Unintended Cultivator-Chapter 36Book 10: : Setting a Tone
When Sen descended in front of the palace bathed in that furious glow, it was difficult to repress his frustrations. He hadn’t wanted to announce himself this way. He’d come to make sure that something wasn’t wrong at the palace. If things had gone a little bit right, he could have maybe spoken to Jing privately and gotten a sense of what the functionally displaced king thought of all of this. Then, he could have snuck away and returned to Lu Manor to get at least brief updates about the state of affairs from Grandmother Lu and Lo Meifeng. Instead of all those useful and potentially helpful conversations he’d planned to have, he was instead greeted by a collection of nobles and powerful cultivators. Most of them were staring at him with identical, carefully controlled, blank expressions.
The ones who weren’t looking at him that way stared with open hostility. He would have liked to think that he could simply dismiss them and most of the problems would disappear, but all he’d really do is get rid of the least skillful of his potential enemies. The smart ones were masking their true feelings as much as he was masking his aggravation at the grandiose display of light that still hadn’t ended. It was only after his feet came in contact with the ground again that the light finally faded. While most of the cultivators seemed fine, he could see most of the mortals blinking rapidly or rubbing at their eyes. He waited patiently for them to regain normal vision and took those few moments to evaluate the people before him.
There was Jing, desperately trying not to squint or blink too much. Sen supposed the man had to keep up the appearance of the position. Always cool, collected, and fundamentally in control of himself and the situation. He noted some nobles, a few that he recognized from one-on-one interactions he’d had on previous visits to the capital. He saw that Fong Huifen and her servant, Quon, were in attendance. She met his gaze and offered him a small bow while flicking her eyes in the direction of a man Sen didn’t know. I guess she’s decided which side she’s going to take, thought Sen. He inclined his head a little and glanced at the man. He was a man of middling years with gray in his short goatee and at his temples. He carried himself with the sneering arrogance of someone who thought they were much, much better than they actually were. Yeah, he's going to be a problem, thought Sen.
He saw members of several sects, including a representative from the Golden Phoenix Sect, but no one he knew on sight. There had been a few in that group who did nothing to hide their disdain for him. There was one woman who hadn’t stopped glaring at him from the second he noticed her. She was a nascent soul cultivator if just barely. Maybe even newly advanced. She’ll be the one, he thought tiredly. There’s always one. The mortals in the group finally seemed to have cleared their eyes from the glow because Jing took a step forward. He offered Sen a small bow.
“I greet you, Lu Sen.”
“I greet you, Zhang Jing,” said Sen inclining his head.
Some of the mortals stiffened at that. It was how a superior acknowledged a lesser, not how a subject acknowledged their king. The truth was that it made Sen unbelievably uncomfortable. He was not so far removed from the mortal street rat he’d been that it was easy to act superior to the king. Auntie Caihong had been extremely firm in her instructions for this moment, though. He had to at least appear to be the absolute authority. That included everything from the words he spoke to his smallest gesture. This was not how he wanted to see his friend for the first time in years, but events had conspired against him yet again.
It was made worse by how worn Jing looked. The man seemed to have aged a decade. The smile lines around his mouth and the crow’s feet around his eyes had been thin, almost unnoticeable when last they’d met. Those lines were now trenches carved deep by stress and worry. He doubted that even a month of undisturbed sleep would do more than soften some of the wear that had ravaged the king’s face. Jing straightened and then silence descended. Sen had known this would happen. Everyone was waiting to see if they could pressure him into speaking, into revealing some weakness in his strength of will. So, he stood there, calmly, with an almost bored expression on his face. That had been another tip from Auntie Caihong.
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“Sen,” she’d said, her expression stern, “a ruler reveals their intentions only when they decide to reveal them. Never, ever let discomfort push you into speaking or acting. Make others react to you.”
