ALL NOVEL Chapter 29 – It’s For Your What?!
After wisely choosing cowardice, Sen gave Lo Meifeng a brief recounting of what happened on their way to the capital. She mostly took it in stride until he got to the last fight with Tseun Rong. As he talked his way through that fight, her expression went increasingly slack and her eyes took on a glassy look.
“So, then I let the lightning qi pass through my skin to make pretend tribulation lightning and… Lo Meifeng? Are you alright?”
Lo Meifeng just stared through him for several seconds before she shook her head back and forth a few times, none too gently. It seemed to rouse her from whatever stupor she’d fallen into because her gaze focused on Sen again.
“You fought, no, you killed Tseun Rong?” she demanded.
“Yeah. I sort of thought that had gotten around by now.”
“It hasn’t. Well, maybe the sects and the nobles knew, but the details haven’t trickled down yet. All anyone really knew was that there was a fight between powerful cultivators and then, a day or two later, you came sauntering through the city gates.”
“I don’t saunter,” said Sen.
“You always saunter. Unless you’re off to do violence. Then, it’s anyone’s guess what you’ll do.”
“That’s… That’s neither here nor there. Do you want to hear the rest of the story or not?”
“Fine. Go ahead and saunter your way through the rest of the tale,” said Lo Meifeng with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
Shaking his head, Sen picked up where he’d left off. He caught her up on what had been happening since he arrived in the city. And finally, he told her about his genius plan to immediately abandon any responsibility for the House of Lu by foisting it off on Grandmother Lu.
“I have so many questions,” said Lo Meifeng. “It’s hard to know where to start.”
“Just pick a place and start.”
“Okay, why would you go through all the trouble to destroy the House of Xie and establish the House of Lu if you don’t want it?”
“Oh, well, that’s because it’s not for me. It’s for my daughter.”
Lo Meifeng shot out of her chair and shouted, “It’s for your what?!”
“Daughter. You know, a small female person that you take care of and love and would slaughter millions to protect.”
“I know what a daughter is, you ass! I want you to explain the part where you have a daughter.”
Sen had taken no small amount of glee in waiting until the opportune moment to spring that little bit of information on Lo Meifeng. Her reaction had been absolutely worth the effort, but he decided that he’d had enough fun at her expense.
“I adopted her,” said Sen. “I mean, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but that’s what it boils down to.”
“It’s you. Of course, it’s more complicated than that,” said Lo Meifeng as she sat down and glared at him. “You did that on purpose.”
“I did.”
“There will be retribution.”
Sen smiled and said, “I would expect nothing less. Getting back on topic, though, I went through all this trouble so that when the heavens inevitably force me to ascend way sooner than I want to, I’m not leaving my daughter with no resources and no protection. She’ll have an entire noble house and all of its resources to keep her safe.”
Lo Meifeng sat in thoughtful silence for a while before she said, “That’s all well and good for mortal threats, but your enemies are largely of the cultivator variety.”
“I know,” said Sen.
“And?”
“And what?”
“And what are you going to do about that problem?”
“People keep saying that I’m starting a sect.”
“Yeah, I do recall hearing something about that. I assumed it was just a story.”
“It’s mostly just a story. I set up a weapons academy, aimed at mortals. I wanted the people in the towns up there to have a fighting chance against lesser spirit beasts. Maybe teach them enough that they could buy some time if something more powerful showed up looking for trouble.”
“You sound oddly ambivalent about it,” observed Lo Meifeng.
“Cultivators started showing up looking to join my sect.”
“Did you let them?”
“I let them join the academy.”
Lo Meifeng burst into laughter.
“Oh, I bet they just loved that.”
“On the whole, I’d say it’s had mixed results.”
“People don’t want to learn about weapons from the great hero. Actually, I take it back. There are definitely some people who would crawl over broken glass for the chance to learn weapon styles from you. On the whole, though, cultivators are going to want you to teach them about cultivating.”
“Yeah. Before all this, I had no interest in setting up something like that.”
