“You said you wanted the responsible persons found and didn’t care about the methods or the cost,” said Lo Meifeng. “Now that you’ve had a little time to sleep on it, does that still hold true?”
Sen’s only answer was to drop a bag full of gold onto the table between them. Lo Meifeng nodded and stored the bag in her own storage ring. After that, a steady stream of people that...
2024-04-25 10:09:37 +0000 UTC View PostA few days later, just when Sen was on the verge of thinking that maybe he could have brought Ai along for this trip, an explosion made the entire building shudder. For a second, Sen was caught completely flat-footed. He hadn’t sensed any surge of qi. There had been no warning at all. A moment later, he brushed aside that irrelevance and rushed over to the window. He looked down into the cour...
2024-04-25 05:41:34 +0000 UTC View PostSen had ground his teeth when the Lo Meifeng first dispatched riders to visit a few, very carefully chosen sects to visit. He ground his teeth every time he thought about it. Sects had been the source of so much unhappiness and pain in his life. The idea of doing business of any kind with them felt wrong. Unnatural. Almost a violation of something sacrosanct. Yet, after hearing just a ...
2024-04-24 17:31:12 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so I guess it's time that I give this thing a name, if for no other reason than so I can make a collection on here with it. Right now, I'm strongly inclined to called it Isekai Terry: Chinese Period Drama Hell. What do you guys think? ~Eric
***
Given the number of unfriendly stares that were being directed his way, Terry did not take his time in leaving. You’ve ...
2024-04-23 15:46:53 +0000 UTC View PostFeng Ming walked through the town where Sen had apparently decided to make his home for the moment. He was less than impressed by it. Not that there was anything specifically wrong with the place, but there was nothing particularly great about it either. It had just clearly been chosen for its proximity to Fu Ruolan and no other reason. The people were friendly enough, even if the...
2024-04-23 10:17:56 +0000 UTC View PostSen had, very knowingly, procrastinated about returning to the city. Some of it was that the spirit oxen were always just so happy to see him. That held especially true for the young ones. After getting permission, he even took a few of the boldest calves flying. He didn’t take them very high. He didn’t want one of them to panic and bolt off the qi platform just to fall and hurt themselves....
2024-04-23 05:39:14 +0000 UTC View PostWhile they had passed through a few villages along the way, Remdell assured Terry that he should wait until they reached the town of New Lushion to cash out the bandit heads. Apparently, there was some kind of organization there that would pay him more. With no better information to go on, Terry agreed. When they entered the town, though, Terry wasn’t sure if he should feel disappointed or ba...
2024-04-22 15:31:29 +0000 UTC View Post“Who are you to judge me without even hearing my words?” demanded Hsiao Jiayi, fury lighting her eyes.
Sen met her furious glare with one as cold as ice.
“Very well, then. Explain.”
“I seek to bring down a tyrant. To free my people.”
Sen nodded and said, “Oh, a worthy goal, no doubt. So, you’ll bring down this tyrant and replace them with who&nbs...
2024-04-22 09:04:27 +0000 UTC View PostSen picked them both up on qi platform and flew them away from the manor. He moved them away quickly and, once they got to the city wall proper, he boosted the speed to something he was certain that Lo Meifeng couldn’t match. He’d mostly been focused on making sure that no one was following them to drag him back to make more decisions. He knew he couldn’t escape it forever, but the though...
2024-04-22 06:04:28 +0000 UTC View PostTerry was once again filled an intense desire to just leave. This was more of that hero bullshit. It was straight out of a volume of some isekai manga. The wayward traveler from another world makes… Well, Terry hesitated to the call the farmer and his family friends. The wayward traveler inherits some mostly inoffensive companions, only to be confronted with some monster that re...
2024-04-21 09:11:57 +0000 UTC View Post“Lo Meifeng’s right,” said Grandmother Lu. “You should use sects to secure your holdings. It’s efficient.”
Sen nodded and even managed to keep a calm expression while he did it. He’d been getting a lot of practice at those just lately. He’d also been dragging his feet on the decision to use the sects because… He sighed. It was just because he didn’t like it. He knew it...
2024-04-21 07:36:54 +0000 UTC View PostHsiao Jiayi fussed in front of the mirror, as she had been for the last two hours. She had decided that she needed to go see that man. Then, she had spent half the morning justifying it to herself. He’s a powerful cultivator and noble in this kingdom, she thought. It only makes sense for me to make contact with him. He might be more amenable to our ways than the...
2024-04-21 05:01:04 +0000 UTC View PostTerry was standing in line at the DMV, listening to some woman try to passive-aggressively get the clerk behind the counter—a hard-faced man who was probably around when God made the earth and also clearly wasn’t moved by the woman’s complaining—to do some damn thing or other. What Terry couldn’t figure out was why he was so happy be stuck at the very end of that line. He was overjoye...
2024-04-20 13:42:51 +0000 UTC View PostJing turned to look at Sen and said, “This doesn’t strike you as a bit… Isn’t it a bit much?”
Sen cast an appraising eye around. We’ve got huge walls that are vastly ominous with glowing spikes, he thought.
“No,” said Sen, “I think it’s just about right. Oh, before I forget, huge sections of the walls were hollowed out.”
“What?” dema...
2024-04-20 10:01:28 +0000 UTC View PostMuch as he had done at his own manor, Sen stepped onto a qi platform and rose high above the royal palace. It probably wasn’t necessary. He didn’t need to physically see structures like walls to manipulate them, but a little spectacle was probably in order. He’d drawn quite a crowd the first time around. Of course, he’d been up there for hours and hours. That it would only take him an h...
