“I might have settled for a simple no if I was dealing with that awful woman you’ve got yourself mixed up with. Frankly, I’m surprised that Feng Ming was willing to tolerate it,” said Laughing River.
“Awful woman?” asked Li Yi Nuo.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sen.
“Wait! Feng Ming! You mean those stories are true, too?”
Laughing River turned to look at Li Yi Nuo with her own face, then there was another brief flicker of light and a copy of Sen stood in place of the fox. The false-Sen gave Li Yi Nuo a decidedly predatory grin.
“Oh, you sweet, sweet innocent child. Sen, did you know I was coming? Did you bring her along as a present for me?”
Sigh rolled his eyes. “No, she’s not a present.”
“Pity,” said Laughing River.
Li Yi Nuo looked like she wasn’t quite sure if she should be offended or appalled at the exchange between Sen and his fox copy. Before she could decide, the fox turned a look of smoldering intensity on her that Sen was sure had never adorned his face. Li Yi Nuo froze in place as the full weight of that gaze settled on her.
“Girl, you should assume that every story you hear about,” he started to point at his own chest before swinging the finger at Sen, “him is true. The more outlandish and impossible-sounding the tale, the more likely it is to have actually happened. Honestly, as a fox, I find it simply delicious that people think the lies about him are true and the truths about him are lies. The only annoying part is that he’s done on accident what I have work to accomplish. Still, you can’t have everything, so I choose to focus on the deliciousness of it all.”
Sen saw Li Yi Nuo open her mouth to speak and hurriedly cut her off before she made things worse. “As delightful as this banter is, I suppose we should get to the part about the favor.”
Li Yi Nuo shot him an annoyed glare, and Laughing River sighed dramatically.
“Oh, very well, I suppose we should get to the boring business part. Simply put, I need your help to acquire a long-lost treasure of mine. It’s a minor thing, but should nicely balance the scales between us.”
“A long-lost treasure of yours?” asked a skeptical Sen.
“Oh, don’t get hung up on the minor details. If it makes you feel any better, you won’t be helping me acquire it from a living, breathing human being who will miss it.”
Sen frowned at that description. It was both oddly specific and profoundly vague. It was the sort of phrasing that could cover a multitude of sins and scenarios that Sen was confident he didn’t fully understand. Not that it really mattered whether the fox was telling him nothing but lies or the complete truth. Either way, he was going to go along with this scheme. Even if he found out he hated every single part of the plan once he discovered all of the details, he was still going to go along with it because he was not going to make an enemy of a spirit fox.
“In that case,” said Sen as he turned to Li Yi Nuo, “it seems that this is where we part ways.”
“Oh no,” said Laughing River in a hard, unforgiving voice. “Bring her along. In fact, I insist. She saw fit to intrude on the affairs of a fox after being warned to stay away. Now, she will help.”
Sen gave Li Yi Nuo a sympathetic look. “When all of this goes horribly, horribly wrong and violent, I want you to remember that I tried to spare you from it.”
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“Don’t say that,” gasped Laughing River in a horrified voice. “You’ll scare the child. Besides, I estimate that there’s only a seventy, seventy-five percent chance that things will go horribly, horribly wrong and violent.”
“Oh, well that makes it fine then,” muttered Sen.
Li Yi Nuo glared death at the fox. “I am not a child.”
The fox threw back his copy of Sen’s head and roared with laughter. It went on longer than Sen thought was wise, but he supposed that was the fox’s business. When Laughing River finally got it out of his system, he had to wipe tears from his eyes.
“Oh, but to someone like me, you are a child. There are trees in this very forest older than you, and I was positively ancient when they were mere saplings. To me, you are like the freshest of morning dew on a blade of grass.”
Li Yi Nuo fumed in silence, unable to refute the fox’s words. Sen gave the fox a thoughtful look.
“You make a good point. You are very old and very powerful. Why would you need me for this task?”
