Chapter 75: What Goes by Night (2)
The woman was staring at Sen like he'd stepped out of some particularly horrible legend or nightmare. Even in the relative darkness, she looked pale. Sen did his best to distance himself from the idea that these were human beings. Some part of him simply loathed this aspect of being a cultivator, while another part was simply resigned to the idea. He'd been back in Orchard's Reach for all of three of four days. In that time, he'd handed out serious injuries to seven cultivators and killed five more. Even worse, he hadn't gone looking for any of it. He sincerely hoped that this was somehow the byproduct of him having grown up in the town, and not a herald of things to come. They came here looking for trouble, Sen reminded himself. They knew what you did to Chen, and they came anyway. They brought this down on their own heads.
The woman seemed to master her fear a little bit because she jumped straight into demands.
"Who in the eighteen hells are you? You're not just some wandering cultivator. Are you really even a foundation formation stage?"
Sen gave her a level look. "Who sent you?"
"I want to know who you are!"
"Lu Sen."
"That's not-," she began.
"I just killed four people," said Sen, disrupting the rant he suspected she was about to start. "I don't enjoy killing people. In fact, on the whole, I'd prefer to avoid it altogether. On the other hand, I am out of patience with this town. So, I only intend to ask this one more time. Who sent you?"
Sen loosened his grip on killing intent just a little bit when he asked the question. It was a fraction of what Sen had hit Chen Aiguo the day before. Even so, the woman let out a little cry of pain and staggered.
"The mayor," she said. "It was the mayor who sent us."
"Good. Where did the money come from?"
Sen saw her hesitate and loosened his grip on his killing intent a little more. The woman dropped to one knee and held onto one of the tables as though her life depended on it. When she looked up at Sen, he could see light reflecting off wetness leaking from her nose. He assumed it was blood. She wiped at the wetness with the hand she wasn't using to stay semi-upright and grimaced.
"I don't know," she said and raised a hand to stop Sen from growing angry or more impatient. "I have suspicions, but I don't know."
"Real suspicions?"
"Just guesses."
Sen made a noncommittal noise as he studied the woman. He debated simply killing her. It was the simplest choice. Yet, he'd killed enough to last him for the rest of his life already. Killing her wouldn't solve anything, not really, just possibly make his life a tiny bit easier. That seemed like a bad reason to kill her to Sen. He pulled out the satchel, removed a handful of the golden taels, and set them on a nearby table. Then, he put the satchel away. He gestured at the gold.
"You work for me now. My orders are simple. Take the money. Leave. Immediately. Tonight. Don't come back. If you stay out of my way, I'll leave you alone. If you ever come back here or trouble my grandmother in any way, though," said Sen, letting the threat hang.
"You'll kill me?"
"I'll hunt you."
Sen didn't give any additional information, but she seemed to understand the gist that being hunted would be infinitely worse than simply being killed. He watched as her eyes drifted, almost in defiance, from his face to the gold coins. Even that handful of coins was likely more than her entire family would make in years of steady work. Her eyes shot back to him.
"Where will I go?"
Sen shrugged a shoulder at her. "I truly do not care. Just pick a direction and leave."
When the woman hesitated again, what was left of Sen's exhausted patience frayed just a little bit more. His hand tightened around the hilt of his jian. His body leaned forward, just a touch, to give him more speed when he moved. Sen felt his face harden into a mask of resolve. That collection of small changes was apparently all of the reassurance that the woman needed that Sen's offer came with an incredibly small window of opportunity. Her eyes went wide, and her mouth started moving.
"I'll go," she nearly screamed at him. "I'll go!"
"Then, do it," Sen snarled through clenched teeth.
Visibly shaking beneath the combination of Sen's steely glare and his killing intent, the woman pushed herself to her feet. She walked over to the table with an unsteady gait and picked up the money. She didn't quite meet Sen's eyes when she tried one last time to glean some kind of information from him.
"Did someone send you here?"
Without even acknowledging the question, Sen lifted his jian and used it to point.
"The nearest city is that way," he said before a thought occurred to him. "What is your name?"
It looked like she needed to drag the words out against her own will, but she finally whispered, "Shen Hua."
"You have ten minutes, Shen Hua. If I find you inside the town walls after that, the deal is off."
It seemed that Shen Hua believed him. She took the opportunity and ran out of the shop. Sen used his spiritual sense to track her motion for as long as he could. She took off in the direction Sen had pointed and didn't waver for a moment. He thought that showed surprisingly good decision-making on her part. He questioned his own, though. She might actually keep her word, but Master Feng said it was bad business to leave live enemies behind you. They had a way of turning up at inopportune moments down the road. Sen's problem was that he didn't know how to distinguish true enemies in this situation. He'd been mostly sure that she was just hired help and not some loyal servant to the mayor. She'd been bought off for a lot less than she'd been sent to retrieve. When given the opportunity to cut and run, she'd done it.
The next person might well decide that a suicidal charge in defense of the mayor would gain them some advantage in the next life. Much to his surprise, Sen felt a bit of empathy with those powerful cultivators who, when deeply offended, simply destroyed everything. If he killed everyone that worked for the mayor, he'd get all of his enemies. Of course, he'd get all of the people who weren't his enemies, too. Sighing, Sen cleaned his jian and then checked the bodies. It was a mostly fruitless exercise. He picked up a few weapons he might be able to sell, but there were no storage rings or purses to be found. Then, he dragged the bodies outside and piled them up in the market. He wasn't going to leave them to rot inside Grandmother Lu's shop. He took a little time and cleaned up the mess as well as he could.
While he expected that the brunt of things had happened at the shop, he didn't want to leave things to chance. He made the walk back to Grandmother Lu's. He could hear the sounds of fighting before the house was even in sight. Sen took off like an arrow loosed from the string. He hurtled into the semi-enclosed courtyard and took things in at a glance. On one side of the courtyard, Grandmother Lu was defending the maid from attackers. On the other side of the courtyard was…Falling Leaf!She was crouched protectively over the still form of Zhang Munchen. The big cat had her teeth bared as a large figure menaced her with a spear. Off to the side, he saw another attacker with a bow in hand, nocking an arrow. It put Falling Leaf into an impossible scenario. Sen knew full well that the big cat could dodge an arrow, but she couldn't do it without abandoning the man on the ground.
Whatever sense of restraint that had stayed Sen's hand at the shop evaporated in an inferno of rage. He didn't even remember crossing the distance between him and the spear wielder. He just remembered the sound of the man's spine snapping as it folded around Sen's foot. Then, the sight of the body crashing through the stone wall. He felt the change in air pressure and grabbed an arrow out of the air. He turned to face the bow wielder, and the man flinched at whatever he saw on Sen's face. There was a blur of motion and Sen had driven the arrow into the archer's eye socket. Then, Sen spoke two words that he had never, ever imagined would fall from his lips.
"You dare!"
He summoned his own spear from his storage ring. As soon as its reassuring weight was in his hands, he changed his cycling pattern. He pushed that new qi into the spearhead and blue-white energy crackled around the metal. It cast the entire courtyard in an eerie glow. He saw the two attacking Grandmother Lu try to disengage. That wouldn't do. He triggered his qinggong technique and shot across the courtyard like a human lance. The lightning on the spearhead reached out ahead of the tip of the spear. It immobilized one of the attackers, who could only scream and watch in mute horror as Sen descended on him like Wrath's favorite son. The spear punched through the man. Sen tugged it free without any effort and spun on the last attacker. Yet, freed from the burden of multiple attackers, Grandmother Lu had taken her own vengeance.
