With the decision about where he was going at least tentatively made, barring new information, things relaxed a bit. They camped out at Sen’s little house for a few more days, while Sen slowly bled information about the capital from them. Auntie Caihong had been there most recently, so she gave him a rundown on the political situation as it stood while she was there. She also made sure he understood that in the world of capital politics, the five years since she was last there was a virtual eternity. He could arrive in the capital and find that entire houses were simply gone or that a forrly unimportant house was now very influential.
“I understand Auntie Caihong,” said Sen. “Assu all information is suspect until it’s confird.”
“You should probably assu all the people you et are suspect as well.”
Sen frowned. “I will. I learned my lesson with Lan Zi Rui.”
Auntie Caihong got a positively malevolent look on her face at the ntion of the cult leader. “I think I t him once. He was a worthless weasel then, too.”
“You’ll watch out for Lifen, afterward I an.”
Auntie Caihong nodded. “I will. I’ll see that she’s safely returned to her mother or enrolled in a sect sowhere if that’s what she wants.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it. I’d do all of it myself-,” Sen started to say.
“I know you would. I’m tempted to let you. But this isn’t the sort of thing you should let hold for the years it would take you to build the necessary strength. Besides, I don’t like cults. They always turn into sothing very ugly. Better to end it now.”
Sen’s experience with a cult certainly supported that argunt, although, he’d only encountered the one. He’d have to take her word for it that most cults weren’t worth the air and water they used up. Both Auntie Caihong and Master Feng gave the nas of places where he could find so quiet help if he needed it. While he simply wrote down the nas of the places that Auntie Caihong gave him, he had a very specific question for Master Feng.
“These don’t happen to be brothels, do they?” Sen asked.
“No, of course, they aren’t brothels,” said Master Feng, but then he paused. “I don’t think they are. I’m pretty sure they weren’t the last ti I checked in on them.”
Sen moved those nas to the bottom of his list of places to look for help. He didn’t actually have an objection to brothels. Sen just didn’t want to unintentionally drag a bunch of mortals into his problems again if he could avoid it. They were too convenient as targets, and he’d like to avoid causing a bloodbath in the capital if at all possible. Given his luck, he didn’t really expect that would prove possible, but he could hope and take steps to keep mortals out of harm's way.
As much as he’d hoped to avoid it, Lo ifeng did eventually catch him alone outside one afternoon. He’d just gestured for her to follow him and walked them off a distance. He set up a formation to dampen their voices, assuming that neither of them really wanted the contents of that conversation shared. Lo ifeng was quiet for a mont before she finally asked the question that Sen could tell was burning a hole in her mind.
“Why?”
“Why not expose what you did? Why keep you around?”
“Yes.”
“If I told Master Feng what you did, there’s a good chance he’d kill you for pulling into that kind of danger. Wasn’t that exactly the kind of thing you were sent to help avoid?”
“It was,” she admitted with a sigh.
“Well, I’m not even close to angry enough to want to see you dead. It wouldn’t fix anything. You’d just be dead. And, he’d send soone else, which brings us around to the why keep you around part of things. I know I can stand you. That might not be true for the next person.”
“But you don’t trust .”
“No, not particularly, but as long as you weren’t lying about not having family in the capital, I won’t automatically dismiss every word out of your mouth. Were you lying?”
Lo ifeng shook her head. “I wasn’t. I don’t have anyone I’m close to or related to in the capital.”
“Then, you’re the demon I know. Plus, now I have a baseline for what it looks like when you’re trying to trick to get what you want. I’ll be more ready for it next ti.”
“There won’t be a next ti,” said Lo ifeng defensively.
“So you say. Would you believe that if you were ?”
“No,” she admitted with obvious reluctance.
“Now, you know. Do you feel any better about things?”
“Not particularly, but I guess it’s better to know where I stand.”
***
By the ti everyone seed ready to go, sothing happened that Sen hadn’t expected. One of the defensive formations activated. There was a yelp of pain as soone got caught with one of the lesser lightning bolts Sen had made for the outer periter formation. It wasn’t really there to do anything lethal, just serve to warn off anything or anyone. Still, Sen supposed that he should at least go and see who had triggered the formation in the first place. As he went to leave, Falling Leaf walked up to the door and looked at him expectantly.
