Sen realized that there was absolutely nothing he could say to make things better. All he could do was make things worse. So, he said nothing. Better by far to just let her get whatever it was out of her system. Especially since he was pretty sure her instability came from not getting things out of her system a thousand years ago, or whenever the bad things happened, and keeping them locked inside her for centuries. With nothing but time to fester and a decided lack of people in her life to talk to, it was no wonder. So, rather than become another figurative or literal heart demon for her, Sen decided the smart and possibly honorable thing to do was just stand there and take it. None of which made it fun. Fu Ruolan stormed back and forth, gesticulating wildly when she wasn’t pointing at him, and generally spewing frustrations that Sen had a feeling were only partly to do with him.
“Unbelievable. Unbelievable! Countless years of alchemy. Investing in the best components available. Doing everything as meticulously as possible. What does that get me? Competence. I’m competent. And then along comes Judgment’s Gale, swaggering through the world, and throwing whatever comes to hand into his stupid, old, battered pot! And what comes out? Genius! Impossibly potent elixirs! Pills to make the heavens tremble. Not because he’s earned it. Not because he’s that good. No! It’s just because he’s lucky! Falling into the hands of not one, but three other geniuses who just poured knowledge into you like the empty vessel you are.
“As if that’s not bad enough, then you show up at my door. I think that this is my chance to see what you’re really made of. Is any of it you or is it all them? And you pick up shadow walking in six months. Six months! I did it in two years, and my master thought I was made of brilliance. And you do it in six months while you weren’t even really trying! No, it wasn’t enough to master a technique designed for nascent soul cultivators. You also found time to raise a little girl, train locals to fight, and start a damn school! It’s not fair!” she almost screamed, before her voice fell into a hushed whisper. “It’s not fair.”
Fu Ruolan stood there, fists clenched by her side, and breathing through clenched teeth for a while before she slumped. While a lot of that had stung Sen’s pride, something else was more important. At no point during that rant did she ever lose control of her killing intent. Granted, it was one time losing her temper and she might have been making a conscious effort to keep a grip on it, but Sen still took it as a good sign. When it looked like the full fury of the storm had passed, Sen finally spoke.
“Feel any better?” he asked.
Her shoulder twitched in something that might have been a shrug before she added, “Yes, actually. I do feel a little better.”
“In that case, I think I’ll head out for the day.”
“No. Did you think I missed that look on your face when you came back? You’d do almost anything to never go back there. If I let you leave now, you never will go back. Shadow walking is too useful to let you ignore the skill out of foolish fear. No, we’re going into that realm.”
“That’s really not necessary,” said Sen, lifting a hand and taking a step back.
It wasn’t that he thought she was wrong about him or his reaction. He agreed with her. He would do anything to avoid going back to that place and was completely fine with that outcome. That other place was simply horrible. He’d gotten along just fine without shadow walking until now. All of the other nascent soul cultivators he’d met had gotten along fine without out. His hiding skill was practically shadow walking already. Sen felt confident that he could live without it and never feel as though he’d missed out on anything. Why torment himself by going somewhere he didn’t want to go when he could just not? However, he could see from the stern expression on Fu Ruolan’s face that she would not be moved by such arguments. She would just say that enduring pain was part of cultivation, and she’d be right.
He couldn’t even argue that it would be needless physical pain. It was just mentally taxing and emotionally jarring to be somewhere that felt so fundamentally off from all of his expectations. That didn’t stop him from a mad mental scramble to try to find some kind of argument, any kind of excuse, that might convince the nascent soul cultivator that they didn’t need to go there right that minute. Or any minute, ever, thought Sen. Try as he might, though, Sen came up empty. The real problem was that he didn’t have a good reason. He just didn’t want to go because the place made his skin crawl. That might be a sufficient reason for him, but it wouldn’t satisfy Fu Ruolan. He did consider just fleeing. His eyes drifted to the door even though he knew that wouldn’t work. Sen remembered how easily Fu Ruolan had locked him down when he’d let his killing intent get out of control. He could run, but he couldn’t escape.
“Fine,” he grumbled.
Fu Ruolan arched an eyebrow. “I thought you’d run for sure. You’ve got that look in your eye.”
“We both know it wouldn’t work. So, let’s just get this over with.”
“You think we’re only going to go in the one time, don’t you?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I hope you didn’t have anything important planned for this afternoon.”
Sen gave much more serious consideration to running, but he eventually realized that would just end with him having to enter the shadow realm tired. Sen’s head dropped a little as he accepted the inevitable.
“You go first,” said Fu Ruolan. “I’ll follow.”
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Turning around and trudging back to the shadow, Sen prepared the technique. When he was ready, he stepped through. The shadow realm was just as bad the second time as it had been the first. The only real difference was that he didn’t have shock to help shield his mind from the utter otherness of the place. It scraped against his psyche like claws against stone. He grit his teeth and turned to watch as Fu Ruolan entered the realm. What he could see of her skin was the same inky black color that his skin turned. In other circumstances, he’d have found watching that black bleed away a mildly nauseating experience. It seemed to sink into her like some kind of parasite. In the shadow realm, it didn’t even make an impression because that looked almost normal in comparison to the mishmash of unrecognizable shapes and the absence of colors. Fu Ruolan’s lack of obvious distress only made things worse. He wanted her to be as profoundly unsettled as he was. Instead, she just settled a steady gaze on him.