"Is that all of them?" Sen asked.
At Grandmother Lu's weary nod, Sen released the lightning pattern, and the courtyard returned to shadow.
Chapter 76: What Goes by Night (3)
After taking a moment to ensure that Grandmother Lu was simply tired, rather than injured, and giving her a brief hug, Sen turned to face the last being he'd expected to see. Falling Leaf was still hovering near the injured Zhang Muchen, but no longer crouched directly over his body. Sen walked over to where she stood. He rested a hand on her warm back as he crouched down to examine the old servant who remained still. Sen briefly worried that he might be dead, but he saw the man take a breath, then another. Confident that he wasn't about to die that instant, Sen turned to look at Falling Leaf.
"I didn't think I'd find you here," said Sen.
The big cat regarded him with her steady feline eyes. "Worried. Too many enemies here."
Sen grimaced but nodded his agreement. "There were. Thank you for helping Grandmother Lu."
Falling Leaf made a gesture that Sen took as her saying, "What else was I going to do?"
Much to Sen's surprise, Falling Leaf reached out one of her big paws and gently nudged Zhang Muchen. When the man didn't stir, she gave Sen a look that was half inquisitive and half insistent. He nodded at her.
"I'm not Auntie Caihong, but I'll see what I can do."
Seemingly satisfied by that answer, the big cat wandered away to inspect Grandmother Lu, who watched the ghost panther with wonder in her eyes. The spirit beast even deigned to let the older woman put a hesitant hand on her head. After that, the cat prowled over to the maid, Lin. Unlike Grandmother Lu, Lin looked positively terrified that the spirit beast would eat her. Sen suspected that Falling Leaf found the girl's apprehension more than a little amusing. It wasn't that Falling Leaf wouldn't hurt human beings, but Sen knew her enough to know that she wouldn't hurt people that she'd gone through all the trouble to help. After all, if she wanted something bad to happen to the maid, the big cat could have simply withheld her aid.
Confident that nothing terrible was going to happen in the other part of the courtyard, Sen turned his attention to the apparently injured man. Sen let his spiritual sense settle over the old servant. The man's life energy was intact, though weaker than Sen might have preferred. Still, he wasn't verging on death, which Sen took as a good sign. He knew that Auntie Caihong had ways of pinpointing exactly what ailed a person with a simple sweep of her qi, but she hadn't been able to teach it to Sen. What she did wasn't a technique or a cycling pattern. It was a skill that she'd developed and honed over thousands of years. It depended as much on her vast experience with injuries and illness as it did on any native talent. Experience that she couldn't simply pass on to Sen in a year or two. She at least explained what she did and how she did it. That, along with the body and qi charts that she'd made him memorize, gave Sen a starting point. If he could identify where there were disruptions, he could at least help deal with those.
He spent about ten minutes using his qi to study the older man's injuries. Sen had a few ideas, but he knew he was out of his depth. He had at least determined that they could move the older man. There were no serious neck or head injuries to worry about. Sen picked the man up and carried him over to Grandmother Lu.
"Where can I put him?"
"I'll show you," said Lin, surprising Sen.
The maid was staring at the old man with deep concern in her eyes. Even as she led Sen into the house, she kept looking back at Zhang Muchen's limp form. She eventually opened a door and gestured. Sen brought the old man into what he immediately realized must have been the man's own room. He settled the man on the bed and rejoined Lin in the hallway.
"Can you help him?" she asked.
Sen hesitated briefly before he nodded. "I think so. At least, I can help him some. Enough that he should be stable until a regular doctor or a spirit doctor can be called to see him."
"He's always kind to me," she volunteered. "He's like the mistress that way. I'm not a very good maid, but they're kind to me anyway. Please, help him."
Sen nodded again. "I'll do what I can for him."
He left the maid there to stand vigil over someone for no other reason than the injured man had been kind to her. Would that I could be more like that man, thought Sen. Yet, he knew what came next, and kindness would play very little role in it. Before that, though, he could bring his meager medical skills to the older man's aid. It might not be much, but it seemed that it was all the kindness that the world would let him exercise that night. He made his way to the kitchen, uncovered the banked coals in the stove, and get a small fire burning. He took out what he'd come to think of as his potion pot from his storage ring. There was nothing particularly unique about the pot. It wasn't made of any special materials or enchanted. It just seemed to work better for him than other pots. He thought that maybe it had something to do with the thicker material, but that was a question for some other night.
He set the pot on the stove with some water in it, then began pulling out some of the medicinal herbs and other alchemical materials he'd gathered over the previous year or so. The man had suffered some minor injuries, but nothing that could really account for his unconsciousness. Sen worried that the true culprit was simply age and that the demands of the fight had overtaxed his system. There was only so much that he could do about that ailment. When it came to mortals, age was the injury that no one could heal. Yet, Sen wasn't wholly without options. He chose ingredients that would help strengthen the man's body, support his organs, and quicken his mind.
He also added components that would help flush some toxins out of the man's system. He felt a brief surge of guilt over that, given his own miserable experiences with toxin purges, but this would be a comparatively gentle experience that happened over the course of a week. Sen might not have bothered with it, save for Auntie Caihong's insistence that those toxin buildups burned years off of a mortal's life. He stood there, monitoring the elixir, occasionally adding a new ingredient to balance out the qi profile or simply stirring it to keep the reactions even. When it had boiled down sufficiently, he used a strange sort of cloth that let liquid pass through to strain the unprocessed ingredients out. Auntie Caihong called it cheesecloth, for some reason, and she strongly suggested he buy it in bulk whenever he found some for sale. Given how useful he found the cloth, he expected to take that piece of advice.
"You did that like you've been doing it for a hundred years," said Grandmother Lu.
Sen jumped a little at the sound of her voice. He hadn't heard her enter the kitchen. He hadn't even had his spiritual sense extended to warn him of people approaching. It was a sloppy mistake. Sen was grateful that it had happened in Grandmother Lu's home, instead of somewhere where that kind of mistake would prove immediately fatal. He gave her a small smile and shrugged.
"I practiced a lot up on the mountain," he said, by way of explanation.
"It seemed like you practiced a great many things on that mountain."
"They were good teachers. I learned a lot," he said, checking the temperature of the elixir. "Do you have something to store this, something with a stopper?"
Grandmother Lu found a small jug that Sen deemed clean enough, and he poured the elixir into it. He left a little in the bowl, though. Stoppering the jug, he handed it to Grandmother Lu. She eyed the jug like she wasn't sure why she was holding it.
"Sen?" she asked.
"Oh, it's for Zhang Muchen. Two or three large spoonfuls in the morning and evening, until it's gone. It should help him recover. At the very least, it'll help him recover enough that a real doctor can take a look at him. I'll give this to him now, though," said Sen, waving at the bowl.
"You say that like it's a task on a list."
"It's not over. You know it's not."
Grandmother Lu closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I know. So, you mean to finish it?"
"I do. If the mayor had just let it go, I would have done the same. If he'd just sent people after me, I might have even let that go. But this," Sen gestured as though to encompass the entire house, "was too much. They knew where I was, and he sent people here anyway. He sent people here to kill you because he thought it would hurt me, or maybe just because he likes ordering people killed. I don't know. More importantly, I simply don't care why anymore."
"So, you'll go to the mayor's house and what? Kill them all?"
