Sen rolled his eyes and gave serious thought to going and yelling at Chan Yu Ming. Then, he thought about it a little harder. There was no upside to going back and yelling at her. It likely wouldn’t change anything. At best, she’d probably just follow them more discreetly. Plus, even if he knew she was following him, and she knew she was following him, he couldn’t actually tell her not to travel in the same direction as them. So, all a confrontation would accomplish would be that he got to yell at someone. That sounded like a terrible use of his time and energy. So, he shrugged.

“That’s her business. It’s not an us problem unless she makes it one.”

“You really don’t care that she’s following you?” asked Lo Meifeng with a troubled expression. “And, let’s be clear here, it’s you she’s following around, not us.”

“Of course, I care that she’s following us around,” said Sen. “But what do you suggest I do about it?”

Lo Meifeng immediately opened her mouth and then hesitated. Then, she frowned. “Oh.”

“Yeah, you see my problem. There’s basically nothing I can do to make her stop, other than killing her. Do you think I should kill her, Lo Meifeng?”

“Of course, you shouldn’t kill her,” said Lo Meifeng, which surprised Sen until she spoke again. “We don’t know who her family is.”

“It disturbs me that you came up with the right answer for completely the wrong reason.”

Lo Meifeng shot him a less-than-amused look. “Obviously, she hasn’t actually done anything that warrants such an action. But, even if we were inclined to take that approach, it’d be foolish without knowing who else we’d be picking a fight with.”

“That is also true,” admitted Sen. “For now, I’m just going to leave her alone. Traveling between cities by yourself isn’t fun, and I would know. I’m hoping she’ll get tired of it and turn back.”

Lo Meifeng looked profoundly skeptical about that but kept her opinion to herself. Falling Leaf met Sen’s dark eyes with her green ones.

“Why is the sect girl following you?” she asked. “You told her she couldn’t come with us.”

Sen hemmed and hawed for a moment, not really wanting to get into it, but Falling Leaf deserved some kind of an answer.

“She’s got this idea into her head that I’m going to change the world,” said Sen. “So, she wants to be around for when it happens.”

Falling Leaf looked very confused for a moment. “You mean, she isn’t in heat?”

Lo Meifeng burst into laughter and Shi Ping, who had been unusually quiet throughout the conversation, snickered. Falling Leaf gave the pair a perplexed look.

“Oh, she’s definitely in heat,” said Lo Meifeng, before she added, “although, that other stuff she told Sen might be true too.”

Falling Leaf considered those words for a moment before she looked at Sen again. “You should go bed her.”

Shi Ping looked like his eyes might fall out of his head when he said, “What?”

She gave the fire cultivator an inscrutable look. “If he beds her, it may cure her lust. Then, she might lose interest and return to her own place.”

After a brief moment of being startled, Sen realized that this solution would make perfect sense to spirit beasts. He’d never discussed the topic of sex among the spirit beasts with her in any kind of depth, but he’d gleaned enough to know that, for them, it was an overwhelming imperative. He’d have to explain to her, in private, far away from Shi Ping and Lo Meifeng, that it didn’t quite work that way with humans. Instead, he just smiled at her.

“Why don’t we save that as plan b,” said Sen. “If the misery of traveling alone isn’t enough to drive her away, I can always try that.”

After a moment, Sen heard Shi Ping muttering under his breath. “Why doesn’t anyone give that kind of advice to the women I know?”

After that unfortunate peak into Shi Ping’s private affairs, Sen wasn’t going to say anything. It seemed that everyone’s hearing was acute enough to catch the complaint, though.

Falling Leaf gave the man a guileless look and said, “Maybe they don’t like you.”

Lo Meifeng added, “Or they have better taste.”

“Hey!” shouted Shi Ping. “I’m not that bad.”

Lo Meifeng didn’t even say anything in response to that. She just gestured toward Shi Ping, then she turned and gestured to Sen. Resignation settled on Shi Ping’s face.

“Okay, fine, but is that really a fair comparison? Nobody looks good standing next to him.”

That impishness in his heart that Sen hadn’t seen in a while took that opportunity to make an appearance.

“They do,” said Sen, pointing at Falling Leaf and Lo Meifeng.

Shi Ping stared at Sen for five full seconds before he said, “You’re an ass.”

Without another word, the fire cultivator started walking down the road at a brisk pace. Sen stared thoughtfully after the man.

“Did he just leave a meal first?” Sen asked.

Lo Meifeng looked a little startled. “I think he did.”

“We’re never going to be able to replicate that outcome, are we?”

“No, probably not.”

“I thought so. Pity. Oh well, we should get moving.”

Sen took a moment to use his fire qi to scorch the food remnants off the plates and utensils before returning them to his storage ring. Falling Leaf swiftly disappeared into the surrounding forest to resume her scouting activities, as Sen and Lo Meifeng soon overtook the grumpy fire cultivator. Sen kept them moving until nearly nightfall before he found a spot. Shi Ping looked very disappointed when Sen started putting up a tent and formation flags.

“You aren’t going to make a galehouse?” the fire cultivator asked.

“It’s not as easy as I make it look,” said Sen. “Besides, it’s a pleasant night out. It’s not going to rain. And I haven’t sensed anything even remotely strong enough to see through my formations, let alone cause the four of us any trouble. Spending a night in a tent won’t kill you. I did this on a daily basis for months at a time.”

