Unintended Cultivator

Sen stretched and looked out the window. Even in the pre-dawn light, he could see Golden Phoenix Sect members out and about. Some were clearly cultivating, others were training martial forms, and he even saw a few groups that appeared to be heading out on missions of one kind or another. It was all so orderly. He wondered if things would ever look this orderly back at the Deep Wilds Academy. Sen knew that it was going to be a sect, but he just hated the very thought of openly calling it a sect, even in his own head. Maybe I just won’t, he thought. I can keep calling it an academy if I want to. The more he thought about that idea, the better he liked it.

“Leaving already,” said a wistful voice from behind him.

He turned and, well, he supposed the right word for it was beheld Lai Dongmei. She was stretched out on the blankets to display her body to maximum advantage. Sen’s self-control was nothing to be sneered at, but he wasn’t going to lie himself. He was tempted. The only thing that marred the image was the shattered remains of what had been the bed’s frame.

“We broke your bed,” he observed, not sure if he ought to feel bad about it or not.

“Yes, we did,” said Lai Dongmei.

She was clearly not bothered by that at all. If anything, she looked quite satisfied by that turn of events.

“Maybe you should have had it reinforced with qi. I mean, you are sect matriarch and all.”

She let out a throaty laugh that did all sorts of subtle but nonetheless interesting things to the rest of her body.

“It was,” she told him. “I’m sure it will start all manner of interesting rumors when I have it very obviously removed.”

“You mean, the six people in this sect who don’t already pray daily for my death will join that cult.”

“Quite probably,” said Lai Dongmei without the slightest contrition in her voice.

“Thanks so much for that,” said Sen with an eye-roll.

“You can always come back to what’s left of the bed and delay the inevitable,” she said as she traced a finger down her body.

It had the intended effect of drawing his eyes to the woman’s very available, very desirable flesh. A primal hunger inside of him roared with need. Sen had to keep that part of himself buried most of the time. The number of people he could share a bed with and not put them at unacceptable risk was constantly shrinking. So, he’d learned to keep those kinds of thoughts and impulses on a very short leash. Now, though, there was someone who would suffer no additional danger if he chose to indulge with her. Spending the night with Lai Dongmei had not come close to sating him. All things being equal, he would do exactly as she wished. But all things were not equal. Sure, the ridiculous political event was over, but he still needed to stabilize the House of Lu. At least, he needed to get it stable enough that he could go home and see Ai. He had promised to come back as soon as he could.

“Don’t think for a second that I don’t want to,” said Sen, shoving his lust into a box and mostly closing it in. “But the House of Lu isn’t like your sect, yet. I can’t expect it to keep running without me if I up and disappear for a month.”

Lai Dongmei’s eyes half closed when she said, “A month.”

Sen could not tell what it was in her voice when she said those two innocuous words, but it connected with something inside of him that started screaming at him to get back into the broken bed right that second. Sen narrowed his eyes at the woman.

“That was just mean.”

“Not mean enough, apparently, since it didn’t work.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. If I didn’t have things that absolutely cannot be ignored and a daughter waiting for me to come home, I’d make you make good on that.”

“Now who's being mean? Bringing up your daughter when I’m trying to seduce you. Hardly fair.”

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“You already seduced me.”

“True. I suppose I’ll have to settle for just insisting you that come back. Soon. Very soon,” she said as she rose from the remains of the bed.

Sen did not stare while she did that. He was almost certain of it. She went over to a cabinet and put on, well, he supposed it was technically a loose robe. It was shaped like a robe. It was just so sheer that it concealed nothing. With one last effort of will, he fought off the urge to take the stupid thing right back off of her. She noticed and gave him a wicked smile.

“Well, I suppose if you’re just determined to go be responsible, there are one or two things we should discuss.”

Sen groaned aloud.

“You want to talk about politics, don’t you?”

“Gods no. You know what I want to be doing. But we do need to talk about it. A noble house with a cultivator patriarch on this side of the mountains. Have you considered the precedent you’re setting with that?”

“In this one kingdom, maybe,” said Sen.

