Dual Cultivation God Returns - Chapter 1024 - 1024: More meaningful...

“Release Young Master Bo immediately!!!”, the Iron Claw Group members all took out weapons, which included a sharp claw-like fingered gauntlet on the left hand and arm up to the shoulder, covered by a longer baggy detachable sleeve that completely concealed it normally, and a heavy one-sided blade they took out of Spatial Rings in the right hand. Their poses were also similar, with the left gauntlet arm stretched forward, the claw hand half-open, while they held the heavy blade back and slanted it over sharp-side up to point forward.

“Who said you are free to move?”, Nie Xiwang spoke in a cold voice as her figure floated off of the porch, hovering above the pavement at about the same height that the porch was, as 20 golden swords appeared around her, all pointing toward the Iron Claw Group’s side and slowly moving forward, forcing them to start retreating.

Tiezhu Bo, meanwhile, was grimacing in pain, struggling to speak, “Y-You-… do you know who I a-… aaaahrg!”

“Wrong answer”, Wu Long coldly stated, as tiny arcs of electricity began dancing around Tiezhu Bo’s hand which finger he was holding, currents traveling through his entire body as veins began bulging from strain of dealing with pain on the Iron Claw Group’s young master’s skin.

“Do-… do you have any idea who you are dealing with?!”, one of the Iron Claw Group members behind the young master who was eyeing the sharp tips of the golden swords that glistened in the cold moonlight and warm dim lights of the stone lanterns to the sides.

There were roughly three swords for each of them. Their sharp claw gauntlets usually gave them an advantage over weapon-wielding cultivators as they could directly grab the sharp end and completely control it – the fighting style that made their Leader famous at one point in time. But even if they managed to do it with one, and shield the other with their own blade, there was one which was free to strike them.

But more than that, even if they changed tactics to fight more conventionally, it would be in vein as their Young Master was taken hostage.

They hoped their Young Master could use his own gauntlet still hidden under the long sleeve to get free, but it seemed he was completely immobilized.

“In the mood to answer yet?”, Wu Long asked, casually turning his gaze up with a waiting demeanor, and his eyes meeting the half-masked Ko Gunwen.

The latter recoiled from that gaze, woken up from shocked stupor, as the whole situation was giving him a profound sense of happening again as it overlapped with his own experience.

“D-Daoist Wu, we apologize for our transgression…”, Ko Gunwen carefully spoke, causing Wu Long to show a surprised expression.

He expected the young man to start making demands and threatening. But was pleasantly surprised, as he tilted his head with sudden interest in his eyes.

The latter, seeing this continued to speak, “…the young man you’re holding, while guilty of disturbing you, is an important figure, and a guest of our city. With powerful and important backing. It would be in all of our interests if we could find a compromi-…”

“K-ko Gunwe-… y-you idio-… k-k-kill this… fuckin-… aaaaargh~!!!”, Tiezhu Bo turned his head a bit with struggle, looking at Ko Gunwen with bloodshot, widely open and filled with rage side-eye, and then grimaced again, tilting his head back as more pain went through him.

“You think he will back down if I let him go?”, Wu Long asked Ko Gunwen in a surprisingly neutral, almost friendly tone, “Seriously. Think about what will happen next. What will he do after? Will he learn a lesson? Will he let this go? Would I have peace of mind just because I let him go like this?”

Ko Gunwen gulped, not knowing why Wu Long who was not interested in talking to Tiezhu Bo about consequences or anything other than an answer to what interested him was suddenly asking him all this.

He thought of his own experience.

At first he was enraged, ashamed and devastated. Not only that, the other consequences were severe. His father completely turned away from him. He lost everything.

But then something began to change inside him instead.

When he finally was able to calm down enough to look in the mirror long enough, and saw the palm print left there, it was like a constant reminder, a physical sign of his failure which forced him to think about the causes of that failure for the first time.

He could not escape it this time by shifting his attention to something pleasurable, nor could he ignore it by pushing the blame of it to someone else, since the palm print was right there on his face.

Even if he hid it with the half-mask brought to him by the third brother, he still felt it under the mask, he could not run from it.

And that brought him face to face with his mistakes of past, and the weaknesses of his character that brought about all those mistakes, it brought him to face his own stupidity and blind arrogance.

And it shattered that arrogance. Only pieces of it left, that were slowly crumbling away day by day as he saw himself for who he was.

This allowed him some clarity of mind that grew with each day. He was a long way off from calling it a progress, but he took that first step, the one that most don’t take. The step of acknowledgment of his faults and downsides.

That gave him a thought, faced with Wu Long’s question, was it possible for Tiezhu Bo as well?

‘No’, was the answer that mournfully echoed in his mind.

As much as he wanted to nod to Wu Long’s question, perhaps simply to avoid this situation devolving further, he couldn’t.

He knew Tiezhu Bo was different, and he knew him very well for a very long time.

He knew that even if Wu Long had the ability to leave a similar mark on Tiezhu Bo’s face as the palm print on his own, or some other way to leave a physical trace of what happened on this night as a glaring reminder, it wouldn’t matter.

It wasn’t going to have the same effect.

Tiezhu Bo wasn’t out of favor from his father, he wasn’t on the brink of losing everything, and he was also fundamentally different in the first place.

It was friendship with Tiezhu Bo that influenced much of Ko Gunwen’s own behavior to begin with, after all.

It was Tiezhu Bo’s constant advice, that one had to ‘crush bugs to show strength’, and ‘not allow them to raise their heads’, which he liked to parrot because it was what his own father, leader of the Iron Claw Group, often said, that informed Ko Gunwen’s attitude toward his little brother who he saw as a threat to himself.

He watched him act with impunity around the Iron Claw City, and seeking approval from his friend mimicked that behavior. More and more.

Until that night in the Crow King’s Nest, when reality hit him in the head with a heavy hand of a stranger, and woke him up.

“Haa~, see? Even you don’t think he’ll drop this”, Wu Long chuckled with a slightly disappointed sigh, but his eyes were still looking at Ko Gunwen with interest.

For a moment, seeing this surprising and unexpected beginning of a change in the Silver Wing City’s Young Master, he entertained a thought that the same was possible with the Iron Claw City’s Young Master that he was forcing to kneel.

‘Hmm, perhaps that task we gave Ko Fuan to bring his brother to our side is going to be more meaningful than a simple strategic move’, Wu Long thought.