Based on the look that Wu Meng Yao was giving him, she clearly felt less confident about the plan than he did. He gave her a lopsided smile.
“What? I sense doubt. Do you question the wisdom of your glorious leader?”
“Yes. I do question the wisdom of leaving me in charge here while you’re gone for some indefinite amount of time,” said Wu Meng Ya before a hint of a smile crossed her lips. “If you could arrange an introduction to this glorious leader, though, I would like to meet them.”
Sen blinked in surprise and then laughed.
“Better,” he said. “And it won’t be as bad as you think. I’ve found someone to temporarily take over the spear training for the cultivators, and you’ve got the sword training mostly in hand.”
“What about her?” asked Wu Meng Yao.
Sen didn’t need to ask who that her referred to.
“Sua Xing Xing will be fine. I’ll leave her with some instructions about how to train while I’m gone.”
“That’s not what I meant. You don’t think she’s going to listen to me, do you?”
“She better listen to you, or she can leave exactly two seconds after I get back. Like I said, it shouldn’t be a problem. Ideally, you won’t have to interact with her at all. I will, however, make it abundantly clear to her who is in charge while I’m away.”
“I—” she sighed. “Alright.”
“I’m going to be looking to recruit a few people to pitch in with training while I’m in the capital. Some for both the sword and the spear.”
“You are?” asked Wu Meng Yao, sounding genuinely surprised.
“Yeah. What? Did you think I was just going to keep you here forever like some kind of slave?”
“I’m pretty well paid for a slave.”
“True,” said Sen, “but this was always a temporary arrangement for you. I don’t know when you plan to leave, but I’ve always known you were going to. You have your own cultivation journey to attend to, which means going back to your sect. So, obviously, I need to find a replacement that I can at least nominally trust.”
“Trust not to spy on you?”
“Trust not to try to kill me in my sleep. As long as they spy on me quietly, that’ll be good enough.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so understanding about that,” said Wu Meng Yao. “It seems like the kind of thing that would normally provoke a more extreme response.”
“Letting people do some basic spying is to my advantage in the short run. The real risk is that someone is going to think I’m starting a sect. So, if I let people spy on me, they’re going to discover that this place is exactly what I’m saying it is. And if the sects confirm that with their own spies—” Sen trailed off.
“They’ll be more likely to believe it and leave you alone.”
“Precisely.”
Wu Meng Yao stared at him for a moment before she asked, “Why are you taking Shen Mingxia with you?”
“As opposed to you?” asked Sen with an amused smirk.
“As opposed to literally anyone else. Is there something happening between the two of you?”
The smirk vanished from Sen’s face. “Do you think that’s an appropriate question?”
“Maybe not appropriate but relevant. Necessary. I’m responsible for her while we’re away from the sect.”
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“Including things that have nothing to do with cultivation?”
“If I think that it might end in her leaving the sect, yes,” said Wu Meng Yao with cold defiance on her face.
Sen resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. It didn’t actually help when he did that, except maybe psychologically. He wanted to just tell her it was none of her business or that it was a stupid question, but he held back. He didn’t understand exactly what Wu Meng Yao’s responsibilities were in regard to Shen Mingxia. However, he had to assume that it would go badly for her if Shen Mingxia died or had her cultivation damaged in some fundamental way. It would probably go even worse if Wu Meng Yao managed to lose the sect a promising disciple to some other sect or, worse still, a wandering cultivator like him. Well, maybe not him, specifically, given his history with the Soaring Skies Sect, but a wandering cultivator. So, while he was mildly offended on Shen Mingxia’s behalf and his own, he decided that answering would solve the problem faster than raising more objections to the question.
“No,” he said. “There’s nothing happening between us. Believe it or not, even if I was interested, I’m not that obnoxiously irresponsible.”
“I’m not sure what that means.”
“You do. Or you will if you think it through for a second.”
