It took every last bit of Sen’s considerable self-control not to burst into laughter at what followed those words. Every last one of the cultivators who had originally approached Sen was staring at him with expressions that ranged from simply aghast to, in the case of the leader, furious and aghast. It was like they couldn’t comprehend how he had dared to utter such words to their honored matriarch. As for the matriarch herself, her mouth moved soundlessly once or twice before she seemed to remember herself. She turned and gave the kneeling cultivators a look of mock surprise. She waved a negligent hand in their direction.
“Leave us,” she ordered.
Their looks of shock, horror, and anger almost instantly converted into ones of surprise and, in the case of the leader, hurt. Oh, so that’s how it is, thought Sen. I wonder how long he’s been carrying around that doomed and unrequited love? Yet, none of the cultivators dared to defy their matriarch. They rose and started to shuffle away, although most of them took the time to shoot dirty looks his way. Chin Hao-Yu looked like he was ready to rush over and stab Sen in the eye. Sen didn’t bother looking at them. He simply looked through them, as though they had ceased to exist the second that Lai Dongmei dismissed them. For all practical purposes, they had. While they were taking their time in leaving, Sen let his killing intent and lightning qi drain out of the spear before he stored it. Once Lai Dongmei seemed satisfied that her minions were out of earshot, she turned an amused look on Sen.
“Were you trying to put me off balance?” she asked.
Sen cocked his head to one side for a moment before he casually walked closer to the woman. Once he was close enough that both of them could theoretically do something drastic to the other, he gave her a half-smile.
“Would you like me to put you off balance? I could always catch you if you fall.”
There was another moment where she looked like she didn’t quite know what to do before she finally spoke in an almost disbelieving tone, “Are you flirting with me?”
Sen clasped his hands behind his back and took another step toward the woman. He gazed into her dark eyes for a long moment.
“Yes,” he said in a low voice. “Would you like me to stop?”
“I’m the matriarch of a sect,” she said.
“So you are. Fortunately for me, it’s not my sect. That leaves me free to simply appreciate you. After all, how often does a man have the opportunity to stand in the presence of perfection?”
If Sen hadn’t been standing so close to her, even he might not have spotted it, but a faint blush appeared on Lai Dongmei’s cheeks.
“Aren’t you worried that I might strike you dead for daring to speak to me this way?”
Sen let a thoughtful expression settle over his features before he shook his head. “No, I’m not worried.”
Lai Dongmei lifted an eyebrow at him. “And what makes you so confident?”
Sen leaned in a little and Lai Dongmei did the same. Sen let his voice drop to nearly a whisper.
“You didn’t ask me to stop.”
“No. I didn’t,” she admitted with a small smile.
“It must be terribly lonely. Always the matriarch. Always the nascent soul cultivator. Always the impossible ideal in someone’s eyes. How long has it been since someone looked at you and just saw…you?”
There was a look on the woman’s face that Sen couldn’t entirely understand, but he recognized parts of it. There was need there. There was also a hunger.
“A very long time,” she said, before lifting a finger and trailing a fingertip along Sen’s jaw. “A loneliness of which I expect you have some small understanding.”
“A little. People who spend enough time with me get used to it, eventually. I doubt the same is true for you. Of course, I’m spared the burden of position.”
The matriarch walked a slow circle around Sen. “Are you, though? I am merely a matriarch, while you, well, you’re a story. A folk hero. Almost a legend in your own right. What burdens does that carry?”
Sen smiled at her. “More than I’d like. Are you trying to put me off balance?”
“No. Although, I have the sneaking suspicion that very few things can put you off balance. I’d just like to understand the man who means to seduce me.”
“I don’t imagine that will pose much of a challenge. I’m a simple creature.”
The matriarch laughed. “Oh, I know that’s not true. You’re a series of masks, all of them interesting. With that fool Tong Guanting, you’re the ruthless killer and thief. With those you don’t trust, you’re cold and imperious. With the prince, you’re approachable and friendly. With me, you play at seduction.”
Sen let his eyes trail the length of Lai Dongmei’s body before he met her gaze. He let some of his very real desire for her show through, not on his face, just in his eyes.
“What makes you think I’m playing at seduction?”
Lai Dongmei froze in place. Sen couldn’t describe exactly what the difference was, but it felt as though that look from him had stripped away some kind of pretense from their interaction. The faint blush that had appeared on the woman’s cheeks came back and much more visibly.
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“If we’re to continue this conversation,” said Lai Dongmei, “I think it should probably be somewhere more private.”
“Somewhere with a door,” Sen offered helpfully.
“Somewhere with a bed,” countered Lai Dongmei.
“I suddenly find myself with no pressing engagements,” said Sen. “Lead the way.”
***
Three days later, as Sen lay in Lai Dongmei’s bed, the woman herself sprawled on top of him, he realized that he was probably going to get an earful from just about everyone. He considered that prospect for a moment and decided that it was completely worth it. Lai Dongmei made an inarticulate noise of quiet rage when someone with a death wish knocked on her door. She didn’t actually scream go away at the person, but that feeling radiated off of her in almost tangible waves. Sighing, she rolled off of Sen, rose, put on a robe, and answered the door.
“What?” she demanded of whoever was out there.
The tone she used was hard enough that it could have shattered steel. So, Sen wasn’t surprised when he heard a hasty bevy of words issued in an extremely nervous voice. Then, Lai Dongmei nodded and promptly slammed the door in the person’s face.
“Is the real world intruding?” Sen asked.
“It is,” she said before turning around and looking at him.
Sen expected that she’d tell him that some sect crisis or another was demanding her attention. Instead, she just stared at him for a long moment. Then, she took her robe back off and climbed on top of him again.
