Book 9: Chapter 17: Flock

Sen regretted inviting them in from very nearly the instant that he’d done it. He didn’t have to let them in. He certainly hadn’t wanted to let them in. Well, he’d have let Li Yi Nuo in out of guilt. He did send her completely in the wrong direction. It hadn’t been intentional, but she’d still traveled all the way to Orchard’s Reach. Even for cultivators, that was a long trip. Bahn Huizhong, on the other hand, wasn’t someone that Sen especially wanted around. With very few exceptions, sect elders had been nothing but trouble for him. They always had some agenda, or their delicate pride had suffered a tiny bruise and they wanted to murder some people to make themselves feel better about it.

As hard as Li Yi Nuo tried to hide it, or maybe because she tried to hide it, Sen realized that she was very concerned that he would send the man away. It might just have been because the man was an elder, but he suspected that the elder was her master. He could just imagine the endless complaining if he up and told her master to go home. That might have been a good enough reason to let the man stay if only for a day or two, but the man had also laughed. It hadn’t been cruel laughter, either. He’d just been entertained by Li Yi Nuo’s awkward moment. Sen thought that was probably the reason he’d let them in.

Beyond that, Bahn Huizhong had actually seemed sincere when he said he just wanted to meet him. Sen wasn’t sure why anyone would want to meet him with his reputation, but he supposed people couldn’t really help what they found interesting. Sen didn’t particularly care about the intricacies of art or tailoring. However, it fascinated some people. He supposed that there was bound to be at least one cultivator out there who found him interesting in the same way. Of course, now that they were inside the wall, he had to figure out what to do with them. He’d never planned on entertaining guests at this place, so he hadn’t bothered putting up a building for them to stay in.

I guess I could make them one

, thought Sen.

But where to put it

?

Definitely somewhere not too close to my home

. Before he came to any final conclusion, he heard something that always brightened his day.

“Papa!”

He looked in Ai’s direction and smiled as the little girl raced across the compound toward him. He also noted the group of people who were none-too-subtly keeping a close eye on her. The sight of them always made him feel better, even if he was very confident that nothing bad was likely to ever happen to her inside of these walls.

“Fly me, Papa!” yelled Ai, stretching her arms out to either side.

Laughing to himself, Sen scooped her up with a bit of air qi and floated her into his waiting arms. She laughed the entire way and then planted a kiss on his cheek. He kissed the tip of her nose, which generated the giggles he so loved to hear. It was only when Ai cast a curious look at the newcomers that Sen remembered they had an audience. Li Yi Nuo was staring at him and Ai with eyes wide and her mouth hanging open. Bahn Huizhong smiled at the scene. If he thought there was anything amiss, it didn’t show on his face.

“Who are they?” whispered Ai.

“I don’t know,” Sen whispered back. “Maybe you should introduce yourself.”

While the little girl was fearless about most things and with people she knew, she’d never lost her apprehension about strangers. She hadn’t said anything about the attack that destroyed her village in a long time, and Sen wondered how much she remembered about it. For all he knew, it might just seem like a bad dream from the distant past, but it had left its mark all the same. She looked uncertain for a little while and hugged him a little closer before she finally made her decision. She wriggled in the way that meant she wanted to be put down. Sen lowered her to the ground where she did her best to perform a proper bow.

“This one is Liu Ai,” she said.

Sen had discussed with Auntie Caihong whether he should teach Ai to introduce herself as Lu Ai. She was part of his family now, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to deprive her of her birth name. It was literally the only thing she had left of that life. The usual certainty that marked nearly everything Auntie Caihong did had softened into a thoughtful look.

“Well, she is your daughter now, so there’s a logic to it. On the other hand, maybe you should wait until she’s older. Let her decide for herself if that’s what she wants. I don’t think that there’s any harm in waiting.”

That had sounded like an excellent idea to Sen. It gave Ai some control over how she presented herself to the world, at least in the long run, and it also let Sen off the hook for making that choice. A choice that he was not especially eager to make

for

her. So, for the moment, she remained Liu Ai. As for Li Yi Nuo, she continued to gape at the little girl as though a dragon had sprouted from the earth and broken into song. Bahn Huizhong, who had been unperturbed, offered the girl a bright smile. He bowed to her, a much deeper bow than he’d offered Sen.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“This one is Bahn Huizhong. I’m very glad to meet you, Liu Ai,” said the man, before he poked Li Yi Nuo in the back.

The girl yelped in surprise, which made Ai laugh. It did break the shock-trance the woman had been in, though. She hastily bowed.

“This one is Li Yi Nuo. It’s nice to meet you.”

