Sen lifted an eyebrow at Li Yi Nuo. He thought he’d been pretty clear. He wondered if maybe she wasn’t that bright. She’d seemed smart enough when they were talking. Then again, she did have a lot of time to think about what she wanted to say to him before they met. He sighed.

“I said, how convenient would it be if someone…” he started.

“I heard what you said. What do you mean?”

“Really? I thought I was being pretty straightforward.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’ll just stop, after all that?”

“I never wanted to fight in the first place. So, it’s not much of a sacrifice for me to stop. I get what I wanted from the start. Besides, this doesn’t seem to be going all that well for you. Are you in any condition to keep fighting?”

He could see her weighing his words and no doubt taking stock of her condition. She grimaced, pressed a hand to her ribs, and shook her head.

“Very well,” said Li Yi Nuo. “I think I would prefer it if we didn't duel.”

“Excellent,” said Sen.

He looked down at the spear in his hands. He really wanted to keep it, but he suspected that it was probably the best weapon she owned. He knew that he’d go looking for someone if they took his best spear. Sen pushed aside his greed, if a little grudgingly, and walked over to Li Yi Nuo. She watched him with guarded wary eyes.

“Here,” he said and held the spear out to her.

She gave the spear a longing look. “It’s valuable.”

Sen glared at her. “Don’t give me reasons to change my mind.”

Taking yes for an answer, Li Yi Nuo grabbed the spear and then leaned heavily on it. “I… Thank you.”

“Yeah, well,” said Sen, “you should take one of those elixirs I gave you.”

She shook her head. “Those aren’t mine. They’re for the sect.”

Sen closed his eyes and took several deep breaths before he answered. “Listen, there is such a thing as being too honorable for your own good.”

When it became clear that she wasn’t going to do it, Sen summoned another elixir and thrust it at her. She started shaking her head.

Sen growled through clenched teeth. “Drink. It.”

Eyes a little wide, she took the elixir and drank it. “Why?”

“Because I don’t want people looking to repair their wounded honor after this. I’ve got enough problems already. Now, give that elixir a couple of hours and you should be able to travel.”

Sen felt that he’d done all that could reasonably be expected of him under the circumstances and probably a bit more. As he made to leave this troublesome woman and her sect issues behind, she called out to him in a pained voice.

“Wait!”

Sen didn’t turn around, just spoke over his shoulder. “I think I’ve been very reasonable with you, all things considered.”

“You have,” she admitted. “But those men.”

Rubbing his hands over his face, he faced her again. “I wasn’t lying to you. There is nothing I can do for them.”

“You could try.”

“Back at your sect, I suppose,” said Sen in a very flat voice. “Where they want to kill me.”

Li Yi Nuo opened her mouth and nothing came out. She closed her mouth and looked at the ground.

“Travel safely, Li Yi Nuo of the Vermilion Blade Sect.”

“Somewhere else,” she said.

“Somewhere else, what?” asked Sen.

“What if I bring those men somewhere else? Somewhere you pick. Will you try to help them if I do that?”

Sen frowned at her. “Why does this matter so much to you? Do you know those men? Is one of them family to you?”

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She hesitated, pressed a hand against her ribs, and winced at some internal pain. Sen supposed that the elixir was probably starting to work for real. He knew from personal experience that it hurt when bones broke and when they healed under the power of an elixir. She took a couple of steadying breaths and looked at him.

“You didn’t see those men after what you did to them. They begged me to kill them when they could speak at all. I was the one who brought them back to the sect. I was the one who made them eat. It took weeks of travel to get them back. They suffered the entire time. They’re suffering now. If you won’t even try, then I put them through all of that for nothing. It would have been kinder to let them die on that road.”

While Sen felt no regret for what he did to those three fools, he did feel a twinge of compassion for Li Yi Nuo. This had all clearly been weighing on her for a while. In an odd way, she was experiencing a version of something he’d been through, even if they were coming at the experience from very different places. He’d left bandits alive that he only realized in retrospect that he absolutely should have killed without hesitation or mercy. She’d kept people alive that she worried she should have let die out of mercy. He could even understand her regrets to some extent. He’d maimed Changpu in an act that had seemed, and probably been, necessary. In doing so, though, he had brought Changpu’s advancement as a cultivator to an absolute stop. Sen expected that was a kind of ongoing mental torture for the man.

