Once they clear of the congestion around the city gates, Sen had recalled a trick he’d used once long ago to speed up a cart. He used his qi in a modified qinggong technique on the wheels of the carts and wagons, as well as the hooves of the oxen pulling them, to reduce the overall load and increase their speed. It wasn’t until they’d gone a few miles that the stark contrast between his power now and his power all those years ago really struck him. Doing that for one cart and one ox had been a challenge for him then. Now, he was doing it for an entire caravan and it was little more than a background concern in his head. Cultivators really do have too much power, he thought. No wonder the world makes them ascend when they reach a certain level.
He glanced into the back of the wagon he riding in and hid an embarrassed wince. Glimmer of Night was sitting there, serenely watching the countryside and ever-thinning signs of civilization fly by. There had been so much going on that Sen might have left the spider behind if Long Jia Wei hadn’t reminded him that the spider had come along. It made Sen wonder why he had joined them for the trip in the first place. He’d thought it was so the spider could learn more about interacting with humans, but Glimmer of Night had kept himself holed up in that same little room for the duration. Not that Sen had any room to really complain. He’d done similar things during advancements or when pursuing new alchemical ideas. And it wasn’t as though Glimmer of Night had been a nuisance to anyone. Aside from people leaving food outside the room for him, he hadn’t added to anyone’s workload.
Shen Mingxia was also in the back of the wagon. Her eyes were closed and she wore an expression of concentration, so he assumed she was cultivating. After the incident with that idiot ambassador, he’d let her bow out of any additional events. Getting experience was one thing, but he didn’t bring her along to put her in actual danger. She’d seemed both relieved and a tiny bit disappointed. Sen had been curious about that disappointment but didn’t ask. It wasn’t really his business why she felt a given way about anything. He let his eyes drift over the rest of the carts and wagons and sighed.
I’m going to have to make some new buildings when we get back, he thought. There wasn’t going to be enough space for everyone, and he intended to keep the children a little separated from the rest of the people at the academy. Some of that was purely practical. Having Ai wandering around anywhere she wanted to go was one thing. Having a couple dozen mortal children wandering around at will would inevitably result in problems. The last thing he wanted was for one of them to get hurt because they stumbled into the wrong area while some cultivator was practicing something dangerous. He might be rewriting all of their futures, but he wasn’t going to intentionally create a situation where they could die. Not that I imagine they would appreciate that consideration, thought Sen.
The other part was that he didn’t want the children getting the idea into their heads that they would ever be anything but peasants. He could almost feel a much younger version of himself glaring at him for even having that thought. On the surface, it was such an arrogant noble thing to think. He had hated nobles so much for acting on thoughts like that. For pushing people down just because they could. Now, he was the one stepping on other people’s necks just because he could. Except, it wasn’t just because he could. He had a longer view of things now. He recognized threats in a different way than he once had. He shook off the thoughts. He’d gone around and around with it and there just wasn’t going to be a perfect solution.
People were people. People held grudges, especially when you took things away from them, and he had taken everything from the Xie family. Nothing was ever going to change that fact. No amount of wishful thinking about people’s better natures would change that reality or the consequences. That meant that no Xie child would ever learn how to properly wield a weapon. No Xie child would ever become a cultivator. It would simply be too dangerous otherwise. Maybe not to him personally, but it would be too dangerous to Ai. Unless she becomes a cultivator, whispered a traitorous voice in his head. Sen knew it was a possibility, but it made him want to scream every time he thought about Ai enduring the kinds of things that he had endured.
He pushed the thought away. That was a problem for the future. He had right now concerns to occupy him. Sen had made sure that they hired some people with experience in this kind of travel. One of the things he’d talked with them about was the problem of setting up camp. Specifically, how long it would take to do it, and how long it took to prepare food for this many people. Since they were dealing with so many mortals, and so many children, the advice he’d gotten was to stop when they had several hours of daylight left. Even with his quiet help to speed things along, this first day had given him a better sense of how long it was going to take to actually get home. He sighed. Weeks. It was going to take weeks. He’d already known that, deep down in his heart where truths he hated went to live, but he’d hoped that it wouldn’t be the case. Resigning himself, he called a halt.
He’d intentionally picked a spot between towns and villages to discourage any of the children from wandering too far. He was going to be very annoyed if he had to track down children who ran away. While the wilds here weren’t very wild, most mortal children held a deep, abiding fear of them. They didn’t know or need to know that Sen had already frightened away anything within a few miles that might pose a threat. Time to get to work, thought Sen. He needed to clear enough space for them to set up camp. He called over one of the experienced caravaneers and they talked it over for a minute.