Having recovered her confidence a little, Ai puffed herself up and announced with goddess-like certainty, “I’m a beautiful orchid. Papa said so.”

Li Yi Nuo seemed to be distracted by trying to find something to do with her hands other than flap them around or clutch at her robes. The corners of Bahn Huizhong’s eyes crinkled in amusement.

“You certainly are,” he agreed amiably.

Damn it

, thought Sen.

How am I supposed to hate him now

? Apparently, Ai decided that these people weren’t a threat, because she wandered over to Bahn Huizhong. That made Sen feel better about the man. It didn’t happen often, but Ai occasionally refused to have anything to do with a person. She could never articulate why she didn’t like them and usually fell back on her go-to description for things she didn’t like. She said they were

yucky

. Without fail, those people had found themselves told to leave for one serious offense or another, so Sen took it seriously when she didn’t like someone. Long Jia Wei took it as holy truth.

The relationship between that man and Ai was odd. If she couldn’t find Sen or one of her nascent soul family when something was troubling her, she went to find him. Sen had been a little uncomfortable with the idea of her just spending time with the ex-sect assassin, but the man treated her like a fragile piece of glass. Something always to be handled gently and with utmost care. There was also the rumor. It was something that Sen had very intentionally not made any effort to confirm, mostly because he didn’t want to do anything about it should the story turn out to be true.

Supposedly, one of the cultivators at the academy had spoken quite harshly to Ai for some reason. Sen had worried from the start that something like that was almost inevitable. The rumor held that Long Jia Wei dragged that cultivator to see one of the healers later that day with a shattered jaw, a broken leg, and enough bruises to keep the alchemy students busy making minor healing pills for days. When asked what happened, Long Jia Wei reportedly shrugged and said the injured cultivator must have carelessly fallen down. Since the man had shown considerably more restraint than Sen would have been able to muster if he had heard the story first, he’d let it go. He’d also moved Long Jia Wei onto a very short list of people he would consider entrusting Ai’s safety to.

Of course, Bahn Huizhong wasn’t even in the running for something like that, but Ai’s general lack of fear at least made Sen feel less actively hostile toward the man. He watched as his daughter peered up at the man and pointed.

“What’s that?” she asked.

The man looked down at his own chest and pointed to what had to be a sect patch.

“This?” he asked.

Ai nodded. The man crouched down so she could get a better look at it. Sen tensed a bit when Ai reached out to touch the patch. Cultivators could get touchy about strange things. Bahn Huizhong wasn’t one of them, though, or so it seemed. He just seemed amused by Ai’s curiosity.

“It’s a sect patch,” he told her.

“What’s a sect?” she asked, her face scrunching up a little.

For the very first time, the man seemed startled. He glanced up at Sen who had nothing to offer but a shrug.

You opened that door

, thought Sen.

It’s on you to figure out how to explain a sect to a child that age

. The man frowned for a few seconds before he finally came up with something.

“It’s like a school for cultivators.”

While Sen thought that left out a lot of pertinent information, he doubted he could have come up with anything better. It was even true, as far as it went.

“Is that like an academy?” asked Ai, carefully pronouncing the last word.

Sen had to cover his own mouth to keep from laughing. Bahn Huizhong, apparently better practiced at keeping a straight face, just nodded sagely.

“Yes. It’s like an academy.”

Ai continued to interrogate the man, although her questions soon moved on to things she cared about more, like what kinds of birds they saw while they traveled. Bahn Huizhong tried naming some of them, but Ai promptly asked him to describe them. Then, she would either nod in a knowing way to indicate that she too knew these birds or shake her head. Sen knew he probably let it go on longer than he should have, but Ai seemed very happy to talk about the birds. Eventually, he called her back over to him.

“Okay,” he said. “I think it’s probably about time for your writing lesson, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“You go find Uncle Kho, and I’ll make us something very yummy for dinner later.”

“Okay!”

She held out her arms for a hug which Sen dutifully provided. Then, she ran off. Li Yi Nuo looked like she was about to start firing questions at him, but Ai’s voice floated back to them.

“Come on, birds!”

From the nearby trees, what Sen thought had to be at least a hundred birds exploded into motion and flew after the running child. Li Yi Nuo seemed to forget all of her questions as her eyes followed the birds. Bahn Huizhong slowly rose to a standing position, his expression a mixture of uncertainty and surprise.

“Patriarch Lu. Did your daughter just summon a flock of birds to keep her company?”

“Yeah,” said Sen. “She does that. It’s a small flock today. She must not have seen many insects. Anyway, let’s find you somewhere to stay.”