Sen made sure that he kept a neutral expression as he walked through the Golden Phoenix sect compound. He didn’t imagine for one minute that anyone in the place was ignorant of how he’d spent his time there. Still, he thought sauntering around was bad form. Plus, it seemed likely to trigger an act of violence from at least one of the dozens of angry, heartbroken men and women who glared at him as the matriarch of their sect escorted him to the gate. While Sen was working hard to not offend people he’d rather not fight, the matriarch looked positively smug about the whole thing. When Sen had asked about it in a hushed tone, she’d just smiled at him.

“What are they going to do about it? As you said, I’m a nascent soul cultivator. They can’t make me do anything. All they can do is talk about me, and that will only happen once.”

“Yeah, that’s fine for you, but they might attack me in a murderous rage.”

She let out a light laugh. “No. They’ll think about it. A few of them will fantasize about it, but none of them will actually do it.”

“Why is that?”

“Because none of them want to find out what I might do about it. Not everyone is as cavalier as you are about nascent soul cultivators.”

Sen nodded. She probably had a point. Not that he was actually cavalier about them. After all, Sen worked very hard to not get seen anytime he invaded the territory of the of one who wanted him dead. He doubted he’d be in any more of a rush to tempt the anger of someone who was the absolute final authority in his own organization if he was part of one at any rate.

“That makes sense,” he agreed.

“Then why do you look nervous.”

“I just know what’s waiting for me. There’s going to be yelling. I might get hit a few dozen times by my friend.”

“Not much of a friend.”

“She truly is,” said Sen. “She’s just very protective about my general health and well-being, and I’ve been going off and doing dangerous things by myself a lot lately. She wasn’t happy before I disappeared for the five days.”

“A lover?” asked Lai Dongmei in a too-casual tone.

“Would it matter if she were?” Sen asked, just as casually.

The matriarch’s expression soured briefly before she huffed a little sigh. “No. I don’t suppose it would matter if she were.”

“I don’t know if all those ridiculous stories about me cover this ground, but I don’t take many lovers.”

Lai Dongmei glanced at him before she shook her head. “None of the stories I heard mentioned it one way or the other. Fawning, unrequited adoration comes up a lot, but nothing about you actually doing anything about it.”

“I’m sure you of all people understand exactly how off-putting that kind of attention can be.”

“Some men, most men, would love it.”

“Well, I don’t. I gave serious consideration to giving myself a scar on my face for a while. Then, I realized that it’d probably just go away the next time I advanced my cultivation.”

“It wouldn’t have helped,” said Lai Dongmei. “In fact, it probably would have made it worse. You’d have looked dangerous, mysterious, and still been absurdly attractive.”

“Really?” asked Sen.

“Yes. It’s not rational but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

“Good to know.”

They came to a stop just before the gate. The often elusive but never quite gone mischievousness in Sen’s soul came out for a moment. He offered Lai Dongmei a deep, formal bow. She rolled her eyes before offering him a shallower one.

“Do come back before you leave the city. I don’t know exactly where Fu Ruolan is, but I may be able to help you narrow down where to look.”

“I’d appreciate that,” said Sen, before he added, “but I’ll come back regardless. Assuming the gate guards will let me in.”

Lai Dongmei cast an imperious glare at the gate guards who were pretending not to be listening in on the conversation.

“They will,” she stated in the tones of an absolute command.

“Then, I look forward to our next meeting.”

“As do I.”

With a wink and a smile, Sen walked through the gate and back out into the city. While his little interlude of relative safety had worn some of the razor edges off of Sen’s paranoia, it only took a couple of minutes of walking before he was on high alert again. He didn’t really expect an attack, but he didn’t see that as a good reason to invite one by being negligent about his own safety. He did take his time about making his way to the house that Lo Meifeng had acquired for them with a suspicious speed. She’d announced that purchase less than a day after he’d loaded her down with money. Sen had almost made the mistake of asking her about the details of the purchase, then better sense had taken hold. He was certain that he didn’t want to know the details.

Sen had spent the better part of two full days reinforcing the walls around that relatively modest structure. He’d applied everything he’d learned about formations in his time away from the mountain making that place both as secure as he possibly could. He’d also taken a cue from Uncle Kho and set up formations to help concentrate the environmental qi on that property. His formations weren’t nearly as efficient as the ones Uncle Kho might have done, but they almost tripled the qi density in that small area. Given how thin the qi in the city was, it was like walking into a wall of qi every time he set foot on the property. If he hadn’t known all of those protections were in place, and seen plenty of evidence that Tong Guanting was limited to sending underlings to bother people outside his territory, he doubted he’d have gone with Lai Dongmei. There would have been too much danger for everyone.

