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Unintended Cultivator V8: Chapter 20 – The House of Lu
🕑 Added 2024-04-07 06:50:40 +0000 UTCSen supposed it was a testament to just how much he was asking for when Jing stood there in motionless silence for most of a minute. Given Sen’s well-known feelings about nobles, it was entirely possible that Jing thought Sen was playing some kind of bizarre joke on him. Sen was even tempted to say that it was a joke. But that would ultimately throw confusion onto the situation that he didn’t want, because Sen wasn’t joking. He was absolutely serious.
“The House of Lu?” asked Jing, almost as if he was checking to make sure he’d heard correctly.
“The House of Lu,” confirmed Sen.
“That is complicated,” said Jing, obviously scrambling to buy himself time.
Sen tried not to take a little pleasure in seeing the usually self-possessed man on the back foot for once. Jing walked over to the throne and sat down. For a moment, Sen thought the man was trying to convey a heavy-handed message about who was in charge, but that thought evaporated when Jing slumped back. Oh, thought Sen, he just needed to sit down for a minute.
“That is very complicated,” muttered Jing.
It was clear to Sen that the other man was talking to himself, so he just waited patiently for Jing to gather his thoughts. It took a few minutes before Jing looked up at Sen.
“Do you really understand what you’re asking for here?”
Sen snorted and said, “I am supremely confident that you know that I don’t know. On the other hand, are you really going to tell me that you’d rather have the House of Xie? A family that has proven it will work against your interests and wishes.”
“No. I’m definitely not saying that, but this isn’t the kind of thing you can manage by popping in every few years. You’d have to be here, all the time, running the house every day.”
“Well, we both know that’s not true. I figured out that much running my academy. Oh, I didn’t tell you about that did I?”
“No, but I’d also heard rumors of you starting something up north. And the word academy is self-explanatory.”
“Yeah,” said Sen, “I guess it is. Anyway, I don’t run that any more than you run this palace. Staff run most things. The patriarch or matriarch or whoever makes big decisions, and they let everyone else deal with the details.”
“So, if I were to agree to this, you’d just immediately hand off all of your responsibilities to other people?”
“Not just any other people. I have someone in mind who would be ideal for making decisions for a large house with far-flung holdings and operations. As for me, though, no, I wouldn’t be taking up residence in the capital. I already have obligations.”
Sen couldn’t decide if the king looked disappointed or relieved at that statement. Maybe it was both.
“You realize that the only reason I’m even considering this is because you’ve already decided to do whatever you’re going to do the Xie. Something you intend to do regardless of anything I might say about it.”
“As opposed to what? Wait. Are you asking me to spare them?” asked Sen, his eyes narrowing. “After what they did? Would you spare them?”
Jing reached up and started to massage his eyes.
“The truth is that I would probably have no choice but to spare them. I’m sure that they made a point to use someone low in the house to make the actual arrangements, or even used someone outside the house entirely. Not that it would take cultivators very long to ferret out the truth. But I doubt I could gather enough evidence to do anything meaningful to them,” said Jing.
Sen remembered having a similar conversation about evidence with Jing when they’d been trying to free Chan Yu Ming from her unwanted engagement. Of course, in the end, Sen had simply done what he thought was best.
“You, however, are not me,” continued Jing. “You’re a cultivator and a famous hero. You can likely do what you want to do to them based on nothing more than your word. If you say that they tried to have you assassinated, the common people will believe you. Hells, even the nobility will probably believe you. But the other noble houses will also never forget it. They’ll never trust you. They’ll always be waiting for the day when you come for them. It would make running your own house hard, harder than it would be for anyone else. They’ll constantly be looking for ways to ruin you, interrupt your operations, anything they can think of to bring you down, so long as it won’t lead back to them.”
Sen shrugged.
“So, you’re saying they’ll act like nobles.”
“I’m saying they’ll act like frightened people because that is exactly what they’ll be.”
“If they don’t interfere with my affairs, they’ll have nothing to fear from me.”
“Do you honestly think they’ll believe that?”
“No, but you can always remind them that if I genuinely wanted to purge this city of the nobility, I could have done it already.”
Jing sighed and said, “I doubt that would help.”
“Maybe not,” admitted Sen, “but I expect the looks of their faces would be hilarious.”
