Sen watched as several conflicting emotions battled for supremacy on Lo Meifeng’s face. There was shock, which he’d expected. It wasn’t like he’d let her know he was coming. He’d made the general assumption that since none of his other teachers had come looking that they knew he was still alive. He’d also sort of assumed that Master Feng would have let Lo Meifeng know, either directly or indirectly, that Sen had survived his most recent brush with death. Still, he supposed it was possible that no one had told her and that she’d been bracing herself for news of his death. Based on the anger he saw in her expression, he had to revise the assumption that someone had let her know. There was a healthy dose of relief there as well. There was even some happiness lurking beneath all of the other things. He waited with a kind of academic fascination as she decided how to react. When she did finally come to a decision, it wasn’t quite what he’d thought it would be. She kicked him in the shin and, as far as Sen could tell, she did it as hard as she possibly could.
“Ow!” the pair shouted in unison.
Sen stumbled back from the angry woman. Grimacing at the unexpected pain and the assault itself, he massaged his aching shin. He glanced up and saw Lo Meifeng limping in a small circle. Sen rubbed the injured spot for a little while to give them both a chance to gather their wits. Satisfied that there wouldn’t be any additional angry kicks, he stood and gave Lo Meifeng an unamused glare.
“What that really necessary?” he asked.
“Necessary?” she asked, as stalked toward him with murder in her eyes. “You left with barely a word and then nothing. Nothing! Not so much as a letter to let me know you were alive.”
“Okay, there is…” he began
“For. Two. Years.” she growled, punctuating each word with a hard poke to his chest.
Sen winced at the words and the pokes, which he suspected were going to leave bruises.
“Okay. I guess I can see how I might have handled that better.”
“You think!” she yelled at him.
“Well, I’m alive. Yay,” he said weakly.
Lo Meifeng closed her eyes and took several deep, shuddering breaths, clearly trying to get a grip on her anger. When she opened her eyes again, she was only scowling at him, which Sen considered a vast improvement over the blazing fury she’d had going on mere moments before.
“I suppose you should come in,” she said.
Sen lifted a dubious eyebrow. “Should I? You aren’t going to stab me, are you?”
“I should! Now stop being a baby and come inside.”
Sen followed her inside and cast curious glances around the place. He was surprised to see that the place was all but unaltered since the last time he was there. There were no meaningful personal touches, although he did see a vase with flowers in it. They weren’t in season, which made him wonder if Lo Meifeng was using fire qi to get around that problem or if she had a servant who was particularly good with earth qi. He turned to ask her about it, took one look at her face, and decided that it would be a great idea not to ask any questions right at that moment. He could satisfy any casual curiosities when she didn’t still look like she wanted to stab him over and over again. She led him to the kitchen where she busied herself for several minutes making tea. She didn’t bother with the stove, instead relying on a deft application of fire qi to heat the water. By the time she’d poured them both a cup, she seemed to have found her equilibrium again, making Sen glad he hadn’t asked stupid questions.
“So, you advanced again,” she said, making it a statement rather than a question.
“I did. Body and spirit cultivation.”
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“I expect that will please Feng Ming,” said Lo Meifeng, falling into the rigidly neutral expression and tone she used when she didn’t want her true feelings exposed.
“He’ll be happy I’m not dead. Although, I expect he knew that already. I’ve been gone for,” he chose his next words carefully, “long enough that he would have come looking if he didn’t know. I take it that he didn’t pass word along.”
“He did not,” said Lo Meifeng through clenched teeth.
“I thought he would,” said Sen. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Why didn’t you send word?”
Sen reached up and rubbed at his forehead. “I’ve been out in the wilds. Way out in the wilds. But the truth is that it was a desperately close thing. I was on the brink of death when we finally found Fu Ruolan. After that, well, I spent most of a year holed up in an alchemy lab. It was still close.”
Lo Meifeng must have seen something on his face or heard something in his voice that gave her pause because her expression softened.
“How close?” she asked.
“If I’d waited even one more day to try, the attempt would have killed me. As it was,” he trailed off.
The memory of those desperate hours clinging to life by the barest of threads rose in his mind like a monster from the depths of the sea. He shoved them away before they could consume him. He’d lived through it once and that was enough. He forced his mind to the present and continued.
“I wouldn’t ever want to try something like that again.”
“But it did work?” she asked.
“It did. I’m still consolidating everything. You know how it is after an advancement.”
She nodded in understanding. “That’s cultivation. You get to relearn everything after every advancement.”
Sen tried to think of something meaningless to talk about, but when his mind came up with a whole lot of nothing, he plunged forward.
“I should have made more of an effort to let you know I survived. Looking back, I had a few opportunities to send word, but I was,” he tried to find the right word.
“Focused?” offered Lo Meifeng.
“Obsessed. It was literally do or die. I had to make the pill and, well, I won’t bore you with all the details of what that entailed. I’ll just say that there was a lot of failure before there was even a glimmer of success.”
Lo Meifeng raised an eyebrow. “You made a pill? I didn’t think you cared much for pills.”
“I don’t but the certainty of an agonizing death has a way of rearranging your priorities.”
“I expect it would. So, you’re healed?”
“As far as it goes. It’s probably more accurate to say that I’m on track again. As long as I keep advancing along my body cultivation at the proper pace, I should be fine.”
“So, no more waiting until the last minute for the thrill of it?”
Sen barked out a laugh. “No more waiting until the last minute. I think I’ve had more than enough of that.”
An awkward silence descended over the two.
“I’m still angry with you,” said Lo Meifeng.
“I know.”
“I suppose you did have a lot on your plate with the looming death thing. I guess it wouldn’t be appropriate to stab you.”
“Was that still on the table?”
“Stabbing you is always on the table.”
“That seems a little,” started Sen.
“Two years,” said Lo Meifeng.
Sen frowned and thought about it. “Yeah, that’s probably fair. I was a little surprised to find you here.”
“Why? You gave me this house.”
“I don’t mean I’m surprised you still have it. I meant I was surprised that you were physically here at the moment. I assumed I’d find a servant I could leave a message with. I figured once you were rid of me that you’d be off doing secret and possibly nefarious things for Master Feng.”
A complicated expression that Sen couldn’t begin to unravel came and went on Lo Meifeng’s face.
“I’m taking a break,” she said.
Sen could tell that there was a lot more to it, but he didn’t have the context to piece together exactly what she meant by that. He almost asked her about it, but changed his mind at the last second. If she wanted him to know, she’d tell him. Instead, he cast around for something else to talk about.
“So, how are you keeping busy these days?”
She shot him another glare. “Mostly, I’m still dealing with you problems.”
“What? How can you be dealing with me problems? I’ve been gone for the better part of two years. Most of which I spent buried so far out in the wilds that almost no one could have found me.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” said an annoyed Lo Meifeng. “But your problems found their way to me all the same.”
Sen rubbed his face with his hands. “What is it? It wasn’t the royals, was it? Chan Yu Ming?”
“Oh, your bitter ex-girlfriend came by more than once looking for a way to track you down.”
“She’s not my ex-girlfriend.”
“Sen, I’m supremely confident that you are the only person who thinks that.”
“So, she’s looking to kill me?”
Lo Meifeng paused at that. “You know, I’m not sure if even she knows.”
“Oh, that’s fantastic. Anything else?”
“Well, just lately, someone named Zixin has been making himself supremely aggravating. Kept coming around and asking questions about you.”
“I knew I should have killed that guy. Falling Leaf told me to.”
Lo Meifeng shook her head. “Well, at least it’s not just me that you don’t listen to.”