Unintended Cultivator

Hsiao Jiayi fussed in front of the mirror, as she had been for the last two hours. She had decided that she needed to go see that man. Then, she had spent half the morning justifying it to herself. He’s a powerful cultivator and noble in this kingdom, she thought. It only makes sense for me to make contact with him. He might be more amenable to our ways than the mortals here. That last thought had been an almost laughable lie. Any doubts she might have held about his loyalty to the king had been put to rest by his alterations to the palace walls. The walls alone were intimidating. They all but radiated an obdurate strength. She didn’t know what it would take to break through them, only that it would not be fast work. Yet, the walls themselves were almost secondary to those spikes that Judgment’s Gale had affixed to the top of the walls. Spikes that glowed with divine qi.

She had gone and stared up those spikes for hours at a time. Divine qi. Right there. That most precious resource, the tiniest bit of which was all but guaranteed to trigger an advancement, within her reach. It had seemed that all she needed to do was reach out and grab one of those spikes. Yet, an abundance of caution had stayed her hand, as it had stayed the hands of the hundreds of other cultivators who also come to stare with lust at those priceless, newly minted artifacts. All knew that divine qi was in the world, but it could not be gathered. It could not be harvested. It could not be contained. It resisted all attempts to make it do anything but what it wished to do. There was but a single way in which a cultivator could receive divine qi. It had to be given directly by the heavens, and the heavens were notoriously stingy with it.

Yet, somehow, this Lu Sen had summoned it forth and imbued it into what, at first glance, might be mistaken as decorations. Except, they were not decorations. They were a warning. A declaration that those who defied this king, defied the heavens themselves. It was the only explanation for how and why Judgment’s Gale had been granted divine qi and permitted to do something like that with it. More to the point, they were a warning to those who make an enemy of Lu Sen himself. He was dangerous enough in his own right but making an enemy of a man on such friendly terms with the heavens would be like summoning a foe from the ancient legends. Of course, those who made such a man an ally might also reap a favorable disposition from the heavens. She doubted it would be anything so straightforward as an instant infusion of divine qi. However, success often hinged on a moment of luck, and the heavens could press a finger down on that particular scale. She had never been one to turn her nose up at a moment of good fortune.

She had other reasons for wanting to befriend the terrifying new noble. Reasons that she kept deep in her heart. Reasons that she barely dared to even think of, let alone speak aloud. But she felt them there, those tiny seeds of hope, seeds she fervently wanted to one day bloom into a better reality for her, her siblings, and her people. She didn’t know if this man was the key to unlocking the door to that future, but he might be. He could be. Yet, the only way to know for sure was to go to him. Entice him to see her in friendly terms. She expected true friendship was beyond her grasp. That well had somehow been poisoned by the word princess. That still baffled her. In her homeland, and most of the lands beyond the mountains, her status as a princess meant a constant stream of people who wanted to be her friend, her lover, or her confidant. Noble and royal status seemed to evoke similar responses among most people here, but not with him. If anything, he seemed to consider noble rank as a mark of shame. It was a formidable, if not all but insurmountable stumbling block.

Even if that hadn’t been the case, she was a foreigner, a representative of a land that was a threat to the safety and stability of this kingdom. Facts he clearly knew. While Lu Sen seemed largely indifferent to the fate of the kingdom itself, he did care what happened to King Jing. If that pretend king died, Hsiao Jiayi shuddered to imagine the cataclysm that would fall on the heads of those who did it. She had witnessed a glimpse of that man’s wrath, just a tiny piece of it, and she had no desire to ever find herself on the wrong side of it. No, she thought, I need to make sure that he always sees me as an ally. She hesitated then. Would that even work? Could she get away with just looking like an ally? It won’t be enough, she thought. I can’t just appear as one. I’ll need to actually be one. The problem was that she didn’t know what that would mean or what it would look like. All she knew was that things at home were never going to change with the players involved.

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If she was going to make things change, she needed help from the outside. Help from someone powerful enough to withstand the pressures of the cultivator nobility. Yet, it also needed to be someone who didn’t want to rule. Someone who would find the prospect of being in charge of a bunch of other cultivators abhorrent. It had seemed like an impossible task to find such a person. Oh, there were people with enough power. Nascent soul cultivators were rare, but they could be found. Unfortunately, the kind of ambition, the level of discipline, the single-minded focus that let people amass that kind of personal power almost inevitably made them the exact kind of people who would take power if it became available. That was why she’d never bothered seeking out help from any of the sects. They might help, but only if the offer was tempting enough. Anything tempting enough would inevitably mean ceding control. She didn’t want to trade a homegrown tyrant for a foreign tyrant.

She’d all but given up hope that such a person existed in truth. Yet, by all accounts, this Lu Sen was doing everything he could to escape the trap he’d neatly put himself into by claiming a noble house. Not that there was any true escape. She knew that better than anyone. He still seemed determined to be hampered as little as possible by that noble title. If he was all that he appeared to be, he might be the kind of person she needed. Of course, she had also gathered that he was the kind of man who did not appreciate being used by others. She would need to strike an incredibly careful balance with him. She couldn’t just use him to get what she wanted, or he would end her himself. There could be no play-acting at friendship. There would have to be a mutual exchange of benefits. She would have to invest parts of her real self or the gambit would fail. It also wouldn’t be quick. A point that was driven home again as she stepped off her flying sword at the front gate of Lu Manor.

As intimidating as the palace walls had become, there had also been an element of showmanship to that. Lu Sen had done that for the king, as a gesture, and clearly to make a point. It was almost overblown. The walls and protections around the Lu Manor were a different matter entirely. She thought that those were a much truer representation of the man himself. The walls were tall, stark, and gray. The spikes at the top didn’t glow with divine qi. The formations at work were not passive. The entire structure radiated menace. It was also a message. Strangers are not welcome here. She stood there for a long moment before she realized that there were no guards on the outside to greet her, or announce her, or let her into the grounds. There were just the unadorned stone gates that seemed to stare at her. Finally, the gates opened enough for a slim man to slip through. All her senses went on alert. She had seen men like this before. Men with a particular blankness in their eyes. Men who moved with that extra bit of predatory grace. This was Lu Sen’s hired killer, though the heavens only knew why he thought he needed such a person. The man offered her a polite bow.

“I am Hsiao Jiayi, ambassador from the kingdom of Kanshun.”

“I greet the esteemed ambassador,” said the killer.

“I wish to speak with Lord Lu,” announced Hsiao Jiayi.

“Is Lord Lu expecting you?” asked the man.

“He is not.”

A small frown ghosted across the man’s face before it smoothed back to a neutral non-expression.

“I see,” said Long Jia Wei, before holding out a talisman to her. “If you’ll please follow me, I will see if the Lord has time for you today.”

She took the talisman and stepped after the man. As soon as she reached the gates, she understood what the talisman was for. The sense of menace immediately escalated to something that bordered on killing intent. If not for the talisman, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to escape before those defenses brought her down. She steeled herself and kept walking. The defenses reluctantly turned their attention away from her. She didn’t exhale in relief, but she wanted to. The killer led her past a number of mortals engaged in a variety of tasks, only some of which she understood. Before she could study their activities or ask any questions, she was brought into the manor itself. Long Jia Wei offered her another polite bow that she was quite sure possessed no actual respect.

“Please wait here while I inquire with Lord Lu,” said the man before pausing. “I wouldn’t stray. The Lord takes a dim view of spies.”

Hsiao Jiayi had no interest in finding out what Lu Sen taking a “dim view” of something would look like in practice. She nodded at the man and settled in to wait exactly where she was.

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