Of course, it wasn’t as simple as just saying he was sorry. If only mere words could truly undo misdeeds, thought Sen, the world would be a kinder place. The world was not one of kindness, though. A fact of which Sen was all too aware. Words were for the mind and, perhaps, the heart, but deeds were for the soul. After all, while much of Karma was shrouded in mystery, it did teach one immutable lesson. Debts must be repaid, in one life or another. Of course, that also required that the other person cooperate if only a little. And Tiu Li-Mei tried very hard not to cooperate. Sen didn’t know if was out of fear, an overabundance of politeness, or simply because she was stunned, but she tried to refuse any sort of recompence.
“This isn’t necessary,” stammered Tiu Li-Mei, waving her hands in front of her. “I don’t need anything. Truly.”
Sighing, Sen put on a stern expression and said, “It is. Even if you don’t require it, karma would. Better, I would think, that you at least understand the reasons.”
Tiu Li-Mei lowered her hands, slowly, almost as if in defeat. Sen wasn’t sure he’d ever seen such a bizarre display or someone so hellsbent on not getting something. Most people would have been falling over themselves to collect on a debt from a powerful cultivator.
“I suppose so,” she said.
“Good. Now that we’ve dispensed with that, what would you have of me? I have wealth I can share. Do you wish for a home? A manor of your own? Is there some elixir you desire? My alchemy skills are likely the match to anything you might request.”
Sen waited while Tiu Li-Mei looked like her mind was racing to find an acceptable answer. Which is probably exactly what’s happening, thought Sen. She’s trying to think of something she can ask for that will be of some benefit to her while not aggravating me. As the seconds dragged out to a minute and then two minutes, Tiu Li-Mei looked increasingly frantic. Sen finally took pity on her. He had put her on the spot.
“The debt is mine. You shouldn’t concern yourself with trying to guess what I will or will not find palatable. Tell me what it is that you wish. If I can grant it, I will. I can’t grant it… I will simply tell you that.”
Some of the frantic look in the woman’s eyes drained away. Her expression became more thoughtful. He saw a spark of something on her face for a moment before she shook her head.
“That,” said Sen. “What was that thought?”
Tiu Li-Mei looked at him for the barest second before looking away. The furious woman from before had vanished. Now, she looked shy, almost childlike.
“Can you…” she trailed off before seeming to brace herself. “Can you make me a cultivator?”
Sen was silent for a moment. I guess that was an obvious choice, thought Sen. What mortal wouldn’t want that kind of power? Of course, no mortal really understood what being a cultivator meant, the costs most of all. Not that it mattered.
“No. That’s impossible for…” Sen hesitated.
He’d been told it was impossible, but he’d never really examined the problem himself. He’d just taken his teachers’ words on the subject as irrefutable facts. They would know, wouldn’t they? The reasoning was sound enough on a surface level. The kind of impurity purges that Sen had gone through in the early days were agonizing. It also wasn’t something that a cultivator could bypass. It had to be done. All of those impurities built up, they formed blockages in the body and the qi channels and therefore impeded the flow of qi. Attempting those kinds of purges later in life would be tantamount to suicide. The pain alone would be enough to stop someone’s heart. That was before even considering the extra decade or two of impurity accumulation. Then, there was the problem of the qi channels and the dantian. They were a bit like bones. In someone’s youth, bones are supple and flexible. As bones age, they harden and eventually become brittle.
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The same thing happened with qi channels and the dantian. Regular cultivation kept them supple and flexible, even as it strengthened them. Starting cultivation later in life meant a hugely increased risk of those channels and the dantian shattering under the strain. It was the kind of setback that, in most cases, definitively ended someone’s time as a cultivator. There were other problems, such as developing the necessary mental discipline to cultivate, to say nothing of controlling and directing the qi to accomplish specific tasks. However, Sen saw those latter problems more as hurdles than immutable impediments. Learning new skills became harder as people aged, or so he was given to understand, but by no means impossible. No, the real problems were the physical problems and the chances of damaging the channels and dantian.
Using any standard method, it would be impossible, but Sen had been forced to think his way around problems more than once. He’d even successfully manipulated his own qi channels and dantian at a time when the only thing matching his ignorance had been his hubris. He’d gotten impossibly lucky to have survived that experience. It had taught him something, though. The qi channels and dantian could be manipulated. They weren’t fixed in an immutable state or subject only to certain processes. It was within the power of a cultivator to change them directly. So, the question was, did he know enough now to do it safely for someone else? Or, barring that, safely enough to make the risk worth the reward? I think I do, he thought. Maybe with a bit of assistance from Auntie Caihong and Fu Ruolan.
That left the problem of purging the impurities. The pain was, in some ways, a product of the speed of the purge. If he could slow it down, he could reduce the amount of pain. Of course, it would also stretch out how long someone had to endure it. But if he could slow it down… It could work. Maybe. So much of it depended on the person, on their will to endure, on their desire to improve. That was something that no one else could ultimately judge. Inner strength was, much like the heavens, inscrutable. You could sense its presence but not its depth. There was so much uncertainty that he could see why everyone said it was impossible. He doubted that most alchemists could even make the kinds of elixirs or pills that such a process would require. It would take someone like him, or a genius like Auntie Caihong to even attempt it. Just thinking about the kinds of ingredients he would need to use told him it would be horribly expensive. The kind of expense that no sect would ever bother expending on what was, ultimately, an experiment with a poor chance of success. In fact, the only time someone might reasonably undertake those kinds of expenses and odds was in a situation like this.
Sen realized that he’d been lost inside his own thinking for a while and focused on the room around him. That was when he saw Tiu Li-Mei staring at him, her eyes wide, and her cheeks crimson. Sen wondered why she was blushing that way until he realized that he’d probably been looking right at her with some kind of intense expression on his face. He looked away to give her a moment to compose herself. He thought back through all of it. He wanted to make sure of himself before he gave someone that glimmer of hope. He also needed to decide if he was willing to take on something that so obviously exceeded his actual debt. If he could acquire the right ingredients and reagents, which he thought he probably could, then he was relatively confident that he could hold up his side of the bargain. As for the actual debt, he didn’t care so much about that. It was often buried under other concerns, but Sen did possess a deep curiosity about things. He wanted to know if this could be done. He wanted to find out if he could do it.
Tiu Li-Mei finally said, “I didn’t think it was—”
“Maybe,” said Sen, looking at her again. “I may be able to do it.”
The hope that kindled in her eyes burned like a pair of twin stairs.
“You can?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said again. “I can probably open a path for you, but I cannot carry you the entire way. There are some realities to this that you need to understand before we take even the first step. Realities about what it will mean for you. The kind of pain you’d be taking on. The kind of world you’d be stepping into. The world you live in is cruel. I won’t deny that for a moment. The Jianghu is merciless and pitiless. So, sit down, and let me tell you what you can expect if you pursue this path.”
Sen spoke to her for nearly an hour. He painted as stark a picture as he could. He told her about the times he’d been forced to kill people because some young master’s pride was faster than their mind. He told her about the torment that was purging impurities. He told her about how cultivators almost inevitably lost connection with and sympathy for mortals. When he finally stopped talking, Tiu Li-Mei sat in silence for a long time. Given everything he’d just told her, he was glad to see that she was genuinely considering it and the ways that it would alter everything in her life, assuming she even managed to survive the attempt. Even so, Sen wasn’t surprised when she stood, bowed, and spoke.
“I would like to proceed.”
Sen nodded and said, “Then, it’s time for you to go end your service with Jing. This isn’t something I can do from a distance, and I’m leaving soon. If you want this, you’ll have to come with me.”