Unintended Cultivator

“Where is he?” demanded Feng Ming.

Fu Ruolan just lifted an eyebrow. It wasn’t nearly as nonchalant as she made it look. No one with a functional survival instinct took Feng Ming lightly, not even other nascent soul cultivators. But she also knew that she couldn’t simply acquiesce to his demands the moment he made them. If she did that, he wouldn’t respect her. That would be catastrophic in the long run. Feng Ming had built his entirely deserved reputation on two pillars: strength and strategic ruthlessness. While he wasn’t necessarily as flexible with his power as Fu Ruolan or even Sen, he didn’t need to be. In a straight fight, she would lose to him. It would take a while and cost him more than a little, but he would win unless she got some kind of divine assistance. She understood that when a man built his world around strength, there came a point where only strength would garner his respect. It didn’t necessarily need to be strength of arms. Strength of character would do in a pinch, and Fu Ruolan had lots of character. So, she leaned into that.

“You told him I was crazy,” huffed Fu Ruolan. “I don’t see why I should tell you anything after you spoke ill of me, you sour old goat.”

“You are crazy,” growled Feng Ming. “You always were.”

“There is a difference between being eccentric and being insane,” she shouted at him.

Most days, she thought she was past those old hurts. She’d always been different. She saw the world differently and often more deeply than others. Her methods of cultivation were different and took her down strange paths. It was why she’d gone looking for the Five-Fold Body Transformation manual in the first place. She hadn’t thought she could use it herself, but that it might provide insights that could help advance her actual cultivation methods. Yet, those very differences had left her largely cut off from other cultivators. She had been mocked, ignored, and even attacked in the early days. That was how she had met Feng Ming in the first place.

She’d been in a bad spot. A group of traditional cultivators had cornered her, determined to put her in her place. They had thought that place was in the ground. Feng Ming, the arrogant bastard, had been sauntered by like nothing in the world could touch him. He’d seen what was happening, and Fu Ruolan had gotten a very up-close look at why he thought nothing in the world could touch him. He’d been like an unstoppable force, casually batting away lethal techniques with his jian that would have felled her in an instant. He shattered swords, spears, and bones with negligent movements of his blade. Then, he cut them down like they were nothing because, to him, they were nothing. It had been humbling. It had been terrifying. She had never been so grateful to another person in her life. That very, very old debt was a big part of why she’d eventually decided to help young Lu Sen. That, and a curiosity that she’d always known was unhealthy for her.

Of course, she had also known that helping the boy would mean carefully controlling the dissemination of information. The boy had the same kind of curiosity she did and, she suspected, a little bit of that same insight she had always harbored. There was a feeling about him, as though he had touched on things much, much larger than himself. Someone like that would often rush headlong into danger out of curiosity, seeing only the potential benefits and none of the pitfalls. The problem was that controlling the flow of information also meant keeping the kid around. Doing that meant that, sooner or later, Feng Ming would show up. It had taken him a while. She’d done a very good job of hiding herself out in the wilds when it was no longer suicidal to do so. Even someone as powerful as Feng Ming couldn’t casually brush aside the obfuscations that she’d put in place. That was why it had taken him months of dedicated searching to find her. Of course, by then, she’d sent Sen and his interesting cat friend off to look for the mushrooms. She had been ready to just tell the man what he wanted to know, but his demanding tone had rubbed her the wrong way. That had inevitably spiraled into their current argument.

“You’re right,” said Feng Ming. “There is a difference, and you fall definitively on the side of crazy.”

Fu Ruolan’s eyes narrowed, and then she let them go wild and unfocused and spoke in a sing-song voice.

“Oh, where is the boy? Where is the boy? Maybe I sent him off to fetch me snacks. Maybe I sent him off to die. Maybe I put him in a pot to be my supper. Who knows? Who knows?” She said before she went back to her former expression and tone. “I just can’t seem to remember. After all, I am crazy. Us crazy people have such poor memories.”

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Feng Ming’s hand twitched toward his jian before the man made what was clearly a tremendous effort to stay calm.

“We both know you don’t want to fight me. So, why are you making this difficult?”

“Why? Because he’s mine for now. Because you were rude to me. Because I’m crazy. Pick whichever reason makes you feel most like an ass.”

Feng Ming stood perfectly still for almost ten seconds while Fu Ruolan glared at him. Then, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He took two or three more before he finally opened his eyes again. She could see that he’d buried whatever anger had been bubbling up inside of him. He offered her a shallow bow.