“I like walls around me,” said Shi Ping. “Nice, thick walls that keep out snakes and predators and snakes.”

“You said snakes twice,” observed Lo Meifeng.

“It’s worth saying twice. They’re awful things. Just awful. I can’t stand them.”

“You realize that, as a peak formation foundation cultivator, there are only about five kinds of snake venom on the whole continent that could actually hurt you, right?” asked Sen.

“And what about the huge spirit snakes that can just swallow you whole or squeeze you to death?”

“How many of those do you imagine there are?” asked Sen.

“One is enough.”

“Let me rephrase. How many of those do you imagine there are casually hanging around by human roads?”

Shi Ping narrowed his eyes at that. “You never know. They’re sneaky things.”

“Well, I promise, if one of those snakes shows up, I’ll make sure it gets you first.”

“You’re a terrible person,” said Shi Ping. “I’m telling you about a real, legitimate fear, and you’re mocking me.”

Sen held up a hand. “I’m not mocking your fear. I’m mocking your paranoia. Those kinds of spirit beasts live in the deep, deep wilds. We aren’t anywhere near the deep wilds. So, take a breath and enjoy the cool night air. I might even make some hot food.”

Shi Ping perked up at that. Since he felt a little guilty about making fun of the man’s fear of snakes, Sen actually followed through and cooked a bigger and more complicated meal than he normally would, including rice, vegetables, pork, and even dumplings. Everyone seemed a little happier after the meal. Shi Ping, perhaps in a gracious mood, took out an erhu from a storage ring and played quiet music for them. For all the man’s faults, even Sen’s inexperienced ears could tell that man was an unusually gifted musician. After that, everyone else went to bed, while Sen stood watch. He wasn’t worried the way he had once been, but he and Lo Meifeng had agreed that they would split the nightly watch, as they were the least likely to be affected by short nights of sleep.

Sen relished the quiet time by himself. While Shi Ping’s whining had tapered off a lot since those first days out of the fire cultivator’s valley, it wasn’t gone by any means. It grated on him because, all things considered, they had enjoyed a relatively problem-free trip so far. It made Sen wonder if sect cultivators spent too much time safely holed up in their compounds. Maybe it skews their perspective, thought Sen. He was also a little relieved to be free of Lo Meifeng for a few hours. Aside from that one conversation, she’d been making an effort not to push him too hard about anything. He appreciated it, but there was a part of him constantly waiting for her to try to convince him to do something she knew he’d hate. It was tiring and frustrating. He reminded himself, again, that she was still preferable to some new person who he wouldn’t know at all.

Of course, as much as he’d tried to downplay it, the fact that Chan Yu Ming was trailing them worried him. Not so much that he thought she was going to try to do something to them, but rather that she’d get into some kind of trouble she wasn’t ready to handle. He didn’t know what kind of woodcraft she had, or even if she had any. For all he knew, she was doing all the wrong things that would attract spirit beasts to her location. Except, he reminded himself, that isn’t your problem. If she’d listened to you, there wouldn’t be any danger to worry about. She got herself into this, she can deal with the consequences by herself.

Even in his own head, the words lacked the ring of conviction. Sure, ignorance probably killed a lot of people, but this was one case where he could intervene. He was choosing not to. If she got hurt or killed, he wasn’t sure what kind of responsibility he’d have for that. It didn’t help that he had no desire for her to get hurt or killed. He just didn’t want her tagging along, looking at him with all those expectations he couldn’t possibly meet in her eyes. He was still trying to sort that out when Lo Meifeng got up to relieve him. He threw another piece of wood on the fire and encouraged it a little bit with fire qi. His night vision was better than hers, so a bit of extra firelight was a courtesy.

“Anything interesting happen?” Lo Meifeng asked.

“There’s an owl about a quarter mile that way,” said Sen, pointing in the right direction. “Aside from that, I haven’t noticed anything.”

“Good. I like it when things are quiet on the road,” said Lo Meifeng.

Sen glared at her. “You just had to say it, didn’t you?”

“Oh, come on, that’s a complete myth,” said Lo Meifeng.

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than they both heard a loud boom in the near distance.

“Myth, huh? You stay here. I’ll go check it out.”

“Why you?”

“Because you know it’s Chan Yu Ming. So, I might as well be the one to go deal with it.”

“What do you think she’s fighting.”

“Since the universe is mocking us, it’s probably a giant snake,” said Sen.

“Why a giant snake?”

“Because Shi Ping was complaining about them earlier. Honestly, I’d be a little disappointed if it wasn’t a giant snake. It’d feel like the universe wasn’t really trying.”

“Fine, I’ll watch the kids.”

“Thanks,” said Sen.

He took off back the way they had come earlier, moving as fast as his qinggong technique would carry him. It didn’t take him long to find Chan Yu Ming. She wasn’t being subtle. Sen was so certain that he’d find a giant snake when he arrived that it caught him off guard when he found her in a big clearing fending off half a dozen spiders that were as big as horses. He just stared at the big, creepy things for a long moment before Chan Yu Ming noticed him.

“Are you going to help or just stand there?”

“But where’s the snake?”

“What snake?!” she yelled at him while lopping off part of a spider leg that got too close.

“It doesn’t matter,” he half-complained to no one. “Sure, I’ll help.”