Sen's mouth dropped open, and he found that he didn't have a good answer to that question. He hadn't thought about it. He'd only been thinking about killing the mayor.
Grandmother Lu continued. "I understand your anger. I'd happily gut that man and watch him bleed out, but he won't be the only person there. There will be guards, maids, and servants. Will you kill all of them too?"
"No," said Sen through a shuddering breath. "Of course, I won't."
A touch of relief softened Grandmother Lu's face. "Good, because I couldn't have stopped you. Having seen you fight, I'm not sure anything short of a full core formation cultivator could stop you."
Sen blinked at those words. He thought she was probably overselling it a bit. It had been dark in the courtyard. There was a lot happening. He'd just done something flashy. It was easy to overestimate. Taking another deep breath, he looked at the older woman.
"What do you think I should do?"
She laughed. "I think you should take your vengeance, and maybe get a little for me too. Just don't leave a massacre in your wake while you do it. Be smart. If you can't be smart about it, then take a cue from that magnificent spirit beast of yours and be stealthy."
"Stealthy," repeated Sen, a big smile breaking over his face. "I can be stealthy."
Chapter 77: What Goes by Night (4)
The guards who were there that night would talk about it later. They only spoke of it to each other, in hushed tones, fearing that others would think them mad. Yet, they knew what had happened. For whatever reason, whether it was the heavens sending a rebuke, demons acting out their inscrutable plans, or simply the whims of angry spirits, the shadows came alive that night. All of their stories were different, yet they were also the same. There was no warning or telltale sign, just a moment when all went dark, and then consciousness fled. Some claimed that they had felt hot breath on their necks or remembered the smell of medicine, but even the others who were there paid scant heed to those words. It had been the shadows, and not of those men ever walked without fear in the night again.
Sen surveyed the pile of unconscious guards with a vague sense of satisfaction. He and Falling Leaf had slipped over the walls of the mayor's home wrapped in shadows of Sen's making. Sen had swiftly realized something in the ten minutes that followed. Falling Leaf was positively, terrifyingly invisible when hunting in the dark of night. Sen had known, in an abstract way, that she must be very stealthy in the dark. Yet, he had never really seen her hunt. He'd been too busy, and she'd never invited him to go along. When he had seen her fight, it had always been in the heat of the moment, at times when stealth was of limited value. In the end, though, Sen realized that he'd just never seen her make an effort to be invisible. Looking back, he supposed that he wouldn't have known if she did.
As the two of them made their way around the grounds, Sen would wrap the guards in shadow and contain their voices with air qi. Falling Leaf would drive them to the ground, and then Sen dosed them with a sedative he'd cooked up. He'd been a little hesitant to make it as potent as it was. Auntie Caihong had warned him that sometimes, for reasons even she didn't understand, people just wouldn't wake up after getting a strong sedative. He'd finally concluded that the possibility that one of them might not wake up was by far the better choice than an absolute certainty that he'd have to kill them. The sedative also had the side benefit of making memories a little foggy. It wasn't a true forgetting potion, but it would leave the guards feeling uncertain about the exact details.
Sen peered up at the sky and frowned. He'd spent more time than he should have on making the sedative. He estimated they had maybe an hour of true night left. Depending on the servants inside the house, some of them might already be up. After Grandmother Lu's questions about whether he planned to kill everyone at the mayor's manor, he'd been trying to figure out the best way to handle things inside. He supposed he could just go room by room and force the sedative down everyone's throats. It wasn't subtle, but it would spare them and, more importantly, him from any foolish, heroic actions.
Master Feng had told Sen that many, maybe even most, cultivators put a low value on mortal lives. While killing lower cultivation stage cultivators was frowned on, killing mortals was all too commonplace. Other cultivators just didn't care, and the mortal authorities that might object simply didn't, out of fear that they would follow their subjects into death. Sen personally found the whole idea a bit bizarre. If killing lower-stage cultivators was normally considered improper, it seemed to him that killing the weaker mortals should be less acceptable, taboo even. Master Feng had agreed with Sen's logic, then promptly told him that he should still expect other cultivators to treat mortals as disposable.
Sen supposed he had broken custom by killing those cultivators at the shop, but he doubted anyone was going to raise too much of a fuss about it. He hadn't gone looking for them, after all. They had come looking for him and even broken into someone's shop to get at him. That was a pretty solid indication of hostile intent in his book. At least, he kept telling himself that. Sen knew, even if he kept shoving that knowledge to the back of his mind, that he'd let the last one at the shop go to ease his own conscience. Knowing that there was a near-perfect certainty that they would have attacked him, even if he'd given them the gold, hadn't changed the pure fear in that woman. He hadn't spared her, not really. By letting her go, he'd spared himself from living into her perception of him as some kind of cultivation killing machine.
In hindsight, sparing her had probably been a mistake. The mayor had made his intention to see Sen dead perfectly clear. She had worked for him, a man who casually ordered innocent people killed for imagined slights against an honor that none of them seemed to possess. Sen feared that he and Shen Hua would cross paths again one day, and he'd be forced to finish what he'd started in Grandmother Lu's shop. The thought made him feel tired. Still, Sen had taken what seemed like the best course of action to him, given the circumstances.
These circumstances were different. He didn't need to kill all the mortal workers inside. He certainly didn't want to kill them. They weren't cultivators sent out on some kind of mission. They were just maids, cooks, and groundkeepers. Sen had seen them when he lived on the streets of Orchard's Reach. He'd watched them as they bought food or, on occasion, didn't buy food because they didn't have the money. In the face of all that was happening around them tonight, they were just…Sen struggled to put their role in the right context. He finally hit on it. They were just bystanders to the actions of those with more money, better position, or the raw power cultivation provided. Mere proximity was not a good reason for them to die.
When Falling Leaf batted at his leg, Sen realized he'd been frowning up at the sky for at least two or three minutes. He supposed that he'd been trying to buy himself a little time to decide how to handle things inside. He sighed. Force-feeding the sedative it was. With the decision made, the work went surprisingly fast. Between his superior strength and his ability to dampen sound with qi control, it wasn't difficult to get people to take the sedative. Most of the workers seemed almost resigned to it. A few of the younger men and women seemed more obviously afraid. He supposed that waking up alive and otherwise unharmed would be a nice surprise for them. He did find a few workers that were already up and around. Those people had taken a bit more effort because they'd been awake and alert. Even with that wasted time, it wasn't even true dawn by the time he reached the mayor's bedroom.
He gave serious thought to just killing the man immediately and then leaving. Of course, his wife was in bed with him. Sen didn't know anything about her. She might have known everything her husband was up to and approved of it, or she might not know anything. Plus, there was the lingering issue of their son, who was thrashing and choking with Sen's iron grip around his throat. Sen lingered outside the door, trying to decide what the best thing to do was. If he left the wife and son alive, it would be a problem for him later. That much was obvious. Even if the mayor's wife wasn't involved, he sincerely doubted she'd just brush off the death of her husband. The mayor's son, well, his idiocy had been demonstrated quite thoroughly. Leaving him alive just meant a future filled with direct or indirect attacks. The blistering hatred in the boy's eyes said as much.
