It didn't take them long to get out of the mountain and be on their way. Chai Ying had asked if they needed to restock any supplies and Bai Mei Li had let him know that the cave was only short distance away so they'd immediately headed out.
Bai Mei Li wasn't worried about bringing Xiao Jun back because she trusted in her ability to gauge people and situations. That had been her job after all and she was very good at it. For so many years she'd come into contact with so many different kinds of people. Good guys, bad guys, military men and women. Bad guys that thought they were good guys, hero's who turned out to be supreme evils. She'd seen it all at this point. Gauging people was now second nature to her. The people she'd met so far in the sanctuary… she wasn't sure if she'd call them good guys, but they were reasonably decent human beings who were unlikely to attack if unprovoked. Her instincts told her these people were trustworthy to a reasonable extent and she worked in a field where listening to her instincts had saved her life.
"How long have you been here?" Chai Ying asked while they were speedily making their way back to the cave.
"About two weeks now. You?"
"Seven years."
"So long.." She mused softly.
"What year was it when you di… left?" He changed the word at the last minute. Some people had a harder time thinking about their death then other people.
"It was 2020 when I died. At least I think I died. I have no memory of it. I just know that I was on my way back home from a conference in Washington. A world wide pandemic hit and I was stuck in the United States for several more weeks then I had intended thanks to quarantine. I was in a taxi on my way back to my house and then I was suddenly here. I have no idea what happened to me" After she'd accepted reality other then being sad about her family she wasn't too sensitive about the subject.
"Maybe its better that way." Chai Ying remarked.
"How you did you die?"
"I was assassinated."
"Why… I mean can you guess why. Do you know why?" She guessed in a lot of cases you would probably die not understanding why it happened. Of course there were cases when the victim was fully aware of why they were being hunted.
"President Nixon was visiting, ending the twenty-five years China and America had no communication or diplomatic ties. There were plenty of people in the military that believed we didn't need to mend ties with America and that we were in fact better off. If I had to guess I would say it was probably an opposing faction in the military. I was of the opinion that it was not in the best interest of China's national security to keep America at arms length. Sometimes you need to keep enemies closer than friends to protect yourself from them." He said while reminiscing about the past. He too had felt that the Chinese people were being too influenced by western culture, but returning to isolation wasn't the answer either. Because China was apart of the world it had to BE apart of the world. Too many people just couldn't understand this.
"That was 1972." She remembered that from history… she gasped looking at him. "You are Lieutenant General Chai Ying!" She said in amazement. She couldn't believe that the extremely talented tactician had ended up here. They said that he should of become a first class general but he was just too honest and straight forward to go any higher. It wasn't that he wasn't capable, it was just that he had a very clear moral compass that he wouldn't compromise under and circumstances. If it wasn't for that fact that Lieutenant General Chai Ying was too ridiculously talented to ignore he definitely wouldn't of become even a captain.
"Yea, amazing right. I ended up in another world. While our world just kept right on spinning. How did the talks end up?" He said with a charming smile.
"It was historic. It opened China up to the world economic stage. We have benefited a lot from those truly historic talks, but we loss a bit as well. Western culture is everywhere as I'm sure you can imagine. You can't take without giving it seems." She filled in him.
"I see." He didn't know how he felt about that. He honestly didn't have enough info to really decide on how he felt. For a moment he considered asking her a few more questions. Like how his wife ended up, but in the end he decided not too. Did you really gain anything from getting stuck on the details of your past life? It wouldn't change anything, and in fact would likely just add more regret to his life. He had plenty of that already, and he had moved on a long time ago, and while it was nice to find out the conference had at least been a partial success for China he wouldn't gain anything from worrying about anything else on earth.
"Are you okay?" Bai Mei li asked after he was quiet for a long while.
"I'm fine. What's in past should stay in the past."
Bai Mei Li didn't say anything about that. Although her lack of memory about what could of happened to her for her end up here didn't bother her enough that she couldn't talk about it, she still found her hard to separate who she was now from who she was on earth. She couldn't put aside her past life's regrets away quite so easily. After all she still felt like herself. She had all her memories. She was still Bai Mei Li.
"It's isn't too far now, its just up ahead." She said as she pointed in the direction of the cave. She said changing the topic from what she was uncomfortable with.
Bai Mei Li had been thinking about something ever sense she'd met and spoken with Fan Tao. It wasn't what he'd asked, but rather what he hadn't. Eventually she couldn't hold it anymore and asked.
"Chai Ying, why haven't either of you asked me what my currant talents are?" She finally asked the question that had been bothering her for a while. Fan Tao had asked her about her skills of her past life but he hadn't seemed all that interested in the skills she'd inherited from this body.