“Do you want to co?” he asked, a little amused.
“Like you could stop from going where I wish,” she said.
The pair of them made their way out to the edge of the formation boundary. Sen wasn’t sure what to make of what he found there. Shi Ping was near the boundary, looking a little charred and very unhappy. After just staring at the man for a while, Sen finally gave in to his curiosity.
“What can I do for you, Shi Ping?”
“The matriarch inford that my laziness has grown beyond her tolerance. She told to seek you out and ask if I might join you for a ti. She suggested that it might inspire to, as she put it, do sothing for once in my life.”
“I see,” said Sen, not at all amused that the matriarch was trying to offload her problem onto his plate.
“Please say no. Please say no. Please say no,” said Shi Ping.
“No,” said Sen, not even needing the other man’s pitiful begging.
The very last thing he wanted was a lazy cultivator tagging along on his current mission. It wasn’t an imminent crisis, yet, but the mission was still life or death for Sen. Having soone who couldn’t or, worse still, wouldn’t pull their own weight was simply unacceptable. It might have been different if the matriarch had offered him so kind of reward or paynt, but to just expect him to take the man for free. Then, Sen glared at the man, who took a big step back.
“What did she offer to sweeten the deal that conveniently slipped your mind?”
Shi Ping visibly winced but removed a wrapped bundle from a storage treasure. Sen could feel the power radiating from it as soon as it appeared. She had already gifted Sen an ascendent-level jian that was probably the best weapon he now owned. He thought that it would legitimately last him until he reached the nascent soul stage of cultivation. The spear that Shi Ping revealed when he untied the covering was a step beyond. It was one of the fabled heavens chasing realm weapons. Those storied weapons were the domain of nascent soul cultivators and no others. This wasn’t simply a bribe, it was a kingly bribe, the kind of bribe that no sane cultivator could refuse. No wonder Shi Ping didn’t ntion it, thought Sen. He knew I’d have to say yes with that spear in play. That didn’t excuse the man for failing to deliver the whole ssage. Sen was tempted to challenge the man then and there, but he repressed that impulse. Barring massive misfortune on Sen’s part, like being suddenly struck blind and losing the feeling in both his hands, Shi Ping had no chance in such a contest. For all that, though, the man would be a burden. Sen liked the man well enough as a casual acquaintance, but he wasn’t enthralled with the picture of Shi Ping as a permanent traveling companion.
Sen turned to Falling Leaf. “What do you think?”
“Let him co. You get the spear, which is good. If he proves irkso, I’ll simply kill him in his sleep. It doesn’t seem any will miss him.”
Shi Ping looked pale and unsteady on his feet at hearing those words.
Sen fixed Shi Ping with a hard look. “You should consider that your friendly and only warning. Pull your weight, or she really will end your life.”
Shi Ping looked mournful as he said his next words. “I need to pack.”
“You should grab the spear, and I’ll just kill him now,” said Falling Leaf, taking a step toward the man.
“This isn’t an auspicious start, Shi Ping,” said Sen. “Leave the spear. Go pack. You have three hours to et us at the entrance to the valley.”
“Three hours? That’s barely enough ti to get back and grab my clothes.”
“Then I probably gave you more ti than you deserve after that stunt you pulled. You should have co here ready to leave. Now, you just wasted a minute of your ti. Do you plan on wasting another?”
Shi Ping, showing a modicum of wisdom, placed the spear on the ground with care. Then, he vanished in a burst of qi.
Falling Leaf stared in the direction the man had vanished. “He won’t survive a week with us.”
Sen shook his head as he passed effortlessly through his own formation and picked up the spear. “I know. I kind of think that’s what the matriarch had in mind. Hence, the bribe.”
“Humans are so strange. If she wants him dead, she should simply kill him and be done with it.”
