Sen breathed in and out, his mind guiding the ever-more precise execution of his cultivation pattern. Yet, for all that he had improved on using it, and all the flaws he could sense but not yet identify, Sen understood that this pattern could only serve him for so long. It might, might last him until core formation, but it couldn’t last beyond that. It was only barely able to keep pace with the demands Sen put on his qi now. If he could continue making small improvements, it might keep pace for a while yet. Unlike when Sen had first started using this pattern and was grateful simply to get it to work, he could see now that it had been specifically designed for foundation formation cultivators and ones with smaller dantians and qi channels than Sen possessed. The problem was that he didn’t know where to get another one. He supposed that he could try to design one himself, but he remembered all too well the endless hours he had spent learning the patterns for the qi types he knew. It was work that required a certain level of isolation and, more importantly, safety, neither of which he expected to find much of in the near future.

That led him to wonder just where Master Feng had gotten the manual for the technique in the first place. Did he have piles of technique manuals just sitting in a cave somewhere, looted from some sect he or Uncle Kho had liberated from the burden of existing? Did he barter for it with someone? Sen would have to write and ask for some guidance. While his need for a new cycling technique wasn’t a pressing matter yet, it would become one all too soon. Once he’d made that decision, though, he wondered how long it would take for his often-absent master to receive the letter. For that matter, Sen wasn’t altogether sure how anyone would get a response back to him. While Grandmother Lu’s shop in Orchard’s Reach was a convenient place for him to send things back, he’d made no arrangements for places where people could send things to him.

It was one of those practicalities that Grandmother Lu had kept insisting he wasn’t thinking hard enough about. It pricked his pride a tiny bit to see that she was right, again. Mostly, though, it just made him miss her. He hoped that she was well on her way to that warmer southern region she had spoken about. Then again, she might still be in Orchard’s Reach, spending some of that gold to expand the reach of her trading empire before she left. It would have been the practical thing to do. Then again, with all the upheaval in Orchard’s Reach, she might have made a temporary move to somewhere the government was more predictable or at least more bribable. He'd have to leave a note for her the next time he came across one of her shops. They’d know how to get it to her, eventually.

For all the introspection he was doing, Sen wasn’t wholly oblivious to the outside world. He had his spiritual sense extended. He was expecting something to happen and didn’t want to be surprised when it did. He’d risen early and taken up station outside the hut. He could feel that both of the women were still asleep inside the hut. That was unusual. Luo Min was an early riser by nature, and Luo Ping had seemed to be similar once she was truly on the mend again. She still tired easily, her stamina sapped by illness. Yet, he suspected that the real cause was the events of the previous day. Made of stern stuff or not, Luo Min had been attacked. It wasn’t the kind of thing a person just shrugs off. At least not the first twenty or thirty times it happens, Sen thought with a touch of bitterness. Luo Min had no doubt had trouble falling asleep. Her mother had no doubt stayed up to keep her daughter company.

Both had been asleep by the time Sen returned from the deeps of the forest. Unlike the garbage he’d left out there, the local spirit beasts did not find him a tempting target. He had, however, taken the young man well beyond any signs of human life. Then, he’d stayed out there until the spirit beasts tracked the blood trail and finished what Sen had begun. He hadn’t been willing to just trust that it would get done. Master Feng had a lot to say about leaving live enemies behind. He’d no doubt disapprove of the fact that Sen hadn’t dispatched those two girls on the beach. Yet, Sen was on a different path than Master Feng. For the elder cultivator, leaving those girls alive probably would have been a mistake, or at least violated the tenets of his cultivation in some way. For Sen, it might also prove a mistake, but offering mercy wasn’t inconsistent with the path he wanted to follow. He wasn’t endangering his cultivation by doing it.

“Only your life,” Sen could almost hear Master Feng say.

By keeping his spiritual sense extended, Sen felt someone approaching long before they arrived. Sen was just leaning on the hut’s wall when a furious man stormed up the road, a sharp axe in his hand. It only took a few moments of observation to tell that, while the man might be strong, he wasn’t trained to use that axe as a weapon. Taking a tiny measure of preemptive pity on the man, Sen summoned the extra spindle he’d made for Bigan’s damaged wagon wheel. He didn’t plan the kill the man, not if it wasn’t necessary, so either the jian or the spear was overkill. Sen studied the man as he approached. A dark stubble that didn’t quite qualify as a beard covered the man’s jaw. His eyes were narrow, and Sen could see the anger in them. It was an old, persistent anger that likely pervaded the man’s every action. As he drew close, he pointed the axe at Sen.

“Where’s my son?”

Sen considered trying to soften the blow, but he doubted that was possible. There was something a little haunted in the man’s expression. He already feared the worst, so there was little point in dragging out the confirmation.

“Your son is dead,” Sen answered.

