The trees rushed by beneath him as Sen kept his qi platform moving at a steady pace. He didn’t try to go at full speed because he was relatively certain Sua Xing Xing couldn’t have kept up. Of course, based on the growing look of concern she wore the deeper Sen took them into the wilds, keeping up was not her main concern at the moment. She was watching the trees below and around them like she expected something to rise up and attack them at any moment. Sen supposed it was possible, but he didn’t let that take away from the nice day. The sun was up and shining, the sky was clear, and the morning air had a refreshing coolness to it that Sen let slip into the small area around him that he controlled. When he finally spotted what he was looking for, he took them down to a clear area that had a large vein of smooth stone covering most of it. He settled onto the rock and waited for Sua Xing Xing to join him. She landed close to him. Almost too close. Another sign that her nerves were getting the better of her. She looked at him and failed to hide her nerves.

“Is there a reason you’ve brought me to this,” she gestured around her, “this awful place?”

Sen looked around curiously. Aside from this patch of rock, the surroundings were a rather lovely, if somewhat primordial, forest. Everything looked healthy and lush. He even spotted some flowers that broke up the green with tiny explosions of color. The burbling sounds of a stream wafted through the air to add a gentle musical quality to the area. He lifted an eyebrow at Sua Xing Xing.

“Awful place?” he asked.

“Yes. These are the deep wilds,” she said in a hushed tone, as though afraid that something would take notice of her. “Cultivators only come to places like this in force or desperation. To come so far is to court death.”

Sen pondered that declaration. He had gone far deeper into the wilds than this for months on end. He wondered if that experience had made him somehow less cautious than he should be about the dangers. He supposed it was possible. Short of a full beast tide, there wasn’t much he’d seen in the wilds that gave him pause anymore. That probably was a matter of pure exposure and the repeated experience of fighting while alone or with only a few companions. Experiences he suspected that Sua Xing Xing did not share. She looked like she was keeping panic at bay only through pure effort. At the very least, she believed that this was the deep wilds and that destruction was imminent.

“That kind of fear won’t serve you well,” said Sen. “This may be the wilds, but it isn’t the deep wilds.”

“So, you say,” she snapped back.

“So, I say. Go another hundred, maybe two hundred miles in that direction,” said Sen, pointing, “and you’ll start to find the true deep wilds.”

“How can you possibly—” she stopped, realization making her eyes go wide. “You’ve been that deep into the wilds?”

“I have,” said Sen before he wandered over to the edge of the woodlands and plucked a small flower.

Sua Xing Xing made another effort to suppress her fear by focusing on the flower in his hand.

“Is that some special ingredient you need for your alchemy? Is that why we came here?” she asked.

Sen glanced down at the flower held between his thumb and forefinger.

“No. It’s just a pretty flower. It smells nice, too,” he said, holding it out at about the height of her nose.

The sect cultivator took a cautious sniff. Then, slowly, almost as if it pained her to make the admission, she nodded.

“Fine. It smells nice. Did you drag me all the way out here just so you could pick flowers?”

“Not particularly,” he said, planting the flower so it sat between her hair and her ear.

A flurry of emotions raced across the woman’s face. Confusion. Uncertainty. Anticipation.

“Then, why?” she asked, her hand rising to the flower in a gesture that looked unconscious.

“I’ll be leaving soon,” said Sen. “I wanted to discuss what I’ll expect of your training while I’m away.”

That had apparently not been the answer she was expecting, because a flush of anger or embarrassment stole across her cheeks.

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“My training,” she said slowly.

“Just because I’m away, it doesn’t mean that you get to skate on your training.”

“Skate?” asked Sua Xing Xing, bafflement momentarily replacing annoyance.

“Damn foxes,” muttered Sen. “I mean you don’t get to stop training just because I’m not around to directly supervise you.”

“I see,” she said, before doing what Sen had expected. “Wouldn’t it be easier to simply take me with you and continue my training that way?”

“I expect so. I’m still not doing it.”

“I’m from a large sect. I know how to behave around nobles and royalty. I could be an asset to you in the capital.”

“I’m sure that all of that is true,” said Sen as he agreeably nodded along.

“And you never even considered it?”

“I did not.”

“But you’ll take that foundation formation girl from some backwater sect?”

“I will.”

“Why?”

Sen dropped the affable mask he’d been wearing.

