At the sound of his voice, two of the giant spiders whirled to face him. Sen had never particularly liked spiders. They were always a threat to anyone looking for somewhere cozy and dry to sleep on cold or wet nights. While most of their bites would just leave someone itching for a day or two, there was always the chance of running across one of the more dangerous spiders. While adults could sometimes survive one of their bites, kids never did. The venom was too toxic and their bodies too small, or so Sen came to understand later under Auntie Caihong’s instruction. Unlike Shi Ping, though, Sen’s dislike had manifested as a low-burning hate, rather than some kind of primal fear. So, the idea of helping Chan Yu Ming kill several oversized examples of a much-loathed childhood threat suited Sen just fine. What he hadn’t expected was for the spiders to have the faces of human beings. He’d never read or even heard about anything like them.
“Doesn’t matter,” he muttered, summoning a spear from his storage ring. “Fire and lightning kill most things.”
Cycling for those two qi types, he sent a bolt of lightning toward one of the spiders from the spear. Yanking the lightning qi out of the spear, he used it as the focal point to send a whip of white-hot fire crashing down on the other. Part of him expected that to be that. Yet, much to his surprise, the lightning simply played over the carapace of the first spider. That isn’t to say that the spider liked it very much. It opened its human mouth and let out a wholly inhuman shriek of pain and rage. Fantastic, thought Sen. Things worked out a little better with the second spider. While the spider dodged to one side faster than anything that big should be able to move, the whip of fire neatly removed two of the creature’s legs. That sent it lurching in an unbalanced stumble. Sen didn’t get any time to enjoy that minor victory.
The spider he’d hit with the lightning was racing toward him with its mouth open far too wide for a human being. Sen could see weirdly misshapen fangs in its mouth dripping with venom. A year ago, that sight might have made him pause in fear or horror, but he’d been through too many fights. He’d learned to push those things aside. He could be horrified after the fight was done. Instead, he broke Uncle Kho’s cardinal rule and let go of the spear with one of his hands. He stabbed two fingers at the spider and sent a compressed lance of blue fire right into that horrifying maw. The creature’s head simply vanished in an explosion of heat. Unfortunately, the spider’s body went mad at that point, crashing and thrashing all over the clearing, a threat to friend and foe alike.
Sen caught sight of the one he’d injured trying to flank him, but he had a second or two before it was going to attack. So, he surveyed the situation. Chan Yu Ming had managed to put down one as well. He hadn’t seen the technique she used, but the large puddle of water around the spider's corpse told him there had been a technique involved. Unfortunately, three of the creatures had backed her up nearly into the forest. Sen decided that killing them one at a time wasn’t getting the job done fast enough. He suspected that if the spiders managed to push either Chan Yu Ming or him into the forest proper, it was going to turn into a very different kind of fight. One where the spiders would have a lot more advantages.
Instead, Sen took a page out of his own book and started cycling earth qi. He’d been using it more and more often and, while it still wasn’t easy, it was getting easier. He plunged his qi down into the soil. He wasn’t sure why that mattered, but all of the spiders suddenly turned their full attention on him. There was a heartbeat where nothing moved, then huge black bodies were racing toward him. Even Sen’s calm threatened to crack for a moment, but then he felt his technique finish taking shape.
“Too late,” he said.
What had been a forest clearing became a small sea of stone spikes and impaled spider bodies. There was silence all around them, except for the spasmodic crack of a spider leg slapping against stone. Sen just stood there for a moment, letting the fear and excitement he felt in every fight fade away. Then, with a gesture, he sent the spikes back down into the earth where they’d come from. He walked over to Chan Yu Ming, who was staring at the carnage with wide eyes. Now that he’d had a few seconds to think about the fight, he was feeling a lot more in a mood for that yelling match he’d taken a pass on earlier. Still, there were priorities to take care of first.
“Are you hurt?” Sen asked her.
Chan Yu Ming didn’t say anything for long enough that Sen wondered if she’d even heard the question. Then, she shook herself and turned her eyes toward him.
“No,” she said, her voice a little shaky. “Nothing serious anyway.”
“That’s good,” said Sen in a particularly dry voice.
“Thank you for helping.”
“Uh-huh. You do remember that I’ve actually seen you fight before, right?”
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“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, fixing her gaze on the spider corpses.
“I mean that I know, for a fact, that killing these things wouldn’t have been hard for you. That they were giant spiders and had those creepy human faces sort of threw me off my game for a minute, but this fight should have been over before I got here.”
“Maybe you overestimated me. Not all of us can throw around fire and lightning and stone spikes the way you do.”
