“Did you do something?” demanded the prince.

Sen squinted at the man. The prince was agitated, frightened, and gesturing wildly. Sen had never seen the man like that before. What he couldn’t understand was what could have possibly left the usually calm and collected man in such a state. Nor could he understand why the prince thought that Sen had done whatever it was. Sen had certainly done plenty in recent weeks, but nothing he hadn’t explicitly told the prince he planned to do.

“Yes?” Sen ventured. “Maybe. I think it kind of depends.”

“Did you kill them?”

Sen frowned. That was a very vague question considering what Sen had been up to.

“Yes? Maybe? It depends. Who are we talking about?”

“The house of Choi,” said the prince, his gaze trying to bore a hole through Sen’s forehead.

“Oh,” said Sen, relaxing. “Then, no. I mean, I might have gotten around to them eventually if there wasn’t some other fix for Chan Yu Ming. But I’ve been focused on the Shadow Eagle Talon Syndicate.”

“It really wasn’t you?”

“I honestly had nothing to do with that. I assume it was a massacre, or I doubt I’d be here answering questions.”

The prince pressed two fingers to his left temple and began rubbing it in a circular motion. Sen wasn’t sure if the man was thinking or trying to encourage a headache to go away.

“Yes, it was a massacre if an incomplete one. One man walked into their compound, drew a sword, and killed his way through most of their family. Sound familiar?”

Sen nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like some of the things I’ve done recently. Still, not me.”

“I know.”

“How?” asked Sen in genuine curiosity.

“Because you have no incentive to lie to me. If you did it, there isn’t anything we can do to you. We can’t even keep you in the city against your will without involving the sects, and I get the impression that they aren’t inclined to bother you at the moment.”

“Why is that?”

“Because most of them have said that they aren’t inclined to bother you at the moment.”

Sen laughed. “You actually asked?”

The prince gave Sen a cool look. “You’re an extraordinarily dangerous and powerful man. If I’d been wrong about you, and you turned out to simply be a wanton killer, I wanted a contingency in place.”

Sen wanted to feel offended, but he couldn’t quite dredge up the emotional energy for it. In the prince’s place, Sen would probably have wanted some kind of backup plan to deal with a powerful, crazy cultivator. He nodded.

“I guess that’s fair. Since it wasn’t me, do we have any idea who…,” Sen trailed off. “Was it Tong Guanting?”

The prince sighed. “We don’t know for sure. The handful of people who survived the attack weren’t really in a state to give a coherent account of events. The descriptions we got of the attacker could have been him, or you, or my mother, or a flying cart. Since it was just one person and the number of deaths was, let’s say, excessive, I’m tentatively concluding it was a powerful cultivator. The sects don’t go in for killing local nobility for obvious reasons. That limits the pool of candidates.”

“And, since it wasn’t me, that doesn’t leave a lot of options. Still, who other than me has a reason to go after the Choi?”

“That’s what makes the timing suspicious. You’ve been putting a great deal of pressure on Tong Guanting’s organization. With you ripping apart his organization at the seams, we know he wants to kill you. Although, it seems you’ve found a fix for that problem.”

“Not me, although someone has clearly intervened to keep him from just wiping me off the face of the world. I’ll have to send them a gift of some kind.”

“My guess is that the Choi were the ones who aimed him at you in the first place. If he’s a bitter man, he may well have decided to blame them for his current situation and took action.”

Sen nodded. “It sounds plausible. He’s certainly angry enough to make those kinds of rash choices. I don’t suppose he did us all a favor and killed Choi Zhi Peng, did he?”

The prince grimaced. “He didn’t. Choi Zhi Peng wasn’t there when the attack happened.”

“Seriously? That lucky bastard,” muttered Sen. “What in the hells was he doing while his family was getting slaughtered?”

“I’m not entirely sure, although I can make some educated guesses. All of them are…off-putting.”

“Sounds about right, at least if what Chan Yu Ming told me is true.”

The prince gave Sen an odd look. “You always refer to her so formally. If you’re going to try and sell yourself as a rival suitor, you’re going to need to break yourself of that.”

“Chalk it up to the fact that I don’t really know her that well. Besides, with the house of Choi in shambles, I have to assume the wedding is off.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The prince closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “It isn’t.”

“What?” demanded Sen.

“Father is adamant that the wedding move forward.”

“Why? It was one thing when the house of Choi was strong and powerful. Now, though, won’t the other houses just swoop in and take all of their holdings?”

“That seems the most likely scenario. As for why? I don’t know, and father refuses to disclose his thoughts on the matter,” said the prince, lifting a hand to stop Sen’s next words. “Yes, it’s suspicious.”

“It’s more than just suspicious. It sounds like your father is trying to buy them off with Chan Yu Ming.”

“I know.”

“And what do you plan to do about it?”

“I don’t know. Without understanding what’s driving father’s decision, I can’t make an appropriate plan.”

Sen gave the prince a narrow-eyed look and then stood. He offered the prince a bow. “Thank you for your teachings, Prince Zhang Jing. They were very enlightening, but I don’t believe it’s necessary for me to take up any more of your time.”

Sen turned and walked toward the door. The prince called out after him.

“I failed your test, didn’t I?”

Sen paused with his hand on the handle of the door. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“The Diviner warned me. He told me that you had no use for nobles. That you think we’re all selfish and stupid.”

When Sen said nothing, the prince carried on.

