Sen watched Wu Meng Yao conduct the class from the concealment of a shadow. He’d rarely done more than take quick glimpses of her teaching, mostly because he trusted that she didn’t need the supervision. Unlike two other instructors he’d only decided to let stay on a whim. They’d both pled their cases well enough and seemed to have settled their differences. Or, at the very least, they’d learned not to share their animosity publicly, which he decided was good enough. She’d only gotten better since the last time he’d stayed and watched. He expected some of it was raw experience. She wasn’t as nervous, so she wasn’t thinking so hard about every last thing that came out of her mouth. She also knew now where and when to focus her attention. It figures, thought Sen. But I always knew this day was coming.
He waited until the last of the students filed out before he revealed himself. He’d learned the hard way that his presence was just about the single most disruptive thing that could happen in one of these classes short of what an actual attack on the academy might provoke. He was hiding, so it took her a few moments to notice him standing there. She let out a startled little shriek. Sen wanted to feel bad about the minor fright, except the look on her face was so funny that he couldn’t quite manage it. He must not have hidden his thoughts quite well enough because she narrowed her eyes at him.
“Not funny,” she said. “How long have you been there anyway?”
“Since the class started,” said Sen.
“What? Seriously?”
“How is this kind of thing still a surprise to you?” asked Sen, honestly perplexed.
“It’s unnatural, for one. No one as powerful as you should be able to go unnoticed like that. Most can’t. That’s just such an unfair advantage.”
“Yes, well, I am magnificent.”
“I’m one hundred percent sure that wasn’t the thing you should have taken from those comments. With all due respect to the Patriarch.”
Sen sighed. She’s never going to let that go, he thought.
“And, yet, here we are.”
He noticed her eyeing him in an odd way.
“What?” he asked.
She hemmed and hawed for a little while before she finally said, “You didn’t used to be quite that, well, pale.”
“I know. I keep hoping it’s going to be temporary.”
“What happened?” she asked, before hurriedly adding, “I mean, if it’s not too personal. I didn’t mean to—”
“Breathe,” commanded Sen. “It’s just a side effect of my last advancement. I’m honestly not sure what caused it.”
She frowned and studied him a little harder.
“You’re not nascent soul, yet. I don’t think.”
“Body cultivation.”
“Oh, right,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s easy to forget that you’re a dual cultivator.”
The conversation was swiftly heading down a path Sen didn’t particularly want to go. He trusted Wu Meng Yao but only to an extent. She was merely visiting and would return to her sect, a sect that didn’t hold much love for him. He wasn’t eager to share too many details about his cultivation with them.
“I’m given to understand that you intend to leave soon,” said Sen, very obviously changing the subject.
Wu Meng Yao’s face went pensive. He hadn’t been subtle. Changing the subject was a very clear statement that she wasn’t to be given certain kinds of information. A reluctant acceptance replaced her serious expression. Of course, that pensiveness might have been from something else. The timing of her departure was a little too coincidental for Sen’s taste. He suspected that she either knew what was coming, suspected it from things she’d overheard, or had been told by her own sect. Of course, that might just have been a rumor until she nodded her head.
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“Yes,” she said, seeming to choose her words with care. “You have more than enough people here to teach now. People who are better than me.”
Sen waggled a hand in the air and said, “Better is subjective. More powerful? Sure? More experienced? Maybe. Better teachers? Not really.”
She seemed a bit embarrassed by the praise. At least, he hoped it was the praise. It had been a while since they were in the same room together. His ridiculous paleness hadn’t seemed to lessen the attention he got, when he noticed it was happening at all.
“I appreciate the kind words, Patriarch,” she said after an awkward pause.
“You’re welcome,” said Sen. “So, when will you leave?”
“A week. Maybe two. Transitioning the students to a new teacher may take some doing. Why?”
Sen hesitated before he asked, “How much do you know about what’s happening? In the world, I mean.”
Wu Meng Yao frowned before she started to chew her bottom lip.
“I don’t know anything for sure. I’ve made some educated guesses based on what I’ve seen here and heard. Some kind of conflict is brewing, but no one is talking about it openly.”
“There are very good reasons behind them not talking openly about it,” said Sen. “In accordance with that, I’m going to ask you to do something. I’m also going to ask you not to ask me a lot of questions about it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him again. She obviously didn’t like the idea of doing something without having all the information. He could appreciate that, but he was still going to insist that she do it mostly blind.
“What?” she asked.
“I want you to deliver something to Elder Deng,” said Sen.
He summoned a sealed box from his storage ring and held it out to her. She stared at the box with clear suspicion. She did not move to take it.
“What’s in it?” she asked.
“Something useful, I hope,” said Sen. “Something we’ll all need, assuming it works.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It is an answer,” said Sen. “It’s just not a particularly informative one.”
“Given your history with my sect, how am I supposed to know that box doesn’t contain some kind of alchemical weapon designed to kill everyone there?”
“Do I really seem that petty to you?”
“Did you or did you not destroy a great noble house? After which, didn’t you bring all of their children here to act as hostages to keep the parents in line?”
Sen took a beat to consider those questions.
“I believe that’s all more or less accurate.”
“And, as I understand it, you’re actively preventing those children from learning how to use weapons or become cultivators. Is that also true?”
“Yes,” said Sen.
“Then, I believe I can safely say that you do seem that petty,” said Wu Meng Yao.
Sen just stared at her for about five seconds. That had been a cheap shot, and he didn’t understand where it had come from. He didn’t believe for a moment that Wu Meng Yao was that naïve. What he’d done with the Xie family was not ideal by any measure, but there hadn’t been an ideal solution. That was a long way from sending a weapon to a sect that he’d had practically zero contact with in years. There was bad history there, but not bad enough to justify doing something like that. He supposed that this was some kind of test. It wasn’t clear if it had come directly from her or if she was acting on the orders of her sect. And he didn’t care. There was far too much going on for him to entertain this kind of stupidity even from old friends. He simply nodded and returned the box to his storage ring.
“You can leave now,” he said, summoning a pouch with some money in it and dropping it on the floor. “That should cover the last of your wages. We’ll manage with the classes. I still have business with Shen Mingxia, but I’ll see to it that she’s returned safely to your sect.”
Wu Meng Yao looked panicked. He didn’t know what she’d thought his response to that was going to be, but banishing her from his sect clearly hadn’t occurred to her. Maybe she really did think he was untrustworthy, petty, and dangerous to her sect. If that was the case, though, then she truly didn’t know or understand him at all. If that test had come from her sect, he’d only ever been one excuse away from dismissing them entirely from his world. He was almost certain that some elder at the Soaring Skies Sect had ordered her to do something like this. It was too out of character for her to be that stupid and confrontational. So, now he had his excuse.
“Wait—” said Wu Meng Yao.
“There is going to come a time, soon, when your sect is going to ask why I have no use for them, and why they have been excluded. Tell them that this stupid little game is why.”
Sen strode past the other cultivator, who kept trying in vain to make him wait, to make him listen, to provide excuses. He paused when he reached the door. As angry as the ill-conceived test had made him, he had always liked Wu Meng Yao. He’d prefer it if she didn’t die because some moron ordered her to do something so utterly asinine.
“You should find a new sect. You should tell Elder Deng that I advise him to do the same.”
Real fear crossed Wu Meng Yao’s face at those words.
“You’re not… You’re not going to destroy them, are you?”
Sen met her fear with a cool, distant expression.
“I won’t need to.”