Unintended Cultivator

The next week was busy, but mostly quiet. Sen arranged for an auction and let a few hints slip about what manner of natural treasures and elixirs were going to be up for grabs. There was extensive complaining about the incredibly short notice, most of which Sen shamelessly foisted off onto Long Jia Wei’s shoulders. He couldn’t really avoid the half-hearted complaints that Lai Dongmei made while they were in bed. Those he dismissed because he got the distinct impression that she did it because she felt like she ought to, not because she actually cared. The reality was that most of what got sold was going to go to the biggest sects. It probably wasn’t fair, but Sen decided that it wasn’t his job to be the arbiter of fairness at auctions for two key reasons. One, it sounded incredibly tedious. Two, he didn’t want to. This was little more than a money grab designed to make Grandmother Lu’s life a little easier. That meant he wanted the most money possible for the items, and the biggest sects had the most money to spend.

Supplies for the trip north started piling up in the manor, which brightened Sen’s day up every time he saw them. It was visible evidence that this trip to the capital was almost over. Unfortunately, it had come with one unpleasant detail that Sen had completely overlooked, but that Grandmother Lu’s eminently practical mind had spotted almost immediately.

“But why do I have to talk to them?” Sen complained.

“Because you’re going to be the one actually employing them,” said Grandmother Lu. “It’s not unreasonable for them to want to meet you. Just as importantly, don’t you think you should meet the people you plan to have help educate all of those children?”

“This is punishment for something, isn’t it?” asked Sen.

“Of course, it is. It also happens to be necessary, which means the punishment is really just a nice extra for me.”

“Will you at least tell me what it’s punishment for?”

“I’m sure if you’ll figure it out if you think hard about it.”

When Sen thought about it, there were a depressing number of things she might be punishing him for. Heaving a defeated breath, Sen spent a large part of one day talking to people he could hire to teach the children essentials like reading and math. He was a tiny bit annoyed to discover that it had been a good idea for him to meet the people. There were a few in the group that he simply couldn’t stand. They would have been a constant source of irritation if he’d been forced to deal with them on a regular basis. There were also a few that, for reasons Sen couldn’t put his finger on, he just didn’t trust. It was an instinct that told him that he shouldn’t hire those people. He did manage to hire what he hoped would be enough people to do the work.

With so much of the day already gone, he had decided that he might as well stay on task. He went out into the city and, based on recommendations he’d gotten from Lai Dongmei, Lo Meifeng, and Chan Dishi, looked for cultivators he could bring in for weapon teachers. A few just weren’t interested, one was too eager, and the others took some convincing. He’d found himself in a shabbier part of the city looking for one of Chan Dishi’s recommendations. A man named He Jietang. After asking around for a while, he eventually found the man sitting outside a ramshackle little house, a wine pot balanced precariously on his leg, and snoring outrageously. Sen almost walked away right then, but he had promised Chan Dishi that he would actually talk to the man. He walked over to the drunken cultivator and noted that he was in core formation, which made Sen wonder just what was in the wine pot.

“He Jietang!” Sen almost shouted.

The man stirred and finally cracked an eye to glare at Sen.

“Go away,” mumbled the man.

“I have a message for you,” said Sen.

“Don’t want it,” slurred He Jietang.

“I was told to say, get up off your lazy drunken ass and show me something you miserable old wretch.”

The man opened his other eye, seemed to focus, and said, “Oh, Dishi sent you. How is that fool?”

“Still foolish,” ventured Sen.

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“Good. Good,” said the man who gave his wine pot a longing look before putting it down and standing. “Wait here a moment.”

Sen half-expected the man to simply go inside and go to bed, but he reappeared less than a minute later with a bow in one hand and a half dozen arrows in the other.

“You’re an archer?” asked Sen.

“Not really, but it’s the only thing I can do while I’m this drunk,” answered He Jietang. “Grab some of those rocks on the ground, would you?”

Sen obliged the man and showed him the handful of rocks.

“Will these do?”

“Yeah, they’ll be fine. Go on.”

“Go on and do what?” asked Sen.

“Throw them up in the air.”

“How high?”

“As high as you can,” said the man.

