Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 14 – I Simply Explained

“Forgive me, Lord Lu, but you truly must return to the city. There are many matters there that require your attention,” said Xu Xiao Dan.

Sen felt an irrational urge to snap at the former patriarch. Taking a breath, he turned away from the cultivators who diligently worked to restore and preserve the Golden Pavilion’s scrolls and manuals. He’d known that someone would come looking for him sooner rather than later. They’d actually waited two days longer than Sen had expected. He should be grateful for that, but knowing what waited for him back in the city made that very hard. All of his unwanted responsibilities hung in the air there like a poisonous fog. Unfortunately, those responsibilities could only be delayed, never abandoned entirely. It was the simple joy of pretending that he was just Lu Sen for a while that he was reluctant to give up. He felt the scowl take hold on his face, but gave the other man a curt nod.

“Very well.”

Sen knew just how chaotic the aftermath of conquering a capital city could be. It had gone smoother than most, this time. If it hadn’t, someone would have come looking for him long before now. They would have needed to report the bloodshed if nothing else. Even the smoothest transition of power was never without its fair share of problems. He’d dismantled most of the structures that normally maintained order in the city. Even with the army there to impose order for the moment, he knew that was a very temporary solution. Experience had taught him that armies weren’t a replacement for governments. The things they did were simply too different. An army’s primary function was to wage war. A government’s main job was to administrate society. There was painfully little overlap between those two roles.

Sen took one last look around the library he’d unearthed. This had been a diversion that he’d badly needed, even if he hadn’t known he needed it. Like all diversions, however, it couldn’t last forever. The continent was still engulfed in war and death. Nothing they found here now was likely to change that fact. Except, perhaps, for the manual he’d found. If he advanced his body cultivation with it, that might make a difference. Turning toward the door of the library, Xu Xiao Dan gave him a questioning look.

“They don’t need any orders,” explained Sen. “They know what to do here already.”

“Aren’t you worried that they’ll take one of the scrolls or manuals if it contains a lost technique?”

Sen looked from Xu Xiao Dan to one of the workers. The woman flinched the moment his gaze landed on her.

“Tell me, Wu Mei. Will anyone try to take one of the scrolls or manuals?”

“No, Lord Lu,” said Wu Mei, her voice shaking.

Turning his attention back to Xu Xiao Dan, Sen said, “See, no need for concern.”

Once the pair were outside, Xu Xiao Dan asked the question he’d held back inside.

“She tried to take something?”

“She did.”

“Did you punish her?”

“No. I simply explained to her how disappointed I was,” said Sen. “I might have explained it while my killing intent was bearing down on her. I’m not entirely sure she remembers anything I said with all the screaming and thrashing, but I’m confident my point was made.”

“Was she trying to steal something valuable?” asked Xu Xiao Dan as the pair rose from the ground on qi platforms and flew back toward the city.

Sen sighed at that question.

“No. It wasn’t valuable at all to me. It wasn’t even a very good technique for her, which shows how badly her sect trained her. Do you know what the worst part is?”

“What is that, Lord Lu?”

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“I’d have let her have the damnable scroll if she’d just asked me for it. But she tried to steal it, so I had to frighten her half to death to make sure no one else did something so stupid.”

“Most sects would have executed her for that. Most armies would have, as well.”

Sen gave the other man a tired look and asked, “Do you feel like I haven’t killed enough mortals and cultivators here? I think there might still be a little piece of my soul that hasn’t been soaked in blood, yet. I’m in no hurry to stain it. Not for something that trivial. Not unless I cannot avoid it. Thief or not, she’s still a cultivator. That makes her a resource on the battlefield. We’ll need as many of them as we can get when we cross the Mountains of Sorrow.”

“You still mean to do that?” asked a stunned Xu Xiao Dan.

“Why are you so surprised by that? It’s what I said we would do from the very beginning.”

“I thought that you might be satisfied with everything on this side of the mountains.”

“Satisfied,” said Sen with open bitterness. “I’d have been satisfied with a safe home where I could raise my daughter. I’d have put up with that little sect I started in the north, and the town that came with it. The empire is something I endure because I must. Taking the army over the mountains is also something I’ll do because I must. I have no taste for conquest, but the threat of the spirit beasts there is too great to ignore.”

“Lord Lu, if we control this side of the mountains, surely we could withstand them.”

“Have you ever been across the mountains, Xiao Dan?”

“I… Well, no. I haven’t been,” admitted the former patriarch. “I’ve only heard stories.”

Sen nodded as if this was what he’d expected and said, “Fate’s Razor has been there. As have the Living Spear and Alchemy’s Handmaiden. The continent is not equally divided by those mountains. What we’ll control here when we finish purging the spirit beasts will be, perhaps, one-third the size of what the spirit beasts would control on their side. Even if we maintain absolute control of this part of the continent, we’d find ourselves in a never ending and losing war to keep it. The spirit beasts would have too much territory to breed and build another army. Control here might buy us peace for a few mortal generations, but that would be all. We need to end this before they get a chance to consolidate control there.”

“I see,” said Xu Xiao Dan.

It wasn’t anything that Sen hadn’t told the man before. It was, however, probably the first time he’d laid out his reasoning in such a concise way for the other cultivator. Sen himself had entertained delusions that taking this part of the continent might be enough. Master Feng’s stark description of what lay beyond the mountains had shattered that fantasy.

“There’s one other reason,” said Sen.

“Which is?”

“The last I heard, there were still mortals and cultivators fighting the spirit beasts there. If that’s true, there is a slim chance that we might arrive in time to save some remnants of humanity there.”

Sen had intentionally chosen the word humanity, rather than mortals, but he assumed the other man understood his meaning. He’d never been shy about his opinion of the cultivators who had set themselves up as nobles and kings and enslaved the mortals in those distant kingdoms. He’d once even threatened Hsiao Jiayi with the idea that he’d go there and kill them. He couldn’t have actually done it then. At least, he didn’t think he could have. It was a different story now, and he might end up needing to do it when the war was finally over. Their attitudes toward mortals were unlikely to change, regardless of how many losses the spirit beasts inflicted on them. Allowing any of them to live was likely asking for future problems.

Of course, that brought him back around to Hsiao Jiayi. He did his best not to think about that particular princess too often. When he’d found out that she’d shown up near his sect, near his daughter, his very first instinct was to tell Auntie Caihong to kill the woman. Yet, she’d managed to bring mortals over the mountains. Something that couldn’t have been easy with the other cultivators she’d had in her company. They had no doubt been advocating to abandon the mortals at every opportunity. Advice that she would have had to ignore. He still wasn’t sure why she’d done that. Rather, he told himself he didn’t know why she’d gone to all the trouble. After all the time he’d spent dealing with nobles in recent years, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.

She had, no doubt, considered his character and his words. That had led her to a correct conclusion about what he might do if he did, in fact, cross the mountains. Saving those mortals had been a self-serving attempt to curry favor with him. Unless he missed his guess, she was hoping he’d spare her and any allies she made. The trouble was that, no matter how self-serving it had been, she had saved those mortals. A feat that could not have been easy in the dead of winter. Lu Sen wanted to read good intentions in that act. He wanted to spare her, even if it was for the equally self-serving reason that it would be one less person he had to kill. Emperor Lu, or possibly Judgment’s Gale—he was having more and more difficulty in separating the two—saw it as nothing more than a reason to spare her until after the fighting was done.

“You seem troubled,” said Xu Xiao Dan.

“That’s because I’m having troubling thoughts.”

“May I ask about what?”

“Princesses,” said Sen.