Sen made an unhappy noise as he jumped down off the rock. It seemed like he was always surrounded by corpses of one kind or another. He knew that cultivators lived violent lives, but he couldn’t help but wonder if these kinds of things happened to other cultivators as often as they seemed to happen to him. Yet, for once, he couldn’t help but feel like this one truly hadn’t been his fault. The only way he could have been less actively pursuing conflict would have been if he were sleeping. With a gesture, he gathered up the now empty beast cores and placed them back into his storage ring. He wasn’t sure if he could use them the same way again to store qi, but it was worth the experiment to find out. After all, if he could fill them with whatever kinds of qi he wanted, that would make things like fueling formations a lot easier in the future. He’d become far less dependent on natural environmental features to determine what kinds of protections he could realistically put in place at any given location.

Granted, there were still practical limits. No amount of fire qi was going to make fire formations practical in a swamp, in much the same way that no amount of water qi was going to make water formations practical in excessively dry locations. Still, more flexibility was almost always a good thing when it came to protecting yourself. Still cycling the air qi he’d used to pick up the depleted cores, he searched the bodies of the dead cultivators for anything of interest. All he found were the usual assortment of pouches, minor storage treasures, and weapons he’d come to expect from cultivators. He claimed those for himself, storing the weapons and pouches for later examination and pocketing the storage treasures.

What he hadn’t expected was not recognizing any of them. It would have been odd if he knew all of them, but he’d assumed that at least one of them would be familiar. That was how those sorts of things usually worked. Were these people some kind of assassination team? Had they not been given an explanation of his abilities? Were they just opportunists looking to rob him? He supposed a moment of advancement might have looked like the ideal moment to rob or kill him. People were usually distracted during advancements. Of course, if a tribulation had struck, he suspected that they would have gotten caught up in it. More importantly, as cultivators, they should have known that. It wasn’t just courtesy that kept most cultivators from interfering with advancements and moments of enlightenment. There was the possibility of legitimate danger dropping on your head from on high.

Sen considered the possibility that they’d been sent by people unhappy with his involvement with the wholesale destruction of demonic cultivation on this part of the continent and all of that lost revenue. He supposed that other cultivators, ones with more greed than scruples, were probably the source of most of those demonic cultivation resources. These people might have been some of those less-than-ethical cultivators, or at least worked for some of them. Still, the whole thing had been poorly executed. He hadn’t gotten much time to get a read on them, but they had only been on par with his cultivation. Anyone who knew what they were doing and knew anything about him would have known that was a losing bet. That suggested either a lack of information or a lack of understanding.

“Seriously,” said Lo Meifeng. “More corpses?”

Sen turned to look at Lo Meifeng, who was standing by the rock and giving the bodies an annoyed look. He shrugged.

“They came after me.”

“Did you do something to them to set them off?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Did you speak?”

“Very droll. While I appreciate your faith in my ability to trigger homicidal rage with nothing but my words, no, I did not speak to them.”

“Did they say anything?”

Sen shook his head. “I don’t remember them saying anything, but I was a bit distracted at the time with advancing.”

“I know,” said Lo Meifeng. “Half the city knows that someone advanced.”

“How did you know it was me? Or to come here?”

“When people started talking about a pillar of fire and lightning and half a dozen other things, you were pretty much the only option.”

Sen nodded. “Okay, that’s fair.”

“As for knowing to come here, I just assumed I’d find you unconscious and probably in a ridiculous position.”

“Such as?”

“Drowning in the pond. Twenty feet up a tree. Riding an ox. It could have been anything, really.”

Sen almost objected, thought it over, and sighed. “No, that’s fair too.”

Lo Meifeng nudged one of the corpses with her foot. “You figure out anything about these geniuses?”

“No. I grabbed their stuff, but I didn’t see anything offhand that would tell me who they were or where they came from. It doesn’t look like they’re from a sect, but that’s easy enough to hide. Once they take off their sect uniforms, they could be anyone.”

Lo Meifeng nodded, wandered away for a moment, and came back with a stick. She used it to push up the sleeves of their robes. Then she used it to drag the robes away from their necks.

“What are you looking for?” asked Sen.

“Tattoos, brands, or some other kind of distinguishing marks. Some sects use them. So do some criminal organizations.”