Once Sen had a clear picture of how much room they’d need, almost twice as much as he would have thought, he started to cycle qi. After a brief pause to consider, he lifted himself up into the air high enough for everyone to see him. Everyone watched for the next few minutes as he used multiple types of qi to rip trees out of the ground, split and dry the wood, smooth the earth, and cause a healthy layer of grass to grow. Two relatively small stone structures rose out of the ground over a deep pit in the ground. With so many people, he figured everyone would appreciate a little privacy to relieve themselves.
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The caravaneers went to work immediately, staking out an area for cooking and providing advice about how to organize the rest of the camp. Sen stood back while all of that was going on and waited. It didn’t take long before he heard what he expected to hear. Angry child voices making truculent protests. He drifted in that direction and watched as he saw what he’d expected to see. The Xie children were in a cluster, most of them huddled behind a few of the older ones. The ringleader was a boy who looked like he was about to enjoy the pleasures of puberty. His fists were clenched. His chest was puffed out. The boy even had his unfortunately large chin thrust forward, as though he meant to use it like a battering ram against the exasperated woman he was facing off against.
“We will not!” shouted the boy.
“You won’t what?” asked Long Jia Wei.
“We will not be forced to labor.”
“Labor?” asked Long Jia Wei.
“They were tasked with setting up their own tents,” said the woman.
“I see,” said Long Jia Wei, stroking his chin. “Very well.”
“I hate you!” the boy shouted.
Sen waited a moment as if he expected the boy to say something else. When nothing more was forthcoming, he finally answered.
“And?” asked Sen, as if the boy’s hatred was so inconsequential that it couldn’t possibly have been the entire reason he’d shouted.
The boy turned as if to run away and pout somewhere only to come up short as he realized that there was nowhere to run away to. He just stood there with his back turned. Sen let his eyes roam over the rest of the children.
“If the rest of you want to eat, you will go with this nice woman and do as she tells you.”
The children shuffled back and forth, more than one of them casting a nervous glance at the boy who had set all of this in motion. One of the other children, a girl who looked to be of an age with the shouty boy, started herding the children toward the woman. She tried to glare at Sen, but her heart wasn’t really in it. Maybe she realized the futility of it. Maybe she was just more accepting of the new reality. Maybe she just wanted to eat. The woman led the children away to start setting up their tents. Sen didn’t actually expect the children to set up their own tents. He just wanted to start getting them into the habit of contributing in some meaningful way. When only the boy remained, Sen fixed his gaze on the back of the boy’s head.
“Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I won’t stop you from starving yourself if you wish to do so. However, if you were imagining that you’d just steal some food from one of those other children, or get one of them to bring you food, or thinking that you’d punish them for defying you, bury those ideas. If you try it, I will have you beaten in front of this entire camp. If you try to take food from one of the carts or wagons, I will... What do nobles do to peasants who steal from them?” Sen asked Long Jia Wei.
“It depends,” said Long Jia Wei in a bored, detached tone. “Sometimes, they have the peasant executed. Sometimes imprisoned, which isn’t practical out here. Oh, I heard of one noble who would cut off one of the thief’s hands.”
The boy spun to look at Sen and Long Jia Wei with unbridled terror on his face.
“I suppose we should reserve execution for adults,” said Sen. “So, I expect removing a hand is the way to go.”
The boy looked from them down to his hands, which started shaking, before he ran after the rest of the children. Sen watched him go and took deep breaths to try to keep his feeling of self-loathing and being violently nauseated at bay. Now, I’m the kind of person who threatens a child with mutilation, thought Sen. Grandmother Lu was right. I’ve come a long way. I just wish I knew what I’d come a long way toward. Even though he’d expected it to come down to something like this, actually going through with it had almost been too much for him.
“It had to be done,” said Long Jia Wei.
“Did it?” demanded Sen.
He was angry, mostly at himself, and wanted to lash out at someone or something.
“Yes,” answered Long Jia Wei. “It was ugly, but what were the alternatives? Let it go until you had no choice but to do something to him? Frightening that boy now was infinitely better than actually having to beat him, or cripple him, or kill him later.”
Sen rubbed his face with his hands and said, “What a broken world we live in.”