Book 3: Chapter 39: Contact
After weeks spent running around in the wilds, it wasn’t difficult for Sen and Lo Meifeng to pass themselves off as weary travelers looking for an inn at the gates of Lin Wen’s Redoubt. The guards waved them through without so much as a second glance. Old feelings of unease rose up in Sen on reflex as they entered the small city, but they struck him as more reflexive than real. He was hiding, and Lo Meifeng was doing something to keep her presence muted. Sen made a mental note to ask her about it later. While his approach was highly effective, it was also taxing and dampened his senses more than he was comfortable with in a potentially hostile environment. Although, being uncomfortable on a lot of levels was becoming a depressingly familiar state of affairs. Still, if he could learn a different way to obscure his presence, that could only be a good thing.
They quickly blended into the throng of other people going about their daily lives. At least they tried to blend in. They had spent so much time away from people that he’d forgotten that his appearance often provoked strong reactions. He started doing his best to keep his head down like he was deep in thought in thought or exceptionally tired. He heard Lo Meifeng make a disgruntled noise. He glanced her way, but she just shook her head. Apparently, she’d forgotten about that problem as well. The head down technique wasn’t foolproof by any measure, but it did help. After she was confident that they hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention, Lo Meifeng had them stop and get food at a cart in a small market. They made their way over to a wall to, in theory, eat the food. They waited until an argument broke out between one of the vendors and a customer. Sen and Lo Meifeng took that opportunity to scan the crowd. No one was paying them any attention, so they slipped into a nearby alley.
After that, they made much better time and drew less attention as they moved from alley to alley. The only downside was that they were forced to beat a few thugs with poor survival instincts into unconsciousness. Sen felt a slight pang of sympathy for those thugs. He could easily have become one of them if Master Feng hadn’t changed the course of his life. It wasn’t enough sympathy to stay his hand, but he might have pulled his punches a little more than he otherwise might have. It seemed Lo Meifeng noticed because she lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Are these your cousins or something?” she asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you going so easy on them?”
“These people didn’t come looking for us. We invaded their territory. I’m not going to break their bones just because they annoyed me.”
Lo Meifeng thought that over for a moment. “Alright. I guess that’s fair.”
Twenty minutes and a few more pointless scuffles later, they slipped out of an alley and made their way into a nondescript-looking little shop. Lo Meifeng spoke briefly with the woman at the counter before the pair of them were ushered into a back room. A profoundly obese man sat in the room, looking very put upon. There were empty teacups scattered everywhere, some of them still half-full, and others holding down piles of paper. He held a still steaming cup in one hand as he squinted down at a scroll and made some kind of notes on it. He glanced up at the pair as they entered the room and let out a frustrated breath.
“What do you want?” the obese man demanded, his eyes narrowing so much that they all but disappeared into the fat on his face.
“No viper is so deadly as the one you never see,” said Lo Meifeng.
The man sat straight up in his chair. “No den is as secure as the one hidden in plain view.”
“I need to send a message,” said Lo Meifeng.
“Recipient?” asked the man.
“The Patriarch.”
The fat man glanced up at her, then his eyes shifted to Sen. There was a moment of confusion as he glanced back and forth between Sen and Lo Meifeng. The dawning realization on the man’s face was almost comical to Sen. The man tried to stand up, bow, and put his teacup down all at the same time. He mostly just succeeded in spilling his tea on scrolls that Sen hoped weren’t important. They waited as the man cursed, called for an assistant, and eventually managed to clean up the worst of the spill. Once that was accomplished and the assistant dismissed, the man turned his attention back to his guests.
“You are Lo Meifeng?” the man asked.
“I am.”
“Then, you are Judgment’s Gale?”
Sen almost suppressed this frustrated sigh. “Yeah, that’s me.”
“Then, this is a blessed day, indeed.”
“Why is that?” asked Sen.
“The Patriarch believed you both dead. His anger has been,” the man searched for a word to encapsulate it, “profound.”
Sen grimaced. “I hope he hasn’t taken that anger out on his employees.”
The obese man shook his head. “Not specifically, but we’ve all done our best to soften any bad news as much as possible.”
“Probably wise,” said Lo Meifeng. “Now, a scroll, brush, and ink, if you please. We aren’t planning to stay long.”
“You must stay!” cried the man.
Sen and Lo Meifeng traded perplexed looks.
“Why?” asked Lo Meifeng.
“The Patriarch will be enraged if one of us knew where you were and then let you leave.”
