Chapter 35

Principles

Why? Jon thought with a weary sigh. Why is it always like that? Who said I wanted to be the protagonist?

His internal musings were interrupted when Jianyu descended in a blur, roughly grabbing the bloodied Minghan by his hair. The cultivator sneered at Jon. "I knew I sensed a flicker of qi in you. My cultivation level is not high enough for certainty, but yours was...singular enough to feel it subtly. You're quite special."

You nearly killed a kid, and that's your comment? Jon blinked slowly, arm tightening around the wide-eyed Bao at his side. "Why thank you, Mr. Jiayu," he drawled with an audible smirk. "Very honored."

There was no time to waste now, no explanation to give, being discovered was bad enough, now, Jon had to make sure he could get out of this alive, and unscathed, if possible. That would be nice.

Inclining his head politely towards the dazed -and now that he looked closer- limbless Minghan, Jon made a show of casual nonchalance despite his disgust. "Now, if you don't mind, me and the kid are gonna take our leave."

I’m sorry, he thought, addressing Minghan, but this is none of my business.

Gripping firm on Bao's smaller hand, Jon turned to depart - only for Jianyu's next words to bring him up short.

"Jianyu."

Jon turned back, brow furrowing in patent confusion. Why is he repeating his own name?

"Huh? What was that?" he asked aloud.

Jianyu's nostrils flared minutely, jaw tightening with visible restraint. "My name," he ground out. "It's 'Jianyu'. Not 'Jiayu'."

For a heartbeat, Jon simply stared at the irate cultivator - the profound absurdity of the situation rendered him temporarily mute.

"Well, that's what I said." he managed to wheeze out. "'Jianyu.'"

"No." Jianyu regarded him with infinite, arch patience - as one might address a particularly slow child. "You said 'Jiayu'."

Okay, what's up with this psycho, seriously? Jon thought. Composing himself with a visible effort, he summoned up a shameless grin.

"Ah, my bad then!" Sketching an ironic little bow, he tilted his head with studied nonchalance. "Have a good night, Mr. Jianyu!"

As they turned to leave, Jianyu's voice rang out - sharp and imperious. "I did not tell you you could go yet."

Jon stopped in his tracks, glancing down at Bao. He could feel the little boy's hands trembling in his grasp, those wide eyes fixed unseeing ahead - petrified.

Ah, Jon sighed inwardly, Of course it wouldn't be that easy. Now he's gonna be offended like the proper young master he is. Tell me to lick the ground in apology and try to yeet me either way...

Squeezing Bao's hand reassuringly, he pivoted back around to face Jianyu. A tight smile played at his lips as he met the cultivator's stony gaze.

"Well, it's a bit late, the night’s almost over anyway," Jon began in a tone of studied reasonability. "So we'll let you guys get back to your...business, and be on our way, yeah?"

Jianyu simply looked at him - hawklike eyes narrowed to slits as he assessed the shambling duo. At last, he spoke in a voice etched with quiet certainty.

"You really are...special."

Damn bro, stop the glazing, we get it, Jon's inner voice bristled even as he maintained an outward mask of polite confusion.

"Oh, thanks! I-I eat a lot of protein," he offered with a tight chuckle, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Must be the reason."

One of Jianyu’s elegant brows arched minutely. "Protein?"

Jon backtracked hastily, smile widening fractionally. "Meat. I eat a lot of meat."

For an endless moment, Jianyu simply regarded him - that faint, inscrutable smile playing about his lips as he savored Jon's discomfiture. Then, shifting his intense focus to Bao, the cultivator's expression softened somewhat.

"And what do we have here?" He murmured, taking in the child's trembling form.

Bao flinched violently at the question, shoulders hunching as he caught sight of the bloodied, hanging figure of Minghan. Jianyu was quick to intervene.

"Oh no no no, don't be afraid, little one." His tone dripped with reassurance even as iron purpose sharpened his edges. "This man is a bad man. He did a very bad thing. So as a...justice deliverer, I must take care of him. Do you understand?"

Gulping audibly, Bao could only nod - his small frame seeming to shrink further under Jianyu's regard. For all the soothing gentleness, there was an inexorable, underlying menace to the cultivator that chilled the soul.

Jon found himself squeezing the boy's hand tighter still, half-shielding Bao behind his larger frame as he met Jianyu's gaze squarely once more.

"I think this is enough for now," Jon cut in, raising a placating hand. "I'm gonna bring the kid to his parents before they get worried."

