Unintended Cultivator

Sen wasn’t particularly looking forward to meeting with the elder, at least in part because he’d meant to take a closer look at the sect treasures. If nothing else, he would have liked to discover what they did. He’d meant to spend some time studying the treasures, but there had constantly been something else more pressing. Now, he was out of time. Then again, knowing what they did might have made him less inclined to give them up, which could create problems later. While the sect might not act immediately or directly against him to retrieve those treasures, he suspected that they would do something to get them back. No, it was better to simply bargain in good faith for something he wanted. It wouldn’t necessarily win him any points with the rank and file of the Soaring Skies sect, but it could ease relations between himself and the sect leadership.

One of the things that had surprised Sen about the Silver Crane was that it had rooms that served as makeshift offices. When he’d asked why, Lifen had arched an eyebrow and informed him that even brothels had everyday business to conduct. He’d felt a little embarrassed after that. It stood to reason that the place needed to purchase food, and substantially more than a servant could simply carry back on a daily basis, as well as other necessities like wood to burn during the cold weather. Having a basic office or two for those kinds of meetings was practical and, once he’d given it two seconds of real thought, obvious. So, he wasn’t particularly surprised when Lifen’s mother pointed him toward one of those offices.

What did surprise him when he entered the office was the presence of Wu Meng Yao with Elder Deng. He did his best to mask his surprise by offering them both a martial bow. Wu Meng Yao offered him a bow that he thought was probably deeper than necessary, but he couldn’t decide what her expression meant either. Elder Deng wore a businesslike expression and simply inclined his head to Sen. That annoyed Sen a little, but he saw that as the petty feeling that it was. Whatever Sen might think of the Soaring Skies sect, Elder Deng was his superior in cultivation by a huge margin. A nod to someone at Sen’s level of cultivation advancement was the man being polite.

“Elder Deng,” said Sen, “I hope this day finds you in good health.”

A look of frustration warped the man’s features, but he seemed to realize that Sen was making an honest effort to be polite. “As well as can be expected. And yourself? Are you healing well?”

“I am. A bit of judicious alchemy has sped my way. And you, Wu Meng Yao, are you well?”

She seemed startled to be addressed but hurriedly nodded. “I am well. I thank you for asking.”

Sen frowned at her formality, but let it go. He turned his attention back to Elden Deng. “You’re here about the sect treasures.”

“I am. You still have them?” asked Elder Deng, more than a trace of concern in his voice.

The Elder hesitated for a moment, almost looking like he was arguing with himself, before he said, “May I see them?”

Ah, thought Sen, he was deciding how rude to be. Lo Meifeng had warned him that the Elder might try something like this. Try to assert a position of dominance by bringing Sen’s honor into question. Sen weighed what his response should be. It had been more than a passive insult but came just short of a slight to his honor that would call for violence. He could justify some outrage since the elder had at least implied he might be lying. He could probably even call the meeting to a close and announce that he would not return the treasures. Instead, Sen said nothing. He continued saying nothing for long enough that elder would know that he was deciding what he wanted to do. After that, he offered Wu Meng Yao a brief bow.

“It was a pleasure to see you again, Wu Meng Yao,” said Sen and turned toward the door.

“What?” demanded Elder Deng, trying to sound incensed and not quite pulling it off.

Sen gave the man a cool look. “I’m sure that the Wandering Winds sect or the Celestial Arch sect will be happy to take them off my hands. You can no doubt negotiate their return from them for only mildly extortionate prices.”

Elder Deng waved it away. “I suppose I should have expected thatwoman to prepare you. Very well, I accept that you still have the treasures and apologize for my insult to your honor.”

Sen briefly considered leaving the room anyway and making the man come back some other day. It would be a way he could assert dominance and might even be expected. Except, Sen didn’t want the man coming back some other day. He wanted to be done with the Soaring Skies sect. Really, he just wanted to be done with Emperor’s Bay. It seemed that every additional hour he spent in the city compounded his troubles and obligations. So, he nodded his acceptance of the apology.

“Shall we proceed?” asked Sen.

“Yes,” answered the elder.

The elder summoned a jian from a storage ring and presented it to Sen. It took a massive effort of will on Sen’s part to keep his expression neutral. The sword wasn’t a spirit-level jian. The raw power the weapon passively generated told Sen that it was a step higher and in the ascendant weapon realm. Sen reached out and took the ascendant-level blade from the elder. He drew the weapon from the scabbard. Its balance was a little different than the blade he used, the weight a little more, but it nestled in his hand like it belonged there. He stepped back from the other two cultivators and took the blade through the first few moves of one of his basic jian forms. The weapon all but sang as it cut through the air. Sen sheathed the blade, a little reluctantly, and handed it back to the elder.

“A fine weapon,” said Sen.

Elder Deng gave Sen a half-smile, as though the older cultivator could read Sen’s true thoughts. The elder passed the blade to Wu Meng Yao. The young woman looked a little glassy-eyed, as though she’d briefly glimpsed something transcendent and was trying desperately to commit it to memory. That struck Sen as a bit odd, but maybe she was just overwhelmed by being in the presence of a sect elder. Shen Mingxia had certainly seemed stunned by interacting directly with the man.

“I am told that your skill with the spear matches your skill with the jian,” said the elder.

“I was fortunate enough to have some minor training in the spear by a true master.”

“Indeed,” said Elder Deng with obvious interest. “May I ask who?”

“Kho Jaw-Long.”