“What now?” he demanded.
“We just wait,” she said.
“For what?”
“For you to adjust or for our time here to run out.”
Sen was not at all surprised that their time ran out before he adjusted. Or Fu Ruolan’s time ran out. He still felt fine but wasn’t about to tell her that. He feared that she would make him stay there while he left. As much as he disliked her for making him come back to that place, he was grateful that she was there to provide at least one touchstone of a familiar reality. He was almost stepping on her heels when they left. He fervently hoped that it would be a long time before they could go back, but it turned out that the nascent soul cultivator only needed about ten minutes before she was ready to go again. And that was how spent a very long afternoon. Moving in and out of the shadow realm, over and over again. The worst thing of all was that Fu Ruolan had been right. Sen couldn’t pinpoint a moment when it happened, but there did come a time when going into the shadow realm no longer made him immediately want to rip out his own eyes. Not that the change made him hate the place any less. It just made him slightly less miserable to be there.
Fu Ruolan took the time to make tea and the pair of them sat there, drinking their tea in total silence. Sen was doing everything he could to soak up the normal that surrounded him. He’d never been so in love with colors as he was in that moment. Never before had walls, floors, and ceilings seemed to possess so much divine grace. As for tea, tea contained in the achingly familiar shape of a cup, that was a miracle to be treasured in his heart until the end of all things. He just wanted to wrap his arms around everything that was as it should be and hold it to him. Of course, that blissful moment of peace couldn’t last.
“You seem to have regained your composure,” announced Fu Ruolan. “So, one last minor lesson, and then I’ll set you free for the day. It’s time that you actually do some shadow walking.”
“We haven’t been doing that already?”
“Technically, I suppose we have, but going into a shadow and coming out of the same shadow ten minutes later isn’t particularly useful. No, this time, we’ll go in through one shadow and come out of a different one.”
“Why?” asked Sen. “I mean, does it make a difference to the technique?”
“It can. The strength of the shadow on this side can affect how accessible it is on the other side. We’ve been going through a fairly dark shadow. You can go in through and come out of less pronounced shadows, but it’s more difficult. More dangerous. Pick the wrong shadow and you can lose a piece of yourself in the transition.”
“Like what?” asked Sen.
“A hand. A leg. Your head,” said Fu Ruolan without much apparently concern.
With that casual pronouncement, they went back into the shadow realm. Fu Ruolan started walking away, and Sen stuck close by, worried about being left behind.
“Right now, your main concern should be finding the brightest spots on this side. Those are the darkest shadows on the other side. They’re the safest ones to use. Once you’re comfortable with that, we’ll move on to navigating to specific shadows,” she said coming to a stop and looking around. “Pick one.”
Sen looked around at the various shades of black, dark gray, light gray, and nearly white. He almost pointed at one extremely bright patch, but realized it was too small. He’d never be able to squeeze his body through. He searched the area again before settling on a swath of gray that was at least lighter than most of the others, although darker than the one they had come through. Fu Ruolan watched him with a perfectly blank expression.
“That one,” he said and pointed.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
He hesitated, firmed his resolve, and nodded. “Yes.”
Fu Ruolan shifted her gaze to the spot, considered it, and then nodded. “Very well.”
The inky blackness bled out of her skin and, without another word, she stepped through. Feeling more confident that he hadn’t chosen wrong, Sen reactivated the technique. Having done it dozens of times now, it came faster and easier than before, although he suspected that it would never come quite as easily for him as it would for someone without divine qi in their skin. He stepped into the gray spot and immediately felt the difference between stepping through a truly dark shadow and stepping through a less well-defined one. He had to physically push almost twice as hard and dramatically increase the amount of shadow qi he was spreading throughout his body to get back to his world. Only when he was certain that he was all the way through and not in danger of losing body parts did he release the technique. It felt like someone punched him in the base of the skull the moment the technique was gone. He dropped to a knee and had to put a hand on the ground to steady himself. He looked up to see Fu Ruolan standing there, but she looked drained.
“That’s why choosing the right exit is so important,” she said.
Sen did not approve of that particular teaching method, but he had to acknowledge how effective it was. He now knew exactly how bright a spot needed to be for him to safely pass through. He also knew that he would work very hard to find much brighter spots in the future. It was only after a bit of controlled breathing, cycling a bit of healing wood qi, and finally downing a healing elixir that Sen could really take in his surroundings. They were outside of Fu Ruolan’s house and had come out through the relatively dim shadow of a tree. Pushing himself to his feet, Sen debated simply walking away. He wasn’t going back into the shadow realm again that day. He knew it, and he figured that Fu Ruolan knew it as well.
As if reading his thoughts, she waved a hand and said, “We’re done for the day.”
Sen took a few steps before his conscience got the better of him. Going through that shadow might not have been as bad for her as it had been for him, but he doubted she would have picked it herself. He summoned one of his best healing elixirs, one he thought might provide benefits to nascent soul cultivators, and held it out to her. She eyed the stone vial for a moment before she accepted it. She didn’t hesitate to drink it, either, telling Sen that the trip back hadn’t been fun and games for her.
“Thank you,” said Fu Ruolan.
After she turned and walked back toward her home, Sen turned the other way and started the much longer trip back to his. And if he glared at some of the shadows he walked past, he felt fully justified.