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Chapter 65: "Clean Up Nice."
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Shae's meal was by her bed when she arrived with the nurse. She sat on the edge and pulled the table towards herself. The nurse stopped her and insisted she sit in the bed properly, with her back to the wall so that the tray table could swing over the bed. She rolled her eyes when the nurse turned her back, but she still complied.
The nurse flourished the tray cover, which released a small cloud of steam that wafted up from the plate.
Shae looked at it and didn't react. She glanced up to see the nurse's expectant gaze. "Uhh, looks like food! Thanks!" She forced a friendly smile.
"Let me know if you need anything!" She smiled back, and pointed to the bedside bell, then turned to leave.
"Uhm," Shae spoke up, making the woman spin in place to face her again. "Something to drink? Maybe tea, but just water is fine."
"Of course," she nodded and walked away.
Shae poked at her food. Stunned by the fact it was almost entirely shades of white and grey. Even the vegetables looked like they had the color boiled out of them. She turned the plate a few times and found a stem sticking out from under one of the lightly fried dumplings. The stem led to a spike of bright red.
She smiled as she remembered nurse Joi's spicy pickled peppers.
A few bites of impossibly inoffensive food later she heard footsteps approaching. The spike of red drew her eye again and she quickly hid it under the dumplings.
It was the same nurse with a mug of something.
Shae smiled because it looked like it would be tea, except it wasn't steaming.
"Here you are, dear," the nurse said as she set it down.
"Thank you!" Shae smiled wide.
The nurse smiled back then walked away.
Shae looked down at the mug. Water. She frowned but shrugged. I guess I did say that water was fine.
Two bites of food later, she went for the mug. She stopped right before it was at her lips. Why is the mug warm?
She paused. Then carefully sipped the water. It was also warm. Not hot. Not enough for tea, but just warm, and it was water. Plain warm water.
"What the actual fuck?" She cursed in English as quietly as she could.
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The spicy pickled pepper was the only redeeming feature of the meal. Shae wondered if she had been put on the wrong list for what she could eat. Certainly if someone had stomach or throat surgery, they would need lighter meals. She simply couldn't understand why they would intentionally serve that to normal patients. Stopping herself from complaining further, she wondered if her night of interesting meals at the Gilded Aurochs had spoiled her. Maybe they are trying to get people to leave, she chuckled.
She hesitated when she finished eating. Do I ring the bell just to get them to clear the plate? Seems unnecessary. She pushed the table away and relaxed instead. Leaning against the wall she considered what to do next.
During the caravan journey she had a few regular things she could do after they stopped for dinner. Reviewing her practice documents, archery, even qigong now that Apollo had burned some semblance of it into her bones. None of it she could really do here. Maybe some qigong and exercise.
She got out of bed to work through a few sets of the poses. The restricted space made it difficult; she greatly preferred the active version where she was able to move around. Flexing her qi, she used the tar practice on her cleansed limbs to force them to actually work.
Halfway through the first set, rushed footsteps clicked down the hall and she turned to spot a nurse approaching at a brisk walk. Not either of the two she had already met.
"Miss, what do you think you're doing?" The sharp nosed woman said.
"Uh, hello. I'm exercising."
"You're making a mess of the local qi is what you're doing. It's disturbing the other patients."
Shae glanced around and didn't see other patients near her, much less one that was currently disturbed. "Really? I'm not trying to cultivate or move qi outside myself."
She pointed at the formations along the doorframe. Some new ones seemed to be glowing. "See this? This says you were."
"Were what, Miss Nurse?"
"Disturbing the other patients with your cultivating!" She seethed out the words just quietly enough to not be yelling.
Shae opened her mouth to correct her, then shook her head. "That was unintentional, I'll stop. Is there somewhere else that I can do qi practices?"
"No, no, no. Back to bed with you. You're still healing, you shouldn't even be out of bed."
"Ugh, really? Doctor Cho didn't seem to mind that I was walking around earlier."
"Tsk." She shook her head and then huffed as she pulled the clipboard from the pocket at the foot of Shae's bed. "Mhmm! As I expected, nothing here about required exercise."
"Who said it was required?"
"If Doctor Cho intended for you to be out of bed, then," she tapped the clipboard.
The young woman couldn't keep her look of annoyance and incredulity off her face.
The nurse jabbed a finger towards the bed.
