Sen became aware that he was aware again. The last thing that he could recall was setting off that thing he’d made in what he’d assumed were his last moments in life. Thinking back, it looked like insanity to him. Maybe it had been insanity, but he thought, maybe, it was an insanity he’d finally, mercifully, purged from himself. He hadn’t felt so calm, so centered in a long, long time. Although, he supposed that being dead probably had that effect on people. Well, if he was dead and in Diyu, he supposed he should get on with the process. There was probably some forgetting soup on a bridge in his very near future. Opening his eyes, he didn’t see what he expected. There was no river, no bridge, and definitely no soup. There was nothing or almost nothing. Of course, the one thing he could see was the one thing he really didn’t want to see. The damnable dragon was there. Sen wondered if they had both died.

It didn’t seem likely. He expected that last technique had probably hurt the dragon, but he doubted he could have mustered anything dangerous enough to kill it. Thankfully, the dragon seemed to have gotten over his killing fury. The ancient creature was sitting on a chair, sipping what smelled like jasmine tea, and reading a book. There was some kind of writing on the cover. Sen squinted at it, but the characters, or whatever they were, refused to come into focus. More importantly, even trying to read them made his head hurt. That gave Sen pause. Can souls get headaches? Sen’s teachers hadn’t spent much time on what happened when someone died or what it meant for souls, other than saying that people reincarnate, which even he had picked up simply from listening to people talk. Since it didn’t seem like he or the dragon were going anywhere anytime soon, he stopped procrastinating. Sen sat up and eyed the dragon warily. The dragon immediately closed his book and gave Sen an amused look.

“Damn,” said the dragon, “I bet myself that you’d pretend to be asleep for at least five minutes.”

Sen wasn’t sure what a proper response to that would look like, so he hazarded a guess. “Sorry?”

“It’s nothing. Oh, do get up off the floor. You look ridiculous sitting down there.”

The dragon waved a hand and another chair appeared. Sen didn’t know how to feel about this turn of events. He was happy that the fight hadn’t picked up where it left off, but that didn’t mean he felt safe or comfortable. He hesitantly went over to the chair the dragon had manifested and sat down. He glanced around again, but there was still nothing but a vast expanse of darkness all around them.

“Tea?” asked the dragon, drawing Sen’s attention.

The book had vanished entirely and there was now a small table with a tea set sitting between them. Sen’s own experiences with storage treasures meant that the appearance and disappearance of things didn’t surprise him much, but something was off. He hadn’t felt even the barest movement of qi. In fact, he realized, he couldn’t feel any qi at all. Knowledge about the state of qi around him had become so ingrained in his world that its loss left Sen feeling like he’d lost one of his senses.

“Am I dead?” Sen asked.

“Are you sure you don’t want tea? It’s really quite good.”

Sen decided that if he played along, the dragon might be more inclined to answer his question. “Sure. Why not?”

The dragon smiled, poured a cup, and handed it to Sen. They sat in silence while Sen waited long enough for the tea to cool a little. Then, he sipped. Okay, he thought, the dragon wasn’t lying. The tea is good. Sen inclined his head to the dragon in acknowledgment.

“Now, since you’re asking if you’re dead, I assume you noticed the lack of qi here.”

“I did,” said Sen.

“You’re not dead,” said the dragon.

Relief exploded inside of Sen’s chest but was immediately followed by confusion and concern. The dragon seemed to intuit the deluge of questions that were about to pour out of Sen because it held up a hand to stall those questions.

“You’re not dead,” the dragon repeated, “but you certainly deserve to be after that last stunt. I swear that the heavens and chaos colluded to keep you alive if only just.”

“Then why can’t I sense any qi?” Sen asked.

“Technically speaking, there is no qi here. Right now, we’re having this conversation inside of my mind. I supposed we could have tried to do it in your mind, but even your reinforced brain matter would have melted into something rather unpleasant after a few seconds. Plus, human minds are such messy, disorganized places. So full of memories and emotions that other things are constantly intruding. Honestly, I don’t know how you people get anything done. But this,” he said, smiling around at the empty space, “is clean, orderly, the perfect setting for a discussion.”

“You didn’t seem terribly interested in talking before.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“You didn’t come to talk. You were also in no fit state to talk. I’m stunned you didn’t murder your feline companion at the first moment of disagreement.”

“I would never hurt her.”

A sound like a bell, pure, high, and sweet echoed around them and, for a brief moment, golden light flooded the space. It was bright enough that Sen had to close his eyes against it. When it faded, Sen found the dragon staring at him with an eyebrow lifted.

“Apparently not,” observed the ancient reptile. “I’ve seen holy vows with less weight and truth in them. It certainly explains why she’s so utterly fearless around you. What about the others you were traveling with? The smart one, the lazy musician, and that infatuated girl? Did they survive?”

“Of course, they survived. Why wouldn’t they have survived? Wait, what infatuated girl? Lifen?”

“No, the one that’s hiding from herself.”

“Chan Yu Ming?”

“Is that her name?”

“Yes, that is her name.”

