V4 Bloopers

V4 Bloopers

“Crudely put,” said Liang Daiyu, drawing Sen’s attention again, “but she has the crux of the matter surrounded. You say that you’ve experienced moments of enlightenment before. Do you recall how many?”

Sen thought back about it. “I don’t know the exact number offhand. Maybe two dozen.”

Silence fell all around the table, which made Sen glance around at the dumbstruck faces of the water cultivators around him. Liang Daiyu seemed to recover first.

“Two dozen? In how many years?”

“At this point, six or seven I guess.”

Liang Daiyu’s mouth worked a few times without any noises coming out. Chan Yu Ming was staring at him like he’d casually announced that he was going to break through to the nascent soul stage in precisely three minutes and forty-seven seconds. The man who had originally answered his karma question broke the silence.

“You’re averaging three to four moments of true enlightenment per year?”

Sen found himself wishing that he’d asked other people a lot more questions about their experiences with enlightenment. It had just never occurred to him to ask about how often they’d had them. Still, he was already committed to answering. He nodded a little self-consciously.

“I am,” he said.

“How?” demanded Liang Daiyu.

“I’m on a plan.”

Confusion crossed the jade beauty’s face. “A...plan? What do you mean?”

Sen knew an opportunity when he saw it. “I just went to . They offer all these plans. They were running a sale, so I got the deluxe package. If you go, say that I referred you. Ten percent off.”

As everyone started shouting questions at him, Sen rubbed his mental hands together in greed. Ten more referrals and he’d get an enlightenment for free.

***

After nearly ten minutes of walking, Sen finally emerged from the tunnel into a brightly lit expanse of meticulously tended grass and flower gardens. For a moment, he thought he might be in the middle of another illusion, but a quick examination with his earth, wood, and water qi revealed that where he was standing, it was all quite real. Sen found himself glad that he hadn’t simply tried to fly over the wall. He was willing to bet that there was some kind of deeply unpleasant surprise waiting for any water cultivator that thought they could skip over the work of finding their way through the door. After taking a moment to examine his surroundings, the alchemist in Sen started frothing at the mouth in naked greed. Nearly everything in the gardens was useful in alchemy in one way or another, assuming you needed water-attributed ingredients. Sen’s hands twitched toward a flower before he stilled them. He wasn’t there to steal from this sect. He was there to see the spring.

That good intention lasted for almost ten minutes before he came across an incredibly powerful water-attributed sparkling dew flower. Sen stared at it, then down at his storage ring. Then he looked around at all of the alchemical resources that abounded around him.

“On second thought,” said Sen, “I’m going to rob these people blind.”

***

Sen rolled his eyes and gave serious thought to going and yelling at Chan Yu Ming. Then, he thought about it a little harder. There was no upside to going back and yelling at her. It likely wouldn’t change anything. At best, she’d probably just follow them more discreetly. Plus, even if he knew she was following him, and she knew she was following him, he couldn’t actually tell her not to travel in the same direction as them. So, all a confrontation would accomplish would be that he got to yell at someone. That sounded like a terrible use of his time and energy. So, he shrugged.

“That’s her business. It’s not an us problem unless she makes it one.”

“You really don’t care that she’s following you?” asked Lo Meifeng with a troubled expression. “And, let’s be clear here, it’s you she’s following around, not us.”

“Of course, I care that she’s following us around,” said Sen. “But what do you suggest I do about it?”

Lo Meifeng immediately opened her mouth and then hesitated. Then, she frowned. “Oh.”

“Yeah, you see my problem. There’s basically nothing I can do to make her stop, other than killing her. Do you think I should kill her, Lo Meifeng?”

Lo Meifeng sat in thoughtful silence for a moment before she nodded. “Yes.”

“What? Why?” demanded Sen.

“I don’t know. I just have this feeling that she’s going to be more trouble than she’s worth. We already have Shi Ping for that.”

“I’m sitting right here,” said Shi Ping.

“I know,” said Lo Meifeng. “So irritating.”

Sen just stared at Lo Meifeng for a second before he said, “So, you want me to kill her because she might be irritating later.”

The woman was shaking, and Sen didn’t think that it had anything to do with the residual poison. He gave her a smile that would offer no comfort.

“You can just nod,” he said.

The woman’s head started bobbing up and down so fast that it looked almost comical. Sen stood up and walked over to the edge of the roof. As he was getting ready to make the leap back to ground level, the woman worked up the nerve to speak.

“Who are you? Who are you really?”

Sen paused. He’d been resisting it for a while, but the world had a way of making you do things you didn’t want to do, become things you didn’t want to become. Sen decided this was just one more of those things. However much he tried to resist it, he kept finding himself drawn into situations that called for him to be something, if not precisely better, than more than Lu Sen could be on his own. He kept needing to be the kind of larger-than-life person that only existed in a story. He supposed that it was convenient that he had just such a story right at hand. It wasn’t really relevant that he was learning to hate that persona as much as he hated killing. It was the need of the moment.

“I am Bat-,” Sen cut himself off and looked around with a deeply suspicious expression before continuing. “I am a generic and wholly uncopyrighted cowled vigilante.”

Sen immediately started looking around again.

“What are you looking for?” asked the completely baffled woman.

“The most dangerous enemy of all. Intellectual property lawyers.”

***

“I didn’t bring you here to talk to me. I brought you here to listen,” said Sen. “Your honorable king is going to explain to you why I’m here. Why he was going to trade Chan Yu Ming to the Choi family. He’s going to tell you everything. Isn’t that right, your majesty?”

When the king didn’t say anything, Sen unleashed a little more of his killing intent. The king flinched and then cried out.

“Yes! I’ll tell them.”

“Excellent. Face them. Look them in the eyes while you tell them what you traded away your honor for. What you were willing to sell your daughter to keep secret.”

The king slowly pushed himself up off the floor. He stared up at Sen with a naked plea for mercy in his eyes. Sen looked back at the man with nothing but cold resolve on his face. Not finding what he wanted in Sen, the king turned to face his family. He opened his mouth and froze, feeling the point of a blade on the back of his neck.

“If you lie,” said Sen, “I will make you suffer in ways you cannot imagine.”

Sen heard the king swallow. Then, the king started speaking in a halting burst.

“I...I served red wine with fish.”

Looks of abject horror crossed the faces of the royal family. The queen’s face remained stoic, but she paled at this revelation.

“Go on,” said Sen.

“I play games on my phone instead of paying attention during meetings.”

“Father!” cried Chan Yu Ming.

“Tell them the worst thing,” ordered Sen. “Be specific.”

A look of pure and well-deserved shame crossed the king’s face. “I cut in line at the amusement park.”

Sen just shook his head. “Despicable.”

Unable to restrain his fury at the king’s deplorable behaviors, Prince Jing summoned forth the greatest punishment of all. Storming over to his father, the prince dropped the links of the chain around his father’s neck.

“Guards!” shouted the prince.

Guards marched into the room. Jing pointed at that former king.

“Take that thing away and cast it out of the palace.”

Sen didn’t quite know what to make of the happenings, so he turned to the prince. “I don’t get it. What’s a big red letter U mean?”

“Unworthy.”