Sen had hoped that Fu Ruolan had been satisfied that his failures meant the problem wasn’t with his technique. Instead, he spent nearly two full weeks running one failed attempt after another. On each attempt, Fu Ruolan would change one thing in the refining process. The whole situation was tedious and frustrating, but Sen had done similar things in the early days of learning cultivation. It was the brute force method of learning something and, much as he hated to admit it, the method works with enough patience. Yet, two weeks and hundreds of permutations of the process later, all they had really done was confirm the initial assessment that the problem wasn’t with Sen’s technique.
He desperately wanted to say that it had been a colossal waste of time but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. He had assumed that the problem wasn’t with how he carried out the process. Fu Ruolan assumed the same. However, there would have always been the niggling doubt if they hadn’t done all of those variations to know it with certainty. Now, they both knew. He had been relieved that they’d done all of that work using Fu Ruolan’s stockpile of plants, herbs, and reagents. It wasn’t that Sen couldn’t afford to replace them. He just didn’t have easy access to a place where he could replace them. It would have taken a trip to somewhere that supported a big enough concentration of sects that they’d have everything he needed. The only place he knew of where that would be the case was back in the capital. Even moving at his best speed, that was a trip that would take months.
If they had been using his limited supply, much of which he’d burned through with his initial round of failures, his only real option would have been to go out and gather more in the nearby forest. While he likely could gather much of what he needed there and eventually would do just that, it took time. And even in a place as lush as the wilds, there was only so much in any given location. Just replacing what he had used up could take him weeks, assuming he could find it at all. Some things that he had carried with him from Uncle Kho’s mountain simply wouldn’t grow in his current location. He’d have to find alternatives which would also take time. Beyond that, the prime growing season was largely over with autumn approaching fast.
As it was, he was going to have to take a few days and replace what he could before the local plant life died off entirely. Sen had been so engrossed in his thoughts about what he’d need to do and even what he’d need to find that he completely missed Fu Ruolan directing a question at him. It was only when she snapped her fingers in front of his face that he came back to himself. He jerked back from the motion and noise, almost dropping the cauldron in his hands. Fu Ruolan shook her head and rolled her eyes in a double indication of her minor annoyance.
“What?” asked Sen.
“I asked if you were done cleaning that yet.”
“Oh,” said Sen. “No, just a moment.”
Sen gestured at the inside of the cauldron and used his version of the auric technique that he had seen Fu Ruolan use on a cauldron a couple of weeks prior. With a gesture and a slight burst of wind qi, he tossed the waste into the small bucket where the rest had gone. He bled the last of heat from the cauldron with a quick application of fire qi and set it on the table. He turned to ask Fu Ruolan something that immediately evaporated from his mind when he saw her staring at him with her eyes bulging. He took a step back. It was the most insane expression she’d given him since that first day.
“Where did you learn how to do that?” she asked in a weak voice.
Sen struggled to find his voice for a moment. “I saw you do it. It looked easier.”
“You saw me do that? When?”
“That first day when you asked me to show you how I was trying to refine pills.”
“You saw me do that once, and managed to figure out how to do it for yourself in two weeks?”
Sen shook his head. “No. I learned a similar technique. It just never occurred to me that I could use it that way. Once I saw you do it, though, it was just practice.”
“What technique did you learn?”
“The person who taught me called it auric imposition.”
“But you’re a core cultivator,” said Fu Ruolan.
Sen recognized that she meant something specific by that, but he wasn’t sure what it was. He couldn’t tell if she thought he shouldn’t know the technique, shouldn’t be able to do the technique, or maybe even shouldn’t have met anyone who could teach it to him. Whatever the reason for that reaction, he didn’t know what response she wanted or expected. So, Sen fell back on what he knew. He shrugged.
“Yes, that’s true. I’m a core cultivator.”
She just stared at him with those wild eyes in a way that made him feel like she was going to try to tear the information she wanted right out of his skull.
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“Where did you learn it? Did Feng Ming teach you that? Ma Caihong?” demanded Fu Ruolan.
Sen met that demand with a flat glare. Cultivators might discuss what they know how to do, especially after they’ve exposed a technique to the scrutiny of others, but it was something else entirely to reveal the source of that knowledge. It could unintentionally expose a teacher to danger, or reveal the existence of a scroll or even a ruin that the cultivator wishes to keep secret. It was taboo to even ask, particularly among wandering cultivators. After all, they were far more likely to have a fortunate encounter during their constant travel than their sect-restricted cousins. While Sen thought that the dragon who taught him the technique could take care of himself, he also believed the dragon would not appreciate it if a nascent soul cultivator showed up making demands or being insane. On the other hand, there had been an almost hysterical edge to Fu Ruolan’s voice when she’d been asking those questions.
“I had a fortunate encounter with a dragon,” said Sen.
