Unintended Cultivator

Book 8: Chapter 39: Discernment

Sen and Grandmother Lu spoke for another two hours before she announced that she was weary from her journey. Sen called Pan Shiji in and told her to arrange a room for their most honored guest. The young woman’s eyes danced back and forth between Sen and his grandmother, trying to parse the relationship and getting nowhere with it. She eventually retreated to do as she was told. While that was being taken care of, Sen decided that there was one more person that Grandmother Lu should meet. It was a meeting he wanted to be there for, just in case. She followed him with curious eyes as he led her to a hallway that was not substantially different than all the other hallways and knocked on a particular door. There was a long pause before Glimmer of Night responded.

“Yes?”

“It’s Sen. There’s someone important that I want you to meet with me,” said Sen, casting a brief look at Grandmother Lu before he added one more thing. “There’s no need for the disguise.”

“Disguise?” asked Grandmother Lu.

“He’s a spider-kin. He was transformed into a generally human shape, but his appearance can be a little unsettling right at first.”

Sen was cut off by the door to the room swinging open. Glimmer of Night peered out of the room, his chitinous features and liquid black eyes as unreadable as ever. Grandmother Lu lifted an eyebrow at the sight of him but appeared otherwise unruffled. Sen stepped into the room, let Grandmother Lu step past him, and closed the door. That promptly cast the room into total blackness, so Sen conjured a few small fireballs to hover in the corners. He turned to the spider.

“Glimmer of Night, this is my grandmother, Lu Jia. Grandmother, this Glimmer of Night, one of the spiderkin.”

The woman and the spider stood in complete silence for three solid minutes, just looking at each other. Every once in a while, one of them would tilt their head a little to one side or the other but that was it. Sen wasn’t sure if this was good or bad or if they expected him to carry the conversation. When he was finally ready to interrupt the silence, Glimmer of Night finally did something. He gave Grandmother Lu a very respectful bow.

“Glimmer of Night greets the matriarch,” said the spider.

Sen was very confused but, apparently, the pair had reached some kind of understanding. The heavens only knew how. Sen dutifully opened the door and escorted her out into the hallway. He looked back into the room and extinguished the fireballs before closing the door. As they walked down the hall, Sen looked over at Grandmother Lu.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Oh, he seems like a very nice boy. Very practical,” said Grandmother Lu.

Sen fought with himself about whether or not to ask the next question, but curiosity won out in the end.

“How can you tell?”

She frowned a little bit, shrugged, and said, “You just can.”

Sen wanted to feel a little frustrated by that answer, but couldn’t quite do it. How often had he given cryptic non-answers to people when he couldn’t rightly explain how he had done something far more miraculous than getting a feel for someone’s personality? He wrestled with it for a few moments. Then, he decided that it must be some form of inscrutable Grandmother Magic obtainable only through age and hard experience. With that matter settled in his mind, they wandered back to Sen’s office. A room that he hoped would soon become Grandmother Lu’s office. They drank tea and ate snacks that Sen conjured from his storage rings as they waited for Pan Shiji to inform them that a room had been prepared.

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“Sen, how much do you trust Lo Meifeng?” Grandmother Lu asked out of nowhere.

Sen froze, a teacup nearly touching his lips. He scrutinized the woman’s face and tried to glean some insight from it but to no avail. He took a sip of tea before setting the cup down.

“Enough. More than most. Why? Do you think I shouldn’t?” he asked, feeling suddenly unsure about his own judgment.

“Nothing like that,” said Grandmother Lu. “She’s just very adept at masking herself. You’re putting a lot of faith in her good intentions.”

That made Sen burst into laughter, drawing a perplexed look from the older woman.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded. “Is there some joke you forgot to let me in on, boy?”

“No. It’s just that Lo Meifeng doesn’t have good intentions,” explained Sen. “She has interests, and a tiny circle of people that she likes. I happen to be in that rarified group of people that she holds some affection for. And this whole business of creating the House of Lu from the ashes of the House of Xie interests her. She gets to build a spy organization from the ground up. Train people the way she thinks they should be trained. Give them the skills that she, no doubt, found out the hard way that a spy can’t live without. That challenge alone will keep her invested for decades at least. When she does finally get bored, the whole thing should be established enough that someone can just step into the role.”

“And just how did you end up in that tiny circle? Anything I should know?” asked Grandmother Lu, leaning in with interest.

“Nothing I’d be embarrassed to discuss with you if that’s what you’re getting at. We aren’t secret lovers. We just went through some difficult situations together. Faced down some things that probably should have killed us both in hindsight.”

“Ah, now it makes sense,” said Grandmother Lu. “Then, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. I’m not, however, entirely comfortable with the idea that her dependability relies entirely on her relationship with you.”

“That’s fair. Relationships can sour. Honestly, though, I doubt it will be a problem. I get the feeling that it’s almost as hard to leave that circle of hers as it is to join it in the first place.”

“I’ve met a few people like that along the way,” said Grandmother Lu.

The pair lapsed back into a comfortable silence until Pan Shiji knocked, waited a respectful interval, and then entered.

“A room has been prepared,” she announced.

Sen went to stand up, but Grandmother Lu waved him back into his seat. She eyed Pan Shiji, who seemed to wilt beneath the intensity of that gaze.

“She’s young. I expect her legs can carry her far enough to show me my room. Can’t they, girl?”

Pan Shiji looked almost petrified, but she managed to squeak out a lone word.

“Yes.”

“Good. Sen, I’m sure I’ve kept you from countless things that can’t do without you, so go make yourself useful. We’ll talk in the morning.”

Pan Shiji's expression turned from petrified to mortified that someone was ordering Sen around. He made a valiant and successful effort to maintain a calm demeanor. He inclined his head to Grandmother Lu before turning his attention to Pan Shiji.

“Please see to it that our guest has everything she requires.”

The girl nodded before Grandmother Lu all but pushed her out the door. Sen waited until he was certain that they were gone before he let himself snicker at the memory of Pan Shiji’s expressions. The last few weeks had, mostly through observation, taught him that people in servants’ roles had a strange kind of pride in it. They also took the reactions of their “superiors” very seriously. Openly laughing at the girl, however harmless it might seem to him, would injure her pride. While it wasn’t a perspective that he understood personally, he wouldn’t go out of his way to inflict unnecessary injuries. There was enough wanton cruelty in the world without him bumbling around and inflicting it through sheer inattention.

He also knew that Grandmother Lu was right. Lo Meifeng was probably pacing somewhere, fretting about all of the things that he wasn’t getting done right now. The right thing to do was to go find her and get back to work. Instead, he gave himself five minutes to sit and just feel good about the fact that Grandmother Lu was there. Like so many other things, he’d been forced to push aside how much he missed her in favor of dealing with trivial matters like not dying and dealing with stupid turtles. It had been a hole in his life. For the first time in a long time, that empty place inside of him was once again filled with the woman’s curmudgeonly love.