Absolutely no one tried to stop Sen as he stormed through the palace halls looking for an exit. Servants fled at the mere sight of him. Guards pretended that they didn’t see him. Briefly, he worried that he’d somehow reignited that heart demon, but there was a difference between getting angry at something and being angry at everything for no reason. He wasn’t angry at everything. He’d gotten angry at the king for things the man had actually done. He’d gotten angry at Chan Yu Ming for acting like he should have just turned a blind eye and taking that attitude of unearned superiority. Yet, Sen recognized the problem. Whether the anger was blind or felt justified, it was still a very short route to doing things you’d almost instantly regret. So, he went from being angry with Chan Yu Ming to being angry with himself. He could see that there had never been a good way to handle that confrontation. She’d been in too much pain for that, but he’d taken, almost on reflex, the path to the worst way to handle it.

“And there’s no taking that back,” he muttered as he used air qi to blast open doors that mercifully led outside.

He stepped through the doors and onto a qi platform that lifted him into the air. He flew up and over the palace walls. The cool morning air washed over his face and helped him loosen his grip on anger. It was replaced, as it had been so often of late, with an emotional fatigue he couldn’t seem to shake. He looked out over the city and into the countryside that he could barely see in the distance. I could leave right now, he thought. There’s nothing to stop me. He could literally just fly away from politics, death, and all of those decisions he’d never wanted any part of. The temptation was potent and seductive. No more having to answer to people, justify anything, or worry about anyone but himself. The allure of that possibility was so strong that it took Sen a moment to realize that he’d started aiming the qi platform at the edge of the city. He let himself indulge in the fantasy for a few moments before he closed the door on that idea. He’d made enough things worse already. No need to add that pile. Plus, he did still have one last thing to do.

He flew over the city for a while before descending to street level. He didn’t want to get back to the house too quickly. He needed to organize his thoughts and let his emotions settle a little more. So, for the first time since he’d arrived, Sen just walked around. He stopped and bought food from streetside vendors. He found a teahouse and engaged an elderly woman in conversation. He learned about her children, who had made places for themselves as bureaucrats and soldiers. She talked about how much the city had changed since she was a young woman, both for the better and the worse. To the good, food shortages had been common in her youth but had become quite rare. To the bad, crime had become more common. When the woman asked about him, he passed himself off as a caravan guard. When she said that sounded dangerous, he regaled her to some very toned-down tales of frightening off spirit beasts to keep a caravan safe. She gasped at all the right places with a merry gleam in her eye, both of them in on the secret of his poorly concealed fibbing.

He spent most of his day out in the city, meeting strangers and eating foods he’d never seen before. From time to time, he’d cross paths with other cultivators, but they all decided to mind their own business. He wasn’t sure if it was because they recognized him or simply because they had better sense than most of the sect cultivators he met. Either way, he was grateful that they chose not to start any problems. He ended his day by sitting and listening to a busker play the erhu. The man was acceptably skilled, but Sen was a little startled to realize that Shi Ping was actually the better musician despite only playing the instrument rarely. Feeling more like a human being and with sunset approaching, Sen finally returned to the house. While Lo Meifeng and Falling Leaf were both there, there was still no sign of Shi Ping. Sen shook his head at that.

“So, what happened?” asked Lo Meifeng.

“There’s been a change in leadership in the kingdom,” answered Sen.

“Did you do it?”

“No. Prince Jing was the one who struck the final blow. He killed the king and his brother.”

“What about Chan Yu Ming?” asked Falling Leaf.

Sen shrugged. “She blames me. Hates me. Never wants to see me again.”

Falling Leaf frowned at that. Lo Meifeng just nodded along.

“Well,” said Lo Meifeng, “that’s not entirely surprising, is it?”

“No,” admitted Sen, “I guess it isn’t.”

“So, off to find the manual, then?” asked Lo Meifeng.

Sen knew that it would be so easy to just nod and then vanish into the night. The idea of having the argument that he knew would come if he told them his intentions very nearly convinced him to just go with that disappearing plan. It was the original plan. It had the elegance of simplicity. Instead, he gestured at some chairs.