“It’s quite simple. I trust that foundation formation girl. I trust her to follow my lead. I trust her not to run some agenda that only serves to benefit her.”

“The corollary being that you don’t trust me. You think that I will engage in some self-serving agenda that will bring you no benefits or actively harm you.”

Sen considered that and said, “I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not. That’s the biggest problem with you, aside from your general, well, you-ness. I don’t know you. I don’t know why you’re really here. That makes trust a rather scarce commodity, don’t you think?”

The woman was very still for a moment before she said, “My me-ness?”

Sen sighed. Of course, that was what she focused on.

“People don’t like you,” Sen explained.

Sua Xing Xing took a step back as if she were physically recoiling from the words. For just an instant, Sen saw a flash of legitimate hurt, pain, and regret. Then, it was gone. Covered over with the haughty attitude of a young mistress from a powerful sect.

“I don’t require their affection,” she said, lifting her chin and staring into the distance.

“No?” asked Sen.

“No,” she answered.

“You know, I don’t need to eat anymore. I barely need to sleep. Yet, I eat every day. I try to get a little sleep most days. Do you know why?”

She turned a wary eye toward him. “Why?”

“Because there’s more to life than simply what’s required to survive. That’s a lesson I learned the hard way. In the end, I just enjoy food. I like cooking it. I like eating it. It’s not necessary for me, but it improves the quality of my life. Having friends, family, people I trust and who trust me in return may not be an absolute requirement for my survival, but they also improve the quality of my life. I would be diminished by their absence,” said Sen, and then he shrugged. “But that’s just me. Do with it what you will.”

“I don’t have time for such nonsense,” said Sua Xing Xing.

“Do I strike you as a man burdened by excessive free time?” asked Sen, but he kept speaking before she could answer. “Speaking of which, on to the issue of your training. In addition to practicing what I’ve already shown you, I expect you to work on this.”

In a burst of motion and qi, Sen drew his jian and swept it up. A wafer-thin wall of stone almost fifty feet long and just as high shot up out of the ground. Sua Xing Xing just stared at it with a look of incomprehension.

“Obviously,” continued Sen, “you don’t use earth qi. So, I expect you to adapt this technique to work with your water qi affinity.”

Sua Xing Xing turned incredulous eyes on him. “You expect me to do that? What happened to not teaching us about cultivation?”

“I didn’t say a single word about how you should cultivate. I just showed you something I can do. If you manage to adapt the technique, it’ll be because you taught yourself something about cultivation.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with swordsmanship,” she said weakly. “It’s not a fair test.”

Sen reached out and adjusted the flower behind Sua Xing Xing’s ear, which made her breath catch a little. She stared at him like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to yell at him or kiss him. Sen thought that being unsettled was probably good for her.

He offered her a bright smile. “Test is such a harsh word. You should consider this an opportunity. Yes, it’s an opportunity to impress me with your work ethic.”

“My work ethic?” Sua Xing Xing almost screamed.

“Your work ethic. Oh, by the way, Wu Meng Yao is in charge while I’m gone. She knows you’ll be training on your own, so I don’t expect you’ll cross paths with each other too often.”

Sua Xing Xing spluttered. “What? Her? You’re leaving her in charge? But she’s… I’m—”

“She is a teacher at the academy. You are a student. You will respect those roles,” said Sen, his voice going very hard, “or you will leave.”

Sen waited to see if the indignity of it all would actually kill Sua Xing Xing. Judging by how red her face got, she was ready to explode. She opened her mouth once, looking for all the world like she intended to curse him straight into the thousand hells before she closed it hard enough that he heard her teeth slam together with an audible crack. He could see the muscles along her jaw working furiously as she held back whatever enraged commentary was rushing through her mind. In the end, she offered him a very formal, very precise bow.

“It will be as you say,” she said through clenched teeth.

Sen was tempted to make some glib comment but recognized that it would be counterproductive. He’d brought her out there, intentionally unbalanced her, because he wanted to make a few points. He’d made them. Anything else would just be him venting some of his own general dislike for her. She didn’t deserve that treatment, no matter how satisfying it might feel. He was supposed to be her teacher, after all, and she wouldn’t learn anything of value from him being unnecessarily cruel. Instead, he glanced up at the sky.

“We should head back,” he announced to Sua Xing Xing’s visible relief. “There’s still a lot to do before I leave.”