BOOK 11: CHAPTER 59: SECRETS AND ASSUMPTIONS

The silence drew out as Sua Xing Xing seemed to weigh what she would tell him. Or, he thought, maybe she’s just trying to decide how to phrase what she’ll tell me. He doubted that she was going to come up with any kind of verbal magic that would succeed in making him less angry about everything. Even if he had, eventually, concluded that the matter was sufficiently in hand, he still should have had a say in how it was handled. Setting aside that he was the sect patriarch, loath the title though he did, his daughter was here. He watched as the other cultivator put down her teacup, picked it back up, almost took a sip, and then put it down again. Sen just waited. His patience was by no means endless, but he was willing to spend a little time on this.

Sua Xing Xing’s expression soured before she said, “I have no excuse for it.”

A flash of anger coursed through Sen at that non-answer.

“I didn’t ask you for an excuse,” said Sen, his voice hard. “I definitely didn’t ask you to try to avoid the matter entirely. I want an explanation.”

Sua Xing Xing flinched at his words and averted her eyes. Sen wasn’t sure what she thought he was going to do to her, but it was clearly something far worse than anything he’d actually do. He’d meant it when he said that she’d already be dead if he meant to kill her. The truth was that she was too useful to throw away like that, even if she had done something foolish. But he needed to know why she’d done it so he could plan around that kind of problem in the future. She closed her eyes before she spoke again.

“I thought you’d remove me from this position if I didn’t handle it on my own.”

Sen sighed and asked, “And why did you think that? Did I ever say that I’d remove you from your position if you couldn’t solve every problem by yourself?”

“No. You never said. But—” she trailed off, once more averting her gaze.

“But?”

Sua Xing Xing swallowed hard and looked at him again. Looking as though she meant to brace herself against a terrible wind, she spoke.

“You are not a forgiving man.”

To that, Sen had no response. Mostly because what she said was true. It might not have been quite as true as she imagined it was, but she had been there when he’d taken such terrible revenge on those cultivators who had attacked the town. At least, she’d seen the aftermath. Those fools had only injured a few people, and he had done worse than simply kill them. He’d deprived them of anything that might be called honorable deaths. He had literally and figuratively crushed a few of them as soon as he arrived. Those who had survived their initial meeting, he’d destroyed their cultivation and left them at the hands of the townspeople.

He’d meant to send a message, but he hadn’t given enough thought to what message he was sending or who might receive it. Then, there were all those stories about him floating around out in the world. Plenty of those painted him as a particularly ruthless and vengeful man when it came to those who crossed him. The fact that he hadn’t done most of those things was almost irrelevant now. He’d done enough other ruthless things that it was pointless to try to deny the stories. They sounded like they could be true, so they might as well be true.

He'd also never let Sua Xing Xing get close to him. There had been good reasons for that, or so he’d told himself. Instead, he’d given her power and responsibility in the sect. She didn’t know him. She never had. She only knew what she could glean from watching him at a distance. The fact that he didn’t know what picture that might have painted of him in her mind was troubling, but also likely at the root of this situation. Because he’d never let her get to know him, she had no reasonable way of knowing how he’d react to failure. None of which was sufficient to wipe away her bad decisions. It was, however, enough to color his impression of those decisions in a somewhat kinder light.

“I can see how you might have formed that opinion,” admitted Sen. “I suspect that I am more forgiving than you believe that I am. But you should have told me what was happening. My child lives here, and the situation could have deteriorated at any time. If I had known, I could have given you advice. I could have sent help. If need be, I could have come back. By keeping this to yourself, you deprived us both of options.”

Sua Xing Xing was growing paler with every word, as though she imagined he was changing his mind about killing her as they spoke. If something had happened to Ai, however unlikely that was, he would have killed Sua Xing Xing for keeping things secret. The fact that Ai was fine and the town was intact meant that things had been more or less under control. It wasn’t ideal, but they’d held out and probably could have continued to hold out for quite some time. The most dangerous time would have been when those cultivators and mortals first attacked. A lack of information always put you on the back foot until you learned about your enemies’ capabilities and limits. That was when she should have informed him, but she hadn’t. He waited to see what, if anything, she might say.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Sua Xing Xing was silent for a time, her eyes moving back and forth. Sen couldn’t tell if she was trying to remember something or was just avoiding his glare.