Sen hadn’t noticed marks like that, but he hadn’t been looking for them either.

“Anything like that?” he asked.

“Not that I saw. But I’m also not willing to undress them to look for marks in less usual locations. We’ll have to go through their things later. See if they were stupid enough to hang on to something incriminating.”

Sen considered for a moment. He was tired, and most of his qi had gone into the advancement, but he thought he had enough for a few more tricks. He waved Lo Meifeng back from the body she was examining and cycled up some wind qi. It took a few tries to get it right, but he managed to use it to cut away the attackers’ clothing. That finally revealed what Lo Meifeng had been looking for. Every one of them had a tattoo on their back of a large black talon from some kind of bird of prey. Lo Meifeng eyed the tattoos for a long moment before shaking her head.

“Well, I guess that explains part of it.”

“Care to enlighten me?”

“They are criminals. Cultivator criminals. Muscle for hire. They call themselves the Shadow Eagle Talon Syndicate, although that’s a really overblown name.”

“Why is that?”

“They only exist in the capital. They’ve tried expanding to other places, but it hasn’t gone well for them. Still, one thing is pretty clear.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone doesn’t like you.”

Sen laughed. “I wish that narrowed things down a little more.”

“So do I,” said Lo Meifeng.

“I’m pretty sure they’ve been watching me recently.”

“Why?”

“I noticed four cultivators keeping tabs on me. They kept their distance. Since I was trying to avoid trouble, I was willing to leave them be.”

“It didn’t work out that well this time, mostly for them, but that was probably the right call. If you notice cultivators keeping tabs on you again, though, you could think about mentioning it to me.”

Sen kept it off his face, but he was grimacing inside. He’d known he should tell her as soon as he noticed the cultivators watching him, but he’d kept it to himself out of distrust. If he had just told her, she might have grabbed one of them. Then, they would have had someone to question, instead of four dead bodies that couldn’t tell them much more than they already had. He nodded.

“I will.”

Lo Meifeng took the win for what it was and said, “Good. Now, are you planning on leaving these here like you did with those other cultivators?”

Sen thought it over and then shook his head. “No. I left those sect cultivators where they were to send a message. I’m pretty sure that when these four don’t come back, the Murky Pigeon Foot Company will understand what happened.”

“Murky Pigeon Foot Company?” Lo Meifeng laughed.

Sen smirked. “It’s my little way of expressing exactly how not impressed I am with them.”

“Well, don’t be too dismissive. There are people in that group who really could be dangerous to you.”

“Duly noted,” said Sen.

Sen gestured and air qi lifted the bodies off the ground. It took a lot more effort and concentration than usual, but Sen cycled for fire and incinerated the bodies. Releasing his fire qi, he used a bit of earth qi to open a hole and dropped the ashes into it. He smoothed the ground. Then, he realized that there was still blood and other, less pleasant things staining the ground. Grumbling to himself, he spent the next few minutes cleaning up the area. He saw Lo Meifeng giving him a quizzical look.

“Families come here. Children. The last thing they need is to find a bunch of blood and human waste all over the ground.”

“Most cultivators wouldn’t have thought of that. I wouldn’t have thought of it.”

“Most cultivators didn’t grow up spending half their time in alleys. I know what happens when things like that sit around in the open. It’s not pretty. It’s not really a problem for us, but it can make mortals sick. Now, let’s get out of here. I may not have been knocked unconscious this time, but I am still tired. I need to find a bed.”

As they made their way out of the park, Sen saw Lo Meifeng paying close attention to everyone they passed. He even felt her spiritual sense sweep the area a few times as they went. It seemed that she was still taking her bodyguarding seriously. As he’d become increasingly capable, Sen had thought less and less about it. Yet, in moments like this, moments when he was low on qi and exhausted, he could see the benefits. Still, it wouldn’t do to grow too reliant on that kind of protection. There would come a day when Lo Meifeng wasn’t around to watch things for him. Focusing his mind, he started doing his part to keep an eye on what was going on around them. He didn’t notice anything, and she didn’t mention anything to him. Sen took that as a good sign that he was probably safe for the moment. Once they got back to the inn, he took just long enough to explain to Falling Leaf and Shi Ping what had happened, suggested very strongly that no one leave the inn by themselves for a while, and then crawled into bed for some much-needed rest.