Sen steeled himself for what had to be done. He drew back and foot and kicked. He meant to just kick open the door to the bedroom. Instead, his kick tore the door right out of the wall and sent it crashing into the room. Sen stared at the wreckage of the door for a second, then shrugged, and dragged the kicking and gurgling boy into the room with him. There was a flurry of motion and sound at the bed. The mayor's fat form fell out of the bed, even as the man's eyes flicked back and forth, searching for the source of the disturbance. The woman simply began screaming for the guards, the servants, basically for help of any kind. Sen just walked forward toward the mayor. The fat man struggled to his feet, before leveling a furious, imperious look at Sen.
"You!" he roared. "How dare you invade my home, you worthless piece of street trash!"
Sen frowned, perplexed by how the man seemed wholly unaware of how much danger he was actually in. Then, taking his cue from Master Feng, he backhanded the mayor. Sen did make sure that he struck the opposite side from the one Master Feng had hit. Balance was crucial, after all, in cultivation, and in life. The mayor landed on the bed, spitting out teeth and blood. Sen had restrained the blow enough that he didn't actually break the man's jaw. Probably. The sound of the mayor's wife still screaming grated on Sen's nerves. He fixed her with a glare, let the tiniest sliver of killing intent slip free, and said one word.
"Silence."
The woman started shaking and her mouth snapped shut so hard that Sen thought it must have hurt a little. Sen really didn't have a plan for this moment. He thought he knew what had to be done, but the how of it still eluded him. Instead, he said something that had been on his mind since that first fight in the market.
"You're so stupid," he said, fixing the mayor with a glare of his own. "You didn't want me here. You didn't want Grandmother Lu here. You could have gotten everything you wanted. Do you know that? Here's the worst part. All you had to do was nothing."
"What?" the mayor garbled.
"I never planned to stay. Once I left, Grandmother Lu would likely have moved somewhere else, somewhere she could manage her trade business more easily. You just needed to wait. You could have learned all of that by having someone ask one question. But you couldn't let it go," Sen said, in a moment of understanding. "You couldn't let the sting of your wounded pride rest."
"Honor," mumbled the mayor, irrational hatred written across his face.
"What honor?" asked Sen.
Then, knowing he'd said everything he meant to, Sen drew his jian. He drove it into the mayor's heart and, with a contemptuous little twist, he pulled it free. That seemed to send a jolt through the mayor's wife. She looked at Sen's face and read the truth in it. Sen was done talking.
"Wait!" she shrieked. "Please, you don't need to kill us. It was him. It was all him."
Then, a paw came out of the darkness and opened the woman's throat from ear to ear. I'd lost track of Falling Leaf in the brief moments of chaos when I'd first entered the room. It seemed that she had her own opinions about the mayor's wife. I saw her eyes peering out at me from the shadows.
"Lies," said Falling Leaf. "Could smell it."
Well, Sen thought, I guess that answered that question. The struggling and thrashing in Sen's left hand had intensified. He looked down to see the mayor's son all but foaming at the mouth in rage and grief. Sen allowed himself a single moment of pity for the boy, knowing that he'd have been just as enraged if Grandmother Lu had died. Then, the moment ended. Letting out a deep breath that contained all Sen's regret, he dragged the mayor's son up so that he was on his feet. The boy went wild, throwing formless, crazed blows that did little but move Sen's clothes around when they connected at all. Sen let the boy, and he was a boy in temperament if not body, burn off that rage. When something like sanity reentered the boy's expression, he snarled at Sen.
"I will kill you for this. If it takes me a thousand years, I will kill you!"
Sen didn't answer. He just reached out and, with a fast movement, snapped the boy's neck.
"Perhaps," said Sen to the boy's blank eyes. "Perhaps you will in the next life."
Chapter 78: Transition
The walk back to Grandmother Lu's house was done mostly in silence. Sen had expected that he'd feel different when everything was done, changed somehow by bringing the conflict to a close. Instead, he just felt a vague sense of emptiness and fatigue. It made a certain kind of sense to him, though. The situation had changed, but whatever changes he might have gone through weren't especially wrapped up in that situation. The conflict had driven some advancement, but almost entirely by clarifying things he didn't want to become. The violence required to end the conflict had almost felt like a step in the wrong direction to him, a move toward that agent of chaos he didn't want to become. Yet, it hadn't been a conflict of his own choosing. Seeing the pure, spiteful, irrational rage in the mayor's eyes had been proof enough of that for Sen. Yes, he'd done things he didn't want to do, but it hadn't truly been a step off the path he wanted to forge for himself.
Having Falling Leaf walking with him was also a comfort. He hadn't realized just how much he would miss the big cat's presence. It only became apparent to him now that it was gone. As much as he relished her company, though, he was more confident than ever that she had been right. The world of human beings wasn't a world for her. She could make occasional visits, but she'd attract too much attention if she were always with him. Her instincts would lead her into situations that neither of them could hope to extract her from. He could just see her attacking someone who just acted threatening toward him, regardless of how dangerous they actually were. Worse still, she might make the same choice with someone who neither of them could handle. Sen was not under any illusion that every conflict that found him could be resolved with a similar kind of brute force. It was only the relative weakness of the cultivators here that let him play this out the way he had. Against more powerful enemies, against a sect, his approach would have utterly failed.
Master Feng or Uncle Kho might be able to send sects running with only their names or a quick flash of overwhelming power. Neither of those choices were available to Sen. For that matter, if he somehow did develop the kind of reputation that made his name a byword for terror, it would mean that he had failed in countless other ways to become the man he wished to be. Yet, without recourse to those kinds of options, he couldn't see any way that he could ever safely take Falling Leaf away from the mountain or, barring that, away from the wilds where men so rarely tread of their own free will. As much as he missed her, only pure selfishness would ever let him justify taking her along with him. As with so much else, she had been wiser than he. As they neared Grandmother Lu's home, Sen paused and looked to the sky once more. The faintest edges of light were visible on the horizon, heralding a new day. Maybe, it would mean a fresh start for Orchard's Reach as well. Someone would have to take over for the mayor. Sen looked down at Falling Leaf, who regarded him with curious eyes.
"Thank you for watching over Grandmother Lu. For coming with me. Just, thank you."
The big cat bumped her head against Sen's leg in acknowledgment. He smiled and rested a hand on her head.
"I know you can't do it all the time. But, if you could look in her occasionally, while she's still here, I'd be grateful. Maybe let her catch a glimpse of you from time to time. She'd like that."
Falling Leaf let out an exasperated noise, but she nodded. Then, she looked off toward the mountain.
Sen nodded. "You need to go. I understand. Goodbye for now."
The ghost panther gave him another affectionate nudge, then vanished into the darkness. As he watched her go, it wasn't with the same awful feeling of loss. He knew that he'd miss her, but he also knew now that her remaining on the mountain was what was best for her. The journey he was about to take to the sea was for him. Whatever benefits there were to be had were his. The trip would only bring her danger. Sen looked around the town. As terrible as it all had been, as wasteful and pointless as the deaths were, he had needed it all on some level. He had needed it to see that he had outgrown the town in so many ways.
The townspeople had nothing to offer him, and he had scant little to offer them in return. They were, save perhaps for a few scattered qi condensation stage cultivators, mortals. As a foundation formation stage cultivator, he would quite literally outlive all of them. Assuming some other cultivator didn't eventually turn up and cut him down, decades and then centuries would pass beneath his eyes. If he never advanced his cultivation another step, he could well outlive the great-grandchildren of the people resting in their beds in the houses around him. The gap that extended life created was inevitable, inescapable, and all but insurmountable. Some would view him with awe, others with resentment, but they would always see the cultivator first. If they saw Sen at all, it would be a distant second.
