Even with all of the improvements to his body and mind, Sen found the days starting to blur together. There was simply so much to do. During the day, there were countless details that he had to sort through, decide about, or simply approve of. That was after delegating way more authority than he was comfortable with to people he didn’t know very well or trust. He found himself relying very heavily on Lo Meifeng and Long Jia Wei’s finally honed deceit detection skills to decide who could be trusted with what. Of course, once the mortal tasks were done for the day, meaning the mortals were stumbling to bed in a state of pure exhaustion, the cultivators simply changed tasks and kept going. Lo Meifeng had made the very good point that securing the far-flung holdings of the newly minted House of Lu was going to require far more manpower than Sen had available. Then, the woman spoke heresy to him.
“You should hire sects to do it for you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Two questions,” said Sen through his stunned horror. “Are you insane? And, are you insane?!”
“No. I’m also not biased. You have it in your head that every sect is stacked with awful, murder-craving monsters who cannot be trusted under any circumstances.”
“You’re going somewhere with this. I can tell,” said Sen in a weary voice.
“You’re wrong.”
“You, of all people, are going to tell me that sects aren’t filled with people just like that?”
“I’m telling you that not every sect is filled with people like that, and even the sects that have people like that in them aren’t made up entirely of them. No organization could survive if every member was a blood-crazed maniac. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Sen desperately wished they’d been having this conversation before he’d started an academy. If they had been, he could have dug his heels and thrown a tantrum, blissfully ignorant of the truth in those words. But he did know what she was saying was true. Even his tiny little academy depended on having diligent, level-headed, and sometimes borderline-boring personalities working behind the scenes. Those were the people who made sure that there was food, ink, and paper ordered. Then, they paid attention and made sure said orders were delivered and distributed. Sen didn’t need anyone to tell him that being unhinged and murderous was likely to undermine anyone’s effectiveness in roles like that. Since sects seemed to persist for centuries if not thousands of years, it stood to reason that most of them had the same kind of diligent, level-headed, and sometimes boring personalities that he had managing things at his academy.
“Stop using reasonableness to confuse the issue,” griped Sen, drawing a triumphant smirk from Lo Meifeng. “Besides, I doubt I’m a terribly popular figure with a lot of sects right now.”
“That’s probably true, but it’s not universally true. There are a few sects and similar groups out there that would be overjoyed if you gave them a chance to win your favor.”
“Like who?” said Sen, certain that he already knew some of the answers.
“The Clear Spring Sect, for one.”
“Why would I ever trust those people to do anything?” asked Sen. “They’ve already proven they have no honor.”
“To put it bluntly, you were… I don’t want to say you were nobody then, but you were just coming into your fame. That noble they let escape was part of a very powerful house.”
“Since when do cultivators care about things like the power of a mortal noble house?” asked Sen.
“Sects in the capital don’t care because they don’t have to care. They’re so old, rich, and well-established that they can weather almost any storm. Smaller sects might dwarf a noble house in pure martial strength, but the House of Xie wouldn’t have attacked them directly. They would have used indirect means. They would have driven up the prices of essential goods, arranged for shipments of goods to disappear, or simply taken over key businesses and refused to do business with the Clear Spring Sect. A nick here and there might not seem like much, but a thousand of them will still kill a body eventually.
“But my point is that, when word of what happened here reaches them, that sect will be eager to do anything to keep you from turning your wrath on them. While you and I know that killing that fool was incidental, I would bet you a hundred gold tael that they’ll see this as the culmination of a long-planned revenge. A revenge that might not end with the Xie.”
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“They might think that the Xie were just the first on a list of people I mean to repay for past kindnesses.”
“It’s what I’d be thinking if I were them,” confirmed Lo Meifeng. “there’s also the Order of the Celestial Flame. They won’t be afraid like the Clear Spring Sect, but I expect they’d be willing to do you a favor. Then, there’s that sect back in Emperor’s Bay. The Swooping something?”
“The Soaring Skies Sect? I can’t imagine they’d want anything more to do with me.”