“He won’t,” said Lo Meifeng. “He’ll understand after he receives the message. Now, scroll, ink, and a brush. Please.”
The obese man continued his protests, but he did as he asked. Sen decided to keep out of the odd, almost-argument, contest-of-wills that was happening between Lo Meifeng and her contact. He knew full well how it was going to play out, and Lo Meifeng didn’t need his help. Her contact was underequipped to win in any battle of wills with the woman. For her part, Lo Meifeng kept up a steady stream of denials and verbal diversions while she also wrote out a message. While Sen was used to controlling multiple flows of qi at a time, even while fighting, he’d never really tried to do more than one mundane task at a time. It looked difficult. He supposed it was the kind of thing that you had to practice, and he never had. He figured he should remedy that. Singular focus was a good thing for some situations, but he could see the advantages of being able to divide his attention like Lo Meifeng was doing.
When she’d finished writing, she dried the ink with a tiny burst of her qi. Then, she sealed the scroll with both qi and wax, before she handed it over to the still-protesting man. Sen frowned at that. It felt to him like the man was trying too hard to get them to stay. Sen walked over to the table and glared at the man, who went very still under Sen’s intense expression.
“Who did you tell we were here?” Sen asked.
Lo Meifeng shot Sen a sharp look, then seemed to mentally step back from the immediate situation. Her glare joined Sen’s. The obese man held his hands up in front of him and started laughing. Sen supposed it was meant to be disarming, but it came across as pure hysteria.
“No one,” the contact declared. “I told no one.”
Sen nodded and then drew his jian. The contact’s eyes went wide at the sight of the blade.
“Now, I start cutting off a limb for every lie. Who did you tell we were here?”
The obese man’s eyes never left the jian. He started shaking. “I, I…”
“If you don’t answer the question, I’m going to consider that a lie,” noted Sen in a bored voice as he lifted the sword a little.
“Yeung Fen!” shrieked the man.
“And who is Yeung Fen?” asked Lo Meifeng.
“A merchant! She’s a local merchant.”
“And why would a woman who’s just a local merchant know or care about us?” asked Sen.
“Equally important, how would she know about you?” Lo Meifeng asked as a compact fireball ignited less than six inches from the contact’s face.
“She approached me,” said the contact as an unhealthy flush crept up his face.
Lo Meifeng shook her head. “I hope it was a lot of money and that you left it somewhere your family can find it.”
“You don’t understand!” shouted the contact.
“I think we do. Should I do it?” Sen asked Lo Meifeng.
“No,” she said. “This one is on me.”
Sen stepped back as the fireball transformed into a tiny shaft of white flame and drove itself through the man’s forehead. The obese man collapsed backward. The stink of burning hair and charred flesh started filling the room. Sen wrinkled his nose in disgust as he gestured at the scroll.
“Should we destroy that?”
“No. I want them to find it.”
It was Sen’s turn to give Lo Meifeng a sharp look. “You knew?”
“I suspected. He was trying way too hard to get us to stay. If he’d made a few protests, it would have made sense. Going on and on that way, he had to be up to something. I assume that’s what gave it away to you.”
“Yeah. I’m kind of surprised, though. I’d have thought that the threat of Master Feng’s vengeance would have deterred this sort of thing.”
“It usually does,” said Lo Meifeng. “But money right now can overcome someone’s fear of a distant threat, no matter how inevitable and inexorable that threat might be.”
“So, basically, some people are stupid and weak-willed. Still, this all feels a little unlikely to me.”
“No, you’re honestly overthinking this one. We were heading this way and your associations were becoming known. I bet those demonic cultivators spent a lot of time and money on preparing the ground here six or eight months ago. It’s pretty clear that this guy,” she gestured at the smoldering corpse, “was indiscrete. It wouldn’t have been hard for people to figure out who and what he was.”
“I guess that could be true.”
“It’s the likeliest scenario. Now, let’s go before we have to fight our way out of this city.”
Sen snorted. “Do you really think we’re getting out of this city without a fight?”
“Maybe, if we hurry.”
What she left unsaid, but Sen understood all the same, was that they’d just be putting the fight off until they were away from the city. But Sen would rather fight out in the wild than in a city anyway. He could do things in the wilds that were impractical, if not impossible, in a city. Sen inclined his head to her.
“Lead the way, oh venerable one.”
“Do you want to get kicked again? Because I’d be happy to make that happen.”
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