He gave me a tongue lashing. I expected it. I expected nothing less than that from the finest protocol officer that I'd ever met.

There's only so much tongue a man could take from a new guy.

When was done, we finally made our way back to where the girls were sitting. Egiya was happily talking to an older man that I had never seen before and they were deep in discussion about something.

I sat down next to Xueyie.

"Who's the old guy?" I said, hoping that I wasn't going to have to eject somebody from the group.

Though there was a lot of people around, the fall, part of today's festivities had ended and people were beginning to socialize and move about. Down in the center, food was being put out. The emperor himself as expected was still sitting and people were beginning to queue up to speak to him one-on-one.

I looked at the man who was speaking to her for a minute. Like everybody else, he had long black hair but besides that there was nothing to tell him apart. I looked at his hands and I saw smudges. He was either recently working on something with charcoal or ink or those were smudges from earlier and he never washed his hands. Then, I looked to Egiyas hands and saw that she had the same exact kind of smudges.

"You know who that guy is. Old man, fourth realm cultivator, smudged hands?" Xueyie said.

"If Joe can't figure this out, then we're going to have a long talk," Lee said. The man looks like he's the spitting image of her.

"I assume that what you're hinting at is that he's the father?" I said. "That makes sense but I also don't know why he's here."

"If your daughter got an invitation to be honored by the emperor, I should hope that you would be invited to watch If there was an award ceremony that is," Lee said.

"They've been talking ever since he found her and the formal part ended. He's actually quite a nice guy," Xueyie said. "You could learn a thing or two from him."

"I don't want to intrude," I said.

They look like they were deep in discussion and if I had seen my daughters for the first time in ages, I would want to talk to them for a long time. He only had one daughter.

From what I knew about him spending his time fixing formations in the far-flung corners of the Empire, he didn't get much home time. That would be hard on me, but I picked a career where I could stay close to and sometimes work from home. A lot of things were chosen for me because Maxine and I had our children while we were in college. Childcare is definitely a thing.

"I have no problem talking to him," Min said hopping down from my shoulders and darting over to Egiya.

Honestly, I needed to control my Moon spirit better. There was just something about that little Moon spirit running off whatever she wanted to that made me realize that even if I wanted to stop her, I wouldn't. I probably could but I wouldn't. She was in a court of dozens of higher realm cultivators.

She blurred across trying to jump into the arms of the second realm cultivator, like she had done so many times before.

This time however, she was stopped cold by a man holding out two fingers to pluck her from thin air. She wasn't even surprised, sounding more pissed off that she was being cat handled than anything else.

"What do we have here now?" The elder man said.

If I had any term to describe this man it would be that of a zaddy. Smooth gray locks ward against the rest of his black hair. As I got closer, he had that ageless face that reminded me of so many cultivators I had seen and met before.

He had lived a long time, probably longer than his wife would based off of his looks. His wife's broken cultivation had given me an idea of how old she was. She had been old enough to have a daughter that was well past her early teenage years which meant that she was at least in her thirties.

The put him in his mid fifties. Possibly much older based on how many cultivators had bullshit lives. I never wanted to ask a lady her age as that might incite a riot. He still had those smudged hands though.

"Joseph Pidge at your service, sir. Your daughter is an excellent cultivator and there's been an asset in our hunt against demonic cultivators," I said.

He gave me a wide, inviting smile.

"She has told me extensively about your dealings. I want to thank you for treating my family as if they were your own. It's not often that you meet someone who can change the course of someone's life."

Min purred, and finally, he realized that he was holding a cat.

"Is this your spirit beast?" he said.

"It sure is, and-"

"Unhand me, you uncouth lout," she said.

"My word," the elder kang said, passing the moon spirit to Egiya.

"Thanks for keeping the peace dad. The moon clan might have had a problem with that long term," Egiya said.

She just sat there for a little bit. Min looks like she was panting. Was she having difficulty breathing because she had been held? Or was she had a breath because she was playing a victim? Clearly, I had no idea.

"Please don't torture my spirit beast." Min relaxed as his Nascent Soul retracted. Just as clearly it would have been funny if she was just trying to get one over on us. I was going to have to keep my eye on her.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Lee slid in between us and retrieved the spirit beast. Min accepted a head pat.

"Anyway sir. If you're here, you understand what we're doing and you understand that this is a very dangerous Enterprise. We're going to have a lot of eyes on us," Lee said. "We understand if you don't want to be associated with us, but if you do, why don't we go down to the court and have some food?"

"I've heard that the cream puffs are extraordinary," he said. "Who's with me?"

Lee held out her arm to link with him and we followed. Egiya linked arms with me and she felt soft and warm. "He's really not that bad, I swear."

We kept a few paces behind them on the way down. "I can form an opinion of him myself, thank you so much. I understand that he is your father. I understand that I have strict standards from what a father should be doing. But there's just so much about this that I don't understand. So you're going to have to help me, okay?"

"Always." I had a feeling that she was overjoyed to see him and that was crowding at her brain from thinking about how he had been missing for so long.

He was supporting the family but working so far away but I couldn't imagine that for me.

If I had children, I want to hang them out with them all the time. I couldn't see somebody else feeling the opposite way. But then again not everyone should have kids. I just liked mine. I made them so...

"Did you find anything in the crowd that we need to know about?" Egiya said, trying to be way too obvious.

Lee looked around. as the two of them finally got to the floor and then were obscured by the many members of the court.