Shae rolled her eyes and sighed, then reluctantly moved to get into her bed. "Anything in there about when I'm due to be released? From my mattress prison or this whole building in general?"
She frowned but did skim the clipboard, flipping a page and failing to restrain her shock. "Uhm, ah, no, nothing here." She said meekly and quickly returned the clipboard to the bed. "I'll see if your guard has returned," she rushed the words out, then rushed out of the room.
Shae waited until she couldn't hear her footsteps anymore, "Huh. Something must have really spooked her." She paused a beat, then lunged across the bed to grab the clipboard.
The writing was gibberish. "Bloody hell, it seems that even here a doctor's handwriting is reliably terrible." She squinted at the clipboard a bit more, trying to decipher some of the writing, and eventually guessed it was probably in some sort of code or shorthand. "And didn't Joi do some of this?"
When she noticed the threshold formations had returned to normal, she went back to exercising, choosing to not cycle any qi this time. It wasn't nearly as engaging as when she had to use the tar practice, and so she only kept it up until the uncleansed muscles became sore. Then she switched through several body-weight exercises to target different muscles.
Her workout routine was short, lasting less than an hour. Yet, she burned some fidgety energy and felt good about the mild soreness in her muscles.
She flopped back into the bed to catch her breath. Tired of exercising, yet not tired enough to want to rest. She stared at the ceiling until she felt recovered. "Well, not every cultivation related place can be super interesting," she mumbled while staring at the bland ceiling.
With boredom creeping back in she decided to return to Doctor Cho's library.
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She made it down two hallways when she turned a corner and walked directly into a brick wall, which was also a man. "Oof." She stumbled as she bounced off him.
"Careful, Miss... Shae! Ah- good to see you up and about!" It was a familiar voice and his hand grabbed her shoulder to steady her.
She caught her balance and looked up at a particularly handsome face. Her brain locked up, the annoyed gears grinding directly into the embarrassed-blush gears. "Uhhh." No part of her brain decided to fill her in on who this was.
"Or did you prefer, Wise Shae? Hmm?" He flashed a set of pearly whites that were only slightly ruined by a spec of black stuck beside one of his canines. He raised an eyebrow as understanding passed over his face, "Come, now. We might have only met once, but it was recently."
She blinked, the spec of food in his teeth doing a remarkable job knocking her out of the daze. She glanced over his person, quickly spotting the recognizable colors of the Honorable Dragon's Entreaty sect's guard robes. "Guard Hon?" She almost blurted out the words in a squeak. Luckily her teenage emotions were trumped by failing to inhale before speaking, so what emerged was a breathless gasp and she had to cough into her sleeve.
A quick inhale and her past life rescued her with a classic line. "You clean up well. Surprisingly well, I almost didn't recognize you!"
"Hah! Thank you!" He faked embarrassment by rubbing the back of his neck. His smile came back and said that he was well aware of how good he looked. "I'm sure you would too, err will, once you're not stuck in hospital robes." That stumble and flash of embarrassment seemed a lot more genuine.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Shae resisted the urge to self deprecate, "Nice enough, I suppose. Though, I'm rather excited for what the next five to ten years hold, especially with cultivation involved."
A hint of a blush crept up his face this time, but he covered it well by turning to the side and clearing his throat. "Eh~ogh, well, I suppose you are still young, and will surely blossom into a beautiful Fairy."
She frowned. "You have a spec of food in your teeth."
"Eh?" He stuck his tongue up along his gums then turned away, fidgeted for a bit, brought a finger to his mouth for its possible assistance, fidgeted more and then turned back. "Did I get it- uh?" He blinked at the empty hallway.
Shae had already stepped around him to continue to the library.
"Uh, Miss Shae!?" He quick-stepped to catch up. "Did I get it? And where are we going?"
She didn't look at his smile this time. "I'm going to Doctor Cho's personal library to read."
"People sometimes say I miss things, did I miss something? Did the spec of food bother you that much?"
"It did not, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm a little annoyed you didn't bring anything back for me, the food here is dismal."
Someone around the next corner gasped in shock. They rounded it to see a nurse staring right at them. It was the same one that interrupted her exercise.
Shae decided she could ignore the woman. "It looked like they boiled the color out of everything." The tingling feeling of passing through a cleansing formation fired a few extra neurons. "Oh! Do you think it could be these formations? Sterilizing the plate as it moves through them?"