“Yeah, we should talk about that,” he said, dropping into one of the chairs.

Sen was vaguely amused to see both of the women giving him narrow-eyed looks. They both settled into chairs and then Lo Meifeng spoke first. It was about how he’d expected it to go.

“So, what is there to talk about?”

Sen had been thinking about how to have this fight all day. He’d toyed with the notion of easing into it, but that just seemed likely to make the conversation longer. That idea hadn’t appealed to him. So, he’d settled on being direct about it and getting right to the fighting.

“I don’t want you to come with me,” he announced. “Either of you.”

There was yelling and shouting after that, most of which boiled down to the single sentiment of you’re being stupid. He simply endured it until both of them had gotten it out of their systems or at least gotten tired of shouting at him with no response on Sen’s part. When Falling Leaf and Lo Meifeng were both seated again and just glaring at him, he sighed.

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“I know what I get from having you along for this stupid stunt. I get some company. I’ll admit, that’s probably not a bad thing for my frame of mind on a long journey. It would probably be safer in some respects. But that’s only true right up until we actually find Fu Ruolan. At that point, there’s nothing either of you can realistically do to protect me. More importantly, there’s nothing I’ll be able to do to protect you. The only reason I was able to kill Tong Guanting was because I had time to prepare the ground. We won’t have that advantage with Fu Ruolan because we can’t know when we’ll find her or when she’ll find us.

“If she was like other nascent soul cultivators, that wouldn’t be a concern. They’d probably just tell us to go away as long we’re polite, but she’s insane. She’s as likely to kill us all on sight, as she is to speak to us. That’s a level of danger I’m not willing to put either of you in. Lo Meifeng, I don’t know exactly what kind of arrangement you have with Master Feng, but I doubt he’d consign you to certain death as part of a babysitting job,” said Sen before he turned his gaze on Falling Leaf. “I’ve already cost you enough. I don’t think I can live with the prospect of costing you your life, which seems an all too likely outcome here.”

Sen could see that both of them were about to explode with words, so many more words. He lifted a hand to stall them.

“What benefit will either of you get out of coming with me?” asked Sen. “That’s a serious question that I want you to really think about. What will you actually get out of it? I’ve been thinking about this for weeks, and I can’t think of a single advantage for you in coming with me. The other possibility, arguably the worse possibility, is that we won’t find her at all. If it goes down like that, anyone who’s with me will get to watch me die. I suspect that it won’t be a good death. It’ll probably be painful and slower than anyone would want. And I doubt either of you is in a hurry to see that. I know that I’m not in a hurry for you to see that or get stuck as my caretakers in the last few months of my life. So, that’s the future as I see it. A fifty-fifty chance of certain death for everyone on one side, and my slow lingering death on the other.”

Sen braced himself for the explosion of words, but it didn’t come. Falling Leaf looked troubled. Lo Meifeng looked thoughtful. At least they’re thinking about it, thought Sen. That’s probably as close to a win as I’m going to get here. He gave them a few minutes to think about it. He didn’t usually talk that directly or that much about anything, so he figured it would take a bit before the shock wore off.

“I have my orders,” said Lo Meifeng.

“I’ll write to Master Feng,” said Sen. “I’ll explain the situation and that I told you, point blank, not to come along. He’ll understand.”

Lo Meifeng looked like she wanted to say something, but also like she didn’t quite know what she should say. In the end, she just stayed silent. Sen looked at Falling Leaf to see if she wanted to say anything, but her expression remained clouded and uncertain. Sen considered the situation and what he’d want to hear if someone had just given him that speech.

“Look. I’m not going to forbid you to come along or try to ditch you, tempting as that might be. You’d just follow me or try to, and I don’t want you scouring the wilds from here to the Mountains of Sorrow looking for me. That’s just as likely to get you killed as coming along. I’ve got a few things to wrap up here. So, take the next couple of days and think about it.”