"It doesn't matter." He said simply
"It doesn't matter?" She frowned. How could it not matter?
"You're a psychiatrist so you can think of the sanctuary as a support group. It's a safe haven. We don't offer support only to those that have great ability. The only thing that's important is that you originated from earth. Having great ability is a boon of course, it helps us maintain our security. However, it isn't a prerequisite to joining." He explained simply. Fan Tao hadn't created the sanctuary for power, it was designed to be a safe haven for people like them that find themselves in a brand new world all alone.
"I see." She said as she thought about it. This world she was in was a dog eat dog world. It was a world where the strong preyed on the weak, and where there was no justice to speak of when the weak were preyed upon. But when thinking about it none of them were use to that way of thinking. They didn't come from a place where it was natural to leave the more vulnerable of their communities to fend for themselves. In every society there were tons of programs put into place to protect those that couldn't protect themselves. Still..
"Why bring that here?" She asked trying to understand. No matter how she looked at it she just could see these two as so selfless. She didn't believe they were bad people, but she didn't see them in a heroic light either.
"Bring what here?" He asked in confusion.
She stopped just in-front of the cave and and turned to face Chai Ying watching him carefully.
"Are you trying to remake the standards of our old world? Do you intend to try and bring the standards of our old world here? What will you gain?"
Chai Ying was silent for a moment before he smiled.
"I'd spent a lifetime never doing things that went contrary to my conscious. A lot of people couldn't understand. Am I good guy? If I am how could I of killed to many people during my military career? You know there was one time that we had bad intel and I marked a building for bombing. That building was later discovered to be a safe haven for Afghanistan women attempting to escape abuse. The afghan government wanted to get rid of one of these building to appease local tribal leaders. Our government agreed to be the bullet in exchange for secrets on North Korea." He spoke evenly. He didn't appear to be to bothered by what he saying
"Your conscious was clear not because you didn't mind killing innocent women, but because…" She started.
"That's right." He grinned. "It was because no matter what I made a vow to place China above all others. The deaths of those women were not negligible, but necessary in the sense that the information gained by their death saved the lives of fifteen hundred Chinese soldiers." He paused thinking about those pst actions. "The truth is if I had known what that those women were in there I still would of completed the mission because I'm a solider. And being a soldier is more then just drills and fighting in open straight forward battles. War is also covert and ugly. To preserve ones countries ability to function independently requires soldiers to cross lines that others will look at judge as cruel and unnecessary. The truth is, is that it's just reality. The world at large is cruel, and a country can't be sustained on kindness."
Bai Mei Li was silent for a long while. She understood his point even though it was far too big to swallow. Those women were sacrificed by their own country for the sake of citizens from another country. It was too hard to swallow. Even still she found that she couldn't consider Chai Ying a villain. He clearly understood a of truth of their world that she hadn't been privy too. But still after hearing that story and complicity in those killing she had to wonder what his bottom line was… or rather what a countries was that it had stopped him from becoming a first ranked general.
"That being said I won't do things contrary to my beliefs here either. No matter what I feel that we should look out for those of that come from the same place. Why should the chains of this world bind us. I'll do whatever I feel I should."
"I understand. I don't like it all but I understand… and too a small extent agree" She said finally "Let me open the cave." She turned from him and moved to the cave. After a hand seal the ice completely melted away and a small blur immediately exited and leapt into her arms.
"Elder sister, you're back like you said!" Xiao Jun said excitedly
Bai Mei Li smiled as she picked him up hugging him tightly. "Was Jun'er good?"
"Yes! Yes! Let's eat, Xiao Jun is hungry!"
"Alright alright." She laughed. "you'll have to snack. Sister has a place to take you. Go pack up your things. Also this is Chai Ying. He'll be leading us back to the place. Go and greet him, be polite."
It was only then that Xiao Jun noticed that there was another person here. His little face instantly scrunched up unhappily. He jumped down without another word and ran back into the cave to pack up. Sister Mei was naturally his. He didn't need to be nice to other men that tried to get close to her. He'd show them who was most important to sister Mei through his silence.
Humph…
He wouldn't even bother.
Bai Mei Li looked helplessly at Xiao Jun running away in a jealous fit.
"Sorry, he's still young and he's been through a lot. I can't bare to scold him so I'll apologize on his behalf okay Chai Ying?"
"It's not a problem." He said absentmindedly. He was trying to figure out why he couldn't sense the presence of this child at all. What type of artifact or ability could allow a child to do such a thing in front of a cultivator with a high cultivation like himself?
(A/N Lieutenant General Chai Ying is a fictional character I created. The peace talks between America and China in 1972 was a real thing. Just to save you some googling lol... edited)