“Those were convenient and faster options for me, but I could have taken them all using nothing but a jian. That means that you could have taken them all using nothing but a jian. So, what was the plan? Let me play the hero, fall into my arms in a completely spontaneous outpouring of gratitude, and then I’d take you with me?”
Chan Yu Ming didn’t say anything, but Sen’s night vision was sharp enough that he saw her cheeks get subtly darker.
“Seriously?” he asked, seeing he’d at least gotten pretty close to the mark. “That was the plan?”
“It would have worked on most men,” she said.
At first, Sen thought that she was underestimating men. Then, he thought about Shi Ping’s mild or maybe not-so-mild desperation for attention from women. Hells, thought Sen, maybe it would have worked on most men.
“At least tell me you didn’t bait the creepy spider things to attack you.”
“No,” she sighed. “That part was real.”
“So, you just made sure to make a lot of noise, assuming I’d come and see what was happening?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?”
Sen felt a stab of annoyance. She was right. He had come running. Although, he probably would have done the same thing even if he hadn’t known she was the one who was back here. What he did when he arrived, though, would have depended a lot on what he found. Sen decided to take a moment to gather his thoughts and deal with the spider corpses. He walked over to them and split them open using wind blades. He dug around inside of them until he found their cores and pulled them free. He dropped those on the ground next to him. Then, calling up earth qi, he loosened and parted the soil under the spider corpses. He let them sink deep into the ground, then, for good measure, he crushed them. He figured that they’d probably help the plant growth in the area. He took a minute or two to smooth out the surface soil and used some wind qi to gather up seeds. He spread those out over the clearing. A minor application of wood qi got them sprouting, which should help reinforce and stabilize the soil. Then, he pulled out a water gourd and washed off the cores. Picking them up, he walked over and held them out to Chan Yu Ming.
“You did most of the actual killing,” she said. “You should keep them.”
“We both know that you would have done it if I hadn’t shown up,” he answered.
Rolling her eyes, she took the cores and made them disappear into a storage treasure. That was followed by some awkward silence.
“So, now what?” she asked.
“You should go back to the Clear Spring sect. We’re not that far away yet.”
“Why won’t you let me come with you?” she demanded.
“I told you why.”
“That wasn’t a good reason to say no.”
“It was, in fact, an excellent reason to say no. The real question is, why do you want this so badly? I know why you said you did, and I’m sure that’s part of the reason, but that’s not enough to turn your life upside down,” said Sen, until a thought struck him. “Not unless there’s some specific thing in the world you think I’m going to change. Or maybe it’s that there’s something that you want to change that you were hoping to point me at. Is that it?”
Chan Yu Ming nodded. “Sort of.”
All of that anger that Sen had been keeping at bay rushed to the front of his consciousness.
“Hard. Pass.” said Sen in a tone that made the young woman flinch. “I’ve been used enough for one year.”
“It’s not like that,” said Chan Yu Ming.
“Oh, it’s never like that, except for the part when I get a world of trouble dumped on my head because someone else decided that I was the fix for their problem.”
“Sen, please, just hear me out.”
“Answer me one question first. Let’s say I play along. Let’s say I go to wherever it is that you want to go and we manage to change whatever it is that you want to change. Is it going to make me powerful, dangerous enemies who will probably try to murder me or have me murdered?”
Sen watched Chan Yu Ming close her eyes and take a breath. “Yes.”
Sen pinched the bridge of his nose. “At least you told the truth about it. The answer is still no.”
“Sen.”
“I’m dying,” said Sen.
“What?!”
“Yeah, my body cultivation is killing me. Or it will be very soon. That’s why I’m going to the capital. That’s why I need that manual. If I don’t complete this cultivation method, I die. I have a little bit of time to work with, and I have to spend that time trying to fix my problems. I can’t spend the next year on the run from assassins. If my situation were different, maybe I’d consider helping you. If the thing you wanted changed was important enough. As it stands now, I can’t afford the distraction.”
“What if I could help you get the manual? Would you help me then?”
Sen narrowed his eyes. “Can you help me get the manual?”
“Maybe. It’s possible, yeah.”
“I’m going to need something a lot more definitive than it’s possible before I gamble my life on this.”
“My family could probably get it if I involved them. But, if I’m going to involve them, I need you to do your part first.”
“I’ve respected that you don’t want to talk about your family up until now because it really wasn’t my business. As of this moment, it’s my business. What is the story with your family?”
Chan Yu Ming was quiet for a long moment before she said. “We’re nobles.”
“Now, I know for sure that I don’t want any part of your problem.”
“Just because we’re nobles?”
“Yes, just because you’re nobles seems like a perfectly good reason to me. Because the last time I interacted with a noble family, I had to kill all of them.”