Unintended Cultivator
Book 11: Chapter 22: In The North

Sua Xing Xing lingered near the edge of the training field and watched as the students drilled forms, sparred, and learned. Honestly, it made her feel like her own former sect had rather shortchanged their outer disciples on that front. She certainly hadn’t been receiving direct instruction from core formation cultivators when she’d been an outer disciple. Nor had her teachers been quite so talented. It honestly boggled her mind that Lu Sen had been able to recruit them.

Especially that He Jietang. The man was almost freakishly talented if you put a weapon in his hand. He was even a good teacher. The man was like some legendary saint of patience when it came to the outer disciples. He would take hours to help someone master a new technique. At least, he would if they were putting in a real effort. He was even patient with the mortals. She’d seen him volunteer to help with their training from time to time. When she’d asked him why he did that, the man had shrugged and said, “I was hired to teach.”

It was why she extended him so much latitude over his other faults. He was dismissive of the other teachers. It was never anything overt. He never said a bad word about anyone to anyone, but it was in his eyes. He thought the rest of the weapon instructors were incompetent. A fact that had not been lost on them. She’d gotten more than one complaint about the man, except no one could actually come up with anything insulting that he’d done. That had allowed her to dismiss their complaints. However, she worried it was only a matter of time until someone challenged the man to a duel.

She dreaded that day. On the one hand, she worried he would accept the challenge and kill whatever idiot had demanded the duel. That would deprive the sect of a valuable resource that would almost certainly prove difficult, if not impossible, to replace. At a different sect, it might even require retribution. Thank the heavens that Lu Sen’s guiding principles for the sect were less bloodthirsty than most. It would give her more than enough room to squash any of that kind of talk.

On the other hand, she worried he wouldn’t accept the challenge. He wasn’t obligated to duel anyone. Technically. That didn’t mean that whoever it was would let it go. She had visions of people petitioning her to make the man accept their challenges. She was acting sect head, so they might think she could order the man to duel them. The problem was that He Jietang wasn’t actually a member of the sect. He was a guest elder, at best, and a hired teacher in practice. She couldn’t make him fight if he didn’t want to, but it would also make her look weak. And she could not afford to look weak in Lu Sen’s absence.

Then, there was the drinking. It didn’t happen often, but there had been occasional comments about the man drinking enough liquor to kill a herd of oxen. Those same comments were almost always accompanied by reports of screaming coming from the man’s quarters. It hadn’t been hard to put the pieces together. Every sect had stories of cultivators who simply couldn’t bear the weight of time, their pasts, or both. Sua Xing Xing had her moments of doubt along the way, but she’d ultimately decided that the potential prize was worth the cost. It seemed that He Jietang had not managed to reach a similar accommodation. She felt some sympathy for the man but didn’t dare to show it.

It had been plain to her that Judgment’s Gale did not recognize the vast shadow he cast. It wasn’t just his power, although that was enough to chill her blood at times. There was something utterly unyielding inside of him. She knew he had his own doubts. He had told her as much. Yet, it never showed in moments of crisis. It was like those doubts were an illusion painted over steel. It was that nature which let him command so effortlessly. It was a nature she didn’t share, but had to somehow project if she wanted to maintain even a semblance of control over the ever-growing sect and city.

Everyone looked to her and, she knew, even the tiniest crack in her façade would lead to a challenge for leadership. She couldn’t allow that for so many reasons, not the least of which was the bloodbath that would occur when Lu Sen returned. He had made his wishes known. If he discovered someone other than her leading the sect, she expected that person and everyone in their faction would die. And they would not die well. Part of her marveled at the shortsightedness of the other elders of the sect. Sen hadn’t been gone that long, and a few of them had tried to fall back into the habits of their old sects. She’d yanked the leash on some of them. Long Jia Wei or that pack of ravening wolves he called disciples had done it for the rest. Still, it was cause for concern.

She also understood how fragile the survival of humanity really was. That meant that she had to do everything she could to prevent the loss of more human lives, be they cultivators or mortals. To that end, she did her best to emulate Lu Sen’s attitude and execute similarly ruthless choices when necessary. Better to make one example now than to be forced to make a hundred examples later. At least, that was what Long Jia Wei had recommended to her. She’d been a little hesitant to take those steps until the terrifying assassin had given her several examples of Judgment’s Gale doing far, far more terrible things for similar reasons. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure how long she could maintain the illusion.

