Chapter 43 — Revelations

“Jiang Pei,” said Lin Che, keeping his face as still as possible.

Jiang Pei’s posture subtly shifted. “You know who I am?” he asked.

“Yes.”

A brief pause. His eyes moved to Chen Wei, who was still on the ground and had just about managed to get himself into a seated position. He was wiping soil from his face and still sniffling quite a bit.

Jiang Pei came to his conclusion. “He told you.”

“Does it matter?”

“How did you do it?” asked Jiang Pei. “Chen Wei is not a naive operative. He’s been with the clan for years, yet you still managed to turn him?”

From the ground, Chen Wei made a sound akin to a whine, but it was cut off by a sneeze. He shot Lin Che a look of betrayal.

The headlights of a black sedan cut through the field entrance before it slowed to a stop on the gravel. The door opened, revealing Shen Bowen sat with one foot over his knee and a laptop beside him.

He looked at the field and his eyes traced the people on the floor. Xu Fang was now on his feet, holding his left shoulder with his right hand, and Guo Mingzhe was slightly hunched and rubbing his back. The others were, of course, people he recognised from the Shen Clan.

Then he looked at Lin Che.

“Come and sit with me,” he said, beckoning a finger.

“We can talk here,” said Lin Che.

“This is a private matter.”

“My group can hear it.”

“No,” said Shen Bowen, showing faux-patience to preserve his dignity. “They can’t.” He folded his hands together in front of him. “Lin Che, you have done impressive work tonight and over the past two months, but let’s not perform leverage you don’t currently have. You are a capable practitioner who has done excellent things with an early-stage foundation, but Jiang Pei is standing a few metres beside you, and he can get to you before you can get to that portal. And, moreover, your group cannot provide you any meaningful support in their current state.” He beckoned his fingers once more. “So get in the car, please.”

Lin Che looked at him for a moment before turning around and casting an eye at his road trip buddies.

Shen Bowen was right: they were worn and battered, and Chen Wei certainly was not on his side any longer. Even if they weren’t outnumbered, how could two people who had been cultivating for a month pose even a minor threat to a veteran.

He gave them a nod and got in the car.

***

The partition between the front and back seats was down and Yang Zichen drove in silence. He understood that his job right now was to be a non-presence.

Shen Bowen sat with one ankle crossed over his knee and made direct eye contact with Lin Che.

“You passed our background check comprehensively,” he said. “University records, employment history, social network — the works. Everyone we spoke to described you as a capable but unremarkable individual.” He paused. “I find myself wondering which part of that picture was constructed and which part you simply allowed us to see.”

“Does the distinction matter?” asked Lin Che.

“It matters for understanding what I’m dealing with.” Bowen’s expression was not unfriendly, which Lin Che honestly found considerably more unsettling than hostility would have been. “The Lin Clan has been dormant for a long time. If that’s changing — if there’s a resurgence being planned — I’d rather know about it directly than piece it together afterwards.”

Lin Che kept his face still.

He thought about the possibilities of there really being a Lin Clan, and it honestly made some sense to him. Why else would he have been married off to a cultivator? But he grew up without any knowledge of cultivation, and his parents must have too. There would be no reason to hide such things from him.

Was it all just a misunderstanding?

“Perhaps it is,” said Lin Che.

“And the site. If the Lin Clan is attempting to reclaim ancestral sites, I’d like to understand the timing. Why now?” He uncrossed his ankle and leaned forward slightly. “The matter of the wedding was not incidental for us. The Shen Clan has resource requirements that the holy land access would significantly help alleviate. We—”

“It’s to do with Shen Yue’s constitution, isn’t it?” asked Lin Che.

The car was quiet for a moment.

Shen Bowen sat back.

His lips wrinkled slightly and he recovered quickly, but Lin Che recognised the half-second of genuine unguardedness that he let out.

“You have excellent intel.”

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“I know what I know.”

Bowen was quiet for a moment. He looked out the window at a dark road moving past them, before finally opening his mouth.

“Then you understand why the timing of the portal access is critical,” said Bowen. “And why we decided to go through with the marriage pact.”

“I understand it from our side,” said Lin Che, carefully. “Tell me how you understand it from yours.”

“Fishing for information, are we?” said Shen Bowen, the tone of his voice mechanical. Still, he struggled to restrain all of his killing intent, which caused the hairs on Lin Che’s arms to raise.

It dissipated quickly.

“If you don’t want to marry Shen Yue,” asserted Shen Bowen, “you don’t have to. You just need to sign the papers to infuse your innate Qi so that we can open the holy land. After that, I promise you that the Shen Clan will cut all ties with you and not get in the way of your goals.”

Shen Bowen reached inside the inner pocket of his blazer and brought out a twice-folded piece of paper and a pen.

It was the wedding contract Lin Che had signed many times before.

“Do we have a deal?”

Lin Che kept his eyes on the contract and said nothing.

“It’s a straightforward arrangement,” said Shen Bowen. “Considerably simpler than a marriage with none of the ongoing obligations. You sign, and then we are, as I said, entirely out of your life.” A pause. “Whatever you’re planning with the remaining Lin Clan sites, we have no interest in interfering with it. We just need this one site.”

Lin Che thought for a while, trying to pick out any potential issues from this deal.