“You’ve decided that I’m one of those, haven’t you?”

Sen considered it for a moment. “Are you still breathing?”

“What? Of course, I’m still breathing. Why?”

“Because that’s how you know that I haven’t decided that you’re one of those.”

“But you did decide something?”

“Yes.”

“May I ask what you decided?”

Sen didn’t look back when he answered. “No.”

Then, he left the prince’s home.

***

Despite what the prince clearly thought, Sen wasn’t angry with him. He’d just realized something that he thought the prince was choosing to overlook. Sen could come and go from this situation with the royal family as he saw fit. The prince couldn’t. For Jing, that situation was permanent, and he needed to operate within its established rules. His association with Sen was, more likely than not, the kind of thing that would harm him more than help him. Especially with the things that Sen expected he was going to have to do next. By walking away in a fashion that convinced the prince that Sen was done with him, it offered the royal a kind of insulation. No one would call the prince to account for the things that Sen did if that relationship was fractured.

It had stung more than Sen had expected. He genuinely liked the prince, seeing in him the flicker of possibility of what nobles could be but so rarely were. Feigning that he’d found the prince wanting in some way had been trying, but he’d done hard things before. He was quite certain he would have to do them again. He couldn’t skip the necessary things just because they were difficult or painful. He hoped that he’d get the opportunity to explain the situation later, but he knew better than most that the world often got in the way of what people wanted. Still, better by far to leave the prince with the wrong impression and a level of protection, than leave him an obvious target of retribution for those who couldn’t get at Sen.

What Sen found at least a little bit amusing was the idea that Tong Guanting had largely solved a problem for him. Oh, the man certainly hadn’t intended to help Sen. Odds were good that he was just lashing out at whoever he could reasonably get his hands on. Still, he had, however obliquely, done Sen a service. With so much of the house of Choi dead, he suspected that it wouldn’t be difficult to solve Chan Yu Ming’s problem permanently. Lo Meifeng had been getting more and more restless recently, forbidden as she was to accompany him on his excursions into the criminal part of the city. It wasn’t that he doubted her skills or her usefulness. He'd have been happy to take her along, but he couldn’t realistically hide her and him the way he’d need to that deep into Tong Guanting’s territory. Something like this, though, was something she’d probably find interesting. He’d have to bring it up with her and see what she thought.

Even as he was thinking all of that, Sen had summoned a spear to his hand. He’d felt the group of cultivators approaching him in a clump and, by the time they came into sight, lightning was already crackling around the head of the spear. The entire group came to a dead stop when they saw the spear leveled at them. Sen had schooled his expression into an emotionless mask. A few weeks ago, these same cultivators might have sneered or called out taunts. They were, after all, all of a higher cultivation level than Sen. Yet, every last man and woman paled at the sight of him standing there, clearly prepared to fight with them. It wasn’t an idle threat, either. He had cut, stabbed, burned, crushed, and eviscerated his way through people just as strong as them and under much worse conditions. The apparent leader of the group waved a hand at the rest, who all backed off. Then, he stepped forward and offered Sen a bow.

“I am Chin Hao-Yu of the Golden Phoenix sect.”

When Sen didn’t so much as twitch, the man seemed perplexed about what to do next.

“Are you the one they call Judgment’s Gale?”

Sen provided only the most infinitesimal nod.

“The matriarch of our sect wishes to speak with you regarding the request you submitted to us.”

“I have an agent for these matters. Speak with him.”

Chin Hao-Yu got an affronted look. “It is a great honor to be invited to speak with the matriarch.”

“Perhaps, but that assumes that you are who you say are. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust anyone who shows up in force to deliver a message. It rather suggests that you mean to take me somewhere regardless of what I say.”

Chin Hao-Yu’s face darkened. “You dare question the honor of the Golden Phoenix sect?”

Sen felt torn between utter weariness and the urge to laugh. “In my experience, those words are almost immediately followed by someone doing something incredibly dishonorable.”

Sen had the feeling that the situation was about to devolve into violence when he felt the presence of a nascent soul cultivator approaching. He let his killing intent fill the spearhead until the lightning turned void black and gave off the hazy purple afterglow he’d come to associate with Heavens’ Rebuke. He didn’t know if it would do anything to a nascent soul cultivator, but he wasn’t about to let any nascent soul cultivator get that close to him without at least preparing. The group of cultivators were all staring at his spear with looks of such deep fear that Sen felt like he might as well have summoned a devil up from the hells. Chin Hao-Yu even took a stumbling step backward. When the nascent soul cultivator descended on them, the group of Golden Phoenix sect cultivators dropped to their knees. Sen glanced around and realized that all of the mortals had simply fled. Sen gawked for a moment as the single most beautiful person he’d ever seen landed on the street between him and the other cultivators. She gave his spear a speculative look, which gave Sen enough time to regain his mental equilibrium.

“I am Lai Dongmei, matriarch of the Golden Phoenix sect,” she said, giving Sen a small smile.

Sen considered the situation objectively. While he might have stood a chance against the core cultivators, he didn’t stand a chance against them and the nascent soul cultivator. With nothing better on offer, he just offered the woman a smile in return.

“Hello,” said Sen, giving the sky a curious look. “The weather in the capital is very strange.”

The woman seemed taken aback by his words. “How so?”

Sen shrugged. “It doesn’t normally rain beautiful women with sad smiles where I come from.”