Forbidden Tomboy 1 – To honour 3 Factions

John had to honour three factions with how he approached this diplomatic visit. A convenient distribution of interests, as he had three bodies to appease them all. It was the splitting of the harem that required a little more finesse.

The three factions were the Mandate of Heaven, Fusion’s political elite, and the federal bureaucracy.

Against John’s personal interest, he had to prioritize appeasing the second faction the most. They desired that he stayed at home with plenty of arms to spare. For that reason, the bulk of his combat-ready harem stayed at home. Eliana was the obvious starter, the goddess of genocide serving as one of the strongest deterrents one could ask for. Aclysia, Nia, Metra, Gnome, Salamander, Sylph and Siena all were left on this side of the ocean to leave a clear message that John was there to provide the necessary firepower. Stirwin would also stay.

The federal bureaucracy, John cared the least about – but he did still care. Truthfully, he did not much like the bureaucracy. Much reading and research had been done on the intuitive truth that the administrative state provided a host of drawbacks by legislating the economy to a halt. It appeared to be broadly true, yet John needed at least a limited body of oversight so he was capable of gathering accurate data that let him make good decisions. Like all things in life, it was a tightrope to walk. Momo, Beatrice and Scarlett were specifically left to continue their usual government and government-adjacent work.

The Mandate of Heaven was harder to gauge. As a foreign entity with foreign elites and foreign customs, their priorities were alien to John. Lu Zhi had spent some time schooling him on the matter, but there was much that simply could not be grasped without being steeped in the culture. He, in his main body, would go with the women that were either still free or insisted on coming.

Rave needed to tag along. This was both for diplomatic reasons and because his first fiancée was joined to him at the hip. Something as interesting as his first trip to the Forbidden City would not go ignored by the thrillseeker.

Nathalia had heavily insisted and not taken no for an answer. It was one of her haughty moments. John only put up a token resistance. Unlike Eliana, who was very happy to lock herself in her atelier for ten hours a day, Nathalia was not much of a stationary being. Until she had settled with John, the dragoness had been in constant motion and it was clear that she was still attached to the idea. Having her tag along was healthy for her. It would also serve as a testing ground for whether she had gotten more diplomatic or not. A risky testing ground, admittedly.

Nightingale was with them to serve her role as the diplomatic goddess of Fusion. It was a role that she was sliding into because she was very well suited for it and John encouraged her on that path. Her absence at home ruffled some feathers with the elite, but John could smooth that over. Nightingale was known to be relatively weak.

Claire came along because John needed a maid to accompany him. It would have hurt his image if he did not (Lu Zhi’s words). That she was his best physical spy also helped in the matter.

Ehtra had also insisted on coming, simply because she wanted to interact some more with the two Metracanas in the Mandate’s employ. She technically brought the maid count to two, but was unlikely to spend a lot of time in that capacity during their visit.

Undine was the only elemental to tag along. Particle Skin was still down for another week and John would not be caught without some insurance. The slime lady would always remain close to him so he had an emergency defensive option.

Lee was still trying to achieve more breakthroughs on her power and was at a critical junction in her Kingdom Hearts 3 playthrough. Too bad for her that her new power also made her the best emergency return option if they needed it.

That covered who John wanted to take along or who had insisted on coming along. Left over after all of this were Lydia, who obviously had her own matters to attend to, Lorelei, Delicia and Hailey. For fear of slipping up and making an inappropriate joke about communists, Hailey bowed out of this first meeting. She would see the Forbidden City another time.

Delicia had decided to tag along when asked. She wanted to look at Chinese alchemy, renowned to be quite different from the western equivalent.

Lorelei decided to also stay home, for no stronger reason than she felt like it.

That meant that John’s entourage consisted of Rave, Nathalia, Nightingale, Claire, Ehtra, Undine, Lee and Delicia. Eight members of his harem and quite a mix of early and later additions to it. Nine, technically, if they included Lu Zhi herself.

“Alright, time to go,” John declared, checking the clock one more time. It was midnight in New York at the moment. It did feel odd to know he was going to leave his house in order to get to the other side of the planet and spend the coming week in Beijing. It did not feel that odd anymore, but still odd enough to be recognized as a feeling.

