Sen’s chat with Chan Yu Ming seemed to shatter a number of illusions she’d had about her clever plan because she almost entirely withdrew from everyone else. He’d see her staring hard at nothing, shaking her head, and even occasionally muttering to herself. He assumed that she was trying to rethink her plan in a way that would actually have some chance of working, but he wasn’t holding out much hope. The young woman’s muttering got so frequent at one point that Lo Meifeng commented on it.

“I think you broke the princess.”

“She should have taken that month I provided to think up a better plan,” said Sen.

“That’s true enough. What about the other one?”

“What other one?” asked Sen.

“You talked to me. You talked to Chan Yu Ming. Are you planning a similar conversation with Shi Ping?”

“About what?”

“I have no idea. Maybe why the Order of the Celestial Flame sent him along with you.”

“Oh, that. I assume he knows already. It’s pretty obvious when you think about it.”

“Yes, it’s obvious to you and me, but I don’t think he knows,” said Lo Meifeng.

“How could he not?”

“Maybe he was too lazy to think about it.”

Sen wanted to dismiss that idea, but it was all too plausible. At the same time, it wasn’t really his problem. If Shi Ping didn’t want to reflect on his life circumstances, it wasn’t Sen’s place to do it for him.

“I could tell him, but what would that accomplish?”

“Maybe it would inspire something other than apathy in him.”

“Doubtful,” said Sen. “Don’t you think that all of his seniors tried that already?”

“Probably, but I find that certain realities tend to focus the mind, don’t you?”

“I still don’t see the point.”

“Maybe there isn’t one, but he’s not terrible with that jian. With some motivation and training, he could be useful.”

“All right, I’ll talk to him. If it doesn’t change anything, it’s not like I’ll lose anything.”

Sen thought about the best way to approach the fire cultivator but couldn’t think of a good one. If Shi Ping had already figured it out, then the conversation wasn’t likely to go anywhere. If he hadn’t, the conversation wasn’t likely to go well. Since he didn’t really want to have that conversation with Shi Ping, Sen put it off for several more days. Eventually, he got tired of the annoyed looks he was getting from Lo Meifeng and went over to walk by the fire cultivator. Shi Ping looked immediately nervous and got even more nervous at Sen’s words.

“Let’s talk.”

“About what?” asked the supremely cautious Shi Ping.

“About why you’re really here,” said Sen. “Do you know?”

Shi Ping was quiet for a few moments, before he ventured, “As punishment.”

Sen was honestly surprised that the fire cultivator hadn’t figured it out. He didn’t relish being the bearer of bad news, but Sen pressed onward. He shook his head and gave Shi Ping a significant look.

“That’s not why you’re here. They sent you with me to get rid of you. Permanently.”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Permanently. I’m not traveling with you forever. I can tell you that right now.”

“Are you being intentionally blind to this? They sent you with me because they expected to you die.”

Shi Ping rolled his eyes. “What are you talking about that? That’s completely…utterly…damn.”

Sen had watched as the realization had settled over the man. It seemed that Shi Ping really hadn’t put the pieces together or had been working very hard to ignore the evidence. Sen felt a small pang of sympathy for the man. It was one thing to know that your superiors didn’t particularly care for you. It was something else entirely to realize that they’d purposefully sent you with a man who routinely drew the kind of violence that would crush you. Shi Ping alternated between looking sick and looking hurt before his expression settled on fury. He whirled toward Sen.

“You knew!” Shi Ping shouted. “You knew and you let me come along anyway!”

Sen maintained his placid expression in the face of Shi Ping’s anger. “And? I’m not a member of your order. I certainly haven’t taken any oaths to protect and preserve your life. I agreed to take you along in exchange for that spear. I took you along. My only obligation has been fulfilled.”

Shi Ping tried to attack Sen at that point, forcing Sen to brush aside punches and kicks as Shi Ping vented his anger on the only target he could reach. Sen let that go on for a while because he thought it would probably help Shi Ping’s state of mind in the long run. When the fire cultivator reached for his jian, though, Sen fixed him with a hard look.

“If you try to draw that blade, you won’t even see the blow that kills you.”

Shi Ping released the hilt of the jian, but he never stopped glaring at Sen. “So, why bother telling me?”

“Because I’m tired of you, Shi Ping.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that it’s time for one of two things to happen. The first option, and my personal preference, is that you simply go away. I don’t care where you go, although I wouldn’t show your face back at the Order of the Celestial Flame if I were you. But we’ve passed some villages. You could go back to one of those and stay until they ask you to leave as well. If you keep heading the direction we’re heading, you’ll get to the capital, although I doubt you have the money or ambition to survive there for long on your own. At this point, though, you can consider yourself well and truly discharged from your former order. They don’t want you back. That means you can go wherever you want and become whoever you want.”

Sen let Shi Ping process all of that.

“You said one of two things. What’s the other thing?”

“You keep traveling with us.”

“I thought you said…,” began Shi Ping.

“You should really let me finish because there are several important details to that course of action. If you decide that you’re going to keep traveling with us, you bury this useless person you are now. All of the laziness, the whining, the overeating, it all dies right here, at this very spot in the road. You will find whatever spark of ambition let you reach peak foundation formation and breathe life back into it. You will train with me daily, without exception and without complaint. You will participate in every fight we face. And, no, you don’t get a week to think about it. You have one minute. I suggest that you think very hard about what kind of person you want to be, and make your decision based on that.”

Sen walked down the road and stood next to Falling Leaf. The two of them watched the fire cultivator mull over his choice.

“Why didn’t you just send him away?” asked Falling Leaf.

“To keep my conscience and karma clear. If I tell him to go and some spirit beast kills him two miles down the road, then I bear a lot of responsibility for that.”

“But you don’t like him.”

“I don’t like him as he is now, but he couldn’t have always been this way. He never would have reached the peak of foundation formation if he was. At some point in the past, he worked hard at being a successful cultivator. I don’t know if I would have liked that version of him any better, but I might have respected him. The way he is now, I don’t like or respect him. As for giving him the choice, if he decides that he’d rather be lazy and useless and goes by his own choice, then that karma is all on him. If he stays, then maybe we’ll meet someone who will be more helpful and that we’ll all like a little more.”

“What if he stays and doesn’t change?”

“Then I expect Lo Meifeng will probably kill him.”

“I will,” said Lo Meifeng, stepping up next to the pair. “That wasn’t quite what I expected from that conversation.”

“He’s an inconvenience for us now. I imagine he’d be a full-blown anchor for us in the capital.”

“More than likely,” said Lo Meifeng.

“So, we deal with the problem now. If he leaves, problem solved. If he stays and actually changes, the problem is mostly likely solved. If he stays and doesn’t change, the problem gets solved another way.”

Sen didn’t enforce the one-minute deadline he’d set. It was a potentially life-changing decision. He gave Shi Ping five minutes before he walked back over to the fire cultivator.

“Well?” Sen asked.

There was a moment of hesitation and Sen was certain that Shi Ping was going to leave. Then, the fire cultivator looked at Sen.

“We’re wasting time,” said Shi Ping and started heading down the road.

Sen lifted an eyebrow at Shi Ping’s back and said, “So, we are.”