Book 4: Chapter 1: Progress at Last
Sen had thought he’d be happy to leave the valley of the fire cultivators behind, and he was…mostly. The only real downside was that one of the fire cultivators, Shi Ping, had come with them. Sen had gotten a heaven-chasing realm spear for taking on the task of bringing Shi Ping along and thought it was worth it. He had swiftly come to realize that it most certainly had not been worth it. Sen had known the man was lazy because Shi Ping had admitted it to him, openly, unashamedly, without hesitation, the very first time they met. What Sen hadn’t realized was that all of that laziness came with a nearly unbearable amount of whining. That whining had crescendoed to hitherto unseen heights in the last day or two. It had reached the point that Sen was giving serious consideration to just killing the man.
“Isn’t it time for lunch?” complained Shi Ping. “We’ve been walking for hours.”
Sen stopped in his tracks, turned, and glared at the man. Shi Ping jerked to a stop and went several shades paler. He seemed to recognize that he had, finally, come up against the absolute farthest reaches of Sen’s patience and was now in legitimate, mortal peril.
Sen growled two words through hard clenched teeth. “Stop. Whining.”
“I’m sorry, I just-,” started Shi Ping.
“No more justs, no more buts, no more excuses,” said Sen. “You will stop whining, or I will kill you.”
Shi Ping seemed to find his backbone, or maybe it was his anger, because he glared right back at Sen. “This isn’t fair. I didn’t ask to come on this trip. I shouldn’t have to suffer because you made a deal with the matriarch.”
Sen grew unnaturally calm and still at those words before he said in a very soft voice. “Suffering? You think this is suffering?”
Shi Ping’s eyes went wide as Sen drew his jian and advanced on him.
“No, I just-,” Shi Ping started to say.
In a move the fire cultivator never even saw, Sen drove his jian through the man’s leg. Shi Ping howled in pain as Sen calmly pulled the sword free.
“Now, you’re suffering,” said Sen, wiping the blade clean on Shi Ping’s robe. “I suggest you bandage that quickly or something will come looking for an easy meal.”
“You bastard!”
Sen sheathed his sword and gave Shi Ping a flat look. “Don’t fall behind.”
“I can turn around and go back any time I want,” shouted Shi Ping.
“Go ahead.”
“What?” asked Shi Ping, looking a little shocked and nervous, even as he hastily bandaged the wound.
“I said, go ahead. Go back. What do you really think is waiting for you there? If I read these tea leaves correctly, you’re on your absolute last chance with the matriarch. I think you know it, too. If you go back, I bet that all you’ll get is a swift death or expulsion from the order. For someone like you, expulsion is just a slow execution because you will not survive alone in the world. So, you can either quit whining all of the time, or you can go back. I really don’t care which you pick.”
Sen stalked away from Shi Ping and didn’t even bother looking back to see what the man did. A little farther up the road, Lo Meifeng slowed down to walk next to him. She eyed him curiously but didn’t ask whatever question was obviously on her mind. Sen rolled his eyes and looked at her.
“What is it?”
“I’m just a little surprised at you. I mean, sure, I’d have stabbed him yesterday or possibly after the first hour. You’re usually a little more patient than this.”
“Patience is for people who deserve it.”
“And he doesn’t?”
Sen gave her a sharp look. “Are you saying that you do think he deserves it?”
Lo Meifeng laughed. “Not in the slightest, but I’m not really known for my kindly feelings toward others. I’m curious why you think he doesn’t.”
Sen reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. It didn’t provide any physical relief. Sen didn’t really experience physical pain any longer unless he was injured in some grievous way, but the action did provide a bit of a psychological balm. He glanced up at the sky and debated whether or not to tell her. There was a time not very long in the past when he would have opened up to her about it without hesitation. Now, though, everything to do with her was passed through a filter of distrust. He found himself wondering how she’d use whatever information he gave her to manipulate him again. He hated thinking and feeling that way, yet he couldn’t shake it either. He also knew there was some value in forgiveness, but she’d cut that path off when she told him she didn’t regret it. Part of him just wanted to forget the whole thing, while part of him wished he’d left her behind. In the end, though, he had to talk to someone.
“Ever since I formed my core, my anger has been harder to control. Well, no, that’s not exactly right. It’s like it’s been amplified, which has made it harder to control. Shi Ping just pushed on that anger until I couldn’t keep a leash on it anymore.”
Lo Meifeng frowned at that and fell silent for a while. Much to Sen’s disappointment, she didn’t have much to offer by way of encouragement.
