Book 8: Chapter 67: Caravan

Sen was truly regretting his decision to offer He Jietang a job. The man had looked, well, he’d looked mildly unwell, but for a core cultivator that was the mortal equivalent of looking like he was on death’s door. Sen couldn’t even understand how the man had gotten into the condition he was in. His brief, rude examination of the other man showed a level of damage that only a core cultivator could possibly have lived with for more than a week. In its own, deeply sad way, it was sort of impressive. Since he couldn’t have the man walking around and glaring at the sun all day, he’d given him a healing elixir. Not one of the good ones. Just one of the ones he kept around in case someone suffered some minor injury or came down with some kind of illness. Then, he’d told the man to go and help load the carts and wagons. It was only then that he turned to Chan Dishi.

“I think you may have misrepresented that man to me.”

Chan Dishi tried to smile, but it lacked the man’s usual cheerfulness.

“I didn’t misrepresent his skill. He really is as good as I made him out to be.”

“But?” asked Sen.

“You’re still young, especially for a cultivator, so you’ve escaped a few things. Honestly, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for you. Eventually, you’ll see that not everyone is cut out to live for as long as core cultivators and nascent soul cultivators can live. He’s one of them. He probably never should have been a cultivator. I think he’d have been a much happier man as a mortal. But he is a cultivator, which means he stuck with all those extra years. He doesn’t quite have it in him to end his own life, and even when he’s gone looking for someone else to do the job for him… Well, he’s still here.”

“You’re telling me he couldn’t find a nascent soul cultivator to infuriate.”

Chan Dishi threw back his head and laughed. It was much more genuine than his earlier smile had been.

“Do you have any idea how rare it is for a normal cultivator to even see a nascent soul cultivator? They might flock around

you

like birds, but that beauty you were with at the party was the first one I’ve seen in at least a century.”

“Oh,” said Sen.

He hadn’t really considered that it might be hard for someone to find a nascent soul cultivator. He wished that he shared that problem.

“My point is that he started running out of reasons to want to keep going. So, he drowns himself in an ocean of liquor. He needs help finding a reason to keep going. So, when he’s been drowning for a while, his friends, people like me, try to find him a purpose.”

“I don’t need more problems or projects on my plate. I have quite enough already,” said Sen.

He was not thrilled at the idea of having someone who wanted death teaching weapons to overenthusiastic young cultivators.

“It won’t be like that,” said Chan Dishi. “He said he’d do the job, and he’ll do the job. If he can’t do it, or just doesn’t want to do it anymore, he’ll leave. He won’t make his problems into your problems. He might be a pain sometimes, but he isn’t an ass that way.”

The urge to go tell the man he’d changed his mind was strong. Almost irresistible. However, when he looked over, Sen saw He Jietang dutifully loading crates and sacks of grain into a cart. He wasn’t complaining about it or ordering other people to do it. Sen rubbed at his eyes. He missed sleep. It was always such a nice break from all these problems.

I guess if he’s not someone to complain about pitching in with the work

,

he can’t be all bad

, thought Sen.

I’ll just send him on his way if he turns into a problem

. Waving a hand as if dismissing the thought, he nodded at Chan Dishi.

“Fine. If he does his job, he can stay.”

Chan Dishi cracked his first real smile.

“Good. And, I’ll owe you one.”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s more of a threat than a boon?”

“You wound me,” said Chan Dishi.

“I notice you didn’t deny it.”

“I said that you wound me, not that you’re wrong. Any last messages for the king?”

“Nah,” said Sen. “I snuck into the palace last night to chat with him. Promised not to break anything too important for a while.”

“Is that a promise you can keep?”

Sen waggled a hand in the air and said, “Probably. I’ll have a lot to do when I get back. It’ll be a bit before I’m here again. Here officially, anyway.”

“There will be tears and lamentations from every unmarried woman in the city.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“It just doesn’t have the same ring when I say half of the unmarried women in the city.”

“Well, let it never be said you let facts distort your descriptions,” answered Sen with a smile.

“Exactly. Anyway, you look busy, and I don’t want to get dragged into any unpaid labor. So, I’ll take my leave.”

“So helpful,” said Sen to Chan Dishi’s back.

The other man just laughed and waved without looking back. Within minutes, Sen was inundated with the endless details of getting the caravan ready to leave. If it wasn’t drivers who didn’t like each other bickering over who had the better ox, both of which were just fine in Sen’s estimation, it was misplaced foodstuffs. When those problems were dealt with, it was a last-minute repair. When that was done, he had to answer twenty questions for Lo Meifeng. They were the last, she promised. That promise held for the next hour while he got the cultivators he’d managed to talk into coming along as teachers settled and organized. He was more than a little dismayed to discover that two of them knew each other and did not get along. At one point, he thought the matter was going to come to blows and a little of his killing intent “accidentally” slipped free. The cultivators were very well-behaved after that. But then Lo Meifeng came back with more questions that she

promised

were the very, very last. Before he knew it, the morning was mostly gone.

Then came the hardest task of the day. It wouldn’t be the most complicated, just the most challenging. The Xie children were brought out. Some of them came with unhappy, resigned expressions. Those were generally the oldest children who had some sense of what had really happened. Some of the children simply looked confused. Others had to be carried, kicking and screaming, the entire way. Sen hated all of it and did his best to remind himself that too much sympathy now would simply pave the path toward future problems. He didn’t have to be merciless with them, but he couldn’t let himself indulge them with too much kindness. They could grow close to others, but they needed to see him as a distant, cold, powerful figure who was to remain unbothered by them.

Besides, they had already enjoyed what tiny shred of sympathy he’d been willing to extend. He’d let them all spend their final evening in the capital with their parents. They’d monitored the parents who were deemed the most likely to encourage their children to misbehave. It was by no means a perfect system, and he expected trouble to rear its head by the end of the day. He didn’t know what form it would take. He just knew that the caravan would be a tempting target. Since he didn’t have any specific information, they would all need to figure things out as they went. Finally, the moment to truly depart arrived. Sen had thought about making some grand speech or announcement, but that sounded perfectly awful to him. So, he decided that he would just say his last quick goodbyes and go. It might help draw slightly less attention to him. A goal he recognized as sharing the same futility as trying to make the ocean wetter. He walked over to where Grandmother Lu and Lo Meifeng were standing. He bowed to Grandmother Lu.

“I leave thing here in your capable hands, Grandmother.”

Returning his bow, she said, “Travel safely, Sen. I’ll mind things here for you.”

“You know how to reach me if you need to,” Sen said to Lo Meifeng.

She made a big production of bowing to him, a bit of amusement in her eyes while she did it.

“I will not disappoint you, Lord Lu,” she announced in a terrible pompous voice.

He didn’t know who she was actually talking to, just that it wasn’t him. No doubt the comments were aimed at someone in the audience.

Stop looking for more trouble

, he ordered himself.

“Until I see you both again,” he said and then took his seat on a cart next to Long Jia Wei.

“Are you ready, Lord Lu?” asked the ex-assassin.

“No, but let’s leave anyway,” said Sen, “because I am so sick of this city.”