“You’re thinking like a person, not an organization. There are plenty of people there who will hate you forever, but the organization can make good use of the fact that you hired them. They can make it out like a sign of forgiveness and redemption. Besides, even if they don’t want to work for you, all of the other sects there will want to. They’d probably even do it cheap as a thank you for putting such a dent in the reputation of the city’s biggest sect.”
“Okay, I concede that there are sects out there who I could hire. But why would I want to?” asked Sen.
“This will be a cultivator house. Making it clear from the outset that you plan to use cultivators as part of your overall problem-solving approach will set the appropriate tone. It will also pave the way for whatever cultivators you train to guard your daughter. Beyond that, they can move quicker than any mortal forces you could assemble and send. By the time you find and train enough people, you’ll have lost a big chunk of your holdings that you’ll need to take back by force. If you send cultivators, they’ll be there fast and the arguments will be over as soon as they start.”
Sen balked at the very idea in his head. He hated the idea of hiring sects to do anything. But the damnable woman just insisted on making sense. How was he supposed to argue with that?
“Fine. We’ll do it your way. We’ll have to work out exactly what we want them to do, though. I don’t want them showing up and killing everyone.”
“I agree,” said Lo Meifeng. “We’ll need to be specific, but we can work out those details over the next few days. You know how slowly information moves in the country. By the time word reaches most of those places, your hired thugs will already be there or close at hand. That being said, you’re going to need to start assembling those mortal forces sooner than later. It’s cheaper than hiring cultivators all the time if nothing else. Plus, you want people that you can send there to stay.”
“What are you thinking? Older soldiers?”
“That’s always a good place to start. We can also look at mercenary types. That’s hard, bloody work best suited to young fools. Older mercenaries are almost always looking for something less hazardous to retire into. Something that lets them knock a few heads together every once in a while, but mostly consists of looking menacing and telling people to go home and cool off. We also need to start looking into putting together a group for espionage.”
Sen just stared at Lo Meifeng. She looked back, wholly unmoved by the silent disapproval.
“Why would I need that?” Sen finally demanded.
“You probably don’t. Your recent activities have rather loudly demonstrated that you’re perfectly capable of solving most problems in a very direct fashion. Your house and daughter, on the other hand, almost certainly will need spies, killers, and saboteurs. Obviously, that’s a long-term plan. It takes a while to get something like that up and running. Training people for that kind of work doesn’t happen overnight. It takes even longer to make something like that run well.”
Sen reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.
“This is the kind of organization Master Feng has, isn’t it?”
Lo Meifeng made a non-committal noise and said, “They won’t be exactly the same. Yours will be more complex, out of necessity, because you like to make everything as complicated as possible. Your House of Lu will need to deal with problems both mortal and cultivator. So, the organization you build for it will also need to cross those boundaries.”
Sen leaned his head back and said, “That does sound complicated. So, you’re thinking like two weeks? Three?”
Sen managed to hold his straight face for about five seconds before Lo Meifeng’s incredulous expression broke his control and he smirked. He lifted his hands in surrender before she could start throwing sharp things at him again.
“Believe it or not, I think I actually need to sleep,” said Sen after Lo Meifeng stopped glaring at him. “It’s been… It’s been a while since I last did that. Is there anything else critical that can’t wait until morning?”
“You’re going to be too busy to do anything tomorrow,” said Lo Meifeng.
Sen blinked at her in confusion and asked, “Why?”
“You’re right. You do need some sleep. Tomorrow is the whole reason you came back here in the first place. The king’s little get-together with the foreigners.”
“That’s tomorrow? I thought it was—” Sen trailed off.
He’d mostly forgotten about that whole thing. It’d just been in the back of his head as something he’d have to do eventually. I guess eventually is here, he thought.
“Tell me that you at least got something nice to wear,” said Lo Meifeng.
Sharp horror filled Sen’s mind as he remembered promising to get Shen Mingxia something nice to wear to the gathering. A task he’d also been thinking of as something he’d have to do eventually.
“So, um, yeah, I’m going to need the names of places that can make nice stuff on the shortest possible notice.”
“You’re hopeless,” muttered Lo Meifeng.
“Not just for me. A place that can do the same for women as well.”
Lo Meifeng just shook her head at him as a look of pure pity crossed her face.