Unintended Cultivator

Sen was relieved that there were no more incidents with the children that demanded his personal intervention. In fact, for the most part, the children simply did as they were told. He supposed that the upheaval had probably sapped some of their will to be imperious. That didn’t mean he didn’t hear them crying at night, or the soft comforting words that the older children whispered to them. He also heard a few vows of vengeance being muttered among the boys. He could have not listened. He’d learned how to tamp down his heightened senses, but he didn’t give himself that luxury. This situation was one of his own making, and he wasn’t going to simply turn a deaf ear to the results of that. For the most part, though, things ran about as smoothly as moving that many people and so many goods across that much territory could go. At least, that’s what the caravaneers told him when he grew frustrated at yet another delay to repair something that broke on one of the wagons.

He found solace in spending time with the oxen when they weren’t pulling the wagons and carts. They were almost always calm, even if they did get a bit excited whenever he first came over. They never yelled a him, or asked him for anything, or vowed to cut off his head, as the large-chinned Xie boy had done when he thought Sen couldn’t hear him. The oxen were a placid lake of friendliness in the midst of the chaos that consumed the caravan every morning and afternoon. He even found one of the Xie children hovering around the oxen one evening. She was staring at them with a mix of curiosity and trepidation. Sen supposed that she’d probably never been that close to a work animal before, let alone interacted with any of them.

Just walk away, he told himself. She’ll figure it out or she won’t. Sen had asked the oxen to be careful around the children, so he wasn’t worried that they would do anything calamitous if one of the children approached them. Despite telling himself to just leave, he found himself watching as the girl took a hesitant step forward, only to scurry back as soon as one of the oxen moved. It was almost agonizing watching her indecision at work. When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he walked over to the girl, shaking his head at his own weakness. The girl was so fixated on the large animals in front of her that it took a little while to register that someone was standing next to her.

She peered up at him, recognized him, and fell over while simultaneously trying to bow and back away. I guess I had that coming, thought Sen. He just held out a hand to the girl. She stared at it fearfully before, seeming almost too afraid not to, grabbing it. He gently pulled her upright again. She shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncertain what to do.

“They won’t hurt you,” he said.

He never quite looked at her, intuiting that direct eye contact was likely to make things worse than better. She shuffled a little more as her gaze shifted back and forth between him and the objects of her curiosity. As if to prove his point, he went over to the nearest ox and rested his hand on the animal’s head. It let out a soft moo of greeting. He half-turned his head toward the girl.

“As I said, they won’t hurt you.”

The little girl stared at him and the ox for a while. She chewed her lip in a way that Sen refused to let himself think was adorable. She finally mustered up her courage and walked forward. She reached out a cautious hand and, almost too fast to count, touched the side of the ox before pulling her hand back. She cast a look at Sen as if asking if it was okay. She took his silence as permission before reaching out and petting the ox. The ox turned its head to look back at the girl. Her eyes went comically wide as she snatched her hand away. The ox let out a gentle moo, which made the girl giggle. Having apparently come to some decision in her head, the girl happily started petting the ox again. Well, maybe this one isn’t hopeless, said Sen. If she likes the ox, she can’t possibly be rotten to the core. Sen waited a few minutes until he was confident that she was confident before he turned and walked away. He could feel the girl’s eyes on him. He paused and half-looked over his shoulder.

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“Yes?” he asked to whatever question she clearly wasn’t going to work up the nerve to ask.

“Um… I… Um… How did you know?”

“How did I know what?” he asked.

“That they wouldn’t hurt me,” she said in a voice that grew increasingly hesitant.

“Because they’re kind,” he told her and walked away.

It seemed that she must have believed him because he found her petting the oxen and talking to them almost every day after that. They didn’t answer her but talking wasn’t their strong suit. They were very good listeners, though, which he suspected was what the girl really needed. He did need to hurry away with his hand over his mouth to suppress his laughter the time he saw her awkwardly trying to wrap her little arms around the neck of an enormously patient ox that lowered its head to make it easier for her. He made a point to give that ox an apple after the girl left. Sometimes, she saw him and would hesitantly wave. He’d find his own hand lift in acknowledgment. It was an act of pure betrayal on the part of his body, and he struggled to understand where such traitorous impulses could come from.

As they drew nearer to their destination one infuriatingly slow mile at a time, Sen found his impatience growing with every familiar landmark. They were close enough now that he could simply leave and be home before nightfall if he pushed his qinggong technique hard. He wanted to do it. There were plenty of people here who could and would defend the caravan. Only a vague, aggravating sense of responsibility kept him in place. He’d finally made a deal with himself when the urge to go grew so strong that he was standing up to do it. When they were a day away, he would go because preparations would need to be made. He’d have to erect those buildings so people had somewhere to sleep if nothing else. He’d talked over the plans for the buildings with Glimmer of Night, who seemed to think that the roofs wouldn’t be a problem with so many sturdy walls supporting them.

He was thinking about those buildings when He Jietang came walking out of the trees by the side of the road and jumped into the back of Sen’s wagon. The man looked both better and worse. He’d abstained from drinking on the trip, which had seemed to help the man’s overall health. At the same time, there was a haunted quality to the man that never seemed to fade. As if he was constantly seeing specters no matter where he looked.

“Bandits up ahead,” said the man. “I wasn’t sure how you wanted it handled. With so many children here, I mean.”

Sen let his spiritual sense sweep down the road. There were bandits hiding in the trees to either side of the road. Sen called a halt and jumped down from the wagon. He started trudging down the road. He Jietang traded a look with Long Jia Wei before he jumped down and jogged a little to catch up.

“I can do it,” said the man.

“That’s not what I hired you for,” said Sen.

He Jietang gave Sen a startled look.

“It might not be what you hired me for, but I’m no shirker.”

“I never said you were, but there’s no reason for you to do it. I just want to make sure there isn’t a mess for the children to see.”

When Sen and He Jietang were standing right around where the caravan would be when the bandits sprang the trap, they stopped walking. Sen very pointedly looked at one side of the road, then the other. He pinpointed where all of the bandits were, cycled up wind qi, and let out a breath. Wind blades descended on the bandits. There were no screams. No agonized wails. Just the muted sound of bodies, or parts of bodies, hitting the ground out in the trees. Sen looked around and used earth qi to open the soil and swallow the evidence. Satisfied that he wasn’t about to bring the children past a fresh horror, Sen turned around and started to walk back to the caravan. He Jietang eyed him as they walked.

“What?” asked Sen in a tired voice.

“I thought you might give them a chance to leave.”

“No. I never let bandits go.”

“Why?”

“Because attacking a caravan this large couldn’t have been done without bloodshed, which meant they were ready to kill men, women, and children. There might be some mercy left in me but not for people like that.”

“I’m starting to see why Chan Dishi likes you,” said He Jietang.

“Oh?” asked Sen. “Why is that?”

“He likes two things. Decisiveness and honorable people.”

“I don’t know anything about honor,” said Sen.

“Says the man who just killed a bunch of bandits to protect people, and then cleaned up the mess so those children wouldn’t have to look at it. What do you imagine honor is?”

Sen opened his mouth to refute the point and came up empty. Maybe real honor was as simple as that. Sen doubted it, but what did he know?

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