planets, and similar relatively scarce things."

Lan Sizhui finishes writing, folds the paper into a butterfly, and shoots some red energy at it; the butterfly glows and flaps away.

To Natsuko: "That is my reward for being the sort of people that people from the stars land on and decide to talk to."

"--okay I think the different stuff thing seems more important than the money thing? Like, contacting America was really important because we got potatoes, not because the Americans decided to give us more pieces of paper that you can't even do magic with."

"Yes, but the Vanda Nossëo things that you might want to buy sell for Vanda Nossëo money," says Nelen, "except during the period when we'll operate stores where people can buy some things for stories or songs."

"You should definitely put one of those here, whatever you do, we get cultivators from all over and we're the center of the best trade routes in China."

"You can absolutely have one! If you show Natsuko a good place to put it she can put the building up now," says Nelen. Natsuko gets to her feet.

"I suspect the Sect Leader will want to consult with our advisors before making any permanent decisions," Lan Sizhui says. 

"The political situation is delicate, the Wei sect is controversial, and it would be a disservice to our friends from the stars to have them send a message they can't easily reverse."

"We can vacate the building if asked later," says Nelen, "but I understand not wanting one erected."

"It is an irreversible decision that you spoke to us first rather than the chief cultivator-- it will make people assume you are fundamentally aligned with the Wei sect. But there's no reason to send any more signals until you're sure that this is what you want to do."

Lan Sizhui is just not going to point out how he could have very easily hidden that the people from Vanda Nosseo spoke to the Wei sect first. It is useful for the Wei sect if people think the powerful new people from the stars are on their side. 

(He is also not terribly impressed by their political acumen, but it's not like any of the major sect leaders are any good at politics these days either.)

"We could send them a separate team," says Nelen. "It's just sometimes hard to tell from space where the centers of power are. This looked like the biggest cultivator settlement."

"The Nie clan is relatively poor because Nie Huaisang-- the sect leader and current chief cultivator-- has mismanaged it. I think we might look bigger than we are from space because of all the trade."

"That seems very plausible. Shall I call for another team to be sent to the chief cultivator?"

"I'm worried it will be seen as an insult if you are the primary team and they're the secondary team."

"There's not an internal hierarchy like that between teams. If they'd likely prefer their assigned team to have more seniority or something I'm sure one of those can be found."

"Especially if there's some cover story that doesn't involve you thinking that the Wei sect was more powerful than the Nie clan."

Cassiel looks at her computer and says, "They're going to call in Ligaya's team, and she's got a Chinese person from Revelation on side, how about we have you guys check if she's not a locally objectionable kind of Chinese person - bad accent that comes through Allspeak, or looks like an ethnic group there's been tension with, or something - and then they can pop over and that can be their delay?"

"Sounds like a plan."

"Okay, here they come now."

Here are Ligaya's team, including a Chinese person. "Hello, I'm Sai Ding," she says.

"Lan Sizhui."

"Wei Wuxian, also known as the Yiling Patriarch. --Her accent sounds fine to me. Weird, but not like a barbarian or anything."

"All right, we'll consider ourselves vetted," says Ligaya, and off she pops.