Unintended Cultivator

Hope, it turned out, was not the remedy that Falling Leaf needed. Morning came and, although she remained physically healthy, she couldn’t be woken. With guilt seething inside of him, Sen made himself leave the room. He had done everything he could for her. Plus, much as he might wish it were different, things were still happening in the world. He’d agreed to do things in that world that he wanted to take back. Except, he couldn’t take them back. The arrow had left the string already in the form of Master Feng and Uncle Kho. Sen supposed he should count himself lucky that he wasn’t getting reports of sects being burned down across the kingdom. Then again, he had been ignoring things for a few days. Those reports might well be waiting for him.

He did his best to stay focused on the moment as he made breakfast for Ai. However, the unfilled chair at the table kept drawing his eye. This wasn’t like the times when she had been away from the galehouse. During those absences, he’d only had a general notion of where she was, but he’d been certain she’d be back. Now, he knew exactly where she was but had no assurance that she’d return in any substantive sense. He found he much preferred the former to the latter. Ai seemed to sense his mood and was unusually quiet. He hated that he was infecting her with his negative emotions, but he was struggling to keep them at bay. Then, and he knew it had always been coming, Ai asked the question.

“Papa, when will Falling Leaf wake up?”

He hoped that his face didn’t reflect the feeling that someone had driven an icy blade into his stomach. He’d been dreading this question because he’d told himself he wouldn’t lie to Ai.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

He could see on her face that she didn’t understand, and he didn’t want her to understand this situation. She expected that Falling Leaf would wake up. After all, to Ai’s knowledge, that’s what happened when people slept. They went to sleep, and then they woke up. Order in the universe. He didn’t want to steal that innocence from her with cold facts. Saying, out loud, that Falling Leaf might never wake up would rob them both of something. Still, he knew he couldn’t leave it at I don’t know. He wouldn’t have settled for that answer in her place.

“Sometimes, when people have the kind of hurt that she has right now, they need to sleep for a long time to get better. Hopefully, she’ll wake up soon, but I don’t know that she will.”

It was the best he could do. The full extent of the truth was something that he couldn’t bring himself to face. Ai didn’t look entirely certain about that answer, but apparently it was enough to quell her questions for the moment. He did his best to keep her talking about safer topics after that. Even so, it was a relief when Auntie Caihong came to get her for whatever activities the nascent soul cultivator had planned for the day. Sen needed at least a few minutes alone to gather himself before he faced everything he expected to crash down on his head as soon as he left the galehouse. His eyes drifted to the room where Falling Leaf was, and he felt a gnawing worry that someone might do something to her while he was gone.

However, that thought was swiftly dismissed. He’d made and remade this galehouse, adding more and more formations and defenses with every new version. He and those he trusted could come and go as they pleased, even when the defenses were active. If anyone else tried to force their way through those defenses, well, everyone had to die eventually. If they decided that dying a horrible, violent, loud, and gruesome death was for them, it wasn’t Sen’s place to deny them the freedom to make the final mistake of their life. He might even do the appropriate funeral rights for whatever was left. He didn’t need vengeful spirits hanging around his home and bothering Ai, after all.

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He drifted through the rest of his day. It wasn’t an intentional act of disinterest from him. Part of him was still stuck in that room, sitting in that chair, and waiting for something to change. He half-heard reports. More of the same from the parts he was gleaning. No talk of sects vanishing in fits of nascent soul rage, though. That was a minor victory, even if he did have to wonder if Master Feng and Uncle Kho were simply postponing doom, rather than showing true benevolence. He answered questions and made decisions. That he couldn’t have told anyone what the answers or decisions were afterward was a fact that he decided to keep to himself.

Besides, he suspected that Sua Xing Xing and Long Jia Wei knew. What Sen couldn’t figure out was why Long Jia Wei was suddenly attending high-level discussions and listening to reports about what was happening in the rest of the kingdom. It bothered Sen enough that it prompted him to ask the man to stay behind when the latest in an endless series of meetings ended. When the door closed behind the last person, Sen fixed the probably ex-assassin with a questioning look.

