Unintended Cultivator

That first night back, there had been a lot of questions about what he and Falling Leaf had done and seen. Sen offered them a very abbreviated story where he left out the sensitive parts, such as their encounter with the spirit oxen. As far as Sen was concerned, that wasn’t information anyone else needed. For her part, Falling Leaf said almost nothing, except to offer the occasional detail that Sen had neglected to mention or simply hadn’t seen during some fight. Of course, the question they all really wanted an answer to was whether or not he’d succeeded in purging his anger.

“Yes,” said Sen.

“That’s it?” asked Chan Yu Ming. “Just, yes, with no explanation about how.”

Sen mulled it over for a moment before he relented a tiny bit. “I fought a dragon.”

“You won?” asked an incredulous Shi Ping.

Sen looked over at the man and gave him a bemused smile. “No.”

Chan Yu Ming was leaning forward, her eyes wide, clearly expecting a detailed description of the fight and the aftermath. When Sen didn’t elaborate on any of it, frustration and disappointment had a short, brutal battle on her face before exasperation made a surprise entry to the field and stole victory. She glared at him. He met her glare with calm eyes. He had missed that calm so much.

“You know, it’s traditional to share the details of these experiences,” complained Chan Yu Ming.

“Yes,” said Sen, his calm expression never twitching, “with trusted friends.”

Sen noted that Shi Ping absorbed that quiet admonishment without any real feelings about the matter. Wang Yu Ming and Lo Meifeng both flinched. He got the impression that they both thought, or maybe had just privately hoped, that all would be forgiven once his anger problem was resolved. With the reflexive, overwhelming anger out of the picture, he’d been able to think about what they’d done with a cooler eye. He could understand why they had both done what they had done. It wasn’t even that hard to see the situations through their eyes. That had softened him a little toward Lo Meifeng. It had been an extreme situation, and she had family involved. He'd justified enough irrational things in the last year to see how she could have justified it. He could even see why she was unrepentant about it. Yet, the fundamental betrayal and breach of trust remained.

As for Chan Yu Ming, well, he didn’t know why he’d expected anything else from her. She was a noble, and she wanted something. At the end of the day, she had no real investment in him as a person. He was a tool of the, apparently, right make for accomplishing whatever her end goal looked like. Using him to reach that end she wanted no doubt seemed practical and reasonable. For all he knew, it was practical and reasonable. He’d discovered that he found such a mercenary mindset less…offensive, now that anger wasn’t clouding everything. He’d probably even be willing to play along. But she couldn’t reasonably expect him to trust her at a personal level if that was the case. The best-case scenario there was a mutually beneficial business relationship. He turned his eyes from Chan Yu Ming to Lo Meifeng.

“Let’s talk,” he said and gestured to the door leading outside.

She’d followed him out of the house, where he’d erected a little twist of wind to keep their conversation private. Lo Meifeng met his gaze confidently enough, but he could see uncertainty swimming in her eyes behind the confidence.

“You’re still angry,” she said.

“No, not like I was. I understand why you did it, and even how you justified using me the way you did. I’m not feeling paranoid anymore that you’re going to betray me again at any and every opportunity. The situation was, if not unique, then not all that likely to repeat itself.”

Lo Meifeng looked genuinely relieved. “So, what now?”

“The first problem I have now is that I know you will betray me under the right conditions. With a clearer head, I realized that could be a manageable problem, except for the other problem I have now.”

“Which is?” asked Lo Meifeng, her brow furrowed.

“I don’t think that either of us actually know what those betrayal conditions are.”

Lo Meifeng was silent for several minutes. Sen would have been very interested in knowing what she was thinking about and how she was processing the situation.

“I didn’t plan it,” she said. “I knew there was a bad blood between the order and the Clear Spring sect. But I thought the worst thing we’d run across would be a couple of idiots settling some private grudge. I could have dealt with that. I would have dealt with it. Taking you there really was just an excuse to see my brother with a convenient side benefit that you could learn something about fire cultivation. I just wanted to make amends.”

“I just realized that I never asked. Did you?”

“What? Make amends with him?”

“Yeah.”

Lo Meifeng let out a particularly bitter laugh. “You know, that’s the worst part of it. No. I didn’t. He didn’t even want to be in the same room as me, let alone talk things out. He didn’t care that I risked my life, your life, to get to him. He didn’t care that bringing you there probably saved a lot of lives. The only thing he wanted to discuss was how fast I could leave and never come back. He told me that, as far as he’s concerned, his sister is dead. Betraying you, fighting in that battle, it was all, literally, for nothing.”

Sen had never known Lo Meifeng to be a particularly expressive person. Her reactions were typically confined to sardonic amusement, detached indifference, or icy deadliness. So, the unalloyed pain and grief on her face startled Sen. Then, he realized that she’d been carrying all of that around in silence since they’d left the fire cultivator’s valley. She wouldn’t have talked about it with Falling Leaf or Chan Yu Ming, who she didn’t know, let alone Shi Ping, a person she actively disliked. When it came to talking anything out, Sen was it for her. The literal only option, and he’d shut her out completely. He’d had his reasons, some of them justifiable, some of them even good, but it didn’t change the end result for her. She’d been suffering alone.

“I’m sorry,” said Sen. “About your brother, I mean. That he was so, well, I’m sorry.”

Lo Meifeng turned away at that point and did her best to wipe tears away from her eyes without him seeing.

“Thanks. I was so stupid. I should have known it would go like that. He was always unforgiving. I just hoped that with so much time since we last saw each other that he might have,” she sighed, “it doesn’t matter. I should…I should never have taken you there. It was selfish. I’m sorry.”

Sen had truly never expected her to apologize in any fashion for any of what had happened. So, he’d never considered what he’d say. At the same time, he had an intuition that Lo Meifeng didn’t want him to say anything about it. Realizing that nothing was going to smoothly transition them to something else, he went for the obvious subject change.

“I do believe that you didn’t plan that situation. Ironically, that makes dealing with my two now problems harder.”

“How’s that?” she asked, her back still to him.

“If there had been a plan, I could have had you explain the plan to me. What drove it? When you made the decisions. How you made the decisions. I could have gleaned a lot from that about what might prompt similar choices in the future. In this case, you just reacted to the situation. I can glean a little, but not enough to make predictions.”

“I don’t imagine me simply saying it won’t happen again would make a difference,” she said, turning around to face him.

“Would it make a difference to you, if you were in my place?”

“No,” she said, some of that sardonic amusement back in place. “It probably wouldn’t.”

“So, here’s how this is going to go. Since I can’t make accurate predictions, and you’re just too capable to cut loose, we’re both going to have to go about this the hardest way possible. I’m going to have to simply extend you a little trust. You’re going to have to earn the rest of it back. And I expect that will prove damned uncomfortable for us both for a while.”

“What if I fail?” she asked. “Will you kill me?”

“I’m not entirely certain I can kill you. But, no, I won’t try to kill you. I won’t do anything to you. You will simply cease to exist for me.”

Lo Meifeng’s eyes narrowed slightly at that last. As the implications really sank home, though, her face became ever paler and increasingly drawn. Sen was glad that he’d guessed right. Lo Meifeng had made her accommodations with death long ago. Killing her would be within her expectations. Reflecting on what she’d done with her brother, though, had given him a brief look at what mattered to her. No, she didn’t fear death. She feared being disregarded by those who somehow mattered to her. Sen didn’t know exactly where he fit in that, presumably, very small group of people, but he had managed to land there somehow.

He continued. “You understand my meaning?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Good. Let’s both hope it never comes to that. Now, let’s go back inside. I’m tired and really would like a bit of sleep before we set off in the morning.”

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