Wu Meng Yao frowned, and her forehead furrowed as she pondered the problem. Sen just waited patiently as she slowly worked it out. He saw it on her face when she put the pieces together.
“Being involved that way with you would make her a target. And she’s not powerful enough to defend herself if your enemies were looking for a way to get at you.”
“She is not. Being a cultivator means that she would, inevitably, need to leave my sphere of influence. So, no, I have not been entertaining Shen Mingxia in my bedroom while you weren’t looking. I’m choosing to restrict that part of my life to people who don’t need my protection just to survive.”
Wu Meng Yao looked like she was going to speak a couple of times before she finally muttered, “That seems like a very strange thing to thank you for.”
“It would be,” agreed Sen. “As for the original question, it’s exactly the reasons I gave her. She’s going to serve as a shield for me. Keep those nobles and sect flunkies from hounding me to go as my escort. Also, seeing how things happen in the capital will be educational for her. Who knows? She might even make a useful connection or two while she’s there. Being on friendly terms with one or two people in a big sect could prove useful for her in the long run.”
“Is that all?” asked Wu Meng Yao as she studied him carefully. “Just that?”
Sen rolled his eyes. “Fine. It may also be, just a tiny little bit, for my amusement.”
Wu Meng Yao thrust a finger at him. “I knew it! You’re going to throw her to that pack of ravening hyenas just so you can laugh at her.”
“Ravening hyenas?” asked Sen.
“You know what I mean,” she said with a truly magnificent glare. “And stop changing the subject.”
“No, I’m not. I mean, ravening hyenas? Why not wolves?”
The intensity of the glare she was giving Sen went up about a hundredfold and threatened to set his robes on fire. Sen lifted his hands in a peaceful gesture.
“Yes, it will amuse me to see her interact with them, but,” said Sen, “you know as well as I do that pressure is formative. A brief exposure to that kind of pressure now, while she’s still developing her foundations and settling on her path, will pay off for her later.”
“Pressure can be formative, but too much pressure breaks people.”
“I, of all people, am aware of what too much pressure can do to someone. And my amusement doesn’t extend to me watching her collapse beneath all of that pressure. If it looks like it’s getting to be too much, I’ll step in.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” said Wu Meng Yao.
Sen was about to go find something else to do when a thoughtful look stole over the sect cultivator’s face. Damn, thought Sen as Wu Meng Yao’s glare returned. She stepped closer to poke him in the chest.
“Is that what you’re doing to me by putting me in charge?” she demanded. “Putting me under pressure to help me develop?”
“That,” said Sen, doing his utmost to project an air of sincerity, “would be far too much like providing you with cultivation instruction. Something that you know I do not provide here. Besides, that would have been particularly devious and rather clever planning. Do I seem like someone who is particularly devious and has clever plans to you?”
“You do now.”
“I’m wounded. Wounded that you would think such things about me.”
“That would be a lot more convincing if I didn’t know that you spent most of your time with nine tail foxes the last time you went on a long trip away from here. It seems like you might have learned a thing or two from them.”
Sen let out a small groan.
“Oh, I learned some things from them. I don’t know that I’d call any of it useful, but I definitely learned some things.”
“Like being devious and making clever plans?”
“No, it was more like how to do witty banter and imbue unnecessary sexual tension into a conversation.”
Wu Meng Yao gave him the flattest of flat looks and said, “Did you forget that we met before this? I can say, with absolute certainty, that the foxes didn’t teach you either of those things.”
Sen stood motionless and returned her flat stare with a blank, innocent expression before cupping a hand to his ear.
“What’s that? Ai needs me?” he said to the air.
“I know you’re lying. It’s not even a good lie.”
“Right now, you say?” Sen asked the air, before walking away and calling over his shoulder. “Sorry. I’ll have to cut this short.”
“You better not break my student!” she shouted at him.
“It’ll be fine,” shouted Sen as he disappeared through the door of the training hall.