Unintended Cultivator

Sen managed to impose one day of not being bothered with anything by anybody. It was a decision that would normally get a lot of resistance from all those people who were vying for attention and approval. In what seemed a spectacularly odd turn of events to him, Sua Xing Xing and Long Jia Wei put up a united front against everyone clamoring for just a few minutes of his time. It was surprisingly effective as discouragements went. Sen unofficially knew that Long Jia Wei had a reputation for dealing with annoyances that he considered beneath Lord Lu’s notice. A practice that usually involved cripplingly painful injuries and, if rumors were true, one or two suspicious disappearances. In short, everyone was afraid of the man. Sen couldn’t know about those things in an official capacity because then he would have to look into it and take corrective action. At least, that’s what Auntie Caihong had told him about how sects worked. It seemed that all patriarchs and matriarchs carried the unspoken duty to overlook such things.

Sua Xing Xing didn’t bring the same kind of intimidation to the table, but she had been positioning herself as… Sen didn’t know exactly what to call it. He thought the closest description was probably a trustworthy helper. He’d given her a few important tasks to deal with in spite of his early misgivings about the woman. She’d handled them all well. He’d reluctantly been forced to revise his opinion of her. She was a product of mortal lifetimes spent in a sect, where exchange was the name of the game. Juniors curried favor with seniors in the hope of preferential treatment that would help their advancement. It was a system that seemed far too well suited to the kinds of abuses that Sen knew happened in sects. As Master Feng had pointed out to him, though, most things in life worked that way.

The real question was about whether or not she was competent, and she was almost frighteningly competent. Either that or she was hideously motivated and made up for any failings with a lot of very hard work. The end results were generally the same. Pretending otherwise was a disservice to her, and willful, ignorant blindness on his part. She might be getting most of what she wanted from him, but he couldn’t afford to turn away reliable help. Sen might be a little uncomfortable with the situation but being anointed as one of his inner circle gave her a lot of pull with everyone who wasn’t so blessed. The combination of physical and social threats served to keep everyone else away.

Of course, that was also helped along by He Jietang deciding to conduct his classes outside and within sight of Sen’s home. When he’d recruited the man on Chan Dishi’s recommendation, Sen had more than a few reservations. He’d found a drunken He Jietang sitting outside a poorly maintained house in the capital. Lurking inside of the apparent husk of a person was a very skilled warrior. One who had seen a few too many battles and been forced to shed too much blood. Seeing that was something that jarred Sen’s sensibilities. It had been proof that not everyone was equipped for the quasi-immortality that cultivators enjoyed. Offering the man a job teaching instead of fighting had seemed to do the man good.

There was no way to know what He Jietang did in the privacy of his home, but he appeared healthy and in tight control of himself as he instructed those students. And if a few arrows went astray and landed between the feet of people clearly intent on bothering Sen, that was just a shame. Sua Xing Xing probably had a chat with him about this, thought Sen. It’s certainly an effective way to keep people at bay without simply posting guards to act as a deterrent. Everyone gets the message without anyone facing the public shame of being told to go away. Not that Sen would have hesitated to tell people to go away, shame or not. That one day was his reward, and he took full advantage of it.

He spent most of his time with Ai after prying her from the amused clutches of Auntie Caihong, Uncle Kho, and Master Feng. He listened to Ai talk about the minor adventures that she and Zhi had gone on under the watchful gazes of nascent soul cultivators and the terrifying sky monster known as Dancing Cloud. Zhi arrived later and retold most of the exact same stories to her “Uncle Sen” but from her own perspective. He smiled, nodded, asked a question here or there, and basked in the glow of their happiness. He even let himself be talked into going on an adventure.

That had mostly involved the girls taking him to a bakery that hadn’t existed when he’d left to retrieve Cao Kai-Ming’s villagers. It was clearly not their first visit to the bakery, either. Sen wasn’t sure exactly what gave it away. Maybe it was the kind smile the baker, a gray-haired woman with a no-nonsense attitude, bestowed them all. Maybe it was the way the girls immediately went to a specific rack of treats. Or, just maybe, it was the way the baker knew their names.

“Hello, Ai. Hello, Zhi.”

“Hello, Grandmother Zhan,” said the girls in unison.

They gave her bright, expectant smiles. Sen looked on in amusement and wondered if the woman made them something special. Grandmother Zhan turned her attention to him. Her expression was curious but wary.

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“And who might you be?” she asked politely.

Ai ran over, hugged Sen’s leg, and announced, “This is Papa!”

Sen clasped his hands in a gesture of respect and offered a shallow bow.

“I am very pleased to meet you, Grandmother Zhan,” said Sen. “This one is Lu Sen.”