No, his relationship with this place and the people in it had run its course. Moving forward, it would be little more than a convenient location to stop for a meal on his way to see Uncle Kho and Ma Caihong. For, unless he had truly missed his guess, Grandmother Lu wouldn't be here much longer either. He had been her reason to stay, and he was leaving. The simple knowledge that there was nothing in Orchard's Reach for him let him shed a burden he hadn't even noticed was weighing him down. He didn't bear the place any particular ill will, he just didn't care about it. He could be on his way and never think about it again. He was free. He was free of whatever grudges he'd held, and also free of any obligations. He could make his life in whatever way he saw fit and whatever place he saw fit.
He smiled a little as he imagined what that half-starved, half-feral child he had been would have made of him as he was now. That boy would have hidden, terrified of the unknown, and perhaps rightly so. The unknown had scooped him up and forged him into something else, after all. If that boy had truly understood the pain and sacrifices involved, Sen suspected that he might have gone along anyway. He would have been more cautious, but the lure of a different life, a life like one from the stories he'd heard while eavesdropping in dirty alleys, would have likely proven too much of a temptation. With one last look around, Sen finally let the ghost of that child rest. He wouldn't forget that child, nor should any sane person forget what made them, but he needn't be haunted by that child either. Satisfied that he'd understood what he needed to understand, Sen covered the last little distance and went inside Grandmother Lu's house. He found her waiting for him.
"It's done, then?" she asked.
He nodded. "It's done. I expect there will probably be some chaos because of it. Guards and servants telling wild tales. That sort of thing. I'll be long gone by the time anyone shows up to sort things out, though."
"Good. It's never wise to leave unfinished business behind you if you can avoid it. It has a way of tracking you down later and bringing friends. Are you still planning on going east? Tide's Rest, was it?"
"Yes. There's something there for me. Maybe something I need to do, or someone I need to meet. I don't really know. It's a little frustrating to be honest, knowing where to go but not why."
Grandmother Lu absently hummed while she gathered her thoughts. "I have a caravan headed that way in a few days. If you can wait that long, you could travel with them. Pose as a guard. It's a good cover."
"Or, I could just be a guard for it. That's an even better cover. I'm a wandering cultivator, Grandmother. As I understand it, we're always in need of work."
She narrowed her eyes at me. "I'm not paying you to be a distraction to every woman in that caravan."
Sen gave the older woman a wounded look and pulled out the satchel. "And to think, I was going to give you all this gold."
Grandmother Lu watched with wide eyes as Sen opened the satchel, grabbed a handful of the golden taels, and made them disappear into his storage ring. Then, he gave her a big smile and offered her the satchel.
"Now you don't have to pay me," he said, shaking the bag a little.
The old woman snorted and grabbed the satchel. "You're only giving me this so that you'll have more places to find help."
"That's not the only reason. It's also so I'll know that, even if the worst happens, you'll never wind up in a hovel again."
Grandmother Lu went very still for a few moments. "Don't you know that it's terrible manners to make an old woman cry?"
"As you say, Grandmother."
Chapter 79: East
Sen had been right. The death of the mayor and his family created havoc in the local government as people vied to seize at least temporary control. The city guards tried to launch an immediate investigation, only to discover that exactly no one was grieved by the loss of the mayor. Worse, their best suspect, Sen, was a wandering cultivator that they couldn't even make talk to them. For his part, Sen had waved off their attempted inquiries by channeling what he imagined a young master might be like.
"These sound like mortal concerns to me, not cultivator business," he told the guard captain with equal parts disinterest and disdain. "Do not trouble me with these matters again."
While the city guard went off to try to find some other suspect, Sen prepared for his journey east. That mostly involved spending time with Grandmother Lu as she made last-minute arrangements for the caravan. The man in charge of the caravan guards, a muscular body cultivator named Chen Shi who Grandmother Lu had recruited from somewhere else, was initially unimpressed by Sen. Much to Sen's amusement, Chen Shi demanded that they trade pointers so the older man could assess whatever meager skills the boy had. Sen had glanced at Grandmother Lu, mostly for permission, and she gave him a little nod. Chen Shi didn't notice, but Sen had to repress a smile when he saw the older woman's lips twitch. Five minutes later, after being repeatedly disarmed or metaphorically killed, the body cultivator grudgingly accepted that Sen might be an asset after all. Grandmother Lu did the man the small courtesy of going inside before she burst into laughter.
"Do you have some secret dislike of him, Grandmother?" Sen asked with a small smile.
Grandmother Lu shook her head and said, "No. He's a good guard. He just needs the occasional reminder that there are others with more strength and more skill than him. It keeps his prices reasonable."
"Oh no," Sen cried in mock horror, "I have been shamelessly used by a ruthless businesswoman in her negotiations!"
"Indeed," she said, offering Sen a sage nod. "Let that be a lesson to you, young cultivator. Always negotiate your fee up front."
Then, the two burst into more laughter.
***
Sen ultimately made good on his casual statement that he would stop by to meet Bai's mother. He'd spent a lot of time daydreaming about those pineapple buns and decided that he couldn't leave town without at least trying to wrangle the recipe from the woman. He took Grandmother Lu's advice and arrived with a modest bottle of rice wine as a gift. The girl's father had seemed mostly perplexed, having been unaware of Sen's existence up until he showed up at their home. Bai's mother, on the other hand, took one look at Sen and nodded to herself.
"Ah," she said, "now, I understand."
Bai herself was left speechless and blushed furiously every time Sen looked at her. Grandmother Lu had finally sat him down and explained what was going on. Sen hadn't spent much time thinking about his own appearance. Yet, he accepted the older woman's assessment that he was unusually handsome. She was in a better position to know than he was. He also provisionally accepted that his appearance was going to draw silly reactions from some young women. He was less certain about Grandmother Lu's declaration that the same thing would apply to some not-so-young women who, in her words, ought to know better.
Sen had fretted about that conversation for about five minutes before he ultimately concluded that none of it was really a him problem. There wasn't much he could do about his appearance. There was also very little he could about how others reacted to it. If other people reacted in ridiculous ways to his appearance, that would be a them problem. So, Sen carried on as he would have before that conversation, just armed with the necessary information to put things in context. He wasn't sure if Bai's mother fell into the ought to know better category, but the increasingly stern looks her husband directed at everyone as the evening wore on suggested that maybe she was. Still, his gambit to procure the recipe was a success in the end.
***
Sen and Grandmother Lu stood outside as the caravan made a few last-minute preparations. She looked him up and down with a piercing gaze, as though she suspected that he'd forgotten to pack something important. Based on how intense her look was, Sen couldn't help but wonder if she thought he'd left his lungs behind in some dusty corner somewhere. She seemed to find whatever she was looking for and gave him a quick nod.
"So, have you decided where you'll go?" Sen asked.
"No," admitted Grandmother Lu. "Probably south. I grew up there and it's been a long time since I've been back. I miss the heat. Winters here were always a bit too harsh for me."
"Just leave word for me when you settle somewhere. I'm sure I'll have stories and gifts I'll want to share with you."
Grandmother Lu waved off the sentiment. "Never mind about gifts. I don't need anything. Just bring yourself and your stories. We'll eat and laugh, and I'll even pretend that I don't know you're leaving out the dangerous parts."
"Would I do such a thing?"
She gave him a disapproving look. "Yes."
