We made plans to meet up later the next day. I didn't give her my address. She also gave me some more ideas to work with. Egiya left to work.

I stayed back, knowing what would happen next.

The blue and pink robes let me know that I was about to attend to my next appointment.

"Jin Xueyie."

"Cultivator Pidge Joseph."

"May I sit with you?"

I nodded. If I had moved she probably would have ambushed me in the non lethal manner.

Xueyie sat down after checking the seat. The wooden benches were sufficient for what they needed to be.

"You keep strange company. First a mortal fixer, and this one?"

"I needed scrolls. Then we started talking."

"Does this happen to you a lot?"

"Do strange women try to jump into my day without concern for what I have planned? No, never."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Good then. I ... Wanted to talk to you about last time."

"Go on."

"How do you... How do you do what you do?"

I had to scratch my head at that.

"Are you talking about what we did when we met last time?"

"Yes ... Though not the fighting bit. Though I would like a spar that is separate. You... Laid bare my emotions and... This is a first."

"Oh no."

---

"What are your goals for this client?"

"Meaningful goals? Well she has to learn to let people do their own thing. She's been bad about staying out of other people's business."

"But she has stayed out of their business, right?"

As always, he was right.

It was always the kind older man at the practice. I say kind old man but Mr. Lopez was like thirty eight at most. He had brought a really daddy vibe to the place that set us all at ease. Like, you may not be okay but Dad will talk to you and you'll be better.

"Yes. And she's struggling with that, since she thinks it reflects back on her-which of course it doesn't- but Ms. Johnson would probably be absolutely terrible at a caring profession."

It might be true or it might not. Some people had trouble separating their personal life from their work. After coming home for years and getting two daughters thrown at me on the regular as soon as I stepped in the door, I had no difficulty with that. My ex wife? She worked from home when they were older and Lauren was an industrial engineer who owned a sports bra company. She also worked from home with her son and when we merged families on vacation, we had shared duties.

But I'm getting off track. There has to be a place where the person can relax and unwind separately from their other life. It might not be a long time, but then again.

"Ms. Johnson wants to be the fixer."

"Ahhh. She's stuck on that huh?"

I raised my paper coffee cup to him. The lights from both of our next clients beeped on at the same time.

"I think if anyone, you can unstick her, Joe."

---

"You're stuck."

I was trying to get her to tell me what she really wanted. I hadn't thought I could make a

living here giving therapy, but I might as well ask.

"I..."

"You're stuck and you want to get out of the situation you find yourself in, but you don't know how because... because you haven't ever seen someone break out of the mold. What do they do to Cultivators who leave your Sect? Clan?"

"Clan. They are dishonored unless they are off to perform military duty. You don't go against the Tao."

"Look. I provide a service. I don't know what you can pay in, but we can give it a shot. This area," I said, gesturing,"Isn't very private but we can sit back a bit and talk."

Looking now I could see that the tea house was cleared out. It was probably some mid-afternoon shift change at the Qi factory or something. Always got to be cultivating, of course.

"What do you want to get out of this?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that usually people come to me with a problem or a few problems and we spend a bit of time each week unpacking their problems and planning on how to get through them. Say you wanted to deal with some traumatic event, we could address that trauma or..."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I let the words hang in the air, hoping that she would take the bait.

"Trauma?"

Shit.

"Maybe I need to go back and define some more terms. I assume that you're willing to pay for this somehow? If we continue? It doesn't have to be money."

She nodded. Professionals got paid. Also she probably didn't have an idea of what it meant to pay for therapy.

"Trauma is... It's something that can be a single event, or a recurring ongoing thing. It could be an injury, a sexual assault or chronic abuse and even neglect. Did you have a family growing up?"

"I did but I don't see how ...?"

"Were they supportive of you when you expressed an interest in something- "

"Yes they supported me becoming a cultivator"

“-something besides Cultivation as a career path?" I said.

"A career? I can't say that I know that word..."

I sighed. Some people had lives that were far too intertwined in their work.

"Things outside of work. Did they support you when you took an interest in something outside of their core interests? Did you have interests outside of what they did?"

The blank look on her face made me pause and think. Sometimes as a therapist I drew upon my own life to try to jog a client- it was rare and always with an eye to being therapeutic. I wasn't going to tell them my life story, that would raise a light of potential issues.

"They gave me shelter and food and..."

"They did enough to keep you alive didn't they? The bare minimum."

I needed to stop interrupting. I briefly wondered if I would have accepted that status quo.

I was thinking that classic me would have done that. Before the kids, the master's degree in social work, the divorce and the healing that came with that, yeah. I would have accepted narcissistic parents saying that the bare minimum was acceptable. Now? No longer. I wouldn't tolerate that in my life.

"The bare minimum?"

"They could have done a lot more. It's not that they were bad parents but..."

"They could have supported my desire to be a healer and..."

Note to self: there are no handkerchiefs in Western Jewel. No tissues either.

