Chapter 73: Spoils (3)

Chapter 73: Spoils (3)

Sen started by pulling out the small, enchanted box that Master Feng had given him. “With compliments of Master Feng and Auntie Caihong.”

Grandmother Lu took the box and, with more nervousness than Sen thought was wholly appropriate, she opened it. The room was almost immediately overwhelmed with a potent medicinal smell and a burst of qi. Grandmother Lu quickly snatched a piece of paper out of the box and closed it. She read over the note. Then, she read it over again. Sen watched all of this growing curiosity. When Grandmother Lu looked like she might burst into tears, Sen’s curiosity transformed into alarm.

“Grandmother? What’s wrong?”

The older woman’s head snapped around toward him, and she burst into laughter. “Wrong? Oh, you dear boy, nothing is wrong.”

“Then, why do you look like you’re going to cry?”

“I suppose it does pay to know old monsters. They didn’t tell you what these pills were?”

Sen drew himself up straight. “I didn’t ask. They were a gift for you.”

“They’re to help me break through.”

“Oh, they’ll help you get to late qi condensing? I thought you were stuck. No more breakthroughs.”

“So did I. By all rights, I should be. But, no, they aren’t meant to help me reach late or even peak qi condensing. Not just that, at any rate. If they work, they should help me break through to foundation formation.”

“I wonder how he could have known?”

“Grandmother?”

“Fans are uncommon weapons, even in the Jianghu. They were something of a symbol for my family. Do you think this Uncle Kho just guessed?”

Sen weighed that question. “He isn’t the kind to just guess outright. If it was a guess, it was an educated guess. Although, I can’t imagine where or how he would have come across information to connect you to the fans.”

Grandmother Lu shook her head again. “You know what? I don’t even care. Please thank him for me the next time you see him.”

“I will.”

Sen had been giving some thought to their situation with the gold while the older cultivator reacquainted herself with using the fans. He suspected those specific fans had meaning for her beyond their utility as pure weapons. After all, the woman owned a trading company. If she had wanted fans like those, she likely could have bought them for herself without too much trouble. Sen pushed that to the back of his head where he’d taken to storing mysteries about the nascent soul cultivators. He brought his attention back to the present, where a satchel full of money was threatening to send everything into another spiral of violence. Sen didn’t crave violence to begin with, and two days straight of real violence had been more than enough to make him desire an extended rest from it. He’d considered something that they hadn’t really discussed.

“Grandmother, do you think we should just give them the satchel?”

He’d initially dismissed the idea because he expected that it was the mayor’s stolen money. The mayor had proven himself a hostile force, so it seemed unlikely he’d just let things go if they gave back the money. Then again, it was a lot of money. Getting it back without trouble might just pour a little oil on troubled waters. Besides, Sen sort of enjoyed the idea of bribing the mayor with his own stolen money. When he looked over at Grandmother Lu, though, she was shaking her head.

“I thought about it,” she said. “It’s tempting, but I doubt it will stop anything. If it is the mayor, he’s all but declared a blood feud with you. So, I’m sorry, but you shouldn’t expect that to go away. If it’s someone else, they won’t want any witnesses around to spread rumors about all of that gold. No, much as I wish it were otherwise, this will all end in blood.”