“It’ll wait until tomorrow,” she said in the voice of someone who had just decided something very, very firmly.
***
“Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk about?” Sen asked. “I mean, before all of this.”
While he waited for an answer, he lowered his mouth and ate one of the berries that Lai Dongmei had put out on her smooth, taut stomach. She shivered as he did, and then sighed discontentedly.
“Yes. It’s about that manual you want so badly.”
Sen ran a finger along her inner thigh, causing more shivers. “You don’t have it.”
Lai Dongmei sat straight up, sending the berries in every direction. “You knew?”
Sen gently pushed her back down onto the bed and began placing the berries back on her stomach. “I suspected. It was one thing when your people were giving the person I sent the runaround. When the prince’s people were getting the same treatment, I figured that there had to be a pretty compelling reason for it. You could have extracted a lot of advantages by giving him the manual. The simplest answer was that you didn’t have it to give.”
“I’m sorry. I would have given it to you or to the prince. Well, maybe not give. I’d have charged either of you outrageously for it.”
Sen nodded. He’d been slowly learning how sects handled things like selling cultivation resources. With rare cultivation manuals, outrageous pricing was the norm, regardless of how bad a reputation the actual techniques in the manual had. He’d been prepared to pay just about any price they asked for it and pay it gladly. After all, it was mostly going to be Tong Guanting’s money and resources funding the purchase.
“Did you ever have it?”
“Not since I assumed the role of matriarch. We supposedly had a copy at some point, but it was gifted or stolen. The records are hazy about it. Intentionally, I suspect.”
Sen couldn’t hold back his sigh. He’d suspected something like this was coming, but it was still a disappointment. He wasn’t looking forward to tracking down Fu Ruolan, the probably crazy nascent soul cultivator. He ate another berry off of Lai Dongmei and let the happy little noises she made distract him. If the manual wasn’t in the capital, it wasn’t in the capital. Being frustrated about it wouldn’t help matters. He’d just have to settle his business in the city and be on his way.
“Is there something else you want? Something we might actually have?”
“It’s less that I want the manual, than that I need the manual. I was nudged onto that body cultivation path by a smug turtle that I’m starting to think wants me dead.”
“You met Elder Bo?” asked Lai Dongmei.
“Does everyone know that stupid turtle?”
Lai Dongmei laughed. “Only if they’re nascent soul cultivators. Most of us have had at least one encounter with him.”
“And no one decided to make him into soup? I’m surprised.”
“I wonder why he pushed you onto a body cultivation path that would be so difficult to complete,” mused Lai Dongmei as she picked up one of the berries and popped it into her mouth.
“I don’t know. If I’d realized what a monumental pain the ass it was going to be, I might have asked a few more questions. Although, the tribulation was a pretty big distraction.”
“I imagine so. They just get worse and worse as you go along. I’ve been putting off advancing again for a long time because of that.”
Sen was about to ask her more about tribulations, but someone knocked on the door. That time, Lai Dongmei was less restrained.
“Go away!” she yelled, before grabbing a pillow and hurling it at the door.
In the hands of a mortal, a pillow was a fairly safe object. In the hands of a furious nascent soul cultivator, it hit the door hard enough to send a crack right down the middle. There was a terrified yelp from the other side of the door and the sound of someone running away. Sen tried not to laugh and almost succeeded.
“You’re going to have to go back out there at some point,” said Sen.
“I know,” she said. “It doesn’t mean I have to be in a hurry for it. I don’t get to be Dongmei very often. Once I go back out there, I have to be the matriarch again. It’s tedious.”
“Then, leave.”
“Sure, I’ll just up and quit being the matriarch of the Golden Phoenix sect. Nobody does that.”
“Why? You’re a nascent soul cultivator. You can do whatever you want. It’s not like anyone can make you stay.”
***
The next morning, after a ridiculously long and vigorous bath he’d shared with Lai Dongmei, Sen was getting dressed.
“It’s a little depressing watching you put your clothes back on,” the woman observed from across the room. “I don’t suppose I can’t tempt you to stay.”
Sen shamelessly stared at the still-naked Lai Dongmei and smiled. “You know you can. But I’m pretty sure that your sect thinks I’m holding you hostage in here. I keep waiting for them to break down the door to rescue you from that worthless peasant of a wandering cultivator.”
Lai Dongmei snorted and started getting dressed. “They wouldn’t dare. So, what’s next for you?”
“I still have one or two things to take care of here before I go looking for that manual. I’m not quite done with Tong Guanting, yet. And there’s that nonsense with the royal family.”
“Yes, the wedding. The word is that you’re her true love and will disrupt the proceedings somehow. Won’t all of this complicate that?”
“It might, except everyone knows that it’s all made up. In the end, I’ll just kill Choi Zhi Peng if he’s too much trouble.”
Lai Dongmei gave him a troubled look. “It might be made up for you, but it may not be as made up for Chan Yu Ming. She may be more invested in the idea than you are.”
Sen nodded in acknowledgment of the point. “Maybe, but my agreement with her was to get her out of the wedding. Beyond that, she knows my priorities.”
“What about Tong Guanting? You’ve practically bankrupted him. You’ve killed most of his people. What’s left?”
“Oh, I’m going to murder that man.”
A very profound silence settled over the room. Sen glanced over to see Lai Dongmei staring at him.
“I know you’re absurdly powerful for your advancement, Sen, but you can’t beat him in a fight.”
“Who said anything about fighting? I said murder. I don’t need to put a sword in his eye to kill him. There are other ways.”
“You’re serious? You really think you have a method that will kill him.”
“I know I do.”
Lai Dongmei considered those words for a moment before she nodded. “Once you wrap up your murdering and wedding disruption, you should come back here. I thought of some other things we should try.”
“Well, how can I turn down an offer like that?”