It was Sen’s turn to cock his head to one side. The question struck him as absurd, given that he’d said he would pay and there was silver in his hand at that very moment. He decided to start over again. He’d just explain from the beginning and, maybe, after he did that, they’d finally be reading from the same scroll.

“I was just exploring the area. These fields seemed abandoned, so I didn’t think there would be any harm in gathering some medicinal plants. If this is your land, though, I’m happy to pay you for what I took.”

He pushed his hand out a little farther, almost desperately, hoping that she’d finally take the money or at least negotiate on the price. Instead, somewhere in the middle of his explanation, she’d looked at his face again and her expression had gone a little vacant. Foiled, he let his hand drop to his side. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this tack.

“My name is Lu Sen,” he tried. “What is your name?”

“My name?” she asked after an exceedingly long pause.

Sen nearly lost hope then. Maybe if he just threw the money at her, that would get the conversation started again. Thankfully, mercifully, reality seemed to take hold of the girl again at that point.

“My name,” she nearly cried. “My name is Luo Min.”

Sen offered her a polite bow. “I am pleased to meet you, Luo Min.”

His formality seemed to fluster her briefly before she offered her own awkward bow.

“I am pleased to meet you-,” she trailed off.

Sen could see her desperately searching her memory for the name she knew he had given her. An annoyed, mean-spirited little part of him wanted to let her suffer, but he ruthlessly squashed that impulse. He was the offending party here. He had trespassed, however unintentionally, on her land.

“Lu Sen,” he offered again.

Cheeks going pink, she said, “I am pleased to meet you, Lu Sen.”

“Good,” he said, holding out his hand again. “About that payment.”

That time, the girl took a much more serious look at the money in his hand. She looked from the money to the field around them. A field that had clearly not suffered any major disruptions. She looked longingly at the money again, before she started to shake her head.

“It’s too much. I-,” but never finished.

The girl’s head whipped around, and it looked like she was straining to catch the barest edges of something. Focusing his senses, Sen caught a distance call on the breeze.

“Min!”

Sen pointed in the direction the girl was looking. “Someone over there is calling for you.”

Without so much as a backward glance, the young woman was sprinting away from Sen toward whoever had called for her. The call had been so faint that Sen hadn’t been able to tell if it was a man or woman, an adult or a child. His gaze turned from her fast-disappearing form down to the hand holding the silver. He supposed he could just leave, but he owed this farm something. Besides, in all the excitement of finding fresh medicinal plants, he’d lost sight of why he’d come out in this direction in the first place. The gentle tug was there and, of course, it was pulling him in the direction that Luo Min had just run. Putting the silver back into his storage ring, he started walking in the direction she had gone. If he knew that it was some kind of emergency, he might have run, but it could well be a child who was hungry or some other minor matter.

A short time later, he found himself standing outside of a small hut. It looked as though someone had made a genuine, if inexpert, effort to maintain it. Yet, the structure was clearly old and had likely not been of quality construction even when new. It reminded him of the huts he had seen on the farms at the very edges of the forest. Looking around, he saw a few chickens wandering around in the grass, pecking at whatever insect life or worms they came across. The birds all looked healthy enough to Sen. He imagined that the insect population thrived even in this less hospitable plot of land. He thought he caught the sound of some other animal behind the house, a goat or cow perhaps. What he didn’t see was any people. Once more focusing his senses, he caught the sound of movement inside the hut.

Nodding to himself, he settled in to wait. Patience was a hard-won, but essential skill for any cultivator. Fortunately, when faced with a wait of indeterminate length, cultivators also had something to occupy their time. They cultivated. So, as the morning bled away toward afternoon, Sen waited and cultivated. He might not have been so patient in other circumstances, but that gentle tugging had stilled when he found himself outside the hut. Whatever small opportunity he had come out here to find, he had found it. Or, at least, he’d found the right place.

He was also a little surprised to discover that while the farm didn’t seem to boast exceptional soil, it did have thicker qi than anywhere else he’d been recently. He wondered if it had something to do with proximity to the forest or if something else was at work. Maybe it was the simple lack of active farming here. He’d noticed a few small fields of crops as he’d walked to the hut, but they looked to be barely enough to provide food for the following winter and, if they were lucky, provide a little extra to sell in the village. It struck Sen as a particularly unforgiving lifestyle and, yet, that lack of crops also raised questions.

They clearly owned substantially more land than they were using, but even crop rotation couldn’t explain why so many of their fields were on the verge of being wholly reclaimed by nature. If Luo Min had a husband, what did he spend his time doing? It very clearly wasn’t spent on farming. Did he have some other trade? If so, why did they own a farm at all? He supposed some people might decide to become farmers, but then they’d actually be farming, wouldn’t they? If they decided to abandon farming, why not sell the land? No, thought Sen, there is something else at work here that I don’t understand yet. Setting aside the minor mystery of why the farm was in the shape it was in, Sen returned his entire focus to cultivation. He thought he had reclaimed most of the qi that he’d spent helping the wagon along and scaring off the bandits when the door to the hut opened.

