Just as he’d indicated in his initial statement to everyone, Sen had them up and on the road at first light the next day. He kept them moving too, stopping only briefly for meals. Most nights they camped. Shi Ping had complained, once. Sen hadn’t said a word to the man, simply looked at him with newly calm eyes. Yet, that look had stopped Shi Ping cold. It had stopped everyone cold. It wasn’t just a look or an expression. It had a weight that hadn’t been there before, as though Sen was physically pushing down on the other man with an invisible hand the size of a building. Later that night, after everyone else had taken to their blankets, Lo Meifeng had hesitantly approached Sen. He just gestured to a nearby rock. Once she’d settled down into place, he spoke.

“I spent a week with that dragon. It was educational. I learned some things.”

“Clearly.”

Sen smiled a little. “One of the things that I learned is why fortunate encounters happen.”

“Really?” asked Lo Meifeng with unfeigned curiosity. “Why is that?”

“It turns out that very old, very powerful things get very bored. All of them, apparently. I was the first thing that dragon had a conversation with in a long time. It decided that, since I was something of a captive audience, I might as well learn something. Honestly, though, it wasn’t about me. I was just a novel distraction. I think it probably would have taught anyone who had enough power to find it.”

Lo Meifeng snorted at that. “I doubt that.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve seen you operate. I expect that before this boredom-induced learning experience that had nothing to do with you, you did something that was spectacular, stupid, and nigh-impossible.”

Sen stared into the campfire for a little while before he said, “There might be a sliver of truth in there somewhere.”

“You should just go ahead and add this to the list of things that make you ridiculous.”

A soft chuckle escaped Sen. “Probably so.

“A divine turtle and now a dragon. I’m starting to wonder what god’s life you saved in your last life.”

“It wasn’t as great as you might think. I had to practically die before all that special instruction happened.”

“How close was it?”

“Close. Honestly, I think I might have actually been dead there for a moment or two.”

“No wonder she’s acting the way she is.”

Sen didn’t need Lo Meifeng to tell him which she.

“It was bad enough for me, but you know how battles are. It’s all speed and fury and chaos. Everything is happening all at once, and there’s no time to think about anything but what you’re doing to do in the next two seconds. She had to watch it happen.”

“That’s always worse.”

“Exactly.”

“She didn’t get included with the extra training.”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Oh,” said Lo Meifeng, her face moving into an expressionless mask. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You didn’t. I can’t say because I don’t know. I think the dragon might have, but she didn’t bring it up.”

“You didn’t ask?”

“It wasn’t my business. If she wants me to know, she’ll tell me.”

“Did you ask the dragon about your body cultivation?”

Sen laughed. “It was just about the first thing I asked. The dragon was magnificently useless on that topic.”

“So, there’s really no getting around going to the capital.”

“Not that I can see. Which will probably mean cutting some kind of deal with Chan Yu Ming.”

“Do you think you can trust her? Sorry, that was a stupid question. Do you think you can trust her to hold up her end of the bargain?”

“Probably,” hedged Sen, “since she wants something in return. But that’s not the real issue. The real issue is whether I can trust her family to come through. They’re the ones who will, in theory, get me the manual.”

“Be careful with her.”

Sen shrugged. “I’ll be as careful as I can be. A lot of this will depend on what she wants in return. The price may well be too high. I’ll find out for sure tomorrow.”

Lo Meifeng nodded and got up. “Wake me when it’s my turn.”

“I will.”

***

Sen waited until they’d been on the road for a couple of hours before he fell back to walk beside Chan Yu Ming. She eyed him cautiously. He kept his eyes forward.

“Let’s talk,” said Sen.

“You’re different.”

“I am,” he admitted.

“I didn’t think you were ever going to talk to me.”

“I’ll admit, that was a possibility.”

“You’re certainly colder than you were.”

“That isn’t a bad thing. Considering where we’re going and the number of people there I’m bound to dislike, it’s an advantage.”

“You mean nobles,” said Chan Yu Ming with a sigh.

“I mean nobles. I also mean people from sects.”

“I thought you went out into the wilds to purge your anger,” she said.

“You don’t need to be angry not to like nobles and sects. They make it easy not to like them.”

Chan Yu Ming shot him a hot glare, but then looked away. “I can understand why you think that.”

“I truly hope you’re not convincing yourself that I’m some exception and that most people don’t think that way. Not saying something and not thinking something are very different.”

“Not every noble or sect member is a terrible person.”

“How many peasants and wandering cultivators have you asked about that?”

Sen could sense the growing frustration in the woman when she answered.

“None.”

“That’s not what either of us wants to discuss, so let’s just drop it. We can argue about it some other time if you really want to,” said Sen.

“I think that’s for the best.”

“Alright. So, explain this scheme of yours.”

“It’s not a scheme!”

Sen just gave her a flat look. “Then what do you call it?”

“It’s a,” she paused and thought, “plan. A clever plan that will get us both what we want.”

