Unintended Cultivator

Sen had hoped that things would calm down a bit after the semi-disastrous meeting with Winds of Winter. He’d talked it over with Master Feng, Auntie Caihong, and Uncle Kho, and they all seemed to think that it wasn’t that bad. They even seemed a little optimistic about it. Noticing his obvious confusion, Uncle Kho explained.

“While we knew about Falling Leaf, this is the first hard evidence we have that this Beast King has made a habit of culling dissenters. It’s also the first sign of any kind of real division in their ranks.”

“Didn’t we already know about that first part? I mean, the same thing happened to the nine tail foxes. I guess it wasn’t as effective with them, but we did know.”

When that statement was met with three blank stares, Sen realized that he might not have told them about that.

“I didn’t mention that?” asked Sen, feeling sheepish.

“You did not,” said Auntie Caihong. “Although, I suppose we can’t be too angry about it. It’s not as though the foxes are reliable.”

“I thought you liked Laughing River,” said Sen.

“I do. I always have. He’s funny. Liking him isn’t the same thing as trusting him, though. And it has almost no bearing on trusting the nine tail foxes as a whole. Maybe you should tell us the whole story.”

Sen related the tale of what happened to the foxes as he had heard it. The meeting, the slaughter, Laughing Riven essentially abandoning his people, and his granddaughter’s quest for vengeance. He rounded out the story with his suspicion that Laughing River was, probably at that very moment, killing people who had spread the false tale about him. The three nascent soul cultivators traded inscrutable looks. They were those annoying looks that were really conversations he was being excluded from. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and he doubted it would be the last, but it still bothered him to be left out.

“I suppose we can take it as true for now,” said Master Feng. “I wasn’t looking for it, so I didn’t make any note of it. Looking back, though, there have been a lot fewer of the nine tail foxes running around and causing trouble. The real question is, does this help us?”

Auntie Caihong shook her head and said, “We’re back to that reliability problem. We might be able to trust Laughing River, but the rest of them are an open question. I worry they’d be as much a liability as a resource.”

“You think they’d betray us?” asked Sen.

“No,” said Uncle Kho. “At least, I don’t think they would on purpose. Not after they agreed to help, at any rate. I do think they would get bored or distracted and wander away for three months. It takes a lot to keep foxes on task.”

Sen thought back to his own experiences with Laughing River and Misty Peak. They had been terribly distractable, even when the stakes got very, very high. While he knew that two people were a poor stand-in for a large group when it came to assessing behavior, everything he was hearing suggested that they were about average. If anything, they might be exceptions, given that Laughing River had mostly stayed focused on getting that spatial treasure, and Misty Peak had clearly been focused on getting revenge for a while. However, he had no idea how often they had both gotten sidetracked on their way to fulfilling those respective missions. Much like Auntie Caihong, while Sen held a certain dim fondness for Laughing River, and could probably tolerate Misty Peak if he absolutely had to do so, he was not keen on the idea of trusting them with anything important.

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He recognized that he might well be unfairly judging them, but he only had his own experiences to go on. It was possible they could stay focused if it aligned with some deep inner need on their part. Revenge might be enough to do it, especially given how many of their people had apparently died, but there was just no way to know. He wasn’t willing to gamble with all of humanity just find out if he was right or wrong about that.

“So, we leave them out of the circle for now?” asked Sen, feeling a little guilty about the idea.

“No,” said Master Feng.

That answer surprised Sen. He’d have thought that Master Feng would be the first to dismiss the foxes. It seemed that Auntie Caihong shared in his shock.

“Why?” she demanded.

“I’m not saying we give them tasks. Kho is right. We could never trust them with something time-sensitive or that might prove tedious, but we should tell them what’s coming. I suspect they know already, but better to make the gesture. A little goodwill now may pay off later. Just because we don’t ask them to look for information or to spy for us, it doesn’t mean they won’t tell us about things if they stumble across them by pure happenstance. Particularly if they’re feeling well-disposed toward us.”

“I suppose there isn’t much harm in telling them what’s coming. Everyone will know soon enough as it is. I’m honestly surprised the spirit beasts haven’t attacked already.”

Master Feng coughed a little self-consciously.

“About that,” he said. “I might have downplayed my fight with them a little.”

“What’s a little?” asked Uncle Kho with a raised eyebrow. “You said you killed enough to send a small message.”

“It wasn’t like I was counting them,” said Master Feng with a little defensiveness in his voice.

“Estimate for us,” said Auntie Caihong. “More than a hundred?”

“Definitely more than a hundred,” said Master Feng.

“More than a thousand?” asked Uncle Kho.

“Yes,” agreed Master Feng.

“More than five thousand?” asked Auntie Caihong with an exasperated note in her tone.

“I don’t think it was that many. Probably.”

“Just how long was this fight?” asked Uncle Kho.

Master Feng got a thoughtful look on his face and idly scratched his chin.

“Counting the talking, two or three minutes, I guess.”

Everyone, Sen included, stared at Master Feng. Sen had killed a lot of spirit beasts over the years, but he only had patchy memories of the time he’d killed a lot of them all in one terrible moment. Looking back, he thought that there might have been two hundred in that beast tide. It looked like an almost insurmountable number, and killing them had taken a technique that had very nearly killed him in the process. A technique he wasn’t entirely confident he could reproduce even now. The revelation that Master Feng had casually killed ten times that many, or more, in a matter of minutes was a stark reminder to Sen of just how powerful the elder cultivator truly was. It was also a clue as to why all of those other nascent soul cultivators were likely right to fear this man.

“I suppose that would be enough to give anyone pause,” observed Uncle Kho.

Sen was trying to think of something useful to add when the door to the room that had been designated his office opened slightly.

“Patriarch?”

Sen tried to recall the name of the young man who had been given the thankless job of guarding his door against people who wanted to waste his time. He drew a blank. He knew he’d heard the name, but it had somehow slipped his grasp. The same thing had happened with the last poor bastard who had that job. Sen assured himself that he wasn’t maliciously forgetting their names in an act of petty vengeance for them calling him Patriarch all the time. He was almost certain he wasn’t doing that. Still, he had left instructions with the young man not to interrupt them unless it was very important. Adding to that was the rumor that the people Sen had introduced as his family were actually frightfully powerful old monsters, a case of a rumor being true for once, it probably meant that something that genuinely required Sen’s attention was probably happening. After getting nods from the nascent soul cultivators, he answered.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Patriarch, but you said if it was very important, I should.”

“I recall,” said Sen, stuck somewhere between annoyance and amusement.

“There are people at the gate demanding to see you.”

Sen wondered if that meant one of the sects had finally decided to tell him who ran things in this part of the nation.

“Did they say who they are?”

“They’re from the Vermilion Blade Sect, Patriarch.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. I don’t have the patience for this today.”

Sen heard the young man swallow before he said, “I will relay your words, Patriarch.”

“No,” said Sen. “I’ll see to it.”