Unintended Cultivator

As Sen waited for an answer, he watched the woman’s face. She seemed almost confused as she looked around at the building, and then over at Ai riding on the shadow dog. When she did finally look at him again, it was only for a few moments before her eyes shifted to look past him. He glanced over his shoulder to see Shen Mingxia curiously staring at the pit of shadow balls he kept there for the girls to play in. The woman looked from the pit to Ai on the shadow dog, and then back to the pit. She reached down and picked one of the balls out of the pit. Sen felt Mingxia extend her spiritual sense and her qi. A look of muted awe crossed her face and she looked toward Sen. When she saw Sen and Wu Meng Yao looking at her, she jumped, squeaked, and hastily dropped the ball back into the pit. Sen snorted. Feeling amused, he held out a hand and formed another of the shadow balls. He threw it to her.

“Study it all you like,” he said. “Who knows? Maybe you’ll get an insight from it.”

He turned his attention back to Wu Meng Yao and found her studying him with an intense look in her eyes. Yeah, he thought, that’s not off-putting at all. Sen remembered that last conversation they’d had back in Emperor’s Bay with a lot more clarity than he’d like. He remembered her telling him that he frightened her. It didn’t sting the way it used to, but it wasn’t the kind of thing that a person just shrugs off either. When Sen found his patience starting to wear thin, it must have shown on his face because Wu Meng Yao blurted out a hasty question.

“Is she your… Is she your daughter?”

Sen had to think hard about that question. It wasn’t a question about where Ai stood in his heart because that answer was locked in stone. She was his, and anyone who tried to take her from him was going to discover that he was the kind of man for who phrases like scorched earth and no survivors were literal possibilities. No, the real question was whether he wanted any sect to possess a confirmation that he saw Ai that way. After a moment of thought, he knew with certainty that he did not want to confirm that kind of relationship to any sect. Instead, he lied by saying something true.

“She is under my protection.”

From the way Wu Meng Yao took a step back from him, she understood that questions on that topic would not increase her odds of a long, happy, healthy life. Sen thought that taking this approach was probably even better than simply saying she was his daughter. Saying Ai was under his protection meant that any action against her wouldn’t mean the possibility of retribution but the absolute guarantee of it. With his reputation, that was a risk that most sects would go out of their way to avoid. Sen didn’t particularly want to reinforce a reputation as a merciless, blood-soaked agent of doom. If someone threatened Ai, though, that’s exactly what he’d become. However, Sen didn’t have any particular grudge against Wu Meng Yao, so scaring her to death was probably out of bounds. Besides, he got the impression that she’d just asked him the first thing that sprang to mind. He did his best to tamp down the impression that he’d murder people for asking the wrong questions. He softened his tone.

“Meng Yao, you didn’t come this far from your sect on a whim. Why are you here?”

Part of Sen worried that she was here on some kind of misguided mission to recruit him to the Soaring Skies sect. Although, he had saddled Elder Deng with that list of demonic cultivators. Maybe she’d been sent with message about that. Looking back, he felt a little bad about doing that to Elder Deng. The old man hadn’t been all that friendly to Sen, but Sen also hadn’t been that good for the Soaring Skies’ reputation. A wandering cultivator coming in, killing their sect members, and piling them up in the street like trash. Murdering one of their elders while also exposing said elder as a demonic cultivator. He’d probably set them back a few centuries in terms of the honor and prestige of the sect. In hindsight, it was downright miraculous that he’d gotten out of that city alive. Although, Lo Meifeng had threatened to bring down the wrath of Fate’s Razor on them all, so maybe it wasn’t that miraculous.

“I remember,” said Sen with more than a hint of dryness in his tone.

“Yeah,” she answered, wincing a little. “I was unkind to you. It wasn’t until after you were gone that I understood what you’d done for me.”

Sen blinked at her. I have no idea what she’s talking about, he thought. He scoured his memory and tried to think of anything he might have done for her. He hadn’t given her anything. That was in the days before he made a habit of picking up absurdly powerful plants and reagents out in the wilds. No matter how hard he thought, he just couldn’t imagine what action or event she was referring to. In the end, he did the only thing he could do. He shrugged.

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“Well, things worked out fine, I guess. Don’t worry about it.”

Wu Meng Yao stared at him, her mouth working a little, but she seemed utterly at a loss. Shen Mingxia spoke from behind him, a bit of wry amusement in her tone.

“He doesn’t remember,” she said.

“What?” asked Wu Meng Yao.

“Isn’t it obvious? He has no idea what he did for you. For us.”