It was something that she’d made him practice while giving him her most unsettling glare. When he’d finally learned how to withstand that, she’d sent him off to practice with Fu Ruolan. Sen hadn’t been especially keen on that plan. Fu Ruolan wasn’t someone he wanted glaring at him. It turned out that her hard looks were even worse than Auntie Caihong’s, somehow, but she’d thought the entire exercise was hilarious. Every time he’d cracked under the pressure, she’d pointed at him and howled with laughter. One time, she’d even done a little dance. That practice had been a misery, but it had proven itself very good training. Compared to Alchemy’s Handmaiden and a questionably sane nascent soul cultivator, these people just didn’t have what it took to shake him.
The silence stretched out for a full minute, and then to two minutes. Several of the mortals in the crowd were fidgeting. Sen noticed the faintest hint of a smile from Jing. Of course, the king understood what was happening. Sen supposed that was to be expected. Just to ramp up the appearance of his disinterest in their expectant eyes, he summoned an apple from a storage ring and loudly bit into it. He made a show of taking the next bite. It seemed that was more than at least one of the cultivators could bear. As he predicted, the glaring woman stepped forward. He met her blazing eyes with the same bland lack of concern he’d shown all along.
“What?” he asked. “Did you want one as well?”
He let the half-eaten apple drop from his hand like it had ceased to exist in his universe and summoned a fresh one. He held it out in the woman’s direction. Her furious expression was momentarily replaced by a confused one, only to come roaring back to life a second later.
“How dare you mock your betters?”
He answered with a nonchalant tone.
“Unless Fate’s Razor had hidden himself among you, I have no betters here. Now, whoever lost your leash should come and retrieve you before I grow tired of your petulant barking.”
He had considered suppressing her with his killing intent and auric imposition, but that was the wrong tool for this job. It didn’t send the right message or set the right tone. The woman’s face went beet red with rage. Her hand dropped to the dao at her waist.
“You insolent cur! I challenge—”
A moment like this had been inevitable. His exploits were legend to many, but legends were by nature shrouded in a mist of uncertainty. Too few people had seen him kill a nascent soul cultivator with their own eyes. Too many believed that those tales were exaggerations or even outright lies. Sen had even done his level best to downplay his accomplishments, in no small part because so many of the accomplishments were stained by blood. It wasn’t the legacy he wanted for himself, but what he wanted didn’t matter very much anymore. In the turbulent now, he needed someone to be stupid, and he needed people to see him deal with it. Immediately. Ruthlessly. Permanently.
Not that he was the only ruthless one in attendance. Every cultivator there had been waiting for someone to make the challenge. The smart ones were wise enough to accept that openly defying Feng Ming was not an option. However, there was nothing wrong with keeping a hotheaded cultivator around who had either suggested or openly stated that they thought Judgment’s Gale was a paper tiger. If that fool did something, they could hardly be blamed for what some other cultivator chose to do. The stupid ones were hoping it would be successful and that their world would go back to making sense again. Like that were somehow still possible with an army of spirit beasts preparing to destroy the city.
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Sen activated his improved qinggong technique. Stone exploded beneath his feet as he covered the distance. The woman never even got a chance to reach the next word. His jian followed a smooth arc across and then another back. He returned to where he’d started, used a quick application of wind qi, and slammed the loose rock and dust to the ground. The woman’s head fell from her shoulders, followed almost immediately by her torso separating from her legs at the waist. There were gasps, a lone shriek, and several sharp intakes of breath as the corpse collapsed and blood went everywhere.
Sen had resumed his bored expression and summoned another apple. He was about to bite into it before he feigned being startled.
“Oh, right. I accept your challenge,” he said to the dead cultivator.
Sen could see the astonishment on the faces of the mortals. He could see the horror on the faces of the cultivators. There were some core cultivators in the group, and it was clear that none of them had even seen him move. Of the small handful of nascent soul cultivators present, he’d be willing to bet that at least a few had glimpsed his movement, but none of them looked eager to issue their own challenges. Sen dragged out finishing his apple before he sighed contently, dropped the core, and looked around.
“Well,” he said, “shall we go inside? It’s gloomy out here with the clouds and the dead person.”