“Humans generally dislike it when their leaders kill their own people. Shi Ping is, by his own admission, lazy, which makes him a drain on the order. But he’s liked well enough. Killing him would be politically problematic. Sending him off with , well, I’m a dangerous man. No one would be surprised if he died in my company.”
“And that won’t be a problem for you later?”
Sen shrugged. “Probably not. Don’t get wrong, I’m not going to try to get him killed for her. He may even be useful. Another sword in a fight is never a bad thing. I’m not going to go out of my way to protect him, though. He’ll have to rise to the occasion.”
“He won’t,” said Falling Leaf.
“He might. The threat of dying has a way of bringing out a person’s strengths. It did for .”
“He is not you.”
Sen smiled. “Maybe not. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Still, this is a complication I hadn’t planned for. Why is leaving never easy?”
***
The nascent soul cultivators were all interested in the spear. Uncle Kho took it through a form and declared it adequate. Master Feng examined it closely and said that the smith who made it wasn’t completely incompetent. Auntie Caihong ran a bit of qi through it, shot the other elder cultivators a look, and said it was of excellent quality. Sen decided to take her word for it. After that, it was a round of hugs, shoulder slaps, and fifteen pieces of last-second advice. As they were all getting ready to head their separate ways, Master Feng spun toward Sen.
“I almost forgot,” he said, looking embarrassed and relieved. “I dropped by your grandmother’s shop in Emperor’s Bay. The manager there asked to deliver this to you with his complints.”
Master Feng threw Sen a coin pouch that was surprisingly heavy. He opened it and found a sensible, if sizable, mix of silver and bronze tael. There were even a few gold taels mixed in with the rest. It took Sen a mont to rember who Master Feng was talking about and why they might be sending him money. He supposed it had been a while since he was back there. He supposed it might have been enough ti to generate so profit.
“Thank you,” said Sen, storing the money away.
“Are you investing now, Sen?” asked Uncle Kho, an amused gleam in his eye.
“Just a little.”
“It’s a smart move, though,” said Master Feng. “Wherever I go, there’s always soone waiting with a bag of money for . It’s really convenient.”
With a roll of her eyes, Auntie Caihong took Uncle Kho by the arm. “Co along, dear. I expect there’s a terrible amount of dusting waiting for us at ho.”
At those words, Uncle Kho looked at Sen. “Now, you keep your eyes open for any more demonic cultivator cabals. We can’t have them running around doing whatever they want.”
Auntie Caihong started pulling her husband away by main force until he relented with a laugh and the two flew away on qi platforms. Sen looked to Master Feng.
“Where are you off to?”
“I have to stop in and see Duan Yuxuan. Then, I have a spirit beast mystery to get back to.”
“Duan Yuxuan? Is that a good idea?”
“Heavens no. It’s a terrible idea, but it’ll be even worse if I don’t stop in to have an argunt with her. She’ll feel slighted and ignored. It is her valley, and she left us alone. So, I can do my part.”
“By arguing with her?” Sen asked, truly confused.
For once, Master Feng looked a little embarrassed. “Well, it’ll start out as an argunt. It doesn’t usually end that way.”
It took Sen’s mind a while to fill in the blanks on that one.
“Oh! I see.”
“Yes, well, off you go. Let us know if you run into any more fun like you did last ti.”
Sen offered Master Feng a deep bow. “As you say, Master Feng.”
At a gesture from Sen, Falling Leaf and Lo ifeng joined him as he walked away from the little house he’d made. He might have to make more of them, ti and qi permitting. An hour later, the valley’s entrance and their unwanted tagalong ca into sight. The man looked utterly despondent.
“You really an to take him along?” asked Lo ifeng.
“You saw that spear right?”
“I did. Still not sure it’s worth it.”
“Yeah, neither am I. But I said I’d do it, so now he gets to co along.”
Lo ifeng gave the man an unfriendly look and spoke loudly enough that Sen was sure Shi Ping could hear her. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and so spirit beast will eat him.”
It was all Sen could do to not laugh as Shi Ping cast a horrified look at Lo ifeng, who just smiled sweetly at the man.
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