With that first cleansing pill, Sen hadn’t known what to expect from it. This time, he wouldn’t get caught unawares. He lay down on the floor. There was no blanket, but he realized he didn’t need one. He was inside where it was warm, not outside in the cold night air. He took deep breaths to keep himself as calm as he could. The agony would start soon. He braced himself, determined that he wouldn’t scream this time. Yet, the agony never came. He felt the moment when the pill hit his stomach. There was a kindling warmth that he knew would erupt into savage fire the second he let his guard down. Instead, the warmth in his stomach was just that. Warmth. It hovered there for a little while before he felt it spread into that strange ball by his navel. It intensified a little as if given additional fuel, but it was just heat, not the searing fires that scorched him from the inside out.

That heat traveled through those same lines up into his chest and out into his limbs. He felt it as those flames scoured away at something in those lines, something that shouldn’t be there, but as fast as the resistance came, it crumbled. The heat passed out into his organs, muscles, tendons, and ligaments and became a familiar pressure. Only, this time, it didn’t feel like the muscles would tear or his organs would burst. The heat delved down deeper, searching, seeping into his very bones. The heat roared up again, this time verging close to pain, but never quite reaching it. Sen breathed through it all. He was committed to this now, so he willed the pill to do its work, commanded the heat to wash him clean.

The heat in his bones eventually faded, along with the pressure in his muscles and organs, yet that flame near his belly button remained. Sen wondered what was left. If the pill was still working, why wasn’t it doing something? For the first time, Sen tried to look inside himself. That place near his navel that he had always thought of as something he imagined came to life in his mind. It was a swirling mass of energy that he had never known about, never even guessed at. He marveled at it. How could this live inside him and he never knew? Yet, it wasn’t what he’d come for. He cast his inner sight around him, looking for something to do with all that leftover fire from the pill.

He saw those lines where he’d felt the heat before. Not really lines, he finally understood, but more like channels through his body. Except, it wasn’t really his body. Not exactly. Those channels were inside him but separate from him too. He’d have to ask Master Feng about them later. Just as importantly, though, there were more of those channels. Only these channels were dark like they’d never seen light before. Well, Sen had light right to hand. He extended that will and control that he’d built through countless repetitions of strikes, kicks, blocks, rolls, and falls. He seized that fire and sent it burrowing and burning into those other channels. This time, there was pain. It was nothing like that first time, but he had to hold tight to his voice. He had to hold tighter to that fire. Those new channels resisted the fire and any attempt to pry them open, but he had nothing to do until that pill ran out of fuel to feed the fire.

Bit by bit, he burned away what he assumed must have been years of built-up impurities. The fire from the pill almost raged at those impurities, hurling itself against the buildup until the dams broke, and energy from that warm mass at his center flowed into them. By the time those new channels were full, the warm ball was all but extinguished. Those channels had bled it dry. But he also felt a kind of new strength bleeding into his muscles, a hardening of his bones. Eventually, the energy cycled back to that warm ball, but only a fraction of what had originally been there was restored. Despite it all, though, Sen felt sure, certain, that he had done something necessary. He also felt quite certain that it would be a long road before he could attempt something like that again. It wasn’t just that warm ball that was drained. He felt drained, as though he had spent something of himself, of his own will, to make this happen. That’s fine, he thought. I have time if I need it. He didn’t imagine for one second that learning to use a sword or a spear would be a fast process. People spent years learning how to wield them. If his body needed time to rebuild whatever energy lived in that warm ball, he expected it would be done by the time Master Feng released him back into the world. With that thought, the last flickering embers of the pill’s fire went out. A few moments later, Sen followed those flames into slumber.