She could act the way he did and make choices like she thought he would, but she wasn’t him. It often seemed like the only reason she had held her position as long as she had was because word had spread that Lu Sen had gone off to the capital and seized control of the kingdom. It had sounded absurd when he’d first mentioned the mad plans of Fate’s Razor and the Living Spear. She’d never imagined for a moment that he’d actually succeed. Surely, the powerful sects there would oppose him. Except, they hadn’t. By all accounts, they had fallen in behind him without a word of protest.

She was sure that there was a lot more to the story than that, but that was the way the story had spread. Even if it was questionably authentic, that tale had done much to make her seem less like a choice of necessity and more like an anointed one. Except, she didn’t feel like an anointed one. She was keenly aware of the almost insurmountable gulf of power between herself and any nascent soul cultivator. A gulf that was always drawn in stark relief whenever she was forced to deal with either Fu Ruolan or Alchemy’s Handmaiden. Both of those women terrified her.

Their power was a palpable, almost physical presence in the room. Sen might be able to casually ignore that power and trade glib comments with them, but she couldn’t. She was neither a cherished student nor an adopted family member. She was a placeholder for someone they both liked much better, and that was exactly what she felt like. A placeholder. A subpar replacement elevated above her power and ability in a time when true strength and clear vision were required. Even in saner times, her current position would have been overwhelming. The demands on a sect head were staggering.

She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d slept. She’d actually found poor Chen Lei leaning against a wall, fast asleep, on three separate occasions. The woman Sen had chosen as her assistant was capable, but Sua Xing Xing needed three more just like her. Of course, selecting people for that role was problematic. Being her assistant would give someone access to a lot of information and soft authority. She didn’t trust her own judgment in picking someone. She could only picture the disaster that would ensue if she chose wrong. Nor would she dare to let someone else do it, knowing as she did that more than one elder would love to have someone close enough to report back to them. So, she kept putting it off even though she knew she shouldn’t.

“I bet Lu Sen wouldn’t put it off,” she told herself in a chiding tone.

“Put off what?”

It took every last shred of self-control Sua Xing Xing had not to jump at the unexpected voice. She took a moment to compose herself before turning to look at Long Jia Wei. His face held the same blandly neutral expression it always did when he spoke to her. He probably thought it was disarming, but she found it unnerving. The man would seem far less like someone who might slit her throat at a moment’s notice if the occasional emotion showed on his face. The fact that he’d only gotten better at masking his presence did nothing to reassure her.

Not that she felt right about doubting him. He was unfailingly loyal to Sen and had seemingly extended that loyalty to her. It was just difficult to like or trust someone she knew would kill her without hesitation if Judgment’s Gale ever asked him to. She did her best to push those ideas away before she spoke.

“Nothing important. I’ve just been procrastinating.”

Long Jia Wei considered her for a moment before he said, “Lord Lu often puts off things he doesn’t wish to do.”

She studied the man while she tried to decide how to react to that revelation. It hadn’t come off as a criticism, just an observation. One that, unless she was deeply mistaken, was intended to make her feel better.

“I didn’t know that,” admitted Sua Xing Xing.

“He’s always so busy that it isn’t a challenge for him to come up with plausible-sounding reasons not to do those things. That doesn’t mean he isn’t putting them off on purpose.”

She didn’t know why the assassin was trying to ease her conscience, but it was working. She felt a little burst of gratitude toward the man. Even so, his very presence likely meant that something was happening that she needed to know about. She made a point to give him a nod before she spoke.

“What’s happened?”

“There are more refugees approaching,” he told her.

“That’s nothing new.”

Refugees had become a normal part of life in the sect and the town, even if their numbers had dwindled in recent months.

“These refugees are coming from the north and in substantial numbers.”

“From the north,” murmured Sua Xing Xing.

There wasn’t much to the north other than Mt. Solace. She knew that there was a minor city at the base of the mountain, but she’d half-assumed that the place had been destroyed long ago. A small part of her had even seen that as something of a benefit. The city had a reputation as a haven for those who found it difficult to live in either mortal society or the sects. She was not thrilled at the idea of offering sanctuary to people who were all too likely to become criminals. She tried to imagine what Sen would do. Well, he’d likely go out there, unleash that monstrous killing intent of his to make a point, and then tell everyone to follow the rules or else.

It made her wish that she’d worked harder to develop her own killing intent. However, she doubted that she could have formed one as threatening and overbearing as his, even if she’d spent her every waking moment as a cultivator on it. There was no accounting for genius. She’d just have to find some alternative to cow these newcomers.

“Let’s go say hello,” she grumbled.