Unintended Cultivator

Sen did know the next day. While Luo Ping’s leg hadn’t healed completely, nor had Sen expected it to, it was substantially better. Most of the inflammation was gone and Luo Ping herself reported that it felt markedly better. Whatever hesitation the woman had felt about him had also disappeared. Now, he caught her staring at him with an expression that he found uncomfortably close to reverence. So, rather than deal with that discomfort, he excused himself and went outside. There was another uncomfortable subject that he needed to address, and he’d struck on a thought that might make it easier for everyone involved.

He found Luo Min gathering up the sparse number of eggs that the chickens had laid overnight. He waited for her to notice him. When she did, she straightened up too fast and lost her grip on the basket holding the precious handful of eggs that she had found. Sen covered the distance fast enough to snatch up the basket before it struck the ground. He just handed it back to her without comment, while feigning interest in something off in the distance. When he finally turned back to her, there was still a faint tinge of pink in her cheeks. Otherwise, she seemed to have collected herself.

“Cultivator Lu,” she said, offering him a bow. “Can I help you with something?”

He offered her a smile. The mistake only became apparent when red rushed back into her cheeks. Sen didn’t sigh or let his smile slip, which he thought were true victories for his self-control. He nodded at her.

“There is. I need some things from the village, but I’m not comfortable leaving your mother unattended just yet. I need to be here in case she takes a turn. Would you be willing to go to the village and get them for me?”

The young woman only hesitated for a second or two before she nodded. “Of course, Cultivator Lu.”

“My thanks to you, Luo Min,” said Sen.

He handed her a list, which she examined with a frown. “This is mostly food.”

Sen nodded agreeably. “I’ve been eating travel rations. They’re adequate, but now I can set aside time to cook.”

Sen maintained a perfectly innocent expression. “Is it? Well, I am a cultivator. Our appetites can be formidable.”

“Can they?”

There wasn’t a specific change in Luo Min that he could identify, but Sen somehow knew that the conversation had abruptly become about something else. Sen shrugged, but that was somehow the wrong thing to do. Luo Min’s expression became, he wasn’t quite sure what the expression was. Speculative, maybe? Sen was very certain he wanted to bring that conversation to a close as fast as possible. He held out some coins for her. It might be too much for what he asked her to buy. He really didn’t know. Sen made a mental note to spend some time getting familiar with the prices of things. Luo Min eyed the coins for a moment, clearly amused by something, but she took them. She handed him the basket of eggs. He took it but raised an eyebrow at her.

“If I’m going to town for supplies, I’ll need to take the cart. Those need to go inside.”

“Ah,” said Sen. “Of course.”

Taking the opportunity to nobly run away from the awkward turn the conversation had taken, Sen went back inside. While the conversation threatened to linger in his mind, he soon found himself caught up in the task of looking at Luo Ping’s condition with his qi and formulating an elixir for the day. He found himself thinking that it would be so much easier if the woman could cultivate. If she could cycle qi, he could make elixirs that she could activate inside of her. It would speed the healing along. But that was a useless thought. He might as well wish that fish had wings. He had to work with what was before him, not what he wished was before him. It was part of the reason he’d sent Luo Min after food. He noticed that the stores of food in the house were meager, at best. Even their rice supply was running low.

Of course, a steady supply of rice wasn’t enough to keep someone healthy. It could keep someone alive, but it couldn’t keep them healthy by itself. A healing body was even more demanding, requiring more of everything to repair and rebuild what had been broken. In short, Luo Ping needed vegetables, fruits, and some kind of meat. What a coincidence that all of those there were on my list, thought Sen. Luo Min clearly suspected his intentions, but Sen didn’t mind all that much. As long as she played along, he would give them enough room to avoid embarrassment.

As he let a little corner of his mind wander over the question of food, the rest of his attention went to finishing that day’s elixir. It relied heavily on wood-attributed qi, primarily to stimulate the necessary growth that body repairs required when dealing with damaged tissues. He also needed to work in a bit of metal qi to help reinforce the older woman’s bones. They weren’t in terrible shape, but he’d noticed several weak spots. Yet, Sen was spotting more and more things the more often he examined the woman. He didn’t think he was getting better at reading people’s health with qi, not in a general sense. He’d just looked at Luo Ping so often that his understanding was growing through sheer repetition. He slipped a few minerals in that would temporarily bind the metal qi and make it easier for her bones to absorb. Then, came the boring part. Sen just stood by the stove and stirred the mixture as needed.