Cultivation was an all-consuming pursuit that ultimately forced a person to sacrifice all of their connections to their mortal lives. If they didn’t do it willingly, time would do it for them. To have all hope of continuing that journey stripped away would make those sacrifices feel meaningless. It wasn’t something Sen dwelled on, but it also wasn’t something that sat easy in his soul. As he considered all that, he could see hope and concern flickering in Li Yi Nuo’s eyes. He supposed his long silence might have given her hope that he was considering her proposal. He didn’t relish crushing that hope, but the woman seemed oddly naïve about how the world worked. He didn’t know if she’d been sheltered by her sect or her master. Maybe she simply hadn’t been put in many positions to be betrayed. Another possibility was that she thought her sect would act honorably. Sen suspected it was some combination of those factors. He simply didn’t operate beneath those illusions.

“No,” he said.

Sen had to steel himself as he watched that hope wither in her eyes.

“Why?”

“Because it wouldn’t matter what place I picked. Even if I trust your intentions, I can’t trust your sect. They’d never let you come alone. They would send someone to kill me. Someone they thought could get the job done. Maybe even one of your sect elders. I’m sorry that you got caught up in all of this. I’m genuinely sorry you’re suffering for it. But I already know I can’t help those men. I’m not willing to die just to prove it.”

“My sect is honorable,” said Li Yi Nuo, anger flashing in her eyes.

Sen shook his head. “Do you have any idea how many times people from honorable sects have tried to kill me? Those three men you’re trying so hard to spare. I didn’t just decide one day to test that technique on the next people I met. They chose to attack me and not because I threatened them. They did it because I was hiding my strength. They did it because they thought I was weak and that they could get away with it.”

“No one from my sect would do that.”

“Are you saying that because you know it? Or are you saying that because you wouldn’t do that?”

Sen waited as Li Yi Nuo wrestled with her own thoughts. Grimacing, she answered.

“It’s because I wouldn’t do it.”

“Listen. On balance, loyalty is a good thing. Admirable even. I’d probably be dead if I hadn’t gotten more loyalty than I deserved from people I wasn’t treating very well at the time. So, I’m in no position to judge you for being loyal to your sect. But if you’re giving loyalty, you should do it with your eyes open.”

Sen glanced and the sky and gritted his teeth a little. It would be sunset before too long. Even if he left right that second, he’d never get to somewhere with an inn before darkness fell. A subdued voice interrupted his brooding over the time.

“Did they really attack you?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

“Yes.”

“They were about to attack me. Cycling qi. Drawing weapons. I was just faster than they were.”

“Then why didn’t you just kill them and be done with it? You obviously could have,” she said with a decided air of bitterness.

Sen wavered about how to answer that question. There was more than one truth involved.

“I was, at the time, I was overwhelmed by grief. There was this village and a plague and,” Sen’s voice failed him as those memories threatened to drag him under again. “Almost no one survived. I tended to the dying. And because there was no one else, I performed their funerals. I’d seen too much senseless death. Men and women. The elders. The children. So, when those three fools tried to start something, I thought that I would punish them but spare their lives. I thought I was being merciful.”

“Oh,” said Li Yi Nuo, her voice subdued. “Is that why you spared me? Mercy?”

Sen snorted. “Hardly. I spared you for entirely selfish reasons.”

“How’s that?”

“Your sect may not like what I did, but they’ll probably get over it. Those three are, what, outer sect disciples?”

“They are.”

“So, not very valuable to the sect as a whole. In other words, nobody will make avenging them a priority unless I do something idiotic like show up at the gates of your sect. Frankly, I’m surprised they went as far as sending you. You have a master. With your advancement, you’re probably an inner sect or a core member. Ending your life would cause a problem. Someone would make finding and killing me a priority. Leaving you alive is better for me in the long run.”

“That’s a cynical way to see things,” said Li Yi Nuo.

Sen shrugged and gave the sky another look. “How are your ribs?”

“They’re healing. Why?”

“Because it’s going to be dark soon. Come on,” said Sen, heading into the forest.

“Where are you going?”

“To set up camp. Unless you want to do it all yourself,” said Sen with a pointed look at where she was still holding her side.

Li Yi Nuo looked like she wanted to protest but ultimately gave in with a weak, “Fine.”

Even with the rapidly diminishing light beneath the forest canopy, Sen’s spiritual sense led them to a relatively clear area. He thought about just setting up a tent, but laziness won out in the end. He erected a galehouse, only to find the sect woman staring at him.

“What? It’s better than sleeping on the ground,” said Sen.