They were past the woman now, and Hon hummed in thought. "Could be. Though, if that was the case, the insides should still taste normal. Did they?"
"Hmmm, hard to tell. What is grey supposed to taste like?"
The pair shared smirks as they turned the next corner, out of sight of the stunned nurse.
"So," Shae asked quietly, "when can I leave here? Maybe go to a normal inn instead?"
She caught Hon flinching out of the corner of her eye. "About that. The inns are currently full of caravan members. Many lost their wagons, which means their homes. And supposedly there was a shortage to begin with, because of the previous spirit beast attacks."
"Hmgh. Burrowing beasties could cause catastrophic chaos." She smirked to herself.
He frowned slightly.
"I might need you to sneak me in some food then. How long am I... stuck here?" She decided not to say imprisoned.
"You could, technically, leave. But you'd be stuck on the streets and I was told to make sure we are easily findable."
"We?" She raised an eyebrow in his direction but didn't make eye contact.
"Well, I am still a member of the sect. And I assume you still wish to enroll?"
Shae sighed heavily. "It seems to be the... best option if I wish to progress quickly. Yet, the past weeks have made me doubt the decision regularly. Even the spirit beast attack left a sour taste."
"You doubt the prestige of the sect? After we defended the caravan and town? After we fought and shed blood to slay those vicious beasts?" He almost stopped walking. The emotion in his words was more than just blanket righteousness and made her turn to look at him.
"That wasn't a fight it was a-" the words caught in her throat when she saw him. He was honestly upset. Not angry, but visibly concerned and confused by her viewpoint. -sloppy execution, she finished the thought in her own head. Then she swallowed her own vitriol and reconsidered her stance. "I seem to be biased. What did you see during the battle?"
His stance relaxed slightly, and his head tilted. "Uh, thank you for asking that. I... honestly expected an argument."
She tilted her own head. "Long warned you I would be... unruly?"
"Master Long gave me some advice, as did the other Elder."
Shae nodded. "Did they also give you my stuff? I'd like some of it to help blur the time."
He shook his head. "I've no spatial storage, what I have is what I have."
She raised an eyebrow. "You must travel light then?"
He shrugged. "As a cultivator, very little is needed. Self reliance is important. Though, the wagons were also used as storage during the trip, and I do have a room at an inn."
"Ah! So, the battle?"
"Hm! Yes. What I saw was a large caravan of people protected from certain death by the guards the sect hired and supplied, and those from the town."
She inhaled sharply through her nose. "Of course," she whispered. "I... I shouldn't have been so glib about their, and your sect's contributions, I apologise." She bowed deep enough to show sincerity. "And what of the larger spirit beast?"
"Thank you." He nodded and continued, "A spirit beast at that stage of advancement would have required a core formation or higher cultivator to defeat it. Perhaps there was one in the city, but what damage would it have done before then? Both our sect Elders worked together to corral, pin, and finally defeat the beast. The reported attack on it by outside cultivators, even those that proved effective, showed us all just how dangerous it was." He paused for a breath, looking forwards again as they walked the halls. "I regularly watch higher stage cultivators fight, it is always a humbling experience, yet that was something far more." He sighed with an air of melancholy.
Shae remained silent as she considered his words. They passed through the hallway with the view of the canyon, and she couldn't appreciate it quite as much this time. That gave her some opportunity to view it more objectively, yet she simply filed those new thoughts away for another time. They both held the silence until they were out of earshot of the patients again.
"I take it you saw something different?" Guard Hon asked, a bit of tension in his voice.
She sighed, trying to think of the nicest way she could word this. "Have you ever seen a cat play with their catch?"
He wrinkled his forehead briefly. "I'm not familiar with that turn of phrase."
She frowned at him. "Noble or merchant?"
"Me? Neither." He shook his head, then stood proudly. "Lady's son. My grandmother holds court over three prosperous villages."
She scrunched her face up in confusion. "Doesn't that make her a noble? Maybe a duchess or something?"
"Not at all. Noble titles go beyond simple land management. We could own thrice as much, and still not be noble. You see-"
She held up her hand. "Euugh, I don't need a lecture right now. Hunting dogs maybe? No, they probably don't do that, they'd be trained too well for it." She hummed to herself and put her fist under her chin, then her other hand under her elbow.
She didn't hear him snicker softly.