The good news, to Sen’s mind, was that his presence wouldn’t be required for much longer. While her recovery wasn’t as fast as Sen would like, she was still mending quickly. He thought it would be a few more days until the woman could move around as she wished, as long as she was careful. Give it another week, and Sen could simply prepare a few mixtures to leave with them. Beyond that, nature would have to take its course. He could shepherd the woman along and give her some advantages, but his active participation in her healing process would soon be unnecessary and even unhelpful.

“There is something every doctor, apothecary, and healer must come learn,” Auntie Caihong had said.

“What’s that?” Sen remembered asking.

“When to stop. Look hard enough, and you’ll always discover something else to treat or try to fix. Sometimes, someone is so far gone that they simply cannot be helped by anything short of the intervention of the heavens. It’s a line that everyone draws in a different place, but it’s a crucial line. You need to figure out the point at which your help is no longer helping.”

It was one of many conversations on the mountain that Sen hadn’t really grasped at the time. A fact that Auntie Caihong no doubt knew full well. Yet, he hadn’t forgotten it either. Now, with Luo Ping, he finally understood at least some of what Auntie Caihong had been getting at. If he let himself, he could spend the next six months on this farm doing nothing but putting together treatments for the woman. Yet, those treatments wouldn’t substantially improve her life. She might experience fewer aches or see a slight improvement in her energy levels, but even cultivator alchemy couldn’t truly turn back the ravages of time for mortals.

Sen knew he hadn’t decided where the line was for him, or even if he believed he really needed one. He didn’t have plans to set himself up as a healer. He did, however, have a better idea of where he would eventually draw that line. Sen noticed that he’d filtered the elixir and put it into a small bottle without even realizing he was doing it. Frowning a little, Sen decided that he’d been doing far too much alchemy lately. Walking over to where Luo Ping sat in a chair near a window, he tried to ignore the intense look she gave him. She took the bottle when he handed it to her but didn’t drink it immediately.

“My Min thinks I’m blind to the truth, but I’m not. You’re a cultivator.”

Sen considered lying, but there was no point to it. He inclined his head to her.

“How did you know?”

“I wasn’t born here. I grew up in, well, that’s a different story. The point is, I’ve known a few alchemists. I never met one who would miss an opportunity to make a pill, but you haven’t made a single one. I also never met one who could do half the things you do with elixirs. The only way you could do what you’re doing and look as young as you do is if you’re a cultivator. You’re probably older than me, aren’t you?”

The question made perfect sense, from one angle, but it wasn’t an angle that Sen normally thought from. So, the question caught Sen off guard. He laughed as he shook his head. “No, Luo Ping, I am not older than you. I’m not even older than your daughter. I’ve told you no lies, except the one by omission.”

The older woman lifted an eyebrow at that. “You said you were a humble student of alchemy. Not a master alchemist.”

“I am but a humble student of alchemy. My knowledge is a shallow thing compared to the one who taught me. She is a true master alchemist.”

“I suppose you’re too young to understand what a frightening thing it is that you just said.”

Sen just blinked at her a few times. What was frightening about saying his teacher was a far more skilled alchemist?

Luo Ping nodded to herself. “I have to ask. Why have you done all of this? Do you mean to take Min as payment?”

“Take Min as payment,” repeated Sen.

He couldn’t make sense of the statement. The very idea of taking a person as payment was just absurd to him. Even if something like that were common practice somewhere, Sen would have no part in it. Sen felt himself getting angry. He glared at the older woman who shrank back from him.

Doing his best not to clench his teeth, he said, “No, I don’t intend to take your child as payment.”

While the woman was clearly frightened by Sen’s anger, she persisted.

“Then, why do all of this? Why go through all of this trouble for strangers?”

Sen almost let his anger answer again, but the woman wasn’t being unreasonable. When he looked at it from her point of view, he must have seemed like some kind of madman. A largely benevolent madman, perhaps, but a madman all the same. Who would go through all of that trouble for strangers? There had to be a reason. Like it or not, he was also a guest in her home. That it was a humble home didn’t change anything. She was the mistress here. If she wanted to understand his motives, he owed her some kind of explanation.

“I was led here, by power, by karma, by the heavens, I don’t truly know. I was brought here to learn something.”

“Learn what?”

He offered her a bemused smile. “I don’t know. When I do, I expect that’s the day I’ll leave.”

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