Book 8: Chapter 67: Caravan
Sen was truly regretting his decision to offer He Jietang a job. The man had looked, well, he’d looked mildly unwell, but for a core cultivator that was the mortal equivalent of looking like he was on death’s door. Sen couldn’t even understand how the man had gotten into the condition he was in. His brief, rude examination of the other man showed a level of damage that only a core cultivator could possibly have lived with for more than a week. In its own, deeply sad way, it was sort of impressive. Since he couldn’t have the man walking around and glaring at the sun all day, he’d given him a healing elixir. Not one of the good ones. Just one of the ones he kept around in case someone suffered some minor injury or came down with some kind of illness. Then, he’d told the man to go and help load the carts and wagons. It was only then that he turned to Chan Dishi.
“I think you may have misrepresented that man to me.”
Chan Dishi tried to smile, but it lacked the man’s usual cheerfulness.
“I didn’t misrepresent his skill. He really is as good as I made him out to be.”
“But?” asked Sen.
“You’re still young, especially for a cultivator, so you’ve escaped a few things. Honestly, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing for you. Eventually, you’ll see that not everyone is cut out to live for as long as core cultivators and nascent soul cultivators can live. He’s one of them. He probably never should have been a cultivator. I think he’d have been a much happier man as a mortal. But he is a cultivator, which means he stuck with all those extra years. He doesn’t quite have it in him to end his own life, and even when he’s gone looking for someone else to do the job for him… Well, he’s still here.”
“You’re telling me he couldn’t find a nascent soul cultivator to infuriate.”
Chan Dishi threw back his head and laughed. It was much more genuine than his earlier smile had been.
“Do you have any idea how rare it is for a normal cultivator to even see a nascent soul cultivator? They might flock around you like birds, but that beauty you were with at the party was the first one I’ve seen in at least a century.”