Despite his intention to simply sleep until he woke up, it was barely mid-morning when angry shouting brought him to full consciousness. For a moment, he thought that someone had discovered his location. Then, he realized that the shouting was coming from the direction of the road. It wasn’t even really that close. He’d just unwittingly slipped back into the state of heightened awareness he’d all but lived in during those terrible days he spent forming his killing intent on the mountain. He rolled over and pulled a bit of blanket over his face. There was a chance he could still get a couple more hours of sleep. Frequently, it was simple heat that woke him when sleeping in a tent. Yet, while it was likely getting warm out on the road, he could tell that it was still fairly cool beneath the shadow of the forest canopy. He heard more shouting from the road and resisted the urge to go investigate.

“It’s not your business,” he muttered to himself. “Let those people sort out their own problems.”

Then, he started to imagine bandits killing off innocent caravan drivers and guards or kidnapping people. He countered his imagined scenarios by saying that people hired guards exactly because of the possibility of bandits. No one was paying him to intervene. Then, he imagined Grandmother Lu traveling down this exact road. While he knew she could take care of herself, it would only take one bandit with a crossbow getting lucky to kill her. Sen snarled at his own imagination for playing dirty. Then, grumbling to himself, he pushed the blankets off and slipped out of the tent. He felt a bit more moisture in the air than he expected and sighed. It was probably going to rain later that day. The rain itself wasn’t a problem. Sen was pretty certain that no amount of rain could actually make him sick anymore. He just didn’t enjoy getting soaked while walking.

Sen made sure that he hid before exiting the relative safety of his obscuring formation. His woodcraft was good enough that it wasn’t a real challenge to get close to the road without being seen. While he half-expected to see bandits or some other kind of life-or-death situation, what he found was far more mundane. While he wouldn’t classify the small collection of wagons as a caravan, they were clearly carrying goods from somewhere to somewhere else. One of the wagons had a damaged wheel. Two men were standing by it, arguing with each other about what to do next. The younger of the pair was arguing that they should all stay until they had a chance to repair the wheel. The older man, a tall, gaunt figure who gave off an air of authority, was shaking his head.

“We can’t be late again, Bigan,” said the older man. “If we show up with most of the goods, they’ll likely accept the story that we had to leave a wagon behind to do repairs. If we all show up late, we could lose this contract. We can’t afford that.”

“If you leave me here, Uncle, you know I’ll get attacked on the road.”

“Then maybe you should have gotten that wheel fixed the way I told you to,” snapped the older man.

“I was just trying to save money,” said Bigan, his face going red.

“No, you were trying to keep the difference so you can marry that girl sooner. How well is that working out now? Maybe next time, if you survive, you’ll do as you’re told.”

The older man stormed away while the younger man spluttered ineffectual protests. Sen watched with a kind of stunned curiosity. He wondered if the others would really abandon the young man to his fate. They did. With barely a glance at the young man, the older man ordered the rest of the wagon to go around. Bigan stared forlornly after the other wagons as they slowly rolled away down the road. Sen considered what he had just witnessed. He did feel a little sympathy for the young man, but it also sounded like this was a disaster of his own making. It most certainly wasn’t Sen’s problem. Shrugging to himself, Sen returned to his tent and managed to drop off for a few more hours of sleep.

***

Feeling much better after that extra sleep, Sen packed up his tent and took down his formations. He checked his dantian and was much happier with the amount of qi he found there. It wasn’t full by any stretch of the imagination, but Sen had enough that he could likely fight his way out of a bad situation if he had to. Still, he was starting to question the wisdom of increasing his dantian’s size the way he had. With the thinner qi in the area, he’d need to set up a formation nearly every night if he ever wanted to compress more liquid qi again. He hoped that the thin qi was just something natural to this area and not how things were across the continent. While advancing his cultivation level wasn’t at the top of his list of things to do, it was on the list. He didn’t want to stay a foundation formation stage cultivator forever. Maybe this was why people went into closed-door cultivation, he thought.