“Yes, Lord Lu?” asked Long Jia Wei.

“I was surprised to see you here today.”

The man looked back at Sen with a steady gaze. There was nothing defiant in it, but there was also nothing guilty in it. After not getting a response to his implied question, Sen let out an exasperated breath.

“You’ve made a point of being mysterious,” said Sen. “I’ve played along because it was useful. This sudden change concerns me. It suggests that something has changed. Something I don’t know about. Would you care to tell me?”

Long Jia Wei was quiet for a moment before he said, “These are dangerous times to be uninformed, Lord Lu.”

“I suppose I can’t find fault with that logic,” admitted Sen. “Is that all?”

“I’ve enlisted some help in my tasks. It’s an experiment, for now. If it works out, I expect I’ll introduce you to them. I’m saving that as a reward to help motivate them.”

“Not much of a reward,” said Sen skeptically.

Long Jia Wei responded with a small smile and said, “That very much depends on where you happen to be in the hierarchy.”

“We have hierarchy now? That’s a sure sign that we’re all doomed.”

“It serves a purpose.”

“So the people from sects keep telling me. I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“You’re from a sect now, too.”

Sen reached up and rubbed at his eyes.

“Don’t remind me. Thank you for indulging my curiosity.”

Long Jia Wei bowed and headed for a door. He hesitated just short of opening the door. Sen eyed the man, who had an uncharacteristic look of uncertainty on his face. ᚱÁNọꞖƐꞨ

“Will she wake?” Long Jia Wei finally asked.

Sen had expected to hear that question a hundred times that day, but it seemed some facet of propriety had bent to his favor. This was the first time anyone had addressed it directly. He lifted a shoulder.

“I can’t say. It’s out of my hands at this point. I hope so.”

Long Jia Wei frowned a little before he said, “Then, I will offer my prayers on her behalf.”

Sen wasn’t sure what god an ex-assassin prayed to, nor whether such prayers would generate anything beneficial, but he supposed it was the gesture that mattered. He nodded his appreciation.

“My gratitude.”

Long Jia Wei bowed again and departed. Sen sat in the empty room for almost ten minutes before he accepted the fact that he had reached the limit of his ability to pretend he was doing something useful. He returned to the galehouse only to find a somewhat bizarre scene. Ai was sitting on Falling Leaf’s bed and regaling the sleeping woman to a story about some kind of bug massacre. He waited until the story seemed to reach its conclusion before he posed his question.

“What are you doing, Ai?”@@novelbin@@

“Telling Falling Leaf about how I got rid of the yucky bugs, Papa,” said Ai with a very serious tone.

“Why?”

Ai gave him a very confused look and said, “So, she’ll know.”

Sen had his doubts about how much, if any, of the story Falling Leaf would remember. It still touched his heart, though.

“I see,” said Sen as he walked over and sat down in the chair by the bed.

Ai promptly came over and used him as a chair. He ruffled her hair, which prompted a halfhearted squeal of objection mixed with giggles. Ai immediately launched into another telling of the same story, this time for his benefit. He nodded and gasped as though he hadn’t heard most of the story already. It wasn’t exactly normal, but it was as close to normal as he’d felt all day. He tried not to let himself think about the possibility that this might be normal from here on out. He eventually took Ai back into the common area and made them dinner while Ai drew pictures.

After they ate, they went outside so that Ai could commune with Dancing Cloud. He still had mixed feelings about the sky monster, but he supposed it was better to let Ai maintain a strong relationship with the creature. Plus, having it sitting outside proved to be an excellent deterrent to people Sen didn’t want to talk to, which was basically everyone. After that, he managed to put Ai to bed and bought her compliance with a few stories and shadow constructs to play the parts. When he was certain she was asleep, he went back to take up his vigil again. He supposed it was a testament to how much strain he’d been under recently that sleep took him unawares. He didn’t think he slept for more than his usual few hours, but he felt none of the restoration he usually experienced after sleep. He turned his gaze over to Falling Leaf.

“I wish you would wake up,” he told her.

“I am awake,” she said. “And I’m hungry. Bring me food, human boy.”