Lin Shae's report arrived was what Commander Xu had expected.
Xu Meifen read it while grinding ink for her evening calligraphy, the brush was balanced on the stone beside her and her hair was still damp from her morning washing and it hung loose past her shoulders. The silk robe she wore was the color of sapphire with a loose and low cut and it was chosen for comfort.
"He asked to see the administrative district first," Lin Shae said, standing near the door. "Then the trade quarter. And then the communal gathering spaces."
Xu set down the ink stone. "He didn't want to see the markets?"
Lin Shae shook her head. "He showed no interest. He asked about governance, taxes, and administration." Lin Shae paused. "He also asked where people learned to read. I explained the military and administrative paths. He said it was a shame there was no school."
Xu Meifen cupped her chin. "What about you?"
Lin Shae understood the question. "His gaze met mine when I introduced myself but it didn't linger much. Then he looked away and asked about the administrative district. He didn't ask me any personal questions, nor did he attempt to isolate us." A small pause. "He treated me as a guide and nothing more."
Xu laughed.
Lin Shae blinked.
It was the only crack in her composure Xu had seen from her in two years of working together.
Xu waved her out before she could ask the question that was forming on her face.
Three years of Wen's quarterly reports had built a picture clear enough that Commander Xu could have written Lin Shae's account herself.
A boy who had spent three years designing labor rotations and supervising training grounds didn't walk into a new city and reach for anything outside of his comfort zone.
In essence, she had sent Lin Shae as a test she already knew the answer to.
In the third year Administrator Wen had written that the cultivation training program at Hekou appeared to function primarily through the methodology of the village's younger son, and that the elder son's combat output, while exceptional, owed its exceptionalism to the program itself rather than some innate talent.
She picked up the brush and began the first stroke of the character for patience.
The knock came at the expected time.
"Send him in."
Pei Liang walked through the door and stopped.
She felt his heartbeat before she looked up. It was the first thing she read in any room, the rhythm of whoever had just entered, the way a pulse changed under surprise or pressure or even carefully crafted composure. His was steady, which told her that his composure was real. Then it shifted and bumped to an irregular beat, then it quickly corrected itself.
She kept her eyes on the calligraphy.
The sapphire robe. The loose hair. The bare feet. She had chosen this outfit and her own resting quarters deliberately.
She finished the brush stroke, set the brush down, and then looked up at him.
She allowed herself a small internal amusement.
He had grown. His frame had filled in, the boyish angles were replaced by weathered that she knew all too well. It usually came from responsibility being carried long enough to bear weight upon one's face. His eyes were the same as she remembered them to be, dark and static, like staring into the night sky itself.
His eyes were also, at this particular moment, reading her. No doubt he was questioning her choice for attire, then came to the conclusion that it mattered little, for if it was no big deal to her, then it should be no big deal to him.
"Commander Xu," he greeted her with a polite bow.
"Pei Liang," She nodded her head.
He sat and poured a cup of tea for the both of them.
"Wen's reports describe your training program as a very significant development in the eastern territory," she began without preamble.
He took a sip of his tea and nodded. "Wen is as thorough as always."
She sipped her tea. "The treaty expires this winter, and I will be in need of my twenty-three practitioners to be retrained in your village before the Meishan campaign. It shall be done in groups of four, with the time being three-week cycles, and the first cycle shall begin within the month."
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He was quiet. She could tell that he was calculating something, what it was she could not deduce, but she figured that he would ask for something in exchange, so she did not hurry him along.
"I'd like to propose something larger," he said.
Commander Xu raised a brow at his words. "What do you mean by larger?"
"A sect."
She paused when her cup was halfway to her lips. "A sect?"
"It will be a permanent institution at Hekou. A formal school of cultivation thought, open to military practitioners and civilians from the surrounding region alike. A place where anyone with cultivation aptitude are welcome to join regardless of origin or affiliation. It will be a self-governing body with its own internal hierarchy and admissions process."
Yea, there was no way that the Lord Of the Western Reaches was ever going to approve of something like that. She had only let him finish his thought out of professional courtesy. "That cannot be done."
He raised a brow at her words. "Why is that?"
"This 'sect' concept, from what I gather, means an institution that operates by its own rules, answers to its own hierarchy, and produces practitioners whose loyalty would be tied to the institution rather than to their Lord." She kept her voice even despite the audaciousness of the request. Really, she thought he'd realize that much. "Lord Shen Yue does not permit division within his borders. I cannot bring him that proposal."
He didn't seem particularly crushed by her words. He simply stiffened his posture and said, "How about a monastery, then. Or a temple devoted to cultivation."