2024-04-20 06:52:28 +0000 UTC View PostTerry was still screaming obscenities at the sky when a young woman raced up and threw her arms around him. She was tall and quite strong, no doubt a testament to years on the farm, which meant that Terry was wholly unprepared when her assets were pressed and held firmly against his body. He was so stunned, in fact, that he still had a clenched fist raised to the sky. The shock had silenced his...
2024-04-19 10:33:28 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you planning a coup?” asked Jing.
Sen almost spat out the food he’d just put in his mouth. He glowered at Jing, who gave him a beatific smile in return.
Swallowing hard to get the food past the lump in his throat, Sen said, “Why would you ask me such an absurd question?”
“Well, with all those rumors regarding your Fortress of Doom—”
“It’s not a F...
2024-04-19 08:00:40 +0000 UTC View PostSen and Grandmother Lu spoke for another two hours before she announced that she was weary from her journey. Sen called in Pan Shiji 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 wa...
2024-04-19 05:35:51 +0000 UTC View PostI don't plan on making this a habit, but I knew exactly what was going to happen in this chapter, and it was eating a hole in my brain. So, you get to reap the fruits of my weakness. Enjoy! ~Eric
***
It took most of a day to get out of the city, even running nearly the entire way. The only good thing about fleeing through a city filled with what had to be tens, if not hundr...
2024-04-18 10:32:42 +0000 UTC View PostAfter she got over her coughing fit, Sen decided to take a little pity on Lo Meifeng and Long Jia Wei. He’d wanted everyone more or less on the same page about his intentions, and he felt that he’d achieved that. After all, Long Jia Wei and Lo Meifeng already knew what he was going to be doing.
“I expect that there are things that you two need to be looking after,” he said.
...
2024-04-18 06:58:00 +0000 UTC View PostGrandmother Lu’s eyes traveled over the walls, the open gates, and the people inside pretending not to be watching, all before they traveled back up to his face. She closed her eyes, shook her head a little, and sighed.
“You didn’t listen to a word I said about practicalities, did you?”
Sen took a moment to look at the walls before he said, “I know it’s a little big, but...
2024-04-18 04:33:21 +0000 UTC View PostSo, today wasn't a good time. My back is hurting. I think I may have twisted wrong on the ice last night and pulled a muscle a bit. And I had a migraine... Although, I'm not sure why this time. I took something for the migraine, and it seems to be fading. Some over-the-counter medication seems to have taken the worst edges off the back pain. All in all, though, I feel pretty wrung out mentally....
2024-04-17 02:47:58 +0000 UTC View PostSometimes, my brain just wants to work on other things for a little while. So, you get a random chapter of something. ~Eric
***
Terry was not pleased to discover that even though the stars and dislocation were fading, the pain was not. He was certain, just goddamn certain, that the imprint of some automotive logo was now permanently engraved into h...
2024-04-16 11:37:29 +0000 UTC View PostSen breathed a sigh of relief as the gates to the Golden Phoenix sect slammed shut behind him. Lai Dongmei, true to her word, had summoned people to clear away the remains of her bed at the same time that she was escorting him out. Sen had rarely been on the receiving end of so many murderous glares. Although, it was far less nerve-wracking than it had been in the past. Then, those looks had fe...
2024-04-16 06:02:22 +0000 UTC View PostSen stretched and looked out the window. Even in the pre-dawn light, he could see Golden Phoenix Sect members out and about. Some were clearly cultivating, others were training martial forms, and he even saw a few groups that appeared to be heading out on some kind of missions. It was all so orderly. He wondered if things would ever look this orderly back at the Deep Wilds Academy. Sen knew tha...
2024-04-16 03:49:29 +0000 UTC View PostOkay, so I'll admit that I'm generally not big on crowds...or noise...or bright lights... But, in the service of promoting my books, I will make the ultimate sacrifice (🤣) and deal with all of those things to attend Dragon Con this year. At this point, I'm still just attending. I assume that my publisher will want me to do things like... I don't know... sign books at a table or...
2024-04-15 19:25:40 +0000 UTC View PostSen had completely discarded any notion of paying attention to the people who kept coming up to them. They all just kept talking. Not interesting talk, either, but just a geyser of words about whatever seemingly random topic popped into their heads. One man had gone into a ten-minute discourse about apples. That might have been interesting if the fool hadn’t just been making things u...
2024-04-15 05:36:15 +0000 UTC View PostHsiao Jiayi worried that she might not be able to continue the conversation if she wasn’t allowed a moment to regain her calm. Fortunately, there was a commotion outside the main door into the room they were all occupying. Someone was arriving and, by the noise, it was someone important.
“Lai Dongmei, matriarch of the Golden Phoenix Sect,” choked out the man at the door.
Hsiao...
2024-04-13 20:26:29 +0000 UTC View Post“Lord Lu, the cultivator Judgment’s Gale, and his escort, Honorable Shen Mingxia,” announced the man at the door.
Hsiao Jiayi looked over, her curiosity burning. She’d heard so much about this man, this folk hero, this cultivator turned house patriarch in a land where cultivator noble houses simply did not exist. The stories had been ludicrous. Wild tales of impossible victories o...
2024-04-13 20:23:56 +0000 UTC View Post“I can’t believe you forgot,” said Shen Mingxia.
Sen was a little amused to see that aggravation had overcome her newfound sense of respect for him. They were flying over the streets of the capital on a qi platform, drawing curious looks, and even some pointing from local kids. Sen figured that since his anonymity was nothing but a memory at this point, there was no reason ...
2024-04-13 06:34:10 +0000 UTC View Post