Sen shook his head as he silently observed Wu Meng Yao trying to observe the galehouse. He’d been standing about three feet behind her for five minutes. He’d also been hiding. He realized it wasn’t a fair test, but she had been lurking a lot the last few days. Maybe it was because spring was just about there. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to ask him about the task he’d set her or if she was just curious, but the amusement value in the whole situation had long since faded.

“That’s creepy, you know,” said Sen.

Wu Meng Yao jumped at least six inches off the ground and whirled to face him. Qi started to gather around her hands for some kind of technique. When the shock faded and recognition set in, she dispelled the gathering qi and directed an aggravated look at him.

“It’s not funny to sneak up on people like that.”

“It’s not funny to spy on people’s homes either,” observed Sen.

“I—” she started only to falter when Sen raised an eyebrow at her. “Fine. I was spying.”

“Any particular reason or just basic voyeurism?”

Wu Meng Yao turned bright red in embarrassment. “I’m not a voyeur!”

“It was a joke,” said Sen in a bland voice. “Which you were obviously in no frame of mind to enjoy. Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Does it matter? You’re going to follow me either way.”

“I guess it doesn’t,” said Wu Meng Yao, falling into step beside him.

“Have you been preparing for your trip?” asked Sen.

“I’ve prepared as much as one can for a trip like that. Which, incidentally, isn’t much because no one does it.”

“Oh, that’s not true. Merchants go over those mountains all the time.”

“Yes. Over. On an established trail and with guards. Guards frequently obtained from a sect. Over. Not up,” said Wu Meng Yao in a voice that was almost complaining.

“A valid distinction,” agreed Sen. “Idle curiosity, why have you been spying on my home?”

“You don’t know?”

“I have my guesses, but they’re just guesses.”

“Shen Mingxia didn’t tell you?” asked Wu Meng Yao, genuine bitterness in her voice.

“I didn’t ask her,” said Sen.

He chose not to comment on that bitterness. There were too many possible reasons for it. Plus, he had more than a sneaking suspicion that asking about it would open him up to a lot of information he didn’t want. Wu Meng Yao didn’t strike him as particularly volatile but emotions could run deep in anyone. Plus, if her emotions were that close to the surface at the moment, asking about them could inadvertently end with her revealing things she’d later wish she hadn’t. No, it was better to just leave that alone for the moment.

“You have two legendary nascent soul cultivators who just dropped by for a visit. How could I not be curious?”

“You could have just asked to meet them,” noted Sen.

“How? You’ve been avoiding me.”

“Have I?”

“Yes! You have,” she said with a fire in her eyes that abruptly went out. “I get why, though. I keep making things awkward, and it’s very clear that you don’t enjoy awkward.”

Sen stopped walking so he could turn to look at her.

“Do you know anyone, anyone at all, who does enjoy awkward conversations?”

“No,” she admitted with a slight wince.

“Okay. I was wondering if I missed something along the way,” said Sen, resuming his walk.

There was a short silence that Wu Meng Yao apparently found intolerable because she asked a question that Sen had sort of expected.

“Why are you so much nicer to Shen Mingxia?”

“She doesn’t make things awkward,” answered Sen.The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“That’s it?”

“Isn’t that enough? She treats me like a person. So, I respond in kind. What have I ever done to make you think that I care about all that hierarchy nonsense that sects impose?”

It seemed that she didn’t have an answer to that question, which was for the best since they’d arrived at Sen’s intended destination. They stood outside the door to the practice hall. It was almost exactly the same as it had always been, save for the addition of some characters on the wall. Sen stood there and looked at those characters until Wu Meng Yao took the hint and read them aloud.

“Deep Wilds Academy. What’s this about?”

“I’m going to train people here.”

“You’re starting a sect?”

“Academy,” corrected Sen. “A very specific kind of academy. I intend to teach the spear and jian here.”

“No cultivation training?”

“I don’t want to say never. If the exact right person walked through the door, I might, might, take on a student for cultivation training. But that’s not what this place is for. This place is intended to teach the spear and jian to anyone who comes along. Mortals and cultivators alike.”

Wu Meng Yao was silent for a full minute before she spoke again. “That’s smart. If you’re not training anyone to be cultivators, then people from any sect could come here to learn the spear or jian from the infamous Judgment’s Gale. At the same time, the sects won’t worry that you’re trying to recruit away their best disciples. Assuming they believe it.”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ll send spies looking to prove that I’m really running a sect here. As long as they pay the outrageous fees I’ll charge, they’re free to spy all they want. There won’t be anything to find.”