“I think we might have different definitions of hilarious.”
“Probably so.”
A pensive look stole over the king’s face, then it seemed to harden into a rigid neutrality before he asked a question that Sen had not been thinking about.
“Do you intend to kill the children as well? The staff? The guards? Just how far will your destruction of the House of Xie go?”
Sen found that he had a sudden need to sit down after hearing those questions. He summoned a chair from his storage ring and dropped into it. He’d been so angry about all those cultivators coming for his head that he’d just let himself think of the House of Xie as some kind of monolith made up of decision makers. It had been easy to think of their destruction in the abstract. Jing had brought that abstract idea crashing right back down to the unforgiving earth. Do you intend to kill the children as well? That question echoed inside his ears. Reason told him that sparing anyone was foolish. It would just invite foolish attempts at reprisal down the road. The safest course was to end the line entirely, root and branch. Wipe the world clean of them. Of course, reason was the domain of the mind, not the heart. Do you intend to kill the children as well? Could he kill them all? Did he have that in him? Sen examined his own heart. The answer was clear. No. He did not have that in him. Not the children.
“Anyone in the house leadership has to die. Anyone who was involved. But no, I won’t kill the children. I probably won’t kill the cooks, maids, or anyone else like that. As for the rest, I’ll just have to see what they do.”
Jing seemed to relax a little at those words.
“Bringing the house under control won’t be easy. They have scions scattered across the kingdom. They’ll try to seize property, withhold earnings, and they may even destroy things in an attempt to thwart you or take revenge.”
“Then, they die.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that,” said Sen. “They won’t be nobility anymore. If they aren’t a part of the House of Lu, they’re just thieves and bandits. I have no use and no pity for thieves and bandits.”
“They’ll see you as the thief.”
“That sounds like a them problem.”
Jing grimaced a little.
“I forgot that you could be quite this ruthless.”
Sen considered the other man.
“No, you didn’t. You need someone ruthless for your plan to keep your foreign guests off-balance to work. You need someone who simply does not care what they think. Someone who won’t be put off by ending them if they try to do something to you. Besides, I suspect that this might even work to your advantage.”
“How so?”
“A ruthless cultivator comes in and wipes out a house in revenge. Rather than starting a feud you can’t win, you find a way to quell that anger and even nominally bring that cultivator into the fold. I don’t understand politics all that well, but I imagine that will probably make you look quite competent.”
“It’d be more impressive if everyone didn’t know that we have an existing relationship.”
“You can’t always get everything.”
“No, you certainly can’t,” said Jing. “So, your goal in all of this is what?”
“I don’t care about controlling a noble house, but it will provide a future for my daughter. A future with options. A future that doesn’t involve needing to stay by my side for the rest of her life.”
“Is she a cultivator as well?”
“Not yet. Maybe not ever. She’s still a little too young for all of that.”
“Is she with people you trust? People who can protect her? Once you start down this road—”
Sen started to laugh.
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. Anyone who goes looking for her in the immediate future will have to contend with Auntie Caihong and Uncle Kho. I don’t see that ending well for anyone who turns up with a mind for giving my little girl some trouble.”
Jing stared at Sen with a dumbfounded expression on his face.
“You have The Living Spear and Alchemy’s Handmaiden babysitting?”
“Are you kidding me? They volunteered. I honestly don’t know what they might have done if I didn’t let them have her while I was away. I’ll probably have to physically drag her out of their nascent soul clutches when I get back.”
“You are frighteningly casual when you discuss them.”
“They’re family. I mean, I understand now how powerful they are, but Auntie Caihong would check me for head injuries if I started acting all frightened and humble around them. Uncle Kho would just give me odd looks and tell me to stop acting like a fool.”
Jing shook his head and said, “I struggle to imagine that.”
“It’s still true, but we’ve drifted off the topic at hand,” said Sen, giving Jing a look that said he knew the man had been stalling.
Jing sighed and said, “Long live the House of Lu.”
Comments
Lycaon
Oof. If I recall correctly, Grandma Lu has blood kin of her own, who are going to show up, expecting to get a piece of this.