Luo Min stepped out of the hut, her expression worried and eyes far away. Then, she noticed Sen standing there. She jumped and let out a startled little yell.

“Why are you here?” she almost screamed at him.

It sounded a little angry to Sen, but he suspected that he’d simply frightened her. He offered her a gentle smile that seemed to wear away some of the harder edges of her emotions.

“We haven’t settled the matter of my payment to your farm for the plants,” he offered by way of explanation, however incomplete. “As I said, I am no thief.”

She stared hard at him for a moment, and Sen got the impression that she might be truly seeing him for the first time. She took in his robes, the ones that Auntie Caihong had gotten for him, and the jian on his hip. A sword that was clearly used on the regular to the eyes of anyone who knew what to look for. Sen didn’t know exactly what kind of figure he cut, but he supposed that he didn’t project the image of a peasant anymore. He certainly bore little resemblance to the alley-dwelling street rat he’d once been. Did he look like a merchant? Some minor noble? Maybe he just looked like a cultivator, although he wasn’t sure exactly what looking like a cultivator would mean in practice. Whatever image he was projecting, it made Luo Min very nervous. Not the charmed nervousness that he often saw on the faces of young women, but a far more serious nervousness, a bit like he might expect from an animal in a cage.

“The farm is not for sale,” she declared.

“I see,” said Sen, not seeing at all. “Still, the medicinal plants, I need to pay you for them.”

Once more summoning the silver from his storage ring, Sen held out his hand. This time, the girl looked at the money like it was some kind of trap. Now, Sen was certain that there was something else at play here to which he wasn’t privy. Luo Min hesitated and then, almost reluctantly, reached out for the money. Sen patiently waited for her, at this point basically praying that she’d just snatch the coins and run away.

“Min,” a voice cried from inside the house.

This time, Sen was close enough to make out the details. It was another woman, an older woman, and one who was clearly in some kind of pain. His eyes focused on the house, and he let his spiritual sense wash over it. There was only one person in the place, and even at a distance, Sen could tell that she wasn’t well. He wasn’t nearly adept enough to know what was wrong with her, but he could feel that her qi wasn’t flowing properly. It felt out of balance somehow. He fixed his gaze on Luo Min, whose eyes tracked back and forth between the door and him. He frowned at her.

“Why don’t you summon a doctor? She’s ill. I can feel it from here.”

Luo Min’s mouth dropped open. “How can you know that?”

Sen shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. She needs a doctor.”

The girl said nothing, but her eyes flicked ever so briefly to the hand holding the silver. Then, finally, Sen understood. The fallow fields, the poor repairs, they couldn’t afford to fix up their home or hire help to work the fields. Sen knew about doctors because Auntie Caihong had told him about them, but he didn’t know how much they cost. Based on the girl’s expression, they were expensive even in this relatively small place. There might not even be a doctor in the village, he realized. That would mean summoning one from somewhere else. Even Sen understood that would prove terribly expensive. This was exactly the position he’d never wanted to find himself in. He was confident that the woman in the hut needed medical attention and needed it immediately. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised that Auntie Caihong had been right. The universe had a way of pushing you into doing things you didn’t really want to do. Sen closed his eyes and sighed.

“Take me to her,” he said.

Luo Min stiffened. “Why?”

“I have some training as an alchemist. I’m no true master, but I should be able to provide her some temporary relief.”

“Alchemist,” the girl whispered.

Luo Min frowned for a long moment, and it seemed that she connected some disparate facts in her own mind. Her eyes went so wide it was almost comical to Sen. Then, she dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead against the ground.

“Forgiveness, honored cultivator. Forgive this lowly Luo Min for her disrespect,” the girl said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.

Sen decided that he needed to put a stop to that nonsense. “Get up. I do not require or want such behavior.”

Luo Min stood, hesitantly, not meeting Sen’s eyes. “Yes, honored cultivator.”

“Just call me Sen.”

Sen could see immediately that the very idea made the young woman deeply uncomfortable.

“Fine,” he relented. “Call me Cultivator Lu if you must. Now, the woman inside?”

“My mother, honored, I mean Cultivator Lu.”

That cleared away some of the mysteries about the farm but opened up whole new lines of questions for Sen. Questions he didn’t have the time to indulge in at the moment.

“Take me to her. Do you have a cookstove inside?”

“Yes, Cultivator Lu,” said Luo Min, leading him to the door.

“Once you show me to your mother, stoke the fire. I’ll need it.”

“It will be as you say, Cultivator Lu.”

Sen tried to not grind his teeth together in annoyance and failed. If she insisted on calling him Cultivator Lu every time she talked to him, Sen might actually lose his mind.