“For now, perhaps. You don’t honestly believe that every cultivator here thinks that mortals should rule themselves, do you?” she asked before nodding at his sour expression. “Cultivators who are going to ascend one day, people like you, people like me, or your teachers, are generally content to let the situation be what it is. We recognize the trap for what it is, even if the fools across the mountains haven’t seemed to figure it out. Ruling the mortals is a distraction. But every group has people who want every ounce of every kind of power they can grab. When most cultivators figure out that they aren’t going to ascend, it can bring out those traits. Whether you meant to do it or not, you’ve cracked open a door that we’ve all kept shut for a very long time. There may well be consequences you didn’t account for.”

“Such as?” asked Sen, fearing he knew the answer already.

“What if a cultivator who doesn’t share your loathing for politics rises to power in a noble house? Someone who also doesn’t share your relatively tender feelings toward mortals. Who will fight them? Who could?”

Sen grit his teeth because he already knew the answer. For the time being, at least, that duty would fall to him. The sects couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t, interfere that directly in mortal politics. If they did, that separation between the sects and mortal governments would simply disappear. That meant that it would inevitably fall to those outside the sect system. Wandering cultivators. From what Sen had seen and heard, most of them weren’t going to be all that interested in taking up a fight like that. They were no less selfishly focused on their cultivation than sect cultivators. That left him, the only cultivator house patriarch in the kingdom.

“I’d have to do it,” he said.

“Yes, or accept the consequences of not doing it. For example, they might challenge for the throne. No mortal king could withstand that kind of challenge. Would you be willing to cede the entire kingdom to the control of a cultivator?”

Sen wished that he wasn’t being confronted with this uncomfortable truth. He wouldn’t be willing to accept that. But it also meant that he had to be willing to do something about it if it ever became a problem. He’d largely created the conditions that might make it possible, which meant he needed to take some responsibility for managing what came after. Somehow. Like he didn’t already have enough to do.

“No, I wouldn’t,” he said.

“That’s good to know. The other thing to discuss is just how you plan to run this new house of yours.”

“Who ever said I was going to run it?” asked Sen with a smirk. “I’m just keeping the place limping along until someone vastly more qualified than me arrives.”

“Who?”

“My grandmother.”

Lai Dongmei hesitated before she said, “I thought you were an orphan.”

“Oh, I was. You can think of her as my grandmother in spirit. She’s an interesting woman. I think you’d like her.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s very practical.”

“That’s not much to go on,” complained Lai Dongmei, pouting in a way that Sen was certain was intended to look just as fetching as it did.

“You’ll just have to meet her. Then, you’ll understand.”

“You plan to introduce me to your grandmother? How bold.”

Sen straightened a little as it occurred to him what that could imply. Lai Dongmei waited until the realization was truly sinking in before she laughed.

“Don’t worry. I’m not looking for a husband. Not here, at any rate. Although, after we’ve both ascended, well, that might be a conversation worth revisiting. I expect that by the time I catch up with you there, you’ll have seasoned a bit.”

Sen’s mind blanked out on him for a moment. He’d never considered marriage, not to anyone. He’d wondered about it a few times like he imagined everyone did, but it never felt like a real possibility to him. He was constantly outpacing everyone around him, which even he’d recognized effectively closed those kinds of doors on a romantic level. Granted, other people had needed to point out that the same thing applied to friends, but he’d also never thought beyond ascension. Things would be different there, wouldn’t they? At the very least, he probably wouldn’t be racing through advancement after advancement. He was sure there would be threats, but those threats wouldn’t constantly be growing in strength the way they were now. It could be a real possibility. Then, he frowned.

“Catch up? You think I’m going to ascend first?”

“I’m quite certain of it. The speed of your growth is beyond fast. It’s utterly unprecedented. It's almost a foregone conclusion that you'll ascend first. Although, I do have to wonder at why that was the first thing you reacted to,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, right,” said Sen, his face flushing. “Well, I mean, yes, that probably would be a conversation worth revisiting if and when the day comes.”