“I want to come tooooooooo,” Momo whined. “I want to look at their library!”

“You said you were fine with staying,” John reminded her.

“I was lying! Urgh.” The bookworm crossed her arms. “Stupid politics, stupid politicians, stupid stuff… there’s an ancient library and I’m not there to look at it… urgh!”

Momo was running through the same calculations that he was. They simply did not have the good will to spend for the chancellor to leave the country on a personal pursuit. Thus, Momo’s grumbles stayed grumbles and they set out. John did feel bad about it, but such were the sacrifices of leadership.

Like most journeys, it began with them using the Transportation Station to teleport the majority of the distance. They were going to arrive in Beijing via boat. In order to save time, the Boating Seaquence had been sent ahead of them.

Last time John had used his mega-yacht to house a diplomatic mission, he had brought with him a considerable number of other politicians. This time, there was only a skeleton crew of support staff. Most of them came along not to fulfil a necessary function, but to make it look like there was a lot of busy work on the ship. It was pure projection for prestige perception.

It took a few more hours to get from Taiwan to Beijing. The Illusion Barrier around the ship made that journey a straightforward one. John would not take it as a guarantee that an American ship going from Taiwan to the capital of China was going to get stopped on the high seas, but he would not be surprised either. It did not take a tyrannical state to justify that particular intervention in water traffic.

One of the people among the number of soldiers and deckhands was Fianna. John’s scout was disguised and would remain that way until she was successfully connected with the Taiwanese mentor that Lu Zhi had promised. Said mentor would then be smuggled onto the ship and brought back to the USA.

All of that would happen without John’s direct influence. He had made the arrangements, now he just had to trust that they would play out.

It had been midnight in NYC. Beijing was half a day ahead on the clock, so when John arrived in Bohai Bay, it was well past noon and into the evening.

Chinese history when it came to the navy was interesting. Tianjin was the port closest to Beijing and thus responsible for the naval traffic that reached the imperial city, located up the great Hai river. On the mundane side, Tianjin was the home of one of the largest cargo ports in the world, moving the massive industrial output of China to wherever it was paid for.

The mega-yacht melded with the Protected Space that had been placed on the estuary. The view of mundane space, always hanging at the edge of Illusion Barriers, replaced a desert of concrete and steel containers with red wood, green jade, and imperial architecture. In John’s opinion, the difference in beauty could not have been starker.

On both sides of the river, decorative columns had been put up. They framed the slowly flowing water, separating it visually from the port that had been erected all around. By the standards of a realm so rich and ancient as the Mandate of Heaven, the port was practically humble. Dozens of docks, yes, but with only a few buildings beyond the basic ones and with very few large ships to fill out the space between piers.

Lu Zhi had professed to John before that she saw the lack of naval capacity of her nation as a critical weakness. Historically, China on both sides of the magical divide simply had not needed a trade fleet abroad, as the realm was capable of producing everything at home. In the rare cases that they did require a navy, enlisting the help of the Koreans had served them well enough. After several thousand years of this, the Mandate of Heaven plainly lacked the traditions and know-how to field a large navy.

It was a weakness the empress aimed to make up for, but it was not a critical one. Among the many fires the Heavenly Jade Empress had to put out, their lack of presence on the seas really was among the lesser ones.

What was important was that the mega-yacht was too large to proceed past this point. They pulled into one of the larger alcoves, then left the yacht borderline unceremoniously. There were some people that had come out to watch the ship arrive – the rare naval enthusiast – but that was about it. A diplomatic formation greeted them officially.

“We are pleased to see you have arrived, President of Fusion,” the man at the head of the formation said. John knew him decently. It was Xi Pang, the prime minister of the Mandate of Heaven and Lu Zhi’s primary political opponent. That alone gave John plenty of reason to dislike the man, but he had a personal distaste for him as well.

For a Chinese man especially, Xi was large in every possible sense. He was almost as tall as John was and of notably wider girth. Obese was not the word John would have used for him. His weight was more than that of the average strongman build, but it was clear that it supported his muscles, rather than proving a life lived in luxury and laziness. He was bold, his middle-aged expression stern and diplomatic, and his clothes opulent. A red mantle had been thrown over layers of white and black robes, all of them decorated with golden embroideries.

