Unintended Cultivator

Sen had completely discarded any notion of paying attention to the people who kept coming up to them. They all just kept talking. Not interesting talk, either, but just a geyser of words about whatever seemingly random topic popped into their heads. One man had gone into a ten-minute discourse about apples. That might have been interesting if the fool hadn’t just been making things up as he went. You didn’t grow up in a place called Orchard’s Reach without learning a few things about apples. After that, Sen just nodded occasionally, or made a noncommittal noise, or stroked his chin thoughtfully. Of course, it would also have been easier to pay attention if Lai Dongmei hadn’t been whispering in his ear about a whole variety of things that he would much rather be doing at that moment. Focus, Sen tried to order himself. This absurd exercise in boredom can’t last that much longer, right? He looked at the entire crowd of people who were all but shoving each other out of the way to get in front of him and Lai Dongmei. Sen sighed internally. I’m never getting out of here. Where’s a good assassination attempt when I need one?

***

Shen Mingxia was doing her best to maintain a calm front, but that encounter with Sung Kai had rattled her. The man had been handsome enough that she might have even been receptive to his advances, except he’d been aggressive and expectant. As though she should be honored by his presence. If arrogance had been the extent of it, she would have simply endured and forgotten about him at the first opportunity. Then, he’d made a veiled comment that he intended to take what he wanted from her. That had frightened her because he had the power to follow through on that implied threat. She hadn’t been sure how to react or to escape or at least to get someone’s attention. Except, it hadn’t been necessary. It seemed that Judgment’s Gale was good to his promises. She hadn’t had the faintest idea that his senses were that acute, but he had clearly been listening to the conversation. No sooner had the words passed from Sung Kai’s lips than Lu Sen had crushed the man to the floor from across the room. He walked over to them with a concerned expression on his face. She’d almost loosed a hysterical laugh when he’d all but stepped over Sung Kai to talk to her.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “Well, I will be.”

“You’re sure?”

She offered what she hoped looked like a smile, rather than a grimace, and nodded. His expression turned skeptical, but he didn’t press the issue. Instead, he turned to Sung Kai. As she watched his face turn implacable, she again felt very, very grateful that this man had never turned his wrath on her. She thought he was going to kill the man. In truth, she wanted him to do it, but the damn king had to go and be all politically minded and save the bastard. Still, it was incredibly satisfying to watch Sen fling that man into the sky like the piece of garbage he was. There was a side benefit to that brutal display. People who had been circling around her, no doubt looking to try to learn about Sen from her, immediately lost interest. She found a wall to lean against and took her first relaxed breath of the evening.

***

I think that man is my new hero, thought Chan Dishi as he did everything in his power not to laugh out loud. He’d asked around about the various “ambassadors,” and Sung Kai had been the easiest to learn about. Mostly because everyone the man seemed to come into contact with hated him. There had been whispers of him forcing himself on women in the city, but he couldn’t find a way to confirm it, and not for a lack of trying. If he’d been able to confirm it, well, steps could have been taken. Steps that wouldn’t have jeopardized the tenuous peace that existed between the nations on this side of the Mountains of Sorrow and those on the far side of those lofty, continent-dividing peaks. It seemed as if that problem had more or less solved itself. As for the rest, they were just arrogant and disdainful, which was more or less what he’d expected to discover.