“I… I thought that if things went truly wrong, the nascent soul cultivators would step in.”

Sen had to push down another surge of anger because, like many other things, he’d never explained to her what Auntie Caihong and Fu Ruolan would or wouldn’t do in any given situation. Given their relationships with him, it even stood to reason that he’d left them there to watch over things in his absence. Or, it would stand to reason if someone didn’t really know anything about them, which Sua Xing Xing didn’t. In a very peculiar sense, he had left Auntie Caihong there to watch over things. The catch was that she was there to watch over Ai, not the sect or town.

As for Fu Ruolan, she was simply too unpredictable. She might defend the town, or she might wipe the town out in her efforts to wipe out the noisy, disruptive invaders. Auntie Caihong had taken pains to explain some things about sects to him as part of his general education in cultivation. In a normal sect, he understood that nascent soul cultivators were often given the role of sect guardians. After all, they were both powerful and likely to live a very long time before their ascensions or, as more often proved the case, their deaths. Their explicit task was to do exactly what Sua Xing Xing thought that Auntie Caihong and Fu Ruolan would do. Step in if things became too dangerous.

He hadn’t been thinking about that particular feature of sects when he’d left. He’d just assumed that she understood that they weren’t there for the benefit of the sect because he understood that fact. He’d also assumed that their total failure to interact with other sect members would be a sign. However, this was another thing that he knew but hadn’t been thinking about. Elder cultivators often went into secluded meditation or withdrew from active participation in their sects to pursue some personal project for centuries at a time. Having never been in another sect, he’d never lived through someone entering or exiting that kind of seclusion. From the sect’s point of view, both Auntie Caihong and Fu Ruolan might well have been engaged in some private study but would defend the sect at need. Sua Xing Xing shouldn’t have assumed that’s why they were there, but he shouldn’t have assumed she knew it.

There were failures on both sides, but he had been the one with the information and chosen not to share it. He’d gotten too used to being distrustful of anyone in a sect, and that had bled over into his interactions with the woman he’d left in charge here. Yes, some things needed to be closely guarded, but that information should have been shared with Sua Xing Xing. It was possible that she’d have done the exact same things. However, he suspected that knowing the two nearby nascent soul cultivators wouldn’t intervene likely would have altered at least some of her choices. You have to trust some people, he reminded himself.

“They wouldn’t have. At least, I don’t think that they would have. Not in the way that you’re probably imagining they would,” said Sen.

The last remaining color in Sua Xing Xing’s face drained away.

“They wouldn’t have?” she asked.

Sen wasn’t sure if it was an actual question or simply an expression of horror, but answered her anyway.

“No, and I have to take responsibility for you not knowing that. Were you under the impression that they were here acting as sect guardians?”

“Yes,” she said in a faint voice.

“I thought so. They aren’t. Auntie Caihong would have intervened to save Ai. I expect that Fu Ruolan would have done the same. I also expect that if it had meant killing half the people in the sect and town to get the job done, they would have done that, too. They are my teachers and, in some strange way, my family. They are most assuredly not elders of this sect. You should always assume that they are, at best, indifferent toward the town, the sect, and everyone in both.”

Sen thought he might be painting Auntie Caihong in an unfair light. She could be cold and ruthless, but she’d probably try to save the people under his protection simply because they were under his protection. Assuming that doing so didn’t jeopardize defending Ai. He was also quite sure that he’d described Fu Ruolan with perfect accuracy. She borderline hated having this many people so close to her home. The unstable nascent soul cultivator might even use intervening as an excuse to thin the herd. He thought that over and decided that he was being unnecessarily harsh. On most days, she probably wouldn’t do that. Most days.

Still, Sua Xing Xing’s assumption did a lot to explain her actions. If she thought he’d left two nascent soul cultivators here to protect the sect, it stood to reason those nascent soul cultivators had his trust. They would also have had orders directly from him about when and how to interfere with anything that threatened the sect and, by proxy, the town. Sen pinched the bridge of his nose out of habit and sighed. The red-haired cultivator across the desk was staring at him with wide, almost terrified eyes. He supposed the implications were starting to sink in. The truth about how terribly wrong everything could have gone.

“I can see that there are some important matters that I’ve neglected to discuss with you. So, we’ll discuss those things, and then I’ll decide about what, if any, punishment I need to dole out.”