“Fine. Then please explain this plan of yours. What is it, specifically, that you’re trying to accomplish? And what role could I possibly play in it?”

Sen had expected her to jump all over this chance to explain things. She’d waited for more than a month to do just that. So, when Chan Yu Ming didn’t say anything, he turned to look at her. Her cheeks were bright pink, and she was looking everywhere but at him. What in the world is happening right now, thought Sen. Sen gave the silence another minute before he mentally gave up.

“Okay. It seems that, somehow, you’re not ready to have this discussion. So, when you are, come find me.”

Sen picked up his pace to walk away when she called after him in a harsh whisper.

“Wait!”

He slowed down until they were walking next to each other again. “So, you are ready?”

“I didn’t think it’d be quite this embarrassing. What do you know about how nobles handle marriage?”

“I don’t even know how peasants handle marriage. So, you should assume I know nothing.”

“Most marriages are arranged. It’s how most peasant families handle it, but it’s how all noble families deal with the problem of their daughters. They pick another family they want to ally themselves with and marry their daughters off to one of that family's sons.”

“It seems to me that seeing daughters as problems is the real problem, but I guess that’s not a popular position.”

Chan Yu Ming shook her head. “No, unfortunately, it’s not a popular position. The exception to that rule, though, is when daughters go off and become cultivators. Generally, families put a stop to any talk of marrying their daughters off once they reach a certain stage of advancement.”

“What stage?”

“Core formation. At that point, you’re going to live so much longer than any mortal that marrying you off is, frankly, cruel.”

“Okay. That’s an interesting and disturbing peek into noble culture, but I’m not sure I see the point.”

“That’s because I haven’t reached the point, yet. Releasing daughters is the custom, but it’s not the law. Families can still insist you come home and marry.”

“Can they, though? I mean, I can maybe see them making the demand, but can they enforce it at that point? How would they enforce it? It’s not like they can drag you off by force.”

“There are other kinds of pressure they can bring to bear. For example, they can disown you. Refuse to see you. Deny you access to the rest of your family. I realize that doesn’t mean much to you, but you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that other people do care about those things.”

‘Okay, I believe you. I still don’t get what…,” Sen trailed off as it came together. “Your family has arranged a marriage for you.”

“They have.”

“Then, I don’t see what I can do for you if you’re not willing to accept those unpleasant consequences you were talking about.”

“They arranged it because they think it’s what's best for me and the family. I need to present them with an alternative that looks more advantageous,” said Chan Yu Ming, giving him a significant look.

Sen stared blankly at her until he understood her meaning, then he burst into laughter. She put up with the laughter for almost half a minute before she lost her temper and hit him.

“Stop laughing! It’s not funny.”

“Yes, it is. Not the plan itself. That has a certain sort of logic to it. The idea that I have any role to play in it is hilarious. You just said it yourself. You need a better, more advantageous alternative. Your family will take one look at me and wonder if you’ve lost your mind. I’m not going to look like a better option to anyone. I’m nobody, from nowhere.”

“You only think that because you haven’t thought it through. You’re not some qi-condensing cultivator I found in some third-rate sect. You’re a core-formation dual cultivator. That alone makes you an almost mythological creature. Beyond that, you were trained by legends. Cultivators so powerful that even mortals know and care about them. Or a certain group of mortals at any rate. Along the way, you exposed a demonic cultivator cabal and ended a sect war. You’re well on your way to being a legend in your own right. Judgment’s Gale.”

Sen went to make his usual denials, but they rang hollow to him. She wasn’t wrong, exactly. He might know how flimsy all of those “accomplishments” were, but that didn’t mean they’d look flimsy to other people, especially non-cultivators.

“How would this even work? You’re going to show up and do what? It’s not like you can just introduce me as your betrothed. I’m very certain I remember hearing something about how I’d have needed to talk with your father about that.”

“Don’t worry about that part. That’s my headache to deal with.”

“Yeah, sure. We’ll see. Okay, let’s say that you, by some miracle, actually talk them into this madness. What happens next? Have you really thought about it? What are they going to expect from me? Or maybe I should ask, what favors will they expect me to fulfill for them? For that matter, what if they insist that we get married, I don’t know, now?”

The embarrassed blush that had faded as Sen started raising objections suddenly flooded back into Chan Yu Ming’s cheeks.

“I don’t think that they’d do that,” she said hurriedly. “It’s not how noble marriages are done.”

“Except, I’m not a noble. Who knows how they’ll react? If they take leave of their senses and decide it’s a good idea, they might decide they need to lock this deal in as fast as possible.”

“So, you’re saying you won’t do it?”

“I’m saying that you haven’t thought it through. I need that manual, but you can’t even guarantee me that your family can get it. I’m not going through with a charade like this on the off-chance that maybe I’ll get the manual at the end. I don’t have that kind of time to waste. So, if you want me to even consider this absurd idea, you’re going to need way better answers to all of those questions I asked you. More importantly, you’re going to have to convince me that, at the end of all of it, regardless of the outcome, I’m going to have that manual in my hands.”