“Have you considered the possibility of assassins? You aren’t exactly everyone’s favorite person.”

“I can’t pretend that everyone loves me. But I’ve survived assassination attempts before. Even one from a nascent soul cultivator.”

“Wait! What? Seriously?”

“Yeah, it’s been an interesting few years. It happened when I was in the capital a while back. There were a lot of people there who didn’t like me. He just tried to do something about it. It didn’t work out for him.”

“Did you leave the city before he found you?”

“No. I killed him when he wouldn’t leave the city, but I’d prefer it if you didn’t spread that one around. Somehow, it’s not common knowledge yet. I’d like to keep it that way.”

Wu Meng Yao was staring at him with her mouth a little open. “You’re serious. You killed a nascent soul cultivator, as a core formation cultivator?”

“He didn’t leave me a lot of options. Well, no, that’s probably not true. I expect that there were options, but I wasn’t necessarily thinking all that clearly at the time. Mostly, I killed him because he deserved it, and because I wanted him dead.”

“If that were common knowledge, you might not need to worry about assassins. Who would dare?

“There’s always someone who dares. I also know that I’m not invincible. Yes, it’s possible someone might come here looking to kill me, but that’s true literally everywhere I go. I don’t think that I’m in substantially more danger here than anywhere else.”

“You have things here to lose.”

Sen gave her a steady look. “You mean Ai. You think someone might do something to her to get to me?”

“It’s possible.”

“No. Anyone capable enough to have a serious chance of killing me is going to be someone who does that kind of work professionally. That means they’ll be professional enough to recognize the ocean of vengeance that would drown them if they did something that stupid. I would erase them and anything they ever touched. That’s assuming that Auntie Caihong or Uncle Kho didn’t get there first. The word safe would simply vanish from their world. Anyone not professional enough to recognize that is going to be dead, or desperately wishing they were dead, before they can actually do anything to her.”

Wu Meng Yao swallowed hard before she said, “I’m glad to see that the last few years have toughened you up. You were so soft and forgiving before.”

Sen met her eyes and then snorted. “And you missed my whole angry time. This is soft and forgiving compared to those days.”

“I’m struggling to imagine that.”

“You met Lo Meifeng, right? She can tell you all about how full of joy I was then. But, we’re way off topic. There’s a question that you need to answer.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you really want to go do the imaginary task I gave you, or would rather stay here and teach?”

“Imaginary task,” said Wu Meng Yao a little numbly. “The treasure up near the peak? It’s not real?”

“Nope. I made the whole thing up. Well, actually, I expect that there probably is some incredibly powerful shadow treasure in one of those caves, but I don’t know that for sure.”

“You… You made it up? You were going to let me go to those mountains and risk my life for a treasure that doesn’t even exist!”

“Of course not. I was going to let you go most of the way to those mountains. Then, Shen Mingxia was going to tell you the truth.”

“That little traitor.”

“Don’t be too hard on her. She owed me since before she even met you. And she’s been trying to convince me to find something else, something real, for you to do since day one. You must be doing something right there because she’s loyal.”

“Oh,” said Wu Meng Yao, looking a little chagrined. “Still, why would you do something like that?”

“Is that a real question?” asked Sen.

“No! But I’m still angry about it. You could have just—”

“Told you it was fine and not to worry about it?”

“Yes!” she snapped before the realization hit.

“Well, before you go off and feel angry with me for, well, however long that’s going to be, back to the question at hand. Imaginary task or teaching here?”

“Teaching what? To who?”

“You’re competent with the jian. So, you’ll teach that. As for the who, it’ll be the lower-level cultivators who come here. I cannot spend all of my time teaching, and cultivators can only learn from other cultivators. So, if you feel like you’ve got some debt or obligation to me, you can work it off that way.”

“I can’t afford to stay here indefinitely.”

“You’ll be provided a place to stay, food, and some kind of stipend. It can be gold, some reasonable cultivation resources, or a combination.”

The sect cultivator didn’t say anything. She just kept staring at Sen and biting her lip.

“Do you need a day to think about it?” Sen finally asked.

“I want lessons,” she blurted out. “The same lessons the other core cultivators get.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“If I’m going to be teaching, it only seems fair that I—” she trailed off. “It’s fine? I don’t understand.”

“Well, that sounds like a personal problem that you should take up with the universe.”