Book 4: Chapter 33: The Capital (1)

Book 4: Chapter 33: The Capital (1)

For all that Sen had thought about it, imagined it, and tried to mentally prepare for it, the capital still stunned him. It was just so damned big. When he’d imagined it, he’d imagined something like Emperor’s Bay, just more of it. The reality of miles upon miles of buildings and roads ground that feeble image to dust. He literally couldn’t see the far side of the city even with his enhanced sight. Smells that had been unpleasantly present in the heart of Emperor’s Bay were strong on the air miles from their destination. As his eyes tracked over the sprawling mass, he could make out movement on the roads. The part of the city closest to him was near enough that he could see down into those streets and he felt a moment of mild panic.

There were people everywhere, moving back and forth, stopping, talking, arguing, and laughing. There were people leading carts and vendors selling food. There were more people in one stretch of road than the entire population of the Orchard’s Reach. Sen felt an almost irresistible urge to turn around and go looking for man nascent soul cultivator who might have a copy of the manual. Sure, she might be crazy, but that was far better than a place that was insanity incarnate. Sen couldn’t imagine wanting to be in that place, wanting to be around so many others, to be constantly confronted by other human beings. There would be no silence in a place like that. There could be no peace. The longer he stood there staring down at the city, the more Sen realized that he hated it.

“Sen?” asked Chan Yu Ming.

He turned to look at her, to say that he wasn’t going down into that madness, but he stopped short. The young woman had barely spoken for the last few days, and Sen had left her mostly to her own devices. Looking at her now, though, he wondered when she had last slept. Short of being injured badly, it took a lot for core formation cultivators to actually look bad. Their recovery rate from pretty much every kind of normal affliction was stupendous. Yet, Chan Yu Ming looked...sick. There were dark bags beneath her eyes, and there was so little color in her skin that she almost looked like a corpse. There was even a bit of gauntness to her face that added to that impression.

“Are you feeling well?” asked Sen in genuine concern.Trace the lineage of this substance back to the dawn of Nøv€lß¡n★

Chan Yu Ming abruptly looked away. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” said Sen.

“It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

Sen stared at her and kept staring at her until she looked at him again.

“What is going on?”

Chan Yu Ming looked like she wanted to get angry, but then she just looked tired and resigned. “I thought that I’d be able to think of a way to convince you, but I can’t promise you that manual. I’m relatively confident I can get it, but you want a guarantee. I can’t give it. I even thought about lying, but you’d have figured that out soon enough. If I did that, I doubt you’d ever speak to me again.”

“That’s probably true, but how is that connected to this?”

“Once I enter the city again, I’ll have to present myself to my father. Then, the preparations will begin for the wedding. I know who I’m to marry. It,” she sighed, “it will not be a harmonious marriage.”

Sen stood silently for a long moment before he spoke. “I need you to understand something. My priorities haven’t changed because my situation hasn’t changed. I’ll expect you to devote every resource, leverage every favor you’re owed, and enlist your family in getting me that manual.”

“What?”

“I’m saying I’ll help you, but there is a time limit. I can’t still be here in six months if I don’t have that manual. If I can’t get it, and you can’t get it for me, I will leave. I’ll have to.”

“I understand,” said Chan Yu Ming. “How long?”

To Sen, it sounded like she was having a hard time breathing. Since he suspected she didn’t really want him to see her that way, he didn’t turn around. Sen honestly didn’t know how long, but he understood that she needed some kind of time frame to work in.

“Three months.”

“That is, it’s not a lot of time for nobles,” she said, sounding very hesitant.

“I don’t have a lot of time left,” said Sen. “Now, let’s go. I want to see what kind of rooms Lo Meifeng got for us.”

Sen started down the road, no longer considering the size of the city. He didn’t look back to see if the others were following. He could hear their footfalls. Sen hoped that he hadn’t just made another terrible decision, but he’d committed himself to that path. He’d have to walk down it and hope that he was strong enough to bear the consequences. They passed through ever denser areas of buildings and ever denser throngs of people until Sen felt like they might as well be in the capital. He did, however, fall back to walk beside Falling Leaf. They’d known each other for so long that they almost didn’t need words. He had felt her growing apprehension as they closed in on the city proper. She shot him a grateful look and stepped closer. When the wall and southern gate to the city came into view, Sen grudgingly took his place at the back of the line, preparing for an extended wait.

Yet, they hadn’t been there for more than five minutes when they became the center of a lot of activity. Within moments of each other, a man who looked like he was some kind of messenger, a group of men in some manner of uniform led by a woman a few years older than Sen, and a group of city guards all strode up to them. The city guards immediately dropped to their knees and kowtowed. The woman leading the other group of uniformed men looked at Sen, and then her eyes drifted over to Chan Yu Ming.

“Princess,” said the woman, dropping her eyes respectfully. “We didn’t know you were returning.”

Sen turned toward Chan Yu Ming very slowly and fixed her with a flat stare. “Princess?”

“Yeah,” said Chan Yu Ming weakly. “I swear I was going to tell you.”

“We are going to have to have a long talk about this,” said Sen through clenched teeth.