She threw her arms out and waved away her ideas in frustration. "Ugh, can't think of something good so you get something mildly insulting, sorry if it bothers you. A battle or specifically a fight, implies there was some challenge, some risk of failure. Master Long was never at risk, never going to lose. Everything else was... play. At its worst it was a sloppy execution. That is the glib thing I was going to say earlier."
She had felt his qi rise, his killing intent form as she spoke, yet didn't bother reacting. He asked, and she had to explain it somehow. He had also stopped walking, so she did as well, turning to face him. The nearby formations on a doorway were lit up with indications of qi use. She just pointed at them. "Someone's going to come running to tell you to stop. Because you're 'disturbing the patients,'" she mimed air quotes.
"There's going to be one extra patient soon."
"Terrible come-back, I'm already a patient. Should have said, 'It's a good thing we're already in a hospital, because you're about to need it.' or something similar." She turned and kept walking, they were close to the library now.
"How-" he started, then dashed to keep up, lowering his qi pressure, trying to remove it without lowering his intent. "How would an insect like you know that?"
"Even insects know a bad joke when they hear it." She paused a single beat. "Oh, you meant the other thing, the nurse came to scold me earlier for doing qi practices."
There was a longer pause. "No the- How would you know Master Long wasn't at risk?"
"Because I was there. I saw our other Senior pin the beast in place, she borrowed my bow to do it. A completely normal bow and just three arrows. Plus whatever they threw off the cliff."
"Hah! Lies. I heard the report. She took four shots." He pointed and displayed smug satisfaction.
She grimaced, that expression completely ruins his face. She quickly shook the thought away. "Yes, I saw that as well. But, she only borrowed three arrows from me. I think she recovered the second arrow, the one that bounced off its eyelid and fired that one down its throat. Hmmm, could be why it still got the crystal breath off too, the arrow might have been too damaged to handle her technique."
She got to enjoy his shocked expression and silent jaw flapping.
Spotting the library door she decided to stop walking and finish the conversation. "Help me with a metaphor you'll understand. What's your profession?"
"Uhh, smith." He shook off his shock, but was clearly still slightly off-balance.
"Oh! That's a good one for this. Have you ever tried to stop a fight, go make yourself a stronger weapon, then return to the same fight with it."
"Well, I'm not allowed to smith weapons yet." He looked down to the side. "Err, but no, I wouldn't think anyone could do that. And no one would consider it the same fight."
"That is what Master Long did. He herded the beast, got our Senior and the others to pin it in place. Then spent forever forging a recklessly strong attack with his domain."
Hon frowned and shook his head. "No, he wouldn't do that." She could hear him making the excuses as he talked. "And even if he did, it needed to be strong because it was a defensive type. Anything lesser wouldn't have worked."
"He certainly wanted to believe that. Maybe, maybe, when the fight started the beast seemed more dangerous than it was. Maybe its scales and defensive domain seemed impenetrable." She shook her head. "But at the end, especially at the end. It was weak. For all its bravado and big display of crystal armor, that armor was far weaker than its earlier defenses." She paused to let it sink in. "How much of the canyon wall did he destroy? How deep of a hole did he dig?"
Hon frowned harder, once again trying to keep his killing intent on her without also flaring his qi. "I'll not have you disparage an Elder of the sect behind their backs. He did what was necessary, no less."
She sighed and raised her palms to him. "I'm not trying to make you think less of him. Less of that part of the fight, yes. And I'm simply explaining what I saw because you asked. It's undeniable that the battle as a whole would have been much harder, and much more cultivator blood would have been spilled without either of our Seniors. Talk to him yourself about what he did."
He backed off slightly, retracting his intent if not his posture. "If I talk to him, he may seek to recover some honor from this, from you. This did start with your apparent lack of respect for our sect's honor and prestige."
She rolled her eyes. "I do not hold the actions of individuals against their organizations. Especially when it comes to cultivators. You should know that my opinion of Long is already biased. Things have happened between us, enough that he may seek to punish me anyway. Your bravado to protect your sect is noted, but you need to hear what happened directly from Master Long. So that it is not empty bravado." She paused then rolled her eyes as she spoke, "If he actually tells you anything." She turned and walked towards the library. "This is Doctor Cho's personal library, but it is not a private space. So, let's not bicker here, alright?"
He was still deciding what to do when she passed into the other room. "Hey!" He called after her.
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