Lo Meifeng quirked an eyebrow and asked, “Before?”
“Well, as you pointed out, my enemies are decidedly of the cultivator variety. Assuming they aren’t demonic cultivators or literal devils.”
“Wait. What are you talking about? Literal devils?”
“Did I not tell you that story?” asked Sen, a frown on his face. “I thought I did. I lose track sometimes. Remind me later. The whole thing is sort of amusing in hindsight. The point is, that I didn’t have any interest in setting up something like that because, well, so many reasons. Now, though, I do have a reason. If everyone thinks I’m running a sect anyway, I might as well use that to my daughter’s advantage.”
“Your plan now is to set up a sect with the specific goals of protecting your daughter and her interests?”
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
“Setting aside that only you would do something that ridiculous, have you given any thought whatsoever to the problems you’re making for everyone in the future.”
“Problems?” asked Sen projecting sickly sweet innocence.
“You’ve created a cultivator noble house, on paper anyway. Those have never existed on this part of the continent. That’s going to be a problem for a lot of people. Now, you’re planning on setting up a sect that will function, for all intents and purposes, as a small army for that cultivator noble house that will be answerable only to you and eventually your daughter. That’s going to be a problem for a lot of people. That is a lot of trouble for a man who hates politics, hates sects, and generally doesn’t want to be bothered for months at a time whenever an interesting alchemy problem rears its head. More importantly, that’s a lot of trouble to ask for when you’re still in core formation.”
Sen leaned back in his chair and studied Lo Meifeng for a time before he finally spoke.
“How long do you think it would take me to reach nascent soul? Best guess.”
“Because it’s you, and you’re absurd, and you feel like you’re right at the peak of core formation, maybe a few decades. Why?”
“Tomorrow,” said Sen in a flat voice. “If I really wanted it, I could make it happen tomorrow, or tonight, or probably an hour from now.”
“Tomorrow? That doesn’t make any sense. How?”
“I would ask for it. If I asked the heavens to help me advance, they’d drown me in divine qi. The only reason I’m not a nascent soul cultivator now is because I don’t want to be one. I’m moving as slowly as the heavens will tolerate, which means that I’ve got maybe a year or two before they force-feed me qi until I advance, again.”
Sen watched as the reflexive disbelief on Lo Meifeng’s face slowly transformed into a grudging acceptance, and then into a grimace.
“You’re sure about that?” asked Lo Meifeng.
“As you sure as you can be about something when you can’t actually talk to whoever is doing something to you. It became pretty obvious, though. Every time I’ve tried to actively or even passively slow down my advancement, the heavens stepped in and forced the issue. As long as I’m not intentionally slowing down, they’ll leave it be for a while.”
“What does that even mean?”
“If I’m learning, training, trying to acclimate to my strength, they’re pretty hands-off. If I’m just off having fun or consciously neglecting my cultivation, the leash gets very short, very fast. Now that I have a daughter, I’m highly motivated to not advance any faster than is absolutely necessary, but even if she turns out to be a mortal, I suspect I’ll be long gone before she reaches the end of her life. So, I have to do what I can, now, to make sure that she lives that life comfortably, and with lots of very dangerous people around to keep her safe.”
“People like me?”
“Ideally, not people like you. You, specifically,” said Sen before he added. “It’s an ask, not an obligation. You can say no, and I will understand. I don’t need an answer right away. Ai is still very young. She’ll mostly stay with me for now.”
“I’m not very good with children,” said Lo Meifeng, a hint of nervousness in her voice. “She might not like me.”
“That is something that I’m wholly unconcerned about. She gets along just fine with nascent soul cultivators, farmers, and a transformed spider-kin. I’m relatively confident she can find her way with one seasoned core cultivator,” said Sen with a smirk.
“A spider-kin—” started Lo Meifeng before the rest of Sen’s words caught up with her. “Seasoned!”
Sen found himself laughing like a madman while dodging a truly staggering number of sharp objects that Lo Meifeng summoned from her storage rings.