Noticing that the caravan people were eyeing him and Grandmother Lu, he offered her a deep bow. "Until we see each other again, Grandmother."
She returned the bow and then pulled him in for a brief, fierce hug. "You mind yourself out there."
With that, Sen was finally on his way to the ocean.
***
Sen learned that traveling with a caravan consisted of a lot of boredom, broken up only very occasionally by tension and violence. There were a few spirit beast attacks. Sen assisted as directed by Chen Shi for most of them. Protecting the caravan was the man's job. It wasn't for Sen to pretend he knew better. The only time Sen took direct control was when he sensed a spirit beast that felt like it was on a level with his own cultivation. The caravan guards were brave enough and skilled enough for lower-level spirit beasts, but not whatever was out there. Sen had told the guard captain to keep everyone close and not to follow him for any reason.
"If I don't come back from this, you run," Sen ordered.
Then, he shot off into the forest that loomed on either side of the road. He found what he was looking for less than two hundred yards from the road. The beast was crouched up in a tree and Sen couldn't help but stare at the unfamiliar creature for a moment. It looked a bit like a cat in body shape and had a long puffy tail, but its face was all wrong. It looked more like a bear with its snub snout. Whatever the beast was, it had very strong metal qi. He definitely couldn't let that thing get too close. He drew his spear from his storage ring and started cycling for lightning. It wasn't his strongest affinity, but it would work particularly well against the metal qi beast.
The bear-cat hybrid crouched low on the branch and radiated hostility for a brief moment before launching itself at him. Sen swept the spear upward and pushed enough qi into the spearhead that a slender finger of lightning bridged the gap between spear and beast. The attack didn't kill the bear-cat, but it did make the beast stiffen in pain. Even so, Sen felt it gathering qi for a counterattack. He leapt away, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid the strike entirely. Metal qi raked across his left side, shredding cloth and leaving half a dozen shallow cuts down his side and leg.
Sen had the irrational thought he was glad he wasn't wearing the robes that Auntie Caihong had given him before the pain of the injuries made him stumble. Still, he'd been too well-trained to leave himself entirely undefended. Moving as if under their own control, his hands sent the spear into a tight, brutal arc that connected with the bear-cat's head. Having never let the lightning pattern go, the hit did double damage. The spearhead itself deprived the beast of an eye, while the lightning lashed into the socket like it had found a new home.
The beast let out a terrible noise that lived in a place between yowling and roaring. Still reacting almost entirely on reflex, Sen reversed the strike and bludgeoned the other side of the spirit beast's head. It flopped almost bonelessly to the forest floor. His fury roused by injury and pain, Sen nearly abandoned his training. His first instinct was to rush the beast and finish the job. Yet, he was physically off-balance, out of center, so he took a step back, looking to firm himself in a mental circle. That was why the bear-cat's next attack only left bloody cuts across his stomach instead leaving his organs strewn across the ground. Sen pushed so much qi into the spearhead that it didn't even look like metal anymore. It looked like he had forged a spearhead of pure lightning. He shoved his killing intent into the spearhead next, focusing it, compressing it until he could fit it all.
As he brought the spear down, the very air shrieked in protest. The bear-cat's head spun away. Then, an explosion composed of dirt, stone, lighting, and raw killing intent slammed into Sen's body, launching him backward and opening new wounds on his legs, chest, and head. He struck the ground, bounced, struck again, rolled, and finally slid to a stop. There were no thoughts in the immediate aftermath, just the visceral knowledge that his everything hurt. For once, he'd lost all of his qi cycling techniques. With a groan, he cycled qi out through his channels, and let it seep into his body tissues. The fresh infusion of qi gave him strength, and he could even feel some of the wounds beginning to slowly, but surely, close.
Even so, he knew he'd have to mix himself some medicinal elixirs if he planned on keeping up with the caravan over the next few days. He did make himself go back to look at the spot where his, technique seemed like a strong word to him. He went to where his improvisation had exploded in his face. There was no sign of the bear-cat's body. It had either been hurled away as he had been or been destroyed outright. Sighing, Sen began limping back to the caravan.
***
By the time the caravan reached Tide's Rest, Sen had recovered. Everyone in the caravan had stared at him with shocked, horrified eyes as he dragged himself out of the forest. They'd stared at him in amazement as he concocted medicinal brews in nothing but a plain pot, medicinal brews that seemed to work miracles overnight. It wasn't really miraculous or overnight, but Sen didn't have the energy or inclination to try to convince them otherwise. He did have to firmly decline the offers of several women in the caravan to help him tend to his wounds. The very obvious disappointment on their faces told Sen that he'd been right to be wary. So, it was with some relief on his part that they entered the city through one of the main gates.
He and the guard captain had agreed that they might as well part ways once the caravan was in the city. It wasn't like Sen was waiting to get paid, and the odds of an attack the guards couldn't handle inside the city proper were small. It was a good thing too, because Sen felt another cultivator's spiritual sense land on him almost as soon as he walked through the gate. In no mood to deal with stupidity, Sen had quickly ducked down a side street and hidden. He almost laughed at the nearly frantic searching of that spiritual sense over the area he was swiftly departing. No, he wasn't in Tide's Reach to get involved with other cultivators. He had come here for one reason, and one reason alone. For a mortal, the walk across the city would probably have been exhausting. For Sen, it was just tedious. He found the easternmost gate and was confronted by a skeptical guard.
"Why do you want to go out there?" the guard asked.
"I want to see the ocean."
"You want to just go out there and look at it?"
"Yes."
Sen could see that the guard simply couldn't comprehend why any sane person would want to do that. It wasn't like Sen had a sane reason for it, either. All he had was a feeling, that persistent tugging that had grown stronger and stronger the closer he got to the ocean.
Sen tried again. "I've never been to the coast before. I wanted to see the ocean while I could."
The ever-increasing skepticism on the guard's face evaporated and was replaced with a grin. "Grew up inland, did you? Well then, you're right. You should see the ocean while you can."
The guard waved him through, and Sen stepped outside the walls of the city. The briny scent that had lingered in the air for the last day or so took on an almost physical presence. Sen took it in for a moment, then made his way down toward the rhythmic crashing of the waves on the shore. Even before he reached the beach, he could feel the tremendous power of the ocean. Yet, it was a slow power, only occasionally roused to fury. He had read about tides, but now he could sense them at work, like a hum that was just barely within the range of hearing. A steady pressure that pushed the water in or pulled it away. Yes, he thought, there is a lesson for me here. Sen could already feel the qi building around him, as if in anticipation of the insights he would glean. He took slow breaths, trying to match them to the crashing of the waves, trying to attune his spirit to the way this vast, beautiful, and, he felt quite certain, sometimes terrible force moved in the world. He could feel the tickle of insight on the very edge of his mind, drawing closer. He relaxed, willing to wait, and as that insight began to take form in his mind and heart…
"Cultivator!"
Ignore it, Sen thought as he desperately tried to maintain the delicate balance he needed for this insight.
"Cultivator!" the voice shouted again. "I am Zhu Fen, of the Stormy Ocean sect. You will face me."
The shouting, the other cultivator's spiritual sense washing over the area, and his own distraction shattered the moment. As Sen could very nearly watch that precious bit of enlightenment flee from his grasp, an almost physical anger took hold of him. He didn't want to face the stupid girl who had stolen this long-sought moment from him. Sen wanted to murder her. Of course, that would just give her what she wanted in the end. Instead, he turned his murderous glare on her and returned injury for injury, denial for denial.