Sen looked back to see Shen Mingxia still holding the shadow ball he’d given her. She was still studying the ball.

“You don’t remember?” asked Wu Meng Yao with an incredulous expression.

Sen gave her a helpless look. “I really don’t. I mean, it seems like it was important, and I’m glad it helped you, but a lot has happened to me since then.”

Wu Meng Yao stood completely still for a few seconds before a little laugh escaped her lips. Once that laugh was out in the world, though, it was like the sect woman couldn’t keep the rest of them in. She laughed until she was wiping tears away from her eyes.

“I should have known,” she said.

“Known what?” asked Sen even if he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.

“What you did was life-changing for me,” said Wu Meng Yao.

“For both of us,” chimed in Shen Mingxia.

“But the life you live is so—” she started, only to pause.

“Absurd?” offered Sen.

“I was going to say extreme or maybe intense. Your life is so intense that you don’t even remember doing life-altering things for people.”

Sen frowned. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, but he also wasn’t sure that she was right about this either.

“Yeah, but did I actually do anything? Did I personally do anything for either of you? I mean after that business at the Silver Crane. Because I honestly can’t think of a single thing.”

“You told Elder Deng I could be trusted,” said Wu Meng Yao.

Sen nodded at that. “Sure.”

She looked at him expectantly.

“What?” asked Sen.

“You told one of the most powerful people in my sect that I could be trusted.”

“I know. I told him that because it was true.”

“So, you do remember,” said Wu Meng Yao.

“I remember saying it,” said Sen.

That was when Sen’s brain finally caught up with the conversation that Wu Meng Yao had been trying to have with him. He hadn’t been thinking about it in the big picture. To him, it had been an offhand statement of fact and maybe a way to help Shen Mingxia get some decent training. But, to Elder Deng, a man confronted with the fact that his sect had been infiltrated by at least one demonic cultivator, those words had probably carried a lot more weight. Coming from Sen, coming from the student of Feng Ming, those words must have sounded like a ringing endorsement. He could imagine how it came across to Deng. Yeah, I think your sect is filled with garbage, but I found one diamond of a person that I think is trustworthy. Sen didn’t know exactly what that meant for her at the sect, but it must have been pretty good for her to go through all the trouble to find him. When he thought about that last conversation they had, he realized that she must have been harboring some deep guilt about the whole thing.

“I see,” said Sen, before he decided that it didn’t change anything. “Well, I’m glad that worked out for you. Don’t worry about it.”

The look of shock and even offense on Wu Meng Yao’s face was not what Sen had expected. He’d figured he could send her back to her sect, free of guilt, and never to trouble him again.

“I spent years searching for you so I could try to make amends. And you don’t care?”

That hadn’t been what Sen was trying to say, but he could sort of see how it might look that way from her position. He’d just meant to give her an easy out. Why are these things always so complicated? The problem was that he didn’t know what she did want.

“That’s not it. I genuinely appreciate what you’ve done, and that you want to make amends. I’m just not sure what you expected me to do about it. I mean, honestly, what can I do other than tell you it’s fine and send you home?”

“Well, for starters, you could—” she said before a look of uncertainty crossed her face.

Sen narrowed his eyes at her. “You thought that I’d have a plan for something like this, didn’t you? Some task that I’d want done? Some quest you could pursue? Something that would put us back on even terms?”

“Do you?” asked Wu Meng Yao in a weak but hopeful voice.

“No. What kind of a person has a plan ready to go for this situation?” asked Sen as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

He looked over at Ai who was still cheerfully riding around on the shadow dog construct. He had it bring her over to him. She hopped down off the construct and waved at it as it dispersed. Sen wondered if she thought it was sapient. Now, there’s a question, thought Sen. Could I make it sapient? I wonder how I’d do that, assuming it’s even possible. He tucked that thought away for future consideration as he started making sure that Ai got her winter cloak settled around her. He very pointedly did not look at Wu Meng Yao while he did that. She had seemed both embarrassed and out of sorts, so a little time not being under direct scrutiny was probably a good thing. He finally turned his attention back to the sect cultivators.

“Do you two have rooms yet?”

“No,” said Shen Mingxia.

“Follow me. There’s an inn in town. They probably have some rooms open. It’s not a great inn, but it’s dry, warm, and the food isn’t terrible. I need to get you settled, so we can go home. Are you ready to go home?” he asked Ai.

“Home!” she agreed enthusiastically.

“I don’t suppose we could—” started Wu Meng Yao.

“Definitely not,” said Sen, shuddering at the very thought of what Fu Ruolan might do if he brought two sect members into her domain.

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