“That’s a new one on me. I have a theory or two, but nothing solid. It could be something to do with the nascent soul that should be developing in your core. It’s connected to you, to your experiences, and you’ve had a rough year. It may have soaked in some of the anger you’ve experienced and, now, it’s reflecting that anger back to you.”
“Let’s say that’s true, how do I get a grip on it? I can’t just go around stabbing everyone who gets on my nerves.”
“Well, that’s not true. You absolutely can go around stabbing everyone who annoys you.”
“Ha. Oh, ha. You are so funny,” said Sen in his driest deadpan.
“Like I said, this is a new one for me. That nascent soul theory is the best I’ve got for the why, but it might not even be true. If it is true, I honestly have no idea how you’d deal with it. I supposed you could look for happier, less stressful things to do. Look for moments of enlightenment about the nature of calm.”
“Balance,” said Sen. “If I’ve been giving that nascent soul nothing but anger and stress, I need to give it something to balance those influences.”
Lo Meifeng shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”
“Thanks,” said Sen, and almost managed to not sound grudging about it.
Lo Meifeng almost managed to look like it didn’t bother her. “Sure. I hope it helps.”
After a while, Shi Ping came limping up behind them. Sen looked back at the man and raised an eyebrow.
“Any comments to share about the conditions?”
Shi Ping just shook his head and said, “No.”
Progress at last, thought Sen. Now, let’s see how long Shi Ping can keep it up. I give him until dinner. Yet, the man surprised Sen. Dinner came and went without more complaints or incessant whining. When the man refrained from moaning about everything the next morning, Sen found a little pity inside himself and made the man a healing elixir. Sen thought about making it weak enough that it wouldn’t heal the leg injury all the way, but Shi Ping’s limping really had slowed them down the day before. Sen hoped that the long afternoon and evening of pain would stick with the man for a while. He knew there were no guarantees, but Sen reasoned that he could always stab the other leg if the man got excessively obnoxious again.
In the meantime, Sen tried to reflect on things like the nature of calm and the feeling of peace. He didn’t experience any moments of enlightenment, but he hadn’t really expected to be blessed that way. He did draw some conclusions, though. Anger and violence were, in his experience, abrupt things. They usually came and went in a flash. His own experiences with them were unusual. Being hunted by demonic cultivators for all those months had kept his anger on a constant low simmer, and forced him to be ready for violence at the drop of a hat. Those kinds of things could take root in the heart if a person wasn’t careful, and Sen feared he hadn’t been careful enough.
On the flip side, he thought that things like calm and peace were more of a process. They were things a person had to strive for and actively cultivate, just like they cultivated qi. Starve a dantian of qi, and a person would have very few options available the next time they needed to perform a technique. He’d been starving himself of calm and peace, if not by intention, so did that make him more prone to anger and violence? Sen thought that it almost certainly did. He just wasn’t sure how to break those habits yet. Sen looked around and realized something. He caught up with Lo Meifeng.
“Have you seen Falling Leaf recently?” he asked.
“Not since this morning. She said she was going to scout ahead, didn’t she?”
“She did,” admitted Sen, “but that was almost six hours ago. It seems like she’d have come back by now.”
“You know her better than I do. Is this unusual for her?”
Sen had very intentionally withheld Falling Leaf’s true nature as a transformed spirit beast from Lo Meifeng. That meant that he couldn’t explain to Lo Meifeng that he really didn’t know what was normal for human Falling Leaf. She could be in trouble, or she could just be reveling in being free to come and go as she pleased. Still, if she had carried over most of her personality in the change, then a long absence like the one he’d noticed wouldn’t be out of character for her. He thought that he was probably just carrying some leftover paranoia from the days of being hunted.
“I guess not,” he said. “I should probably talk with her about making regular check-ins, though.”
It was maybe all of ten minutes later when Sen spotted Falling Leaf not just running but sprinting toward them down the road. Her face was locked into an expression of grim determination. Sen sighed.
“Oh, what now?” he said.
Then, he saw the bear-cat spirit beast that was chasing her, and whatever tiny bit of progress he’d made with his anger disappeared. Lo Meifeng also noticed the approaching girl and spirit beast.
“What is it with us and these bear-cat things?” she asked.
“What is that thing?” shouted Shi Ping, drawing his jian almost reflexively.
“It’s a spirit beast,” said Sen, “and I’m about done with this particular species of them.”
“It doesn’t seem like they’re done with you,” muttered Lo Meifeng.
“Yeah, I noticed that. Maybe it’s time that I send a stronger message,” said Sen.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m