Xi Pang was not afraid of displaying that he was getting rich off his office. Corruption ran deep in the imperial bureaucracy and was, to a large part, accepted. Lu Zhi had only recently begun to curtail such excesses and she had to do it slowly. The eunuchs had even more political power than John’s elites did at home.

“And I am pleased to have been received,” John responded in fluent Mandarin. He withdrew a scroll from his inventory, dark blue and black, with six-coloured gemstones decorating the extensions of the wooden core in a manner resembling the Fusion flag. He had deemed it appropriate to create his own scroll to symbolize that he was respecting the local customs. He bowed his head respectfully and handed it to the prime minister. “I thought it fitting to bring an additional tribute to the great nation for this momentous occasion.”

Xi hid his greed well and checked the contents of the scroll. He hesitated for a moment when he found that the document within was written in English. Respect for the local customs went a long way, but John would not be perceived as one who forsook his own roots for the sake of acceptance. Fusion was also a member of the Divided Gates. Him fitting in with the ideals of the people he would one day govern due to marriage was one thing, him becoming one of them another.

Xi left the gesture uncommented. He read the document thoroughly. “These are the official numbers?” he asked, with great approval. The uninitiated would have thought he was happy to see the degree of tribute delivered to his nation. John knew that he was calculating what the undocumented extra was worth. Every tribute included a fraction of itself that was purely for the greasing of the hands of administrators.

John loathed playing this game, but it was his quickest way to be accepted into the elite circles. That he had been so generous so far was no doubt a reason why he was allowed into the Forbidden City already. Other powers had to grovel for years to be given access to the deepest circle of the Mandate of Heaven’s layered realm.

“Those are the official numbers, yes,” John confirmed in a neutral tone. “My people will assist in getting the cargo to shore.” In other words, once the cargo was on the shore, Fusion was no longer concerned with what happened with the resources.

“A most generous tribute to the Heavenly Jade Empress and her great realm,” Xi Pang stated, rolled up the scroll, and hid it within one of his expansive sleeves. Then, he executed a wide and elegant gesture. “Let us walk, President of Fusion. The falls of feet should ever precede the clapping of hooves.”

A turn of phrase used to wish good health. “So they should,” John agreed and took his position next to the prime minister as they walked. “I have rectified much of my ignorance regarding your realm since last we spoke, although I remain a humble student,” he said, humbly.

“And I have watched your career with great interest, although I remain a distant admirer,” Xi Pang answered. “Your interest in the empress remains, I read from your actions, wise diplomat?”

John found it interesting that Xi Pang would turn a previously private conversation into a half-public matter. Was he trying to **** their hand, perhaps? If so, he was one step behind Lu Zhi. This entire meeting was about slowly boiling the frog of their affair, turning into marriage.

“I have a great interest in her who governs heaven and earth,” John answered diplomatically. “I find her entertaining and her beauty is great to behold. The friendship between our nations is one I wish to see reflected in our own relationship.”

Xi Pang gave a deep nod. “You are a most wise person,” he spoke, then lowered his voice. A powerful enchantment hid the next words from everyone besides John himself. “Do not believe that I will let such a union pass without concessions.”

John did not respond to the threat. He did not acknowledge it with more than a spare glance. Xi Pang acted as if he had never uttered it. ‘Do not,’ John thought at Claire, whose murderous intent was threatening to spill from her soul.

‘…Affirmative,’ Claire growled, reining herself in to the best of her ability.

The truth of the matter was that John had to withhold a giggle. Xi Pang would have gone down as the most capable Chinese diplomat and administrator in the current age, had he not been in the service of Lu Zhi. He was capable and he knew that he was capable, but if he believed he could outplay both the Heavenly Jade Empress and the Gamer in the long game, then he was sorely mistaken.

John perceived the man as a threat in the same way a bear was a threat to a man with a rifle. Certainly, the beast had to be respected, but the outcome was clear. It would take a great mistake by John for Xi Pang to end up winning this game. The advantage was firmly in the Gamer’s hand and he was quite good at keeping it that way.

A simple smile spread on John’s lips. “All shall receive what they are owed, prime minister.”

With those words, he entered the provided car.