Book 7: Chapter 37: I Am Begging You

Book 7: Chapter 37: I Am Begging You

“She’s really yours, isn’t she?” asked Shen Mingxia.

Sen looked at her briefly before returning his attention to Liu Ai and Li Zhi. The girls were running around outside the galehouse he had erected adjacent to the practice hall. While he didn’t think any spirit beast would be stupid enough to try to snatch one of them with him looming nearby, he wasn’t about to take any chances with their lives. Not that he’d let them stay outside too long. He had the sense that the winter weather was drawing to a close, but it wasn’t done with them yet. Even if he could stand outside in it without worry, he was keenly aware of how fragile those small lives were.

“What makes you ask that?”

Instead of answering, she just stood next to him and observed the girls’ free-spirited play. “It’s the way you watch over her. It’s obvious. Even when you aren’t looking at her, you always know where she is. Then, there’s—”

Sen lifted an eyebrow at her. “I know why you think it. I’m curious what made you ask. Simple curiosity? Orders from Wu Meng Yao? Reconnaissance for your sect?”

Shen Mingxia’s expression tightened for a moment before she sighed. “Wu Meng Yao is, how to put it, aware that you prefer my company to hers. But she hasn’t asked me to try to get information out of you.”

“Gods, I hope she doesn’t think that you’ll somehow charm me into liking the Soaring Skies Sect with a nice smile.”

“Nothing so pointless,” said Shen Mingxia, flashing that nice smile at him. “I think she might be hoping that I’ll charm you into liking her a little better.”

“I like Wu Meng Yao just fine. I always liked her. If all she wanted was to be my friend, everything would be fine. It’s her intentions I find problematic.”

“You say that like her intentions are evil.”

Sen laughed a little at that. “I know they aren’t evil. They’re just misguided.”

“You know she’s not a bad person. You don’t need to humiliate her with this made-up mission. You could give her something real to do. Are you honestly telling me that there’s nothing you can think of that she could do for you? She’s not some nobody foundation formation cultivator like me. She’s a core cultivator.”

Sen bit back an angry reply. They’d been talking around the problem for the last month, but this was the first time either of them had directly addressed it. Plus, that word, humiliate, had given him pause. He hadn’t thought about it in quite that way. Sen definitely wanted to aggravate Wu Meng Yao enough that she’d give up on her ridiculous ideas about balancing the scales between them and go home. Still, he questioned if the imaginary task he’d handed out would really end in some kind of shame. Yeah, he admitted to himself, it would be humiliating. Not scar her for life humiliation, but it would still leave a wound. He had to give Shen Mingxia some credit for standing up to him. To describe the difference in their cultivation as stark would be radically understating things. By calling him out about what he’d planned, she wasn’t risking simply annoying him. She was risking death. At least, that’s what she’d be doing if she was dealing with some sect core cultivator. She probably suspected that he wouldn’t do something terrible to her, but those were shaky grounds to take a risk on. Especially when you were taking a risk on someone else’s behalf.

“Don’t sell foundation formation short,” chided Sen. “Some of the things I’m famous for happened when I was a foundation formation cultivator.”

“I’m aware. I was there for one of those of things,” said Shen Mingxia. “The difference is that I am not you.”

“I assure you that’s a blessing. And just what would you suggest I have Wu Meng Yao do? I could have her run more errands like that trip to the capital to buy weapons and deliver messages. How many more of those do you think it’d take before she felt like she’d done enough?”

Shen Mingxia grimaced. “A lot more.”

“That was my thinking as well.”

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“Let her join your sect,” said an exasperated Shen Mingxia, “for a while anyway. Say she’s a visiting elder who’s here to teach.”

“But you had vast experience in training mortals and setting up a system for them to defend their town from spirit beasts?”

“Does it matter that I just don’t want to?”

“Sure. If you don’t want to, don’t do it. Just understand that people are people, cultivators or not. If you say no all the time, it will discourage some, but it will make others even more determined.”

“Great,” muttered Sen with zero enthusiasm.

Shen Mingxia laughed. “Okay. I had my say. I won’t bother you about this anymore.”

“Ever?” asked Sen with a lot more enthusiasm.

She gave him another of those nice smiles and said, “Today.”

Sen gave her a sour look before his head turned to the north, and he grunted to himself. Shen Mingxia gave him a questioning look. He held up a hand to keep her from asking anything immediately.

“Ai! Zhi! It’s time to go inside!”

The girls gave him the pouty looks that sometimes made him relent, but Sen just waved them over. They took a little longer than was necessary, but they came over. He squatted down so he wasn’t towering over them.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

Both girls grew visibly happier at that question and nodded.

“Okay, well, you should head inside because I’m going to make us all something really delicious soon. Plus, we’ll even have a special guest with us.”

“Who?” asked Ai with curiosity burning in her eyes. “Is it Auntie Mingxia?”

“She’s certainly welcome to join us, but that isn’t who I meant. I meant her,” said Sen as he pointed.

Fu Ruolan stepped out of the forest and glanced around. She gave Mingxia a cool, neutral look before she directed a bright smile at Ai.

“Auntie Ru!” squealed Ai, rushing over to tackle the nascent soul cultivator’s leg in a hug.

Zhi had walked in Ai’s wake but seemed more hesitant. That hesitance vanished when Fu Ruolan snuck the children some small candies that she’d gotten somewhere. Sen studiously pretended not to see it happening. Sen noticed Shen Mingxia trembling, pale-faced, and silently mouthing the words Auntie Ru.

“You feeling okay?” asked Sen.

“No warning that a nascent soul cultivator was about to descend on us? You really are an ass, sometimes,” growled Shen Mingxia.