It wasn’t exactly an answer, but it was as far as he was willing to go. He figured that would be enough information for her to understand how he’d come by the technique, but not enough for her to actually track down the source of information. Sen had covered a lot of ground since he left Orchard’s Reach. He and Falling Leaf were the only people who knew exactly where they’d encountered the dragon. Neither of them was likely to give up that information. Even if Fu Ruolan found the general area where they’d left the roads and traveled into the wilds, she could spend a long time looking for the dragon and never find him. That was particularly true if the dragon didn’t want to be found. After their talk, Sen had walked away with the impression that the dragon, while clearly lonely, didn’t make himself known to anyone who didn’t meet some particular standard. The nature of that standard was wholly opaque to Sen, but he didn’t need to understand it to recognize that it existed. While Sen followed the trail of thoughts, Fu Ruolan just gaped at him.
“A dragon spoke to you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“A dragon taught you?”
“Yes,” said Sen, feeling that answer was self-evident.
“Why would a dragon teach you? Why would a dragon even speak to you?”
“I have no idea,” said Sen. “Boredom, maybe. It said it was old.”
“Define old,” said Fu Ruolan.
“Older than you,” hedged Sen.
“Where did—” she started and Sen held up a hand.
“No. I’m not going to tell you anything that might expose the dragon’s location or identity,” said Sen.
He could see the anger flare in her eyes. That didn’t make him happy, but he’d known that she wouldn’t like that. Nascent soul cultivators just didn’t hear the word no that often. Granted, that was because saying no to one was a great way to bring your life to an abrupt end. Inherently dangerous or not, it was still necessary. Before that anger could explode onto Sen in a life-ending burst of violence, he spoke again.
“The same way I won’t expose your location or identity if someone poses a similar question to me about something I learn from you.”
That declaration brought her up short. He could see the war of opposing wants on her face. She wanted to know about the dragon. She wanted her privacy. Demanding or forcing information from Sen about the dragon would mean forfeiting any and all hope that he would respect her want for privacy. If anything, it would all but guarantee that Sen would tell anyone and everyone who asked exactly where to find her. While she was strong enough to kill almost anyone who bothered her, that would still mean interrupting her day to do it. She couldn’t have it both ways. She knew it, and she hated it. He saw the resignation on her face before she said anything.
“Very well. I won’t try to make you tell me,” she said in a defeated voice. “Still, it begs the question of who you are or who you were. No one has the kind of luck you’ve had. It defies reason. It’s fundamentally unnatural.”
Sen said nothing. He had his own suspicions about the source of that dubious luck, but he wasn’t about to share those suspicions with Fu Ruolan. He hadn’t even shared them with the people closest to him. She stood there, clearly waiting for him to say something. When he just looked back at her with a bland expression, she threw her hands up into the air.
“You can’t blame me for being curious,” she declared.
Sen thought that over before he nodded. “I don’t blame you for being curious. I think curiosity is even a good thing.”
“But you still won’t answer.”
“Questions don’t always have answers. Neither do the people those questions are put to. More importantly, not every question deserves an answer. A friend of mine told me once that not everything was her business. Curiosity doesn’t justify itself, especially when that curiosity is about a person’s past.”
“You’re telling me that you’ve never dug into someone’s past?”
“I have,” admitted Sen. “That doesn’t mean I was right to do so. I’ve also let it go when I thought it wasn’t my business, even to my own detriment.”
Sen couldn’t help but think of Chan Yu Ming. If he’d really known who she was from the start, so much trouble could have been avoided. Of course, avoiding that trouble would likely have left the old king on his throne. That certainly wouldn’t have been a better outcome, at least not for the children he was murdering. Even with a lot of time to reflect on those events, he wasn’t sure what he thought of them. He’d done a lot of damage there, and he’d done a lot of good. He wasn’t sure it balanced. He wasn’t sure about the karma of it all, or what kind of price he might pay down the road for those actions. He did wish he’d handled parts of it differently. He wasn’t sure that any version of events would have changed how he left things with Chan Yu Ming, but he might have left things on better terms with the prince. He might have…Sen shook those thoughts off with a grimace.
He’d ridden that spiral of thoughts all the way down and they didn’t go anywhere but a dark place. No matter what he might have done, it didn’t change what he’d actually done. There would be consequences. There would be a price. He’d just have to pay when it all came due. He felt Fu Ruolan’s gaze on him and glanced up. Whatever anger or frustration she’d been feeling had been replaced with a look that bordered on concern. He gave her a half smile and shrugged.
“Sometimes, not asking questions is the wrong choice,” offered Sen. “With me, though, there’s nothing to learn. I’m just a street rat who got very lucky.”
“Some would say too lucky,” retorted Fu Ruolan.
“Yes. Some would. It doesn’t make them right.”