“You’re right. I came to your home, uninvited, and I was rude to you. I let my concerns for the boy displace my manners. I apologize, Fu Ruolan.”

It took Fu Ruolan a moment to realize that her mouth hanging open. She shut it before her shock became any more obvious. She’d thought he’d simply back off a little. A full-blown apology had not been on the list of reactions she’d expected. It finally occurred to her that she’d let the stories about the man infiltrate her expectations of him, much like he’d let very old impressions and stories about her set his expectations. It seemed that they’d both gotten a lesson that day.

“Thank you,” she managed to get out before heaving a sigh. “I’m not sure what you imagined I was doing to him. I just sent him off to get an ingredient for that absurd body cultivation method that Bo set him up for.”

“Was he strong enough for that?”

“I stabilized his condition and let him recover what strength he could. I have no specific knowledge about where his capacities were before he came here, but he seemed capable enough to me. You only missed him by a few weeks.”

Feng Ming’s brow furrowed and he muttered. “I’m going to have words for that turtle the next time I see him.”

“A common sentiment,” said Fu Ruolan.

Feng Ming snorted a little before he asked, “Where did you send him?”

“Mt. Solace. There’s a mushroom that grows there that he needs. There were substitutes that we could have used, but that’s the best one. Given how far gone he was when he got here, I thought using the best options where possible was the best course of action.”

Feng Ming nodded and hummed quietly. “Very well, then. I’ll be on my way.”

Fu Ruolan rolled her eyes. “You’re going to go check on him, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You aren’t always going to be there to clean up after him.”

Feng Ming laughed. “I’m almost never there to clean up after him. The only thing he ever intentionally brought me in on was that situation with the demonic cultivators.”

“Oh,” said Fu Ruolan in surprise. “Even so, it won’t help him if he thinks you’re going to swoop in when things get too difficult.”

“I’m just going to peek in on him. I won’t even say hello.”

“You’ve never excelled in stealth.”

“Well, what do you suggest?”

Fu Ruolan thought it over and repressed another sigh. She knew what she was going to have to do. She just didn’t want to do it. Still, she supposed it was better than letting Feng Ming ruin everything by hovering like a nervous parent. She gave him an annoyed look.

“I’ll go with you. I can keep us out of sight.”

“You sure you want to bother with it?” asked Feng Ming.

“Of course, I don’t want to bother with it. It’s just better than him knowing you’re interfering.”

Feng Ming raised his hands in surrender. Fu Ruolon took a few minutes to gather the necessities, and then the two of them started the long journey to catch up. Even traveling at nascent soul speeds, it took them days to finally pin down Lu Sen and Falling Leaf, mostly because the boy was using absurdly effective masking formations to keep them off of everyone’s radar. Once the upper-tier cultivators found their quarry, they kept themselves out of sight. Fu Ruolan was ready to leave immediately, but Feng Ming wanted to stay for a while.

“Why would you want to watch them walking and camping?”

“How many chances am I going to get to see the boy operate without him knowing I’m there? Besides, I have an inkling that something interesting might happen in the next day or two.”

“You never struck me as a divination cultivator,” observed Fu Ruolan.

“I’m not, but we’re all surprisingly well-tuned to the world. It’s just a gut feeling that I should stick around for a little while.”

Fu Ruolan grumbled about it for a while but ultimately agreed to stay. She was happy she’d done so when the elder ghost panther turned up. He was transformed, but she could tell what he was. She watched in fascination as Lu Sen refused to back down an inch. It wasn’t the kind of reckless fearlessness she’d half expected based on the stories. He was just…resolved. Resolved to a degree that was probably bad for him. Yet, it was a resolve he was willing to take right to the bitter end. She was even more surprised that the cat girl accepted it. No, she didn’t just accept it, she was completely bought in to it. More than once she assumed that she or Feng Ming would need to step in but it never happened. The elder ghost panther backed down.

“Well, well, well,” said Fu Ruolan, as she watched the elder ghost panther trudge away in defeat. “I certainly never saw that coming.”

When Feng Ming didn’t reply, she glanced over at the man. The sight that greeted her there was possibly even more startling than the one she’d witnessed below. Feng Ming, a man she rightly feared, quite possibly the most powerful and dangerous being on the planet, had tears streaming down his ancient cheeks.

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