Grandmother Zhan’s eyes went very, very wide. She stiffened, seemed to remember herself, and offered a very hasty, very deep bow.

“Patriarch,” she said in a reverential voice. “This one is Zhan Shu.”

Sen suppressed the sigh that wanted to escape his lips. This sort of thing was inevitable when he was meeting new people. Especially when meeting people who had only ever heard about him second, third, or fourth-hand. He understood that reaction, but it never got any easier to deal with it. He offered the woman a gentle smile and shook his head.

“No patriarch today. I’m just Papa and Uncle Sen today,” he said, reaching down to stroke Ai’s hair.

That seemed to release some manner of tension inside the baker because she relaxed a little.

“So, they decided to bring you to meet old Grandmother Zhan, did they?” asked the baker.

“I suspect they brought me to meet your pastries.”

As if on cue, the girls lost interest in the grown-up talk and went back to the racks. They pointed with excited gestures at the things they wanted to try.

“Not their first visit, I assume?” asked Sen.

The baker smirked and shook her head.

“Not even their tenth visit,” said the woman. “Those girls are my best customers.”

Sen nodded. He could just imagine the girls dragging Master Feng, Uncle Kho, Auntie Caihong, and probably even Long Jia Wei in here to buy them treats. A turn of events those adults most assuredly accepted with good grace. He couldn’t even blame them. After all, leaning hard on his doting father and uncle roles, he planned to shamelessly indulge the girls. He didn’t even pretend to feel bad about it, either. He chatted idly with the woman about baking, which seemed to surprise her a little. When he started asking about making flatbreads, she got very serious about the topic and started describing the kind of oven necessary to make the good flatbreads that Sen liked. He made some mental notes. After tasting one that the woman had made that morning, he resolved to come back and get a look at the oven the woman used. He needed one of those.

“Do you girls know what you want?” asked Sen.

“I want the melon cake!” shouted Ai.

“I want the sesame balls!” shouted Zhi.

They gave him pleading looks like he might change his mind at any second. He stroked his chin as though in deep contemplation and watched the girls get more and more nervous. Grandmother Zhan hid her smile behind a hand.

“Well, then I suppose it’s melon cake and sesame balls,” said Sen, eliciting gleeful shrieks from the girls.

They were practically hopping from foot to foot as Sen bought them treats and got a few extras to send home with Zhi for her mother, Li Hua. He expected that she could probably afford whatever she wanted, but it only seemed fair. He was ushering the girls toward the door, their cheeks already stuffed with delicious things, when the baker called out after him.

“If you want to learn how to make that flatbread, come by early one morning. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Sen turned to give the woman a surprised look. It was a kind offer. Not the sort of thing he expected from the people living in the town. Awe or fear usually squashed anything that normal from their conversation. He gave her a bright smile and another bow.

“I will be sure to do that, honored Grandmother Zhan.”

As they walked back to the sect, Sen was pleased to see the girls waving at people he vaguely recognized as members of the sect or academy or whatever he decided to call it that day. They all waved back. The girls apparently had their favorites among Sen’s tribe of followers, though, because they rushed up to a few and offered to share their hard-won treasures. The sect and academy members all eyed Sen with looks of fearful caution. He just threw them an offhand wave to do as they saw fit. If Ai and Zhi wanted to share their treats, he wasn’t going to stop them.

“Big sister Lei!” shouted Ai.

She took off down the street making a beeline for a willowy young foundation formation cultivator. Zhi was just a step or two behind. Sen caught up with them a few moments later. The girls were vying for the woman’s attention. Sen wasn’t sure what to make of this encounter. He hadn’t heard either of the girls mention a big sister Lei before. The woman nodded along to what the girls were saying and gently fended off their attempts to force treats into her hands. When she saw Sen approach, she froze.

“And who might this be, girls?” asked Sen.

There was a torrent of words as both girls did their best to explain exactly who the woman was, what she had done, and why she was the best thing ever. Even Sen’s enhanced hearing and mind couldn’t untangle the knot of sounds coming at him, but he got the gist. Big sister Lei had done something nice for them. Something to do with a ball and a game. Good enough, he decided.

“Big sister Lei,” said Sen, giving the nervous woman an amused look.

“Patriarch,” said the unsettled cultivator. “I apologize, but I need to speak with you.”

Sen pursed his lips. Hadn’t everyone gotten the message?

“I’m spending time with my daughter and my niece today,” he said in an icy tone.

“I know,” said Lei, “but Elder Sua Xing Xing sent me to find you. She sent several of us to find you.”

That brought Sen’s annoyance up short. Sua Xing Xing wouldn’t have done that for no reason.

“Why?”

“There’s been word from the south,” said Lei, eying the girls and clearly weighing her next words. “She wanted you to know that it’s…It’s started.”