With that thought rolling around in his head, he made his way back out of the trees toward the road. He paused when he got close to the road. Initially, he only meant to check and make sure that no one was coming in either direction, but he saw that the wagon with the damaged wheel was exactly where it had been several hours before. The young man, Bigan, was just sitting on the road and staring at the wheel, as though he could will it back into working order if he tried hard enough. Sen honestly didn’t know what to make of the absurd sight. He had imagined that the young man would have made some effort to repair the wheel, or at least move the wagon. The ox that was still hitched to the wagon was giving the grass by the side of the road a longing look. Sen frowned. It really wasn’t his problem. Still, he didn’t suppose it was right to leave the ox to suffer. While the young man may have brought this down on his own head, the ox didn’t have any say in the matter. Letting out an exasperated breath, Sen stepped out of the forest and walked up next to the young man.

“You should at least let that ox eat something,” said Sen.

“Yahhhhhh,” cried Bigan, falling over and scrambling away on all fours. “Where in all the hells did you come from? Are you a devil?”

Sen lifted an eyebrow at the young man. Did this guy actually convince some girl to marry him, thought Sen. As unlikely as it seemed, the uncle had seemed quite certain about it. When the young man just kept staring at him with half-terrified eyes, Sen walked over to the ox. The beast noticed him, and Sen watched as the sad look was replaced with a more hopeful one. He didn’t know a lot about oxen, but he’d paid attention while he’d been with the caravan. He had the harness untied and nearly off the beast before the kid found his voice.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

Sen gave Bigan a look, finished removing the harness, and then slowly led the ox over to the side of the road. He used a bit of rope to tie the ox to a nearby tree. The ox made a noise that Sen interpreted as happy before the beast lowered its head and began chewing on the long grass there.

“That ox isn’t yours,” said Bigan, pointing an accusing finger at Sen.

Sen frowned at the kid. “You’re not very bright, are you?”

Anger flashed across the kid’s face. “I’m smart enough not to let you steal my ox.”

“Steal,” repeated Sen.

He looked from the kid over to the ox that was tied to a tree, then back at the kid. When the kid just kept giving him an angry look, Sen repeated the motion, more slowly and deliberately. Bigan finally seemed to realize what an absurd comment it had been. If Sen had been stealing the animal, he probably wouldn’t have tied it up to graze. An embarrassed look crossed the kid’s face as Sen wandered over and took a closer look at the wheel. He could see where two of the spokes had broken, but replacing those probably should have been something the kid could accomplish.

Then, Sen saw the real problem. Part of the outer wheel had been damaged, which bent the iron tread inward. Without some basic woodworking and blacksmithing tools or, Sen sighed, cultivator strength, repairing the wheel would be all but impossible. Sen again gave serious consideration to just walking away. He’d only intended to get the ox something to eat. He’d accomplished that goal. He had not signed on to help this kid fix his mistakes. Considering what he’d seen so far, though, he expected that leaving the kid to his own devices was tantamount to a death sentence.

“Do you at least have some tools?” Sen asked, almost against his will.

“A few,” the kid admitted. “I have a small hammer and an axe.”

It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Camping gear?” Sen asked.

If the kid had camping gear, at least there was a chance he’d survive. Bigan shook his head.

“It’s all with Uncle Chao.”

Sen considered the wheel again. He wasn’t much of a craftsman, but it wasn’t much of a wheel. If he actually tried, he suspected he could get the kid moving again in an hour or two. If Bigan was right, though, there would be bandits on the road ahead. Would helping him get the wagon moving be a genuine kindness if it just meant sending the kid straight into danger? The more Sen thought about it, the more work it sounded like a good deed would become. He’d end up having to escort the kid at least far enough that he could get a proper repair done on the wheel. Even then, unless they made very good time, it seemed unlikely that they would catch up with the other wagons. With an internal groan, Sen made his decision.

“Well, get your axe and hammer. This wheel won’t fix itself."