Unintended Cultivator

“Are you planning a coup?” asked Jing.

Sen almost spat out the food he’d just put in his mouth. He glowered at Jing, who gave him a beatific smile in return.

Swallowing hard to get the food past the lump in his throat, Sen said, “Why would you ask me such an absurd question?”

“Well, with all those rumors regarding your Fortress of Doom—”

“It’s not a Fortress of Doom,” growled Sen. “It’s just… It’s just sufficiently defended.”

“From what?” asked Jing.

“Mosquitos,” deadpanned Sen. “Terrible things, mosquitoes. Buzzing in your ears. Drinking your blood. They’re the demons of the insect world.”

“Are they?”

“Yes, and I must protect my manor from their insidious ways!” cried Sen, raising a fist in the air and turning his eyes towards the heavens.

Jing shook his head and said, “They are terrible, aren’t they? Well, I’m sure your quest against them will be legendary.”

Sen offered a sage nod of agreement before turning back to the original question.

“What’s all this nonsense about a coup? I don’t even want the noble house I have. What madness would induce me to want to usurp you?”

“Nothing I can think of, but the changes to your manor have, let’s call them symbolic implications.”

“Oh, by the thousand hells, I stepped all over some absurd noble tradition, didn’t I?”

“You did. Although, the absurdity is a matter of debate. The tradition in question is that no noble manor will be more rigorously defended than the royal palace. That’s usually taken to mean that the noble houses restrain themselves when building walls and hiring house guards. It was originally a law laid down by the first king as a protective measure. His ascension to the throne was not popular among the other powers at the time. The law was eventually revoked, but the tradition remains. By making your manor so formidable, many of the houses are reading it as a declaration that you intend to challenge for the throne.”

“I don’t suppose it would help if I just told them I wasn’t going to do that?”

“Would you believe that?”

Sen rubbed at his eyes, just to give himself something to do.

“No, I wouldn’t believe that. I hope you’re not asking me to take those defenses down because that’s a way bigger ask than you might think.”

“How so?” asked Jing.

“Well, there are the obvious defenses of the walls, but I put formations into those walls. I mean, I put a lot of formations into those walls. I probably could take them back apart, but it’d be tricky to do it safely.”

“I see,” said Jing, a thoughtful frown on his face.

“It’d probably be easier to just make your walls bigger and scarier—” Sen trailed off. “Which is what you wanted all along.”

“It was one of several possible outcomes that would alleviate the situation, yes,” said Jing. “It also just happens to be my preferred solution. For several reasons.”

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“Oh? Such as?”

“Well, if I make you take down your protections, by which I mean you decide to go along with it, it will convince the other houses that you don’t mean to assume the throne. However, it makes me look petty and afraid. Not ideal. I could simply build my walls to be bigger, but that also makes me look weak and afraid.”

Sen saw the train of thought and picked it up, “But if I decide to improve the defenses around the royal palace, though, it makes it look like I want things to stay the way they are. I look, minimally, like a loyal subject, and, preferably, like a friend to the royal house. All of which strengthens your position without making you look weak, petty, or afraid.”

“Exactly.”

“Why not just ask me to do it from the outset?”

“Because you’re a noble now, not only a cultivator. Politics is part of your world. You need the practice thinking in political terms.”

“Gods, that sounds exhausting. I’m so glad I’m turning this whole mess over to someone else.”

“You said it’s your grandmother, correct?”

“It is.”

“Do you feel it wise to heap so much responsibility onto someone who must be nearly elderly by now?”

“She’s quite robust,” said Sen, deciding to keep the fact of Grandmother Lu’s status as a body cultivator to himself for the moment. “I think the other noble houses will find her very formidable.”

“Do you intend to introduce her at court?” asked Jing.

“I suppose I’ll have to,” said Sen.

Smirking, Jing said, “Then, might I suggest that you spend some time at court? At least enough time to learn people’s names.”

“You say that like I might offend people by using physical descriptions to point them out.”

“Who would imagine that? People taking offense at being called things like the fat one and the old one and that bald man other there.”

Sen tried to think of something witty to say, but it was hopeless.

“No, you’re right. That would be offensive.”

“As I said, just take enough time to learn people’s names. It wouldn’t hurt your house to at least look like you don’t hate all of them.”

“I don’t hate all of them. I’m just wholly indifferent to their survival. There is a difference,” said Sen. “I’m almost certain of it.”

“I will concede there is a difference,” said Jing with a snort. “So, when will you undertake the grand reshaping of the palace walls?”

“After lunch. It shouldn’t take too long,” offered Sen, scooping some rice into his waiting mouth.

“How long is not too long?”

Sen pondered while he chewed. Swallowing the rice, he answered.

“An hour or two.”

Jing seemed taken aback by the answer.

“Didn’t you spend nearly half a day on the walls around your manor?”

“Sure, but most of that was the formations. Walls are pretty easy. All you need to do is,” Sen started, and then stopped. “Well, it doesn’t really matter what I’ll be doing. Just take my word for it, the walls are easy.”

“And what about formations?” asked Jing.

“I could make formations, but not like the ones that I put around my manor. I have to make talismans that let people go in and out. I don’t know how many people come in and out of this place every day, but I don’t plan to sit around making talismans for the next year. Beyond that, I used up a lot of my own resources making those formations. I don’t have what I need to replicate that here.”

“Fair,” said Jing. “So, just the walls?”

“For now,” said Sen, a little uncertainty creeping into his voice.

“Do you know something I don’t?” asked Jing.

“No. Nothing specific. I’ve just got a feeling like there’s something on the horizon. Something bad. Something that none of us are going to escape from. Then again, maybe I’m just imagining things. I’ve had so many people come after me at this point that I just assume that there’s always someone waiting in the shadows.”

“Hang on to that assumption,” said Jing in a deadly serious tone. “There is no such thing as too much preparation. Not in politics. Not in war. As if there’s a difference.”

It was Sen’s turn to go deadly serious.

“There is a difference. I’ve been on a battlefield. I’ve seen men and women screaming in agony from their injuries while everyone ignored them. I watched people die by the score. I’ve seen the aftermath. Bodies mangled beyond recognition. Wounds that couldn’t be healed. Scars that harden hearts and remake souls. Politics might be ugly, but it is not war.”

Jing fell into a deep, pensive silence, and Sen could almost hear the man’s mind working. He didn’t know if the king was taking what he’d said to heart or not, but Sen hoped he was. The day might come when Jing had to take his nation to war, and it would not serve the man well to think it would be anything like politics.

“Forgive me,” Jing finally said. “I fear I spoke in ignorance. It’s a common analogy but perhaps an ill-suited one.”

“Perhaps so,” said Sen.

Both men turned their attention back to the meal in front of them, but neither ate with any particular joy. Their minds were on other, darker things. Sen did his best to shake away those memories as he stood up and clapped his hands.

“Alright, let’s see about making you some big, scary walls.”

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