“Oh, you know how these things go. Someone has to carry the luggage and tip the bellhop.”
Sen blinked at the unfamiliar terms. “What’s luggage?”
At the same time, Li Yi Nuo gave the fox a confused look and said, “What’s a bellhop?”
“What?” asked Laughing River. “Oh, right. I forget how limited human knowledge is on this little rock. Don’t worry about it. I just meant that someone has to do the tedious things I don’t want to bother with. Carrying things. Cooking meals. Being distractions for murderous, powerful, angry spirit beasts. The usual.”
“What?” said an alarmed Li Yi Nuo.
“Oh, listen to me rambling on about my concerns. As for you, Li Yi Nuo of the Vermilion Blade Sect, this is a golden opportunity. Old Sect Smasher Kho will certainly be a lot more receptive to you if he finds out that you helped Sen help me,” offered Laughing River with a bright smile. “So, you could say that I’m actually doing you a—”
Sen cut off the fox as a spike of unease speared his heart. “What are we stealing?”
Laughing River gave Sen a knowing look and a smirk. “Killjoy. And the word is acquiring, Sen. Acquiring. Stealing is… Oh, what’s that word?”
“Wrong?” offered Li Yi Nuo in a dry tone.
Laughing River’s eyes lit up. He snapped his fingers and pointed at her.
“That’s the one. It’s wrong, and we know that I’d never encourage you to do something wrong.”
“We do?” asked Sen.
“Of course we do,” said a gleeful Laughing River. “If I encouraged you to do something wrong, Caihong would be ever so cross with me. I’m a fox, not a moron. I’m not going to make that woman angry without an exceedingly good reason and probably someone blackmailing me. Fortunately, doing stupidly dangerous things is just part of being a cultivator. So, we’re all good.”
“Stupidly dangerous,” repeated Li Yi Nuo.
“Who said anything about stupidly dangerous?” asked Laughing River with a completely straight face. “You’re just going to carry the luggage, remember? Now, come along children. We’ve got a long way to go.”
There was another flicker of light and Laughing River resumed his fox form. There was a merry twinkle in the fox’s eyes that left Sen positively filled with dread and uncertainty about what came next. Then, the fox bounded off the road and into the forest, his many tails flickering in and out of sight. Sen could feel Li Yi Nuo staring at the side of his head. He turned to meet her gaze with a wan smile. She looked a little aggravated but mostly she looked very unsettled and afraid. That struck Sen as a sensible reaction to everything that was happening. He did feel a little bad that she’d got caught up in whatever it was the fox had planned, but that sympathy was largely tempered by the knowledge that she’d had ample opportunities to distance herself from him. Beyond that, he had warned her.
“You could have told me it was a fox,” she complained.
Sen lifted an eyebrow. “You’re an adult. You’ve seen me in action. You’ve heard the stories about the kinds of things I get involved in. Did you think I was just trying to keep secrets? Prevent you from learning about something?”
She looked away, her expression transforming into one of embarrassment. “I might have thought something like that.”
“Well, for future reference, I don’t warn people off for idle reasons or my own amusement.”
Li Yi Nuo stared out into the forest in the direction that Laughing River had gone. “That fox is going to get us killed, isn’t he?”
Sen put on a thoughtful expression and rubbed at his chin with a knuckle. A little bit of the fox’s attitude had infected him.
“I’ll probably be fine. He’s got a vested interest in keeping me alive. As for you,” he gave her a mournful look, “well, there’s always the next life.”
“What?!”
Sen laughed and only narrowly dodged the punch that almost took him on the chin. “I’m joking.”
“That was not funny!”
“It was a little funny. Besides, I figure there’s a good chance we’ll both die. So, I have to get my jokes in while I can.”
Before Li Yi Nuo could take another swing at him, Sen activated his qinggong technique and took off after the fox. He yelled over his shoulder.
“Don’t fall behind!”