Book 4: Chapter 5: Reception

Book 4: Chapter 5: Reception

For a long moment, Sen wondered about his own reaction. Why was he nervous about this meeting? As far as he knew, Falling Leaf and Chan Yu Ming had never met, let alone had any bad blood between them. There was no reason why they should be at odds with each other. If anything, Falling Leaf would likely just decide that she didn’t care about Chan Yu Ming at all and not interact with the woman. As for Chan Yu Ming, he didn’t really know her well enough to guess at her thoughts, but she hadn’t seemed insane to him. He suspected she’d be fine as well. So, pushing that dread back into whatever place of false fear it had crawled out of, Sen got on with the introductions.

“Chan Yu Ming, this is Fa Ling Li, my oldest friend. She and my teachers all caught up with me after you and your sect had already gone.”

“Wait,” said Chan Yu Ming, seizing Sen’s arm. “Feng Ming was there? And I missed it!”

“Along with Ma Caihong and Kho Jaw-Long, yes,” said Sen with a nod.

Chan Yu Ming looked like Sen had taken away her favorite holiday, announced that her favorite food no longer existed, and maybe killed her pet all at the same time. Sighing, she shook her head a little.

“Well, I guess I wasn’t likely to ever meet any of them anyway.”

Sen took the opportunity to continue the introductions.

“Fa Ling Li, this is Chan Yu Ming, my...,” Sen paused then, not entirely sure how he should finish that statement.

Chan Yu Ming looked deeply amused. She lifted an eyebrow, smirked, and said in a honey-sweet tone, “Your what?”

“My recent sparring partner,” Sen deadpanned.

Chan Yu Ming laughed before she turned a bright smile on Falling Leaf and gave her a very formal bow. “Fa Ling Li, it is very nice to meet you. I’m sure we’re going to be very good friends.”

Falling Leaf seemed a little startled by Chan Yu Ming’s almost aggressive cheerfulness. The panther-girl shot Sen an uncertain look as if asking his opinion. He smiled and gave her a half-shrug with one shoulder. She was going to have to decide for herself how friendly she wanted to be with the young woman from the sect. Falling Leaf hesitated for a moment before she returned the bow.

“It is nice to meet you, Chan Yu Ming,” said Falling Leaf.

“Good, now that we’re friends,” said Chan Yu Ming, “you must know some embarrassing stories about this unreasonably tall man.”

Falling Leaf hesitated again, casting an uncertain look at Sen, before she finally said, “Not many.”

“Really? How much of his time did he spend training for there not to be embarrassing stories?”

Falling Leaf looked much more confident when she answered that. “All of it.”

It was Chan Yu Ming’s turn to look a little uncertain before she nodded. “I suppose he must have to be as good with the jian as he is.”

Sen took that moment to break back into the conversation and take the attention off of Falling Leaf, who was starting to get a vaguely panicked look in her eye. Sen gestured to Lo Meifeng, who had been unusually quiet for the entire exchange.

“How have you been? Was the trip back uneventful?” he asked.

“The trip back was tedious. It really was like herding cats. About half of the people that I was bringing back almost never leave the sect. So, once they were outside,” she trailed off.

“They weren’t in a hurry to go back,” finished Sen.

“Exactly. In some cases, I could understand it. We were a relatively long way from home, so to speak, so the healers were eager to snatch up some plants that we don’t see around here as much. As for the rest, they wanted to treat it like some kind of vacation.”

“So, you had to keep on them constantly.”

“I did. As for me, I’ve had pleasant thoughts of my impending abduction to keep me entertained. Did you bring rope?”

Sen eyed the smirking woman for a moment. “You do know that I’m not actually going to abduct you, right?”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear you trampling my hopes with your negative thoughts.”

Sen laughed but continued with his point. “I’m serious, though. I don’t need an entire sect hunting me for kidnapping one of their core cultivators. Plus, I have no idea who you actually are. You could have some big, violent family that would come looking for us if I did that. That’s a kind of trouble I don’t really need.”

“Well, you certainly know how to suck all of the joy out of a fantasy. Are you saying you don’t think I’m pretty enough to fight for?”

“I’m saying there’s absolutely nothing erotic about killing a bunch of people.”

Chan Yu Ming frowned at that. “Well, you have me there. As for the sect, they wouldn’t do anything. I’m not really one of them. I come and go as I please, which frustrates the elders to no end. As for my family, they would come looking for me, and it would be...tense when they finally caught up with us.”

“How tense?” asked Sen.

“Tenser than either of us would want to deal with.”

Sen nodded. It wasn’t exactly what he’d expected, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d thought that there was a high probability that someone would come looking for her.

“That’s too bad,” said Sen.

“Why is that?”

“I do have a rope.”

Chan Yu Ming looked at him blankly for a few seconds before she laughed. “That’s just mean.”