"No."
This ends Volume 1 of Unintended Cultivator. Sen will return in Volume 2.
Epilogue
To the west of Tide's Reach, in what was normally a quiet little town that no one cared overly much about, a story was spreading. As so many such stories begin, this tale started with a wandering cultivator. In some tellings, this cultivator was a figure of legendary size, driving other men to their knees with the implacable strength of his arms. In other versions, the cultivator was a youth so handsome that he stole the heart of every woman he met. Yet, he was also of such profound virtue that he did not take advantage of even one. Still others claimed that his very eyes were touched by the gods, and the wicked would weep blood when they faced his baleful gaze.
For reasons no one understood, the mayor, a minor noble rumored to have committed many dark deeds, sent scores of men after the cultivator. The cultivator, kind and virtuous though he was, had honed his martial prowess on some distant field of war. He cut those villains down like a scythe in a field of ripe wheat. Some said that he carried a jian of a make so fine no other blade could hope to stand against it. Others claimed he bore a great spear forged of a thunderstorm's own might and fury. A bold few claimed that he carried both, wielding stormy death in one hand and cutting vengeance in the other as he struck down the wicked and defended the elderly.
The story grew and changed, as all such stories will, but a few facts held, complete and unvarnished, in every telling. Corruption had taken root in Orchard's Reach. Fell deeds were committed in the night, on orders from the wicked mayor. Finally, judgment had sent its emissary, robed in blue, to scour the town clean. And, when his work was done and the guilty punished, the cultivator vanished. Some believed he had been a true divine spirit, tasked with the singular goal of redeeming this one town. Others believed that he was sent elsewhere, like a swift and terrible wind, to bring the rebuke of the heavens down on those who strayed from the righteous path. A very few, possessed perhaps of less imagination than their neighbors, said that he simply moved on, as all wandering cultivators do.
So, the story spread from caravan driver to city guard, from city guard to winehouse attendant, from winehouse attendant to noble servant, and finally, into the ears of the very cream of society itself. Most scoffed at this tale of divine retribution, saying it was nothing but a wandering cultivator's vengeance. Yet, a few, the young, the imaginative, the hopeful, seized on this tale of a blue-clad servant of the heavens. And so, a new hero was born, softly, quietly, in the hearts and minds of the people. A cultivator with the mandate of the heavens, who would come when the corrupt had gone too far. A man with no known name or family, only a whispered title. Judgment's Gale.
Book 2: Chapter 1: Contempt
Zhu Fen was stunned by pure disbelief. She had done as her senior sister had recommended. She waited by the gates for a wandering cultivator of an appropriate cultivation level and, after weeks of wasted time, finally found one. Only to have the man somehow elude her spiritual sense and disappear into the city. It had only been pure luck that she was close enough to sense him again when he finally unveiled himself. When she found him standing on the beach wearing a serene expression that rivaled some monks she'd seen, Zhu Fen had issued a perfectly appropriate challenge to him. Then, he had, she still couldn't believe it, said no. He hadn't just said no but leveled that denial at her with absolute conviction. Her. Zhu Fen. Of the mighty and respected Stormy Ocean sect. Who did that wandering cultivator think he was to turn down her honorable challenge? He should be honored that someone of her sect would even deign to look at him. He should, in a panic, Zhu Fen realized that the man was walking away while she was busy thinking.
"Stop!" she commanded, only to watch him continue to retreat toward the city.
What should she do? No one ever turned down a challenge. It was unheard of, unthinkable, and it was happening to her right now. She couldn't go back to the sect like that. She'd never live down the shame of it. The only member of the Stormy Ocean sect ever to be denied a duel by a wandering cultivator. Oh no, she decided, he will fight. She would make him fight. Clenching her fists, she called out again.
"Stop, or I'll-," she never got another word out.
The wandering cultivator whirled on her. "You'll what? Tell lies about me? Leverage the power of your sect to make my life hard? Send others from your sect to hound me until I agree?"
The words themselves meant little to her. Of course, that was what she had meant to do. Except, she knew the appropriate words for it. They weren't lies, just inducements for wandering cultivators to accept their places as useful, but disposable tools for more honorable sect members. It wasn't leverage, just the fine art of persuasion. Her sect brothers and sisters wouldn't hound, simply encourage. Yet, it wasn't the words he said that pinned her in place. It was the look on his face. She had never, in her entire life, had anyone look at her with such contempt. That contempt for her, her sect, for everything she held dear, burned in him with such purity that it was a wonder to her that his glare didn't reduce her to cinders where she stood. Before she could muster her defense, he carried on, the contempt for her growing even more vivid.
"And then there's the matter of your friend who thinks I didn't notice her. I expect she's here to make sure that I die of my wounds in the event that your challenge fails. Right? After all, you must ensure that the pretend honor of the Rippling Mud Puddle sect cannot be sullied by a mere wandering cultivator."
The wandering cultivator pointed to the exact spot where Sun Xue was hiding. Fen watched as her very sheepish-looking friend stepped out from behind a small sand dune. Although, Fen thought, she should be sheepish getting caught out by a mere wandering cultivator like that. When they'd discussed this plan, it was perfectly reasonable. They had to protect the reputation of the sect. It was their duty. It was the honorable thing to do. Of course, she couldn't expect this farmer or merchant and whatever he really was to understand anything about real honor.
"All of this," he continued, "despite the fact that I went out of my way to avoid you. Traveled across an entire city and came to a place where I clearly meant to be alone. All so you could have a challenge that didn't mean anything."
"How dare you-," she began, only to be cut off again.
"Because, after all, the only thing that really matters is what you want. What you need. Right? Well, just so we're clear, let me tell you what you just cost me."
"Cost?" Zhu Fen repeated.
Where all of the man's other words failed to make so much as a mark on her cold, precise reasoning, that lone word sank home. Cost. A horrible, sick feeling bloomed in Zhu Fen's stomach. She thought back to the way that he had been standing there, his face so calm, so at peace, and she knew. It had been obvious if she'd been paying attention. She'd seen it often enough in the sect and even experienced it herself on two memorable occasions. In hindsight, she recognized that sense of calm in moments before…
"I was seconds away from a moment of enlightenment," he said in a voice devoid of any emotion.
Sun Xue had the good grace to gasp. In the sect, to interrupt such a moment was a taboo of the highest order. One could be banished from the sect for it. One could be executed for it. While Fen didn't think they would actually execute her for interrupting the enlightenment of a wandering cultivator, there would be punishments if they learned the truth. Dire punishments. Zhu Fen tried to rally. Tried to defend herself.
"I didn't know," she said.
Then it was back, that contempt for her, even more potent than before. Except, this time, the wandering cultivator had honed its edge razor fine.
"No. You simply didn't care."
Zhu Fen searched for the words, but none came. She looked at Sun Xue, but the other girl was staring resolutely at the ground, her cheeks bright red with shame. When Zhu Fen looked back at the wandering cultivator, she couldn't meet his gaze for more than a moment. He was right. She hadn't cared what business he'd been about. She hadn't cared that he took a great deal of trouble to avoid her. She had only cared about herself. The man only spoke one more time.
"So, understand me when I say this. If either of you draws a weapon, I will end you both."