Of course, danger came in lots of forms, which was why Sen was dragging his feet on the way back. He didn’t normally avoid the consequences of his actions, but he didn’t normally do things that were quite as selfish as having a tryst in the middle of a crisis. And it had been selfish, something that was just for him. He’d wondered briefly why he’d done it in the first place, but the answer was obvious. He’d been pushed onto a body cultivation path that put a very firm cap on his life if he didn’t complete it. He’d been pushed into intervening between the fire cultivators and the water cultivators. He’d been pushed into fleeing for his life from vengeful demonic cultivators and their minions. While he recognized that he had to own some of the responsibility for all of those situations, outside forces had been acting on him, driving his choices, and he’d been tired of it. Going off with Lai Dongmei had been, in some small way, an act of rebellion on his part.

It hadn’t been the responsible thing to do. It certainly hadn’t been the smart thing to do. It had simply been the thing that he wanted to do, instead of the thing that he needed to do, and that had been enough in that moment. Of course, he’d also left everyone else to wonder what had become of him. They had probably worried. Then, they’d probably gotten angry, and rightfully so. And he’d left them to stew in that worry and anger for days. Sen knew that what was about to happen wasn’t going to be pretty, and he’d brought it all down on his own head. Taking a breath to fortify himself, Sen stepped through the formations that guarded their temporary home.

He hadn’t known quite what to expect, but the punch that took him across the face hadn’t been the first thing he’d expected. It wasn’t a tap to get his attention either. Someone had put their all into it. His body had been sufficiently hardened by his cultivation practices over the years that it didn’t break his jaw, but it did hurt. It also flung him across the small courtyard. Sen looked back to where he had been standing and saw Falling Leaf standing there, fists clenched, and eyes alight with fury. Sen considered her briefly before he pushed himself up to his feet. Once he was upright, she stalked over to him and punched again. They repeated that process enough times that Sen stopped counting. When it seemed that she’d finally vented enough of her anger, she spun away and walked back inside without a word. Sen stood up, brushed off his robes, and went inside. Lo Meifeng and Shi Ping were waiting for him. Neither looked happy to see him.

“So, not dead,” said Lo Meifeng.

“Pity,” said Shi Ping.

It was a little surreal for Sen to see those two as a united front, but he supposed that stranger things had probably happened…at some point…maybe.

“Not dead,” Sen agreed. “Do you two want to tell me all the things you have to say together or take turns.”

“I want to know what in the hells you’ve been doing for the last five days at the Golden Phoenix sect,” said Shi Ping.

Sen looked at the man and shook his head. “You really don’t.”

Shi Ping didn’t pick up on it, but Lo Meifeng did. This time, it was her eyes that lit up with fury.

“Unbelievable. You just wandered off without a word for five days so that you could have sex?”

Shi Ping’s head whipped around to look at Lo Meifeng. “Wait. What? He was off having sex? With who?”

“Yes, Sen, do tell? Who was so intriguing that you decided that it was fine to abandon us in the middle of everything that’s going on?”

“That’s not an appropriate question,” said Sen.

“If you didn’t want inappropriate questions,” said Shi Ping, “maybe you shouldn’t have acted like an ass. I want to know, too.”

Sen thought about digging his heels in, but he supposed it was going to end up being an open secret, if not public knowledge, very soon. Sighing, he lifted his hands in surrender.

“Lai Dongmei.”

Sen watched as that information reached their minds and slowly sank in. Shi Ping’s mouth sort of fell open, and the man stared at Sen like he was some kind of strange, mythical animal that appeared in front of him. Lo Meifeng’s reaction was less amusing, but probably more appropriate. She buried her face in her hands for a moment before she gave Sen a look of defeated weariness.

“I just wish that I thought you were lying,” she said, before turning and walking away.

Sen could hear her muttering under breath and he was sure he heard her say ridiculous, impossible, and pain in my ass at least three times each. Sen looked at Shi Ping who had recovered from his initial shock. The man was shaking his head and clenching his jaw.

“I just,” started Shi Ping. “You. It wasn’t enough that you had beautiful women chasing after you and helping you. No, that wasn’t good enough for the great Judgment’s Gale. You decided that you needed to go out and find the literal most beautiful woman alive and go to bed with her?”

Sen tilted his head to one side. “Is that a rhetorical question?”

“I hate you so much.”