Conrad Manaugh
Why is he making trouble for himself. He can let ppl take care of it but if has to kill people then its an errand
Marian Ch
So he's going to foist the whole process of instating and maintaining a noble house onto his old granny as well as his daughter. Wew. This whole 'I want that family for my kid' bit feels poorly thought.
Foxmoor Fiction
Yeah, some chapters just fight and scratch to stay in. Like pulling a cat out of some comfy blankets. And then some just saunter onto your lap. Eh, writing in general is a lot like dealing with cats: highly rewarding, but very frustrating.
jean
i do hope little ai gets some cultivation done just seems a waste if she can't learn a little if she is surrounded by quite the strong cultivators not to mention her papa XD
Khent Mercer
Long live the House of Lu
Jason Hardman
Plus Grandmother Lu is a cultivator, so not only will the head be a cultivator, probably multiple other noble roles will be also. A difference when nobility and cultivators are usually kept separate in this country. I expect Grandmother Lu to be extremely pissed at having this dumped on her without notice, or even a visit.
Jason Hardman
Reminds me of cooking. Sometimes hours of preparation and effort disappear into your cake-hole in a matter of minutes.
IndyBart
Great chapter for a blooper, and I love the unsaid ‘Fu k it’ that the king didn’t express before he said ‘Long live the House of Lu’ lol
Eleeyah
Granny Lu was the very first person I thought of the moment Sen mentioned the House of Lu. She's also one of the primary options of whom I'm thinking he wants to instate as head of the house. Should add, it's about time she and Sen meet and talk, anyway. XD
Sanctum
Well Said!! Thanks for a fun chapter Eric!
Den
Long live the House of Lu
Eleeyah
> Some of these chapter flow easy, and then I get the occasional one like this that just fights me every step of the way and takes hours and hours to finish. Oh god, do I know what that feels like, lmao. Had a chapter just like that yesterday. Weird thing was, it made me genuinely *tired* just writing it. It wasn't until I got some coffee (not much of a drinker, so it's actually effective on me) that I could put the last 300 or so words down.
CipherFTW
The final line makes up for any and all errors you may have made all story long. LONG LIVE THE HOUSE OF LU!!
Newbie_101
I think this chapter came out great!
BigFun
Looking forward to Le Meifeng and Granny Lu interacting in the future
Abdulaziz ALRumaih
Long live the House of Lu
Roaring waters
There’s a certain level of smugness a reader can revel in knowing you read the whole chapter in seconds (because it is really that addicting) for what probably took the author many hours to write 😂
Sid
Jing sighed and said, “Long live the House of Lu.” - The poor king doesn't realise just how long the house of Lu will live for with Sen's connection. Someone said Ai will be queen and that's definitely a possibility in the future if Sen gets a noble house and calls his grandmother to the capital to take control and teach Ai everything else she needs. I'd really love to see some chapters with grandmother Lu tho. It's been aaaaggeeesss
BelligerentGnu
I cannot wait for Grandma Lu to learn about her new promotion, and for the nobility to realize what a shark has moved in.
Jeremy Young
That might have been a hard chapter for you, but it read well and then you put the cherry on top… “You have The Living Spear and Alchemy’s Handmaiden babysitting?”
AA
But thinking about it, the reaction from Grandma Lu and any of her surviving family will be even more hilarious
AA
I am looking forward to seeing the reaction from the other noble houses and the sects
Eric Dontigney
Okay, there's a bit to unpack there. In many asian cultures, last names come first. So, Kho is actually the family name, while Caihong is what westerners would consider a first name or given name. As for why he calls them that, He calls Uncle Kho that because that's what Uncle Kho told Sen to call him. Same goes for Auntie Caihong. I always meant to write a scene where Sen asks Uncle Kho about it, just to have Uncle Kho be like: Uncle Kho: Oh, I just hate the name Jaw-Long. So, I make everyone call me Kho. Sen: Auntie Caihong calls you Jaw-Long. Uncle Kho: Sen, if you ever get married, you're going to learn an important lesson. Some fights are NOT worth having.
Robert
Long live the House of Lu
Rhysal
Well I think it came out great Eric. Thanks for the chapter and I hope you get some rest.
Vaughn Fredericks
I know it's been this way all along, but why is it Uncle [First Name] and Auntie [Last Name]? Is that a cultural thing, or just a personal choice by Sen?