“You didn’t kill her? I was certain you would.”

“Why do you keep saying things like that? Yes, I’ve been angry, but I can keep my temper if I have to.”

“My dear boy, you weren’t angry. You were mad with a heart demon. Mad with paranoia, rage, and a fear so deep that I never thought you’d escape it. Although, it’s nice to be wrong every once in a while.”

“A heart demon,” muttered Sen. “It never even occurred to me.”

“Of course not. By the time something like that takes hold, you’re generally beyond the point where you can see it clearly.”

“So, you helped me?”

The dragon snorted. “Help is a strong word. I mostly just entertained myself by throwing you around for a few minutes. It’s what you expected. It’s what you wanted. Actually, no, that’s not entirely true. I don’t think you even knew it, but you ventured so far out into the wilds to commit suicide. You couldn’t bring yourself to do it, but you knew something was wrong. So, you came out here to get something else to do it for you. It seems your master trained you a little too well, though. You kept winning.”

“I didn’t win against you. You could have killed me.”

“I suppose I could have.”

Sen rolled his eyes a little. The dragon clearly wanted Sen to ask why it didn’t go down like that. He decided it didn’t hurt to play the game a little bit.

“So, why didn’t you?”

The dragon smirked when he answered. “Killing you when you were insane and dangerous would have been a kindness of sorts. Your teachers wouldn’t have liked it, but they would have understood. Killing you after you purged the heart demon would have just been pitiful.”

“Pitiful?”

“Yes. Pitiful, for me. What honor is there for a dragon of my age and power in killing a core formation welp? And a human one at that. It’d be like you crushing an ant.”

Sen couldn’t quite make the words he was hearing correspond to the amused gleam in the dragon’s eyes. Sen got the impression that the dragon was playing some kind of game, but not one specifically for Sen’s benefit. It was more like a show for the benefit of some audience Sen couldn’t see or sense.

“Well,” said Sen slowly, “I appreciate your restraint.”

“As you should,” said the dragon. “Moon cake?”

Sen blinked in surprise as the dragon was suddenly holding a tray piled high with moon cakes. He thought about declining, then thought better of it. Why not have the moon cake? When he couldn’t come up with a good reason to refuse, he reached out and took one. As he bit into it, his eyes went wide in shock and delight.

“Good, aren’t they?” said the dragon a little wistfully.

“They’re amazing.”

“Sadly, they only exist in my mind anymore. The woman who made them died a very, very long time ago.”

“She didn’t pass the recipe down?”

“Oh no, she did. I even have it. I worked for her for almost half a year.”

“What?”

“I thought that there must be some secret ingredient she was using or some unique family technique. There wasn’t. It was just her. Food is a magic all its own, which I suspect you know. She just understood that magic better than anyone else.”

As Sen chewed contemplatively on the treat, something occurred to him. “Why are we having this meeting in your mind? Not that these aren’t delicious, but why can’t I go back to my body.”

“You certainly can, if you want to. I don’t think you’d enjoy it very much. Oh, unless you’re one of those people who really enjoy pain.”

Sen thought about how injured he’d been at the end of that fight. Then he thought about how much more injured he must have been after that technique exploded everywhere. Those were not thoughts to inspire happiness or comfort.

“I am not one of those people,” said Sen. “So, should I assume that my body is tucked away somewhere healing right now?”

“It is. I did pull a few pills out of your storage ring to help things along. That ghost panther kit is watching over your body.”

“Kit? You know, she’s hundreds of years old.”

The dragon nodded. “I do. She’s so young. It’s probably why she followed you out into the human world. The young are always so impatient, so impetuous. Also, I assume she didn’t have any elders around to forbid it. Not many of her kind left in the world.”

“No, not many. I’ve only met one other.”

The pair fell into their own thoughts for a time before Sen spoke up again. “Not to belabor a point, but you did tell me that after I learned, I was going to die.”

The dragon gave a serious nod. “Indeed.”

“So, you’re going to kill me?”

“What? No, we’ve been over that. You humans don’t need any help dying. You’ll die any time now. You, in particular, with that bizarre, incomplete body cultivation you have. Why in the world would you stop in the middle like that?”

“Wait,” said Sen, sitting up straight. “Do you know about the Five-Fold Body Transformation?”

“Is that what it’s called? No. My kind doesn’t use those methods. I can see what you’ve done. I can tell it’s incomplete. I know that leaving it that way will kill you. But I cannot guide your steps in that matter.”

Sen sighed. “That damn turtle.”

The dragon perked up. “Turtle? What turtle?”

“He called himself Elder Bo.”

“Bo put you on that mad body cultivation path? Well, he always did like to meddle. I remember, this one time, it must have been eight, no, nine thousand years back,” said the dragon, “he decided he was going to help this crane he just found on a beach.”

“What happened?” asked Sen, morbidly curious.

“It ascended! Can you believe it?”

Sen leaned back in his chair and, understanding that he wasn’t going anywhere for a while, just listened as the dragon talked about the divine turtle that had, perhaps intentionally, set his life on such a different trajectory.