Sen retreated to the room he’d been using as a bedroom and lab and got to work. It would have been better to have Shi Ping around for the process, but Sen had interacted enough with him to have a pretty clear picture of the man’s cultivation. He started sorting through his storage ring, looking for the right components. He’d been working for about an hour when someone knocked. He gave the door an annoyed look but pushed the annoyance down.

“Come in,” he said.

He continued to adjust the heat he was applying to the pot he’d come to think of as his alchemy pot. Lo Meifeng came into the room and just watched for a while as Sen added things to the pot, stirred it occasionally, and fine-tuned the elixir he was making. When the silence started bothering him, Sen spoke.

“I owe you an apology.”

He saw Lo Meifeng’s expression become guarded from the corner of his eye.

“How’s that?” she asked.

“I was very hard on you for using me like you did back in Inferno’s Vale. I couldn’t imagine how you could do that to a friend. So, I was… I was cruel to you, at times. I’d convinced myself that you deserved it. It turns out, it was a damn sight easier than I thought to do something like that. I did it to Prince Jing without even recognizing I was doing it. I set him up to kill his own father. Even got him to help arrange it. All I could see was what I thought needed to happen. I didn’t even consider what it might mean for Jing or Chan Yu Ming at a personal level. Not sure what that says about me as a person. Nothing good, I think. Do you know what the worst part is?”

“What?”

“He was furious with me for using him that way. Furious that I hadn’t trusted him or talked to him. Yet, he took it with a lot more grace than I did. He could see that there was a kind of necessity to his father’s death. I never even gave you that courtesy. I understand now, though, what you said then. About being sorry about the pain you caused me, but not being sorry you did it. So, for whatever it may be worth to you, I’m sorry. I was pretty self-righteous about the whole thing. I treated you badly because of it. I can’t say you didn’t deserve any of it, because I’m pretty sure I deserve some of it, but you certainly didn’t deserve everything I dished out to you.”

Lo Meifeng didn’t say anything for long enough that Sen looked up from the pot. She looked fragile. When their eyes met, it seemed to jar her out of some kind of reverie.

“I,” she hesitated. “Thank you.”

Sen lifted an eyebrow. “It’s awkward now, isn’t it? I made it awkward.”

She laughed.

“Yes. You made it awkward, you ass,” she said while giving the pot a curious look. “What in the world are you making?”

“This?” asked Sen, gesturing at the pot. “This is for Shi Ping’s advancement. Otherwise, he’ll use that garbage we found earlier.”

“I’m surprised you care.”

“I said I’d do it, so I’m doing it. Caring doesn’t come into the equation.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sen sighed. “Fine. I don’t find him entirely objectionable anymore. And, if he’s going to advance, he might as well do it with a quality elixir. This can’t be what you came up here for.”

“Did you mean what you said, about writing to Feng Ming?”

“Oh, that? Yeah, I meant it.”

“I’d appreciate it if you wrote that letter.”

Sen nodded, feeling a wave of relief pass through him, even as Lo Meifeng looked entirely miserable.

“It’s the right call,” said Sen. “You probably think it isn’t, but it is. There’s just nothing in it for you.”

“That isn’t why. I mean, you’re right. I wouldn’t stand to gain anything, probably, but that’s not why. It’s the other part. I don’t want to watch you dying slowly if you can’t find Fu Ruolan.”

“I’d be worried about your mind if you did want to watch that.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

Lo Meifeng studied his face. “You know that she’s going to go with you, right?”

“I’m hoping she’ll make the smart choice at the last minute. But… Yeah, I know.”

“You mean to let her?”

Sen nodded. “I keep trying to make choices for other people. It keeps turning into a disaster for me at a personal level. I can’t keep doing that. I can’t keep carrying that kind of weight around. It’s grinding me down. I made my arguments. She knows the risks. If she decides that going with me is more valuable to her than all of the other options, then that’s her call. Even if I think it’s the wrong one.”

“As long as you’ve thought it through.”