Zhu Fen had been on the receiving end of killing intent before. At least, she thought she had. The sect had all their disciples train against it with those of a higher cultivation stage, just to prepare them for the possibility. The sheer weight of the killing intent that landed on her in that moment wasn't simply vast, it was beyond overwhelming. By itself, that would have been enough. Of course, that wasn't how it worked. The dread was already coursing through her when the sense of his killing intent blazed through her mind. And it was terrifying. It was a world of shadow, flame, towering edifices of stone, and blades so sharp that they could cleave mind from body or soul from fate.
Zhu Fen wasn't sure how long that sense of destruction cascaded through her mind before she finally found her sense of self again. When she did, the wandering cultivator was gone. Zhu Fen thought that she had never been so relieved to see someone leave. It was only then that she realized that she was crouched on the ground and her blood had darkened a patch of sand beneath her. She reached up to wipe the blood away from her nose. Looking around, she saw Sun Xue sprawled on the ground. Zhu Fen scrambled over to the other girl. Even as she did, a part of her mind told her that she should be very grateful that the wandering cultivator had chosen not to take her up on her offer to duel. By refusing her challenge, he had spared her from his wrath. She did not think she would have, even could have, done the same in his position. When she got to Sun Xue, the other girl was barely coherent. She looked up at Zhu Fen, confusion on her face, and asked a question that seemed all too obvious in retrospect.
"Was that a hidden master?"
"I don't know, Xue," Zhu Fen admitted. "I honestly don't know what he was."
Book 2: Chapter 2: Frustration and Uncertainty
A seething mass of frustration shuddered and thrashed inside Sen's chest. He had been so close. All he had needed was a few more seconds and then it would have been obvious to any cultivator what was happening. As far as Sen was concerned, that gathering mass of qi should have been enough to alert that stupid girl that she shouldn't interfere.
"Damn her!" he raged.
A pressing desire to go find that girl and trade pointers until she was bloody and unconscious took hold of Sen for a moment. He indulged the fantasy, ever so briefly, then ruthlessly suppressed it. If something like that was going to happen, he would have done it in the moment. Yet, while he could suppress the impulsive desire to act, he couldn't suppress the anger, not entirely. It just sat there inside of him with nowhere to go, and no convenient targets on which to vent it. If he'd still been on the mountain or even out on the road, he could have gone out and simply found some big rock to destroy. This close to the city, he didn't expect that the guards would look fondly on him destroying things. Besides, something like that might draw more attention he didn't want.
As he considered it, if he'd gone out into the wilds, it was possible that some spirit beast in an equally foul mood might have tracked him down. He found that idea less palatable. He'd let the sect girl, both of those sect girls go, precisely because he didn't want to kill without a clear and pressing need. Monumental frustration, while certainly compelling in its own way, wasn't actually a reason to kill a person or a spirit beast. So, he simply had to bear it until the anger and frustration died away or a situation where he truly had no choice but to fight presented itself.
Part of Sen knew that the frustration wasn't just from the initial interruption. After he'd rendered them both all but unconscious, he'd hidden himself a short distance away and waited for them to leave. When he was sure that they were gone for good, he approached the ocean again. He had hoped that he might be able to glean that insight even with the disruption. Yet, whatever combination of factors that made it possible the first time was gone. He feared that the problem was inside of him. He'd been in a very specific frame of mind when first arrived on that beach. He had been calm, ready to greet whatever information or experience the world had sent him there to learn. After the confrontations with the cursed sect girl, he was leery and hyper-aware. It was not the right mental space for a moment of enlightenment.
As much as he was willing to shoulder that blame, though, he thought that something had changed in the environment as well. There had been an intangible something in the air, a feeling, a sense of expectation, and that was gone as well. Sen had one through the oddity of enlightenment often enough that he'd developed at least a few nascent ideas about the process. He'd also spent enough time with Auntie Caihong that he often fell back on plants as a lens through which to understand things. Plants didn't spring from just anywhere. They needed just the right conditions. They needed the right kind of soil, the right amount of light, and water in just the right quantities and at just the right times. Oh, there was some give and take, plants could often survive a particularly dry or wet season, but they didn't thrive.
Sen thought that moments of enlightenment were a bit like that. You could get close, maybe even achieve a semblance of true insight, even if the conditions were only fair. For the true experience, the qi-summoning, worldview-changing experience, though, it had to be perfect. He had had that perfect moment within reach and lost it. Perhaps, if he was very lucky, a similar moment might present itself to him in the future. In the meantime, though, Sen felt a little lost. Everything he'd done recently had been toward getting to that moment of understanding. He'd been relying on it to guide his next steps, to point toward the path that would let him grow in the ways he needed to grow. He hadn't made a backup plan. It just hadn't occurred to him that he might reach the ocean and fail.
Sen stood on that beach for a long time, listening to the waves and watching the occasional boat pass by. Are they boats or ships, he wondered. Uncle Kho had said that those were different things. When Sen asked how they were different, Uncle Kho said it mostly seemed to be a matter of size. Bigger boats were usually called ships. The vessels out on the water were far enough away that Sen couldn't discern their size. His experience with things that floated on the water was limited to having occasionally seen the rowboats that some of the townspeople had used near the river. He'd heard kids talking about something called rafts, but he hadn't ever seen one. At least, he didn't think he had seen one. There were still strange gaps in his knowledge of the world. He would sometimes discover that he had seen things before and called them by the wrong name or just hadn't ever learned a word for them.
As he gazed out over the water, he wondered about the people on those boats. Were they fishing? Were they traveling? Sen considered the idea of finding a boat to take him somewhere else. The continent was vast after all. He could simply leave this place and find somewhere wholly new to explore. The idea had a certain appeal to it. There was a kind of adventure baked into doing something like that. Yet, Sen struggled to see himself going on such an adventure. What resources he had, what support he could potentially muster in an emergency, were all located nearby. While he might one day travel to the distant reaches of the continent and visit that pastry shop that Master Feng had bought on a whim, Sen knew he wasn't ready for that. He didn't know enough about how the world worked or what waited for him in distant places.
In the area, at least, he had a working knowledge of the threats out in nature. He might not enjoy it, but he could reasonably survive in the wilds for a long time. What he did know about those kinds of threats elsewhere was theoretical and based on conversations with people who could, quite frankly, shrug off things that would crush Sen with ease. No, without a good working knowledge of those threats as they applied to himself, or a guide he could trust, Sen couldn't know if he was advanced enough in his cultivation to even survive the experience of traveling elsewhere. Given that Sen's supply of trust was running especially low, that left him operating in the general area for the time being.
"Where should I go? What should I do?" he asked the expanse of water before him.
The enormity of it all finally settled on Sen. He was out in the world. He was alone. More importantly, this is what his life would be for centuries to come. While cultivation mattered to him, he'd recognized that it wasn't truly an end in itself. It was a process, a journey, to get someone to somewhere else. More importantly, it was a very long process. Sen needed to find something else, some other goal, or purpose, or even just a list of random tasks to give his day-to-day life some kind of focus. Just as importantly, he needed to decide where he would do those tasks or pursue that purpose. He looked over his shoulder at the walls of Tide's Rest and actually felt the snarl that twisted his lips. It might not be the fault of the city itself, but Sen's experience with the local sect had soured him on the place. It seemed almost inevitable that he would bump into other sect members, and he, unfairly or not, didn't trust any of them to behave like people he wanted to know. Having decided that staying in Tide's Reach wasn't an option helped give Sen a feeling of momentum.
"If not here, then where?" he mused.
Pulling out the map that he had so carefully marked and the notebook with all those names in it, Sen focused on finding the next place he would go.