Elder Deng kept his composure better than Elder He Mingze had, but he was a little paler and much less sure of himself after that revelation. It seemed that the reach of Uncle Kho’s reputation was long indeed. If the elder had anything he meant to say after that, he either forgot it entirely or decided to keep his words to himself. He simply summoned a spear from his storage ring and held it out to Sen. Much like the jian, it was an ascendant-level weapon. There wasn’t enough room in the small office to really do anything other than hold the spear, but holding it was enough. The spear was a work of art as much as it was a weapon. The haft of the spear was decorated with complex silver filigree that, after a few moments of study, Sen realized was a series of characters intended to make qi transfer easier. The spearhead was longer and broader than the ones Sen had trained with, more like a short sword blade, but even that was inlaid with white jade.

Sen had no idea if these weapons were as valuable as the sect treasures if they were put up for auction, but they were just as valuable to Sen. Ascendant-level weapons were designed for core cultivators and Sen suspected that these were weapons of the highest possible quality. While the jian and spear might not carry him all the way to the nascent soul stage, they would certainly carry him for the foreseeable future. Part of him wanted to summon the sect treasures immediately before the elder changed his mind and took the weapons away. Yet, Lo Meifeng had warned him about being too eager. He gave the spear an appreciative look that it well deserved before he held the weapon out to the elder. Elder Deng seemed slightly startled that Sen had returned the spear. A long moment of silence dragged out before the elder sighed and summoned a final item from his storage ring.

Sen was a bit amused to see that it was a pouch. The elder handed it to Sen, who looked inside with curiosity. There was a substantial collection of gold and silver tael in the pouch, a fortune really. It would have been an incomprehensible sum to the Sen who once lived on the streets of Orchard’s Reach. He considered the pouch and its contents before he shook his head. He handed the pouch back. The elder seemed like he would explode in genuine anger until Sen held up a hand. He’d only wanted to get a sense of how much they valued the treasures, and now he knew.

“Peace, elder. I will return the treasures to your sect, in exchange for the jian and the spear. But I do not wish gold or silver from you. I have a different need.”

The elder immediately calmed when he realized that the negotiations hadn’t failed, merely moved into the phase of things where details were decided. It took some time to pin down the details, with promises extracted and given. Yet, in the end, the elder received his sect treasures, and Sen claimed his new spear and jian. As the elder went to leave, he seemed to remember that there was a third person in the room. He gestured to Wu Meng Yao.

“Disciple Wu has business with you as well. Disciple, return the sect when your business here is complete.”

“Yes, elder,” said Wu Meng Yao.

The elder left at such speed that Sen wondered if the man was worried that Sen himself might change his mind. Well, thought Sen, I don’t suppose that I really drove a hard bargain. He turned his attention back to the young woman he’d met on the road what seemed like a lifetime ago. He offered her a small smile, but that seemed to unsettle her. Sen couldn’t help but wonder what had happened since he last saw her to make her that nervous around him. Then again, maybe he didn’t need to wonder that hard.

“I see you made it back safely. Did the others make it back as well?” he asked, trying to break the ice a little.

Wu Meng Yao shuffled a little under Sen’s gaze as if the questions made her uncomfortable. “I came ahead to, that is, I came to report. The others returned yesterday.”

“You came to report about me,” said Sen.

The young woman flinched at those words.

“I didn’t know,” she whispered, sounding desperate for him to understand. “I didn’t know who you were. Who you really were. None of us did.”

Sen sighed internally as he finally understood what was going on. She was worried that she’d offended him, no, that she’d offended Judgment’s Gale. He wanted to think that it was some kind of baseless concern on her part, but she’d probably gotten back just in time for all of the killing. If he’d killed all of those other cultivators just for attacking some mortals, what would he do to someone who talked about him to the sect that launched that attack? Sure, he’d been polite enough to an elder, but that was an elder. Wu Meng Yao was just some lowly foundation formation cultivator, barely a member of the inner sect. From her point of view, it probably seemed entirely possible that he could kill her without any repercussions. Sen knew that wasn’t true, but fear and knowledge often worked at cross purposes.

“Do I seem so different to you? I mean, now that you know who I really am,” he said with as much disdain as he could summon.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Not really, but I wouldn’t have thought that the person I met on the road could have done what you did in that abandoned city. I wouldn’t have imagined that you could stand off four foundation formation cultivators, let alone kill a core formation cultivator. Then, there are the stories.”

“They’re just stories, Meng Yao,” said Sen. “Most of them aren’t even true.”

Wu Meng Yao stared at him for a long time. “What you can do. What you’ve done. You frighten me.”

The words hit harder than Sen ever would have credited until he heard them. They hurt. He hadn’t exactly thought of Wu Meng Yao as a friend, but he did respect her, like her even. Seeing that fear in her eyes, that fear of him, it felt like getting stabbed. Sen looked away and took a moment before he buried that hurt, before he buried Lu Sen, and consciously took on the mask of Judgment’s Gale for the first time. When he looked back at Wu Meng Yao, it was clear that she could see the change in him because she took a step back.

“Very well. You say we have business. Let’s settle it.”

Sen’s voice sounded alien to him. Cold. Distant. Wu Meng Yao produced a pouch from inside her robes and held it out to Sen. He took the pouch but lifted an eyebrow at her.

“It’s the reward for killing Cheng Bojing,” she said.

“I see,” said Sen.

Wu Meng Yao seemed to be waiting for Sen to speak. When he said nothing, she offered him a bow and walked toward the door.

“Wait,” Sen finally said.

He opened the pouch and removed a single silver tael. Then, he closed the pouch the tossed it back to the young woman. She frowned at the pouch, and then at him.

“I don’t understand.”

“I did nothing but strike the final blow. It was you and your sect mates who chased the man, hounded him, put in all of the effort. Effort should be rewarded.”

She looked like she wanted to say a lot of things, but the cold expression on Sen’s face seemed to stop her. She seemed to recognize that she had broken something between them, maybe irreparably. In the end, she simply bowed to him again.

“Thank you, Judgment’s Gale.”

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