***

The last time that Sen woke up after one of those pills, he’d been angry, emerging from what amounted to an assault. This time, he just woke up. He still felt washed out, drained in some fundamental way, but not hurt. He felt no need to hurl profanity at Master Feng. He also felt like some small, but very important seed of trust had been restored between them. Master Feng had said it wouldn’t be like the first time, and he had been right. Sen was in no hurry to repeat the process, but he wouldn’t fear the experience if and when it happened again. Unfortunately, one aspect had repeated from the last time. Sen shook his head. The smell really wasn’t as bad as last time. That smell had been something out of a nightmare. The smell this time was simply putrid.

Sen reminded himself that it could be worse. All of that could still be inside of him. He forced himself to sit up and look around. The room was still as empty as it had been the day before. With a groan, he stood and went over to the door. He pulled it open and found Master Feng waiting there with three steaming buckets. Sen snorted in surprise but quickly dragged the buckets inside the room. Feng stepped up to the door but didn’t come inside. He pointed to a spot in the center of the floor.

“There’s a drain there. Clean yourself up as best as you can. Same for the floor. You won’t get everything but try to get the worst of it. It’s easier if you clean things up right away.”

“Yes, Master Feng.”

Master Feng nodded at Sen and threw him a bar of rough soap. Sen knew it wasn’t as bad because he managed to get the worst of it washed off of himself in about half an hour. He thoroughly scrubbed the floor around where he had been laying. Then, he did his best to rinse everything. He didn’t know what genius thought to put a drain inside a room inside a house, but Sen wanted to meet that person and thank them. Sen only hesitated to put yesterday’s robes back on for a moment. He’d still need a proper bath, so putting on fresh clothes would be an exercise in futility. He’d just have to wash those as well. Instead, he went looking for food. He found Uncle Kho in the kitchen. The man had apparently spent his morning cooking. There were covered bowls on every surface. There was also tea.

Sen made short work of several cups of tea before Uncle Kho started handing him bowls. Sen ate and ate. He was surprised to discover that some of the boar meat from their journey up the mountain had been prepared. Master Feng hadn’t been lying when he said that his miraculous ring kept things fresh. After plowing through most of what had been prepared, Sen had to admit to himself that he’d been hungrier than he realized. Not that Uncle Kho seemed to mind. If anything, the more Sen ate, the happier Kho became. Once the hunger ebbed enough that he was just picking at the food, rather than eating it, Uncle Kho sat down and poured himself a cup of tea.

“It was the right choice,” he offered.

Sen nodded. “I know. Well, I know that now. I didn’t really believe it until after I took the pill.”

“No one can blame you for that. Feng told me how bad that first one was. It was an honest mistake on his part. Once you take the pill, though, there’s no going back. You can only push through.”

“Well, this one was easy compared to that first one. I don’t think we’ll need to burn anything this time.”

“Good. I think my wife would be very put out with me if we burned this place down. Not that we couldn’t rebuild, but it might be a challenge to replace some of the things here. Like that wok,” said Kho, pointing at a pan that hung on the wall. “She’s had that wok for almost three hundred years. Says it’s the best one ever made. She bought it in some village that doesn’t even exist anymore.”

“Three hundred years,” repeated Sen, astounded at how casually the old man said it.

“Oh, beware young Sen. You’ve truly fallen in with old monsters here,” said Kho, a twinkle in his eyes. “Speaking of old things. Feng! Do you have it?”

“There’s no need to yell at me, Jaw-Long. No one here is deaf,” grumbled Feng as he stepped into the kitchen. “And, yes, I have it.”

Feng held out his hand to Sen. Another pill, although very different in color than the last, sat on his hand. Sen felt a petulant sort of grumbling inside of him, but it wasn’t the knee-jerk fear he’d had before. He took the pill and, at a nod from Feng, swallowed it.

“Good,” offered Feng. “There’s a bath ready for you.”

Sen didn’t bother protesting. He needed a bath. He bowed to Master Feng and Uncle Kho before grabbing a big piece of boar he’d saved and heading outside. The ghost panther trotted up to him immediately before crouching a little with her ears back.

“I know. I know,” said Sen, tossing the meat to the cat. “I’m heading to take a bath."