"Yes but I-"

"Cultivator Joseph Pidge," a dry voice said.

My heart dropped.

The exact man that I didn't want to see was standing right in front of me. The glint of his face nearly made me cover my eyes and at the last second I realized that that would be giving away the game.

The man who had received highest award in the land, stood staring at me. With a small fraction of his power, I could wither away and die. I didn't want to, but I knew that he was strong enough to make me really want that. I briefly thought about challenging him right there and then.

There was probably some formal rules procedure that would make me have to fight him more than one and then die in front of my friends. That was definitely not happening. Just because I knew that he was my enemy didn't mean that he knew that I was his enemy.

In essence, he was trying to play his hand too early. If I was up against a bad poker player? That would be the best of many worlds.

"I saw you receive that award. It's a pleasure to meet you," I said, staring straight into the man's eyes. They were a deep purple, unlike most of the eyes I'd seen that day. Something else was going on with this guy.

What was his name? I had forgotten.

Was it Kobayashi?

What was a Japanese name doing here?

I began to sweat buckets. Everyone else had a Korean or Chinese sounding name.

"I'm so sorry sir but I've seemed to have forgotten your name. We've also never been introduced. Are you a patron of the arts?" I said.

"A patron of the arts?" He said. "Whatever do you mean?"

"A patron of the art of war. As these demonic cultivators are a threat to our way of life." I could feel Egiya tighten her grip on my arm. I didn't really want to bring her into this. She had chosen to be part of the game so she deserved a chance.

"I'm Kang Egiya," she said, holding out a hand. "Daughter of the chief formations expert..."

He held her hand and then kissed it. It made me feel secondary cringe. If this is the time that all my enemies, we're going to talk to actual vampires, then I was going to have some words with them. This was unacceptable behavior and you do not do this to my friends in front of their dads and their adopted fathers.

But really it wasn't sitting right with me.

He knew that we knew what he was or at least he expected us to know that. The question was how much did he know about us and how much he just think. I wasn't going to let him just roll over us here.

"Perhaps you would love to speak to me on the merits of your service To the country at a later date. We could speak at my villa," he said.

Then I thought about Xiran and how her parents had lived someplace in the Capitol. We had thought that they would fled. They was still a chance that they are around. If all these men were going to be so ridiculously out in the open about what they were doing. It was like they weren't even trying to hide. Could this man be Xirans father? Surely they would have known each other.

"Thank you, sir. We'll take that under advisement," I said. "Allow me to send your steward a letter and it will.be arranged."

That was the cheesiest thing that no one would ever fall for. But then I saw Egiya eating out of his hand, almost literally. She looked blank.

If he'd asked her without me there? I nudged her.

I was trying to dislodge her from that exact moment. If I had to draw upon the dream world, I might just do that. She looked hypnotized and not for the first time I realized that I wasn't even thinking about where Xiran was.

Where the hell was she? Oh yeah she was back at the hotel. Wasn't she?

Now I was getting confused. It had to be part of this man's aura. There was something about him that made me want to give him what he wanted. I shook my head.

Mind control was not one of the things that I was expecting to have to fight. Egiya was completely enchanted.

"We'll just be off then," I said, nearly manhandling the girl down to the food. There had to be something there just for me to eat that would get me out of this funk. He was relying on people 's attempts to stay proper and not make a scene in society.

I didn't give a fuck about making a scene. I'd make a scene all day if it meant that I could get away from this guy scot-free.

I could feel that he was trying to make me do something and I was going to not let that happen. I wanted to be done with him. He wanted me to keep playing around and really captured my attention and make me do something. Probably chances where he was going to have me reveal my secrets to him someplace else at a secondary location, which is why I was freaking out. There were mangoes on the table and I made a beeline for them.

"Eat a mango," I said, whispering to Egiya.

"Yes master," she said in a monotone.

Shit. It must have affected her more.

She picked up a mango and just bit into it like it was an apple.

Fuck.

She was really out of it.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I found her father and we nearly toppled over several groups of socialites.

"Sir, we ..." I said.

Things were getting hazy. Had I been poisoned? No, I felt normal. Just high.

That these minor cultivators are going to get me high in order to get me into their lair they had another thing coming. I was from Los Angeles and I got a contact high whenever I walked to work.

This was not going to get me in but it was going to get Egiya all fucked up and the last thing I want to do was to bring it to your dad that way.

It was my fault. I could imagine myself trying to hide that from him but he-I was going to play it straight. Eventually we come out that he knew that this wasn't me doing this directly despite him or to do this to her. I hated that this occurred to me as I locked my other arm with Lee.

"Lee uh ... I forget the code, but we need to get out of here soon."

She smiled when she looked at me but then she saw my face. And then she was a believer.

"We can leave whenever you're ready," she said. "Is she just eating a mango without peeling it?"

We both turned to watch the horror show. Honestly, I thought it'd be worse, but apparently it was just fine to eat a mango that way here. Either that or everyone was so self-absorbed that they didn't care; that made even more sense to me. It was a welcome site to see her father contemplatively looking at her as if she had spouted a second head.

"I take it that is the most delicious piece of fruit you've ever had?" she said.

In between bites of her mango, she gave him a thumbs up.

"That means that she likes it," I said.

"I should hope so, with the way that things are happening at the local mango groves," he said. "I've been away from home for far too long and only now am I just realizing how much a family can do a man good."

My sobriety was approaching as I got a bit more clear headed. My head was still pounding like I was in hour three of one epic tantrum.