I had left her with just a couple loose restraints. The only thing keeping her here was a single vine, of course she would break out. Predicting this wasn’t hard, so I had Programmed the pineapple to swallow her if the vine ever started to break.

I opened the Prison Pineapple. A mass of vines flooded into the slit. Using the vines, I probed around the interior of the pineapple. I felt Hui Ming jumping around in the pineapple through my connection with the pineapple. I quickly cornered her.

She shouted and cut at my vines. Despite my vines being many times harder than steel, her blade was able to cut through some of them. However, she couldn’t cut through all of the endless wave of vines. I captured her and dragged her out, taking her weapons away.

This time, she couldn’t keep her cool. She screamed and punched against my vines. I was pounded into the ground by multiple successive blasts of Qi.

It wasn’t very comfortable. I let her push me around for a bit before getting a vine to anchor me to the ground. I ignored her and let my vines bring me back to the house. I walked the rest of the way to the bedroom.

I shoved my face into a pillow.

Was it right for me to imprison her just because I wanted to keep my powers secret?

How would my parents and friends think of me if they found out I was doing this? I stared at myself through a mirror across the bedroom. I didn’t look very different from before. The only difference was my clothing. I had the same puffy black hair and the same body, but had my morals changed?

Light sobs reached my ears through the walls of the house. I turned so the pillow rested on my face, pulled down by gravity. Guilt built up as I listened to her sobs. The longer I listened, the more restless I became.

A crushing weight on my chest, a dry throat. I stood with a conflicted frown on my face and walked back outside.

She raised her head. She looked absolutely miserable. Her previously strong and rebellious demeanor had vanished, replaced by puffy red eyes and tears. Muddled feelings of guilt and confusion manifested on my face as an even deeper frown.

I’m selfish. I wasn’t going to let her go.

“Can I have some pie?” she asked through her sobs. I may be selfish, but I still had guilt. My guilt gripped me like a master puppeteer.

“Sure,” I mumbled, before springing off to buy pie. I ran through the streets, letting my Nosey Ginseng enhanced nose sniff out for the nearest bakery. I was moving so fast I could feel the air resist my movement.

I blew into a bakery. “You got any pie?” I shouted.

The cashier turned his head so fast I heard his neck creak. “What the- ye- yes?” he stuttered. “Uh, which one do you want?”

“Who cares? Just give me one, any one.”

He handed me a large square pie. “It’ll be twenty four shar-”

I slapped a silver jade slip on the counter and ran out with the pie. Halfway home, the guilt lost its grip on me. I still felt terrible, but not to the point of pie buying maniacy.

I jumped over my own gate and handed her the pie. The restraints on her hands fell off and the vines set her on the ground. Only a couple vines remained tied around her feet. “Let me go get a fork.” I ran into the kitchen and ran back out.

I moved to remove the vines around her feet but I stopped myself. Instead, I watched her pick up the pie and shovel it in her mouth. Dear God, she hasn’t eaten since I captured her.

“How… how did you know my favorite pie was walp pie?” she asked.

“I didn’t. I just asked the bakery for any pie. Is that your favorite pie? I guess I got lucky,” I said.

“My favorite pie is walp pie,” she stated again.

The pie was quite big, at least three centimeters thick. When she finished half of it, she started talking again, albeit hesitantly. “How do you do that with the plants...sir?”

For some reason, I felt fine with her calling me sir. The revulsion that usually came when others called me that simply didn’t show up. “I can manipulate plants that I make. I don’t know how I do it, I just do it. You’ve seen me do it, so I think you can guess the rest of how it works.”

“You told me-in the beginning when we first met-you told me you weren’t part of the Blue Fire Sect… is that true?”

Why was she asking me all these questions? “Yes,” I said. She sighed. It sounded like a sigh of relief, but I couldn’t be sure. “As I said, I just arrived here. I hardly even know anything about this sect. I happened to meet the sect head a couple weeks back, and here I am.” I chuckled, “If I’m honest, I don’t know how I got here either, or where I’ll be going. I’m still trying to learn and adapt.”

“Are you going to joining the sect soon?” she asked.

Why did she care? I shrugged, “This seems like a nice place, and the sect head is a good person, so maybe I will. But again, I don’t know where I’ll be doing.” I pinched my chin absentmindedly. The conversation started feeling smoother, more natural.

“What’s your relationship with the sect head?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Something like friends, but she holds way too much respect for me for us to be called friends. Now that I think about it, it’s pretty complicated,” I responded. “Why?”

“I’m from the Crimson Fire Sect,” she said.

Was that supposed to answer my question? “I know, Chen Wei told me, remember? You were there.”

“Yes sir, but the Crimson Fire Sect is at war with the Blue Fire Sect. You might get caught up in it,” she said.

So I might get caught up in their war. “So?” Observations aren’t commands. I didn’t know what she was trying to imply.

“Will you… side with the Blue Fire Sect?” she asked.

“Probably,” I said.

She looked down at her pie. There was just one square of pie left, a sixteenth of the whole pie. She held it up to me. “Would you like this pie?” she asked.

I walked up to her and accepted it. I went back into my house with the last piece of pie. I heard a whisper as I closed the door.

“Thank you.”