Sen looked at the stones in his hand. If I throw these as high as I can, they might never come back down, thought Sen. Then, he looked at the arrows that the man had propped up against the wall of the house. He Jietang actually swayed on his feet. There was a hazy unfocused quality about the man, like the cultivator had become as dilapidated in his soul as the little house had become due to the ravages of time. Fine, thought Sen. I’ll throw the rocks and be on my way. It’s not like he’s going to hit them. Sen adjusted his grip a little, drew back, and hurled the rocks into the sky. He didn’t throw them with all of his strength, but more than hard enough that he probably could have brought down a circling hawk. He shifted his eyes from the rocks to the other man.

He watched as a change came over the man. For a few seconds, he saw what Chan Dishi had no doubt meant for him to see. The haziness parted, and it was like a new man emerged. The unsteadiness vanished. His posture straightened. The man’s eyes took on a piercing, predatory quality. He Jietang’s hand moved with smooth precision as he fired the six arrows one after the next. Sen glanced up and was not surprised to see the arrows strike the stones. There was a brief surge of qi from the archer, and wind gathered up the arrows and stones. The stones were scattered on the ground, while the arrows dropped back into the man’s outstretched hand. Then, the unfocused quality returned.

“You recruiting for a sect war?” asked He Jietang. “As you can see, I’m a fine archer. No flying sword will help them evade my arrows.”

“I don’t want you to fight,” said Sen. “I want you to teach.”

“Teach,” said the man, as though he was tasting something unfamiliar.

“That is assuming you can be sober enough to do that job. Can you?”

A sliver of that other cultivator surfaced in the man’s expression when he said, “I can.”

Sen nodded and gave He Jietang a quick explanation of what he wanted and where it would happen. Then, almost as if it were an afterthought, Sen asked a final question.

“Do you mind teaching mortals? To the limits of their abilities, of course.”

“What? Sure, I’ll teach mortals. No difference to me who I teach as long as you give me somewhere warm to sleep in the winter, food to eat, and enough coin to help me forget when I really need to.”

“I think that can all be arranged, assuming you don’t need to forget every single night.”

“Not every night,” said He Jietang. “Just the bad ones.”

Sen had real misgivings about the man, but he couldn’t deny the skill he’d seen on display. He also wasn’t entrusting the archer with deep secrets or dangerous knowledge. The worst that would happen is that he’d discover the other cultivator had overestimated his self-control. If that happened, Sen would simply ask him to leave. And he did need people at his—Sen resisted the urge to hurl profanity—sect. Sen gave the man the details about when and where the caravan would leave. I’ll consider that the first test, thought Sen. If he shows up, it means that there might still be a useful person hidden inside the other man somewhere.

The only other real surprise that week was when Lo Meifeng brought Yeung Fen to see him. Sen could not imagine what the woman had said to convince Lo Meifeng to keep her around, but he had said he would take her recommendation. That didn’t mean he needed to be stupid about it. He made her swear her vows to the heavens with the little addition that if she broke those vows, it would cost her cultivation and her life. She had glared at him for that, but Sen saw it as the one way he could help to ensure her compliance or expose her false intentions. He expected the latter, but she took the vows. He made a point to tell Lo Meifeng that the woman was her responsibility. She had nodded in acceptance, even if she didn’t look enthusiastic about the idea.

When the day of the auction arrived, Sen went to the location. It wasn’t out of any desire to actually attend, but for the far more prosaic reason that he simply wasn’t willing to entrust any of the natural treasures to someone else's care. Which was how he found himself standing on a makeshift stage, bringing out natural treasures and elixirs, and watching the sects go to metaphorical war with each other. He might have been more concerned if their battles didn’t end with them bleeding money in his direction. He was a little amused to see that Lai Dongmei even showed up to do some bidding herself. Grandmother Lu will never let me live that down, he thought.

A few of the sects had offered other treasures in exchange. He had been sorely, desperately tempted a few times, but that wasn’t what he was there for. Gritting his teeth a little, he had declined and pretended he didn’t see the angry looks that were directed his way. When the last of the treasures were handed out and he had a fresh pile of money for Grandmother Lu in hand, though, he was finally done with the capital. That thought alone made him feel like someone had finally removed a knife from his stomach.

“I can finally leave,” he thought. “I can finally go home and see my little girl.”