She sighed. Truly he was observant enough to understand what she was about to say, or maybe she had overestimated him. "Lord Shen Yue has no temples in his territory. He considers organized spiritual practice a distraction from productive governance, and he has maintained that position without exception. He would reject your proposal before I finished the sentence, and my attempt at doing so would also raise questions about my judgment."
He nodded along with her words and stared down at his tea cup in order to take a moment to gather his thoughts before he spoke once more.
"Then a school," he said finally. "A school of combat built on the existing training grounds at Hekou. The curriculum can be divided into different tracks based on the disciple's level. Beginners will learn the foundational work, intermediate students will practice application, and advanced students will focus on combat conditioning. Military practitioners from the Western Reaches can cycle through as well, along with Hekou's civilian population as a supporting force. The operation will be overseen by my brother and myself under Western Reaches administrative authority."
Oh, now that's not a bad idea. The other two were laughable by comparison.
Wait...
What am I, an idiot?
Commander Xu laughed.
It came out before she could stop it. Outside the door she heard her guards shift in their stances, perhaps because they had never heard her laugh out loud like that before.
"That cheekiness hasn't gone away I see," she said.
His lips nearly curved into a smile, but he did his best to not let the amusement show on his face.
"Your first two offers were designed to make the third one sound modest by comparison." She shook her head. This "sect" concept she couldn't approve, nor could she ever approve the creation of a temple.
A school of combat she could approve without much trouble as long as she played around with the words being used to justify its existence, but that would be a trivial matter for her. The real play was that he had purposefully presented her with two subpar offers so that the third one would seem less audacious than the others. It was a common negotiation tactic used by traveling merchants. "You must have been planning this since before you left Hekou."
"I've been planning this for three years," He corrected.
Commander Xu nodded her head. "Fine then. You're approved," she said.
His face was colored with shock, and it was an expression that she enjoyed looking at.
"With conditions," she added.
"I'd be disappointed otherwise."
She outlined them.
One: Quarterly assessments from Wen's office.
Two: Western Reaches Cultivation practitioners took scheduling priority.
Three: Annual reports were sent directly to her.
Four: The school operated under the Western Reaches administrative authority, not as an independent body.
He accepted each condition without argument.
She wrote up a draft of the proposal that she would then have to pass off to Administrator Wen so he could go over it and write up the final proposal in the language that would best please their Lord's sensibilities.
When the formal business was done she refilled the tea and let the room settle.
"You're more sure of yourself," she said. "I half expected the work at the village to have made you grow dull."
He considered that. "There's never a dull moment in Hekou."
She believed it, and his words made a memory surface unbidden, perhaps because she remembered when her days were less mundane. "My husband, Shen Bao, was the cousin to our Lord Shen Yue. He commanded the southern army while I ran his logistics. When he died in the Border Campaigns, I took his command."
Her words made him perk up, and he was not guarded or questioning her reasoning as to why she opted to open up to him, in fact in her estimation, he seemed rather open to hear it.
"In the Western Reaches, command passes to the designated heir or spouse, thus, the position became mine through marriage. If I were to marry again, the man would need to be adopted into Lord Shen Yue's extended family. He would have to take the Shen name, and his village, lands, and institutions would also become assets of the Shen Clan."
She watched his face, and she could see him trace the implications to its most logical conclusion. Marriage to her meant absorption, and that would mean Hekou would become a holding of the Shen Clan. The school he wanted to build would also officially become a Shen institution. The name Pei would also be folded into someone else's lineage.
Pei Liang shook his head.
"That's what I thought," Xu said.
Both of them understood what had just been offered.
"For what it's worth," she continued, "the offer was a genuine one."
"I know." He held her gaze with his own. "That's what makes it difficult."
His words were enough, more than enough, if she was honest with herself.
"I want a day," she said.
He raised a brow at her words and waited for her to elaborate.
"Tomorrow I'll show you the capital's supply chain market and garrison model so that you can use it as a framework for your school. In exchange, I want you to demonstrate what you're going to teach the cultivators under my command on me."
He didn't seem too shaken by the exchange, perhaps he had grown to trust that she did her best to make every transaction between them as fair as possible. "How early do we start?" he asked.
"Breakfast first." She reached for the brush. "Lin will escort you to your chambers tonight. I'd advise you to visit the markets before you sleep, I'm sure that you'll enjoy yourself."
He stood and collected his bag. His gaze shifted for just a moment, the composure easing into a warm softness.
"Training you will be enjoyment enough," he said.
A smile crept on her visage, and she kept her eyes on her paper until the door closed behind him.