Sen was a little relieved that the tree cutters lived near the edge of the town in a truly modest but well-tended home. He wasn’t looking forward to making a show of carrying the injured man through the town on a qi platform. He would have, but it would been inconvenient. Cultivators made mortals rightly nervous, and overt displays of cultivator power made them very nervous. Fortunately, the young man was much more concerned with his father’s well-being than with anything that Sen was doing. When they arrived at the house, the young man simply called out for his mother. She was distraught to discover her husband was injured, but it seemed she was cut from a similar cloth as Grandmother Lu. She focused on the practicalities, rushing around to set up a pallet near the stove they used for cooking and heating the little home. Sen settled the injured man on the pallet. Before he could make good an escape, though, the young man dropped to his knees and started kowtowing.

“That really isn’t necessary,” said Sen.

“This Wang Bo can never repay the kindness of the honored cultivator.”

Wang Bo’s mother, who had been crouched and fretting by her husband, whirled to stare at Sen in mixed shock and horror. She scrambled over to mimic her son.

“This Du Fen begs a thousand times for the honored cultivator to forgive her disrespect.”

“Please stop,” Sen almost begged the pair.

He wanted to think that they’d heard one too many stories about arrogant and petty cultivators, but he didn’t really believe it. He’d met plenty of cultivators who would have, if they noticed this mother and son at all, treated them like trash. He imagined that those cultivators expected this kind of behavior. He had no stomach for it. It always took him right back to the streets of Orchard’s Reach. Always hiding in dark corners to avoid the notice of the noble brats. Pleading with the shopkeepers who caught him lurking around their businesses to spare him a beating. He had no need or desire to harm the mortals he encountered, unless they were violent bandits, and this family clearly wasn’t in that category. He didn’t know if it was the pleading tone in his voice or a total lack of hostility on his part, but Wang Bo and Du Fen looked up at him hesitantly. It was almost like they were testing to see if he was trying to trick them. He quickly gestured for them to rise. Du Fen’s eyes went immediately back to her injured husband.

“Tend to him,” said Sen in the gentlest tone he could manage.

She didn’t need any more encouragement. The woman swiftly returned to her husband’s side. Sen looked at Wang Bo, who was looking uncertainly at him. Sen felt at a loss about what to say now that the immediate crisis was over. Instead of standing there in awkward silence, Sen fixed his attention on the injured man and checked the wounds again. They seemed to be healing up fine, but it was clear that the pace of healing was slowing. Sen pursed his lips. It could be that the elixir was wearing off, but he suspected it was more likely that the man simply didn’t have the physical reserves in place. While it didn’t look like this family was starving, it was clear that they didn’t enjoy any kind of wealth. They probably weren’t eating all that well. No doubt eating whatever they could afford and nothing else, thought Sen.

This family’s problems weren’t his problems. Sen knew that. But he had intervened. The first elixir he’d given the man would almost certainly ensure his survival. Of course, he also knew that survival came in a lot of forms, not all of them good or advantageous. It wouldn’t really cost him anything he cared about to help a little more. I’ve already come this far, he thought. I may as well finish the job. He searched through his storage ring and found another weak elixir. He summoned it and held it out to the Wang Bo. The young man stared at the vial like he didn’t dare touch it. Sen waited a little longer before he rolled his eyes.

“Take it,” he instructed.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Apprehension on his narrow face, the young man gingerly took the vial. He held it in his hands like it was a fragile infant. Sen realized that the young man probably had no idea what it was, let alone what to do with it.

“Give that to your father tomorrow at midday,” said Sen. “No sooner.”

His eyes going wide, the young man nodded furiously.

“It will be done as you say, honored cultivator,” said Wang Go, almost shouting the words.

Sen looked over the young man’s mother.

“Madame Du,” he said, causing the woman to shoot to her feet and look at him. “Your husband will need hearty meals for the next several days.”

The woman exchanged worried looks with her son.

“I… I will do what I can, honored cultivator,” she said.

Sen nodded as though he expected nothing less because this attitude was what the mother and son seemed to expect from him. He adopted a very mellow version of what he thought of as his young master mask.

“I have taken some small interest in this matter as your husband has received the benefits of my alchemy. I cannot have the elixirs’ effects diminished by inadequate meals,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “No, I will have to ensure he is properly fed in order to test the quality of the elixirs on a mortal.”

Sen waved a hand and summoned a truly absurd amount of food from one of his rings. Bags of rice and piles of vegetables appeared. Wang Bo and Du Fen gaped at the food, stunned by the good fortune that had seemingly dropped on their heads out of a clear sky. Sen continued to put on his young master act. He frowned at the pile.

“No,” Sen muttered to himself. “That won’t do. He needs meat to heal properly.”

Sen peered around the room as if looking for something. He didn’t see anywhere to store meat, even if only temporarily. He searched his rings and found a small table. He usually used it for tea, but he decided he could sacrifice it. After all, he could just make a table from stone if he really needed one. He summoned the table and piled several kinds of meat on it. He gave Du Fen a vaguely stern look.

“Hearty meals,” he ordered solemnly. “I will return in three days to see the results of my elixirs.”

The woman nodded slowly like it was taking her body a while to translate the commands her mind was giving it. “I will do as you say, honored cultivator.”

“Good. Good. I have other business to attend to now,” announced Sen.

Wang Bo and Du Fen offered hasty bows. While they weren’t looking at him, Sen seized the opportunity to activate his qinggong technique and run away through the still-open door. He expected that they would just assume he did some mysterious cultivator magic to disappear. Which, he realized on reflection, was what he had done. It was a relief to escape from their general awe and palpable fear of him, though. Reassuring people who were certain you might kill them at any moment was a mentally exhausting exercise for Sen. It was so much easier to deal with people who either didn’t know he was a cultivator or had some experience dealing with cultivators. It gave him more and more respect for inn owners who managed to maintain some equanimity when they realized he was a cultivator.

That thought reminded him that he’d certainly left Falling Leaf alone with the two foxes for longer than was wise. He walked back to the inn. Before he even reached the door, he knew something was wrong. Sen would have liked to say that he picked up on subtle indications like changes in the ambient qi or telltale noises, but it was nothing like that. The door to the inn had been knocked completely out of its frame and had what looked like an injured mortal sprawled across it. There were also the general sounds of fighting and yelling coming from inside the inn. Sen pinched the bridge of his nose, just certain that Laughing River and Misty Peak were somehow responsible for whatever disaster he was going to find inside.

“This is what I get for thinking that I could leave them alone for any length of time. You brought this on yourself, Sen,” he muttered.

He spotted a stray dog that looked at him curiously from a nearby alley.

“You don’t know how lucky you are,” he said to the dog. “I bet there isn’t a single nine-tail fox making any trouble for you.”

The stray didn’t comment, just kept giving Sen a vaguely happy and curious look. Sen considered just walking away from the mess and letting the foxes sort it out for themselves. If it were just the foxes inside, he probably would have done exactly that. Unfortunately, there was a good chance Falling Leaf was in the middle of whatever mess they had made. She had direct and absolute ways of solving problems that he thought were probably overkill for whatever situation had developed in his absence. Best to get her out of there as fast as possible, he thought. Mentally imploring the heavens for a problem he could solve quickly, Sen squared his shoulders and stepped through the empty doorway.