"There were so many things that I could have done if I had just...if I had just seen another way. There was never another way, only their way and..."

Xueyie ended up crying inconsolably into her shirtsleeves.

It wasn't loud. It wasn't something I was unaccustomed to either. It was just the oddity of this magically enhanced human juxtaposed against every other weird thing that had happened to me.

"...and this idea of a different path? This is so strange?"

"It's not your fault. You're not to blame for your parents actions. You don't..."

Her head was in her hands. They were buried deep.

"...you don't need to think about forgiving them or moving forward until we take some time to process what you lost. What could have been supportive parents, what you wanted them to be... That won't ever happen. You have to live with them as they are now."

Yuexie sniffled.

"They're still in the Sect. They... Why is this so hard to say? ...They bring me around from time to time to show to potential suitors that might strengths our clan and of course the Taoists."

My best trick was to let people talk. I don't know if I had been born with it, but people saw me and often decided that today was the day that they let go of a horrible family secret they had been holding in for years. This was mostly people on the street, but sometimes I would be introduced to a friend of a friend and the drama -the tea- would be laid bare. She had a lot of trauma about her parents and probably the Sect she was in. The fact that her parents were probably higher level elders of her Sect meant that they probably had way too many avenues to affect her life.

"They think that I am some toy to be used to make their ... To make the Sect better," she said, her voice no louder than a whisper,"Even with potential suitors."

She was getting it.

"You learned growing up to be a people pleaser, to put others ahead of you. You feel safe if people say that you're the good one. If you don't know how someone feels about you, do you feel anxious?"

"There was no money in healing. They always said that there was only money in musical theater and dance... And I believed them..."

I wanted to hug her, but something told me that she wasn't done raging against her parents.

It wasn't like some people who wanted me to diagnose someone from after as being an asshole. Heck I could safely say that by Western standards, her parents were assholes. I would have called them that to her face. If I was friends with her, I would probably have said so, but she came to me in confidence. Even if it was misplaced confidence.

"Let's step back and talk about the difference between your relationship now with them and then. What are the major themes you see now? Because we can work on intrusive questions easily."

She looked up.

"It's everything. The questions, the prodding and poking... I just feel like they have this vision for my future that I've been on the path for so long and..."

"What would you do if you could do anything? Whatever you wanted?"

"I...I...don't know."

"That's something that we can work on together. We can set a goal of figuring out where you want to go physically or mentally and then get there... "

"I have never met anyone like you. This..." She sobbed before composing herself,"I...hope that you don't need an answer right now."

"That would be unnecessary. Starting is enough. And if no one has told you already, YOU are enough."

She paused.

"How do I find you again?"

"You could leave a note at the Ink Pot. I'll be there regularly, as I have a lot to learn."

I blushed, thinking that she might get the wrong idea. But it anything that was Xueyies problem not mine.

"I shall endeavor to meet with you again."

"That would be excellent. Do you have anything else before I go on my next walk?"

I really needed to find Moon Fei. I should probably hire him more full time. I don't know how much the hotel is paying him though.

"No... Good tidings to you Pidge Joseph."

Xueyie got up and staggered out of the shop. I watched her go, waiting for her to be out of sight before I got up myself.

A life of misplacing things made me pause before leaving to make sure that I hadn't left anything. In the back of my mind I could remember Lauren yelling-well if it was more like sighing as she spoke- about me leaving my wallet at home again and me sheepishly sending her money when we got home. It never amounted to a real problem but I did change how I did things to accommodate her.

Jin Xueyie coming on as a client would be a boon, if she could pay. There was more than one way that I could get her to pay me, and thinking back to Moon Xiru the tea and information broker, I could probably find a way somehow.

I still wanted to stick to my code of not revealing patient secrets. I might talk about their problems in the abstract from time to time, but trust was important to me. Jin Xueyie could bring me information. It didn't have to be about her Sect. Heck...

I paused as the small amount of the aura I had caught a whiff of drifted into my body. It smelt like a soft cloud on a clear day.

It had the feel of desire and resolve and I wanted to call it something... A name eluded me. It didn't feel like stone or metal aura that was present in the area in a good amount. I realized that I had paused in the spot where Xueyie had stood for most of the day.

I drew in all of that aura, packing it into myself. One of the reference texts I had referred to where it went as the dantian, so I went with that. My dantian surged with the concentrated aura as if processed into Qi. I felt like a million bucks as I walked deliberately away from the Tea house.

The walk itself felt meditative and I focused on what I wanted to do here. If there was a way to go home, I would find it. It didn't make sense that I was in my office one minute, and here the next. If there was some nefarious plot afoot, I would get to the bottom of it.

I realized that I finally had paper. I could take notes.

It was time to prioritize.

I made a list.

___

(1) Get established

(2) Find a safe house

(3) Find a way home?

(4) Make enough money to support 1 and 2

___

That would be enough for today. Tomorrow I would break these down and see if I felt the same.