Whatever tiny bit of restraint that the man had been nursing vanished. He took a wild swing at Sen. A quick parry with the spindle sent the axe flying, the pure force of Sen’s blow too much for the man’s strength. Shocked by the speed and force that Sen displayed, and deprived of his axe, the man just stared at Sen for a long moment. Then, the rage reasserted itself and the man started swinging. They were slow, poorly controlled punches that were meant to hit hard. Sen simply stepped out of the way of the blows. He didn’t attack in response. Just kept stepping out of the way until the man was swaying on his feet, barely able to lift his hands to continue the failed assault.

“You murdered my son.”

“I executed a rapist.”

“My son never raped anyone!”

There was a flicker of something in the man’s eyes, but Sen could read it clearly enough.

“You knew.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I didn’t know anything,” the man blustered, but there was no heat, no conviction in the words.

“You knew,” repeated Sen.

Sen’s hand seemed to move of its own volition. He seized the man by the throat and dragged him close.

“Let me go,” the man gasped, uselessly clawing at Sen’s arm.

“How many?”

“What?” the man croaked.

“How many girls did he rape while you pretended not to know?”

Sen realized the man’s face was turning purple under his grip. If he held on any longer or applied any more pressure, he’d probably kill the man. Sen released his grip. The other man collapsed to the ground, choking, coughing, and wheezing in whatever air he could pull through his damaged throat. The shreds of pity and compassion Sen had managed to scrounge together for this man burned away in the furnace of Sen’s fury. He placed the tip of the spindle directly over the man’s heart and started applying pressure, increasing it with each passing second. The man tried to squirm away, so Sen pressed down harder. It was hard enough that it pinned the man in place. Sen could feel bones shifting and bending in the man’s chest.

“It wasn’t enough to murder my son?” the man gasped. “You’re going to murder me too?”

“You say that word, murder, like it means something to me. Like it might somehow make me stop. Do you have any idea how often a cultivator must kill?”

“Cultivator?” the man said, any semblance of hope draining from his face.

“Compared with most cultivators,” Sen continued, “I’m a gentle, peaceful man. And even I’ve killed half a dozen people in the last few months. As for killing a man who let his son get away with rape, well, let me put it this way. My master would tell me to burn your family out, root and branch. Right now, I’m inclined to take that advice. Do you know what would happen to me afterward?”

“No,” snarled the man on the ground.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Everyone would just pretend it never happened. The way you pretended it never happened.”

Sen pressed down a little harder on the spindle, and the man cried out in pain.

“Terrifying, isn’t it? Crying out in pain. Crying out for help. Knowing deep down inside that there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop me. This is just a taste of what you helped your son get away with. I should just kill you and be done with it,” said Sen, as much to himself as to the man on the ground.

“Sen,” said a quiet voice from behind him.

Sen looked over his shoulder and saw Luo Min standing there. Her face was so white that she looked like she’d died.

“You should go back inside, Min. You don’t need to watch this.”

“He didn’t hurt me. He doesn’t deserve to die.”

Sen didn’t agree. He didn’t agree at all. Yet, he had inserted himself into this situation. He hadn’t been harmed. He’d never been in danger at all. Luo Min was the one who had a grievance here, and she didn’t want this man dead. Sen wrestled with himself, with his own desire to take revenge. But whose revenge? Was any of this really about Luo Min? Or was it about him? Was he letting this man play substitute for those noble brats who had beaten him as a child? Was that why he was so angry with this man? Sen had thought he was past those feelings of helplessness. After all, he’d handed out beatings to those childhood assailants. It had been cathartic, but maybe he’d been too optimistic that he had been healed by that experience. It seemed that some kinds of pain lingered.

Still, he had let those bandits go, knowing they’d hurt others and might do so again. He’d let them go because they simply weren’t a threat. The man on the ground was no threat to him. He never had been, even with the axe in hand. Of course, Sen wouldn’t always be on the farm to serve as a shield against any would-be assailants. In fact, his intuition told him that his time in the village was swiftly coming to an end. While no threat to Sen, the man could easily become a threat to Luo Min and her mother. Sen could just make the decision and kill him anyway, but then Luo Min would have to live with it. He beat his own feelings back. It was hard, harder than he would have expected it to be, but he did it.

“Very well,” said Sen.

Sen put the spindle back into his storage ring. Before the man could so much as try to stand, Sen grabbed a fistful of robes and dragged him away from the hut. When he was beyond Luo Min’s earshot, Sen hauled the man to his feet and stared him in the eyes.

“That idea I see brewing in your eyes right now, kill it. If any harm comes to either of those women, I will turn your world into a graveyard.”

Then, with a kind of precision Sen didn’t even know he possessed, he let a sliver of his killing intent slip. He only let it loose for a moment, just long enough to let the man understand what he would have to look forward to if he defied Sen’s wishes in this. It had the desired effect. Before the man could talk his legs into running away, Sen grabbed his robes again.

“Never forget, you sorry excuse for a man, that you owe that girl a life debt.”