Jianyu's expression didn't so much as flicker at the words. "But I am not done yet, Jon Li. Was it...Jon Li? Your name?"

"Yes, Jon Lee." Jon felt an uneasy prickle work its way up his spine at Jianyu's weighted purr.

This creep, his inner voice muttered. I'm sure he's the type to stalk the girls he likes. If he even likes girls...Shit, is that it? All the 'you're special' stuff - you want me, bro?

Jianyu summoned up an easy grin. "Hmm, I'll remember that name."

Yeah, this guy's not beating the allegations. Jon thought.

Seeming to have lost interest in Jon for the moment, Jianyu turned his penetrating focus onto Bao once more. The child shrank back instinctively as the cultivator raked an assessing gaze over his features.

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"You have vibrant red hair, boy, and those eyes…" Jianyu murmured, an odd lilt coloring his words. "What is your family name?"

Bao gulped audibly, small hands fisting in the fabric of Jon's shirt as he pressed himself against the bigger man's reassuring bulk. "Q-Qiu," he stammered out, voice barely above a whisper. "My family name is Qiu."

"Ah, that is what I thought as well." A fractional nod accompanied Jianyu's words, though his sharpened gaze never left Bao's cowering form. "Are you by chance related to Qiu Qingtian?"

If possible, Bao seemed to shrink even further at the question - shoulders hunching as if braced for an inevitable blow. "H-He was my uncle..."

"Really?" A considering hum, then - "He was a fellow disciple of our sect. And a good friend. We trained and fought together, even." A beat, then Jianyu's features tightened minutely. "A shame he died so young."

The ragged gasp that tore from Minghan's bloodied lips sent a violent flinch juddering through Bao's small frame. Tears welled in the boy's eyes as he curdled against Jon's side, one tiny hand fisting in the man's robe.

Jianyu's expression remained remote, impassive - even as his grip on Minghan's hair tightened fractionally. "Oh, I didn't mean to startle you, little one," he crooned. "Are you so afraid of me?"

Bao could only tremble harder at the words, shying away from Jianyu's scrutiny as his shoulders hunched defensively. When he finally found his voice, it emerged as little more than a terrified whisper.

"U-Uncle Minghan is in pain..."

"Ah." Jianyu blinked down at the crumpled figure dangling from his merciless grasp, as if only just realizing his captive was still present and conscious. "So this pig is an acquaintance of yours?"

The weight of the situation seemed to press down on Jon with suffocating heaviness. Honestly, this seems desperate, his inner voice muttered darkly. if I just stay back and keep a low profile, maybe he will let us go?

A snort of mirthless laughter echoed through his mind at the thought. Nah, scratch that. There's no way out of this twisted shit-show. This ding-dong wants something.

The ragged screams tearing from Minghan's bloodied lips underscored that reality with each soul-rending cry. The man's body hung broken and butchered - all four limbs horrifically severed, leaving grotesquely ragged stumps that oozed blood. Jianyu seemed to take perverse delight in the display, his grip on Minghan's scalp viciously tight as he forced the man's anguished face into view.

"Can't you see I'm talking here, pig?" the cultivator sneered, lips peeling back in a rictus of sadistic glee.

His free hand blurred with inhuman speed, merciless fingers cracking against Minghan's jaw with a sickening crunch. Teeth exploded from the man's mouth in a ghastly spray of saliva and clotted blood.

Then he struck Minghan's face again. And again, and again - until a wet, crimson rain spattered across Bao's features.

The child recoiled with a strangled wail, hands clapped over his eyes as he cowered against Jon's side. But the horrible sounds could not be blocked out - Minghan's agonized shrieks reverberating through the night like the cries of the damned.

Jon could feel the tremors juddering through Bao's small frame, the kid's whole body quaking with visceral, trauma-stricken revulsion.

This...this was too much for the boy to process. Too cruel, too depraved for his young psyche to fully comprehend.

Weird, weird guy, Jon mused, shaking his head. In any other circumstance, he might have simply shrugged off the brutality as none of his concern. Life could be harsh, after all - he'd seen his fair share of ugliness.

But as his gaze flickered between Jianyu's impassive cruelty and Bao's wide, haunted eyes - the little boy's face a trembling rictus of terror.

A vein bulged at his temple as forbidden memories surged, unbidden, to the surface of his consciousness.

He could practically smell the metallic tang of Uncle stan's blood spattering the ground all those years ago. Could hear the gunshots, the sickening crunch of bone, the desperate animal sounds of his father's anguished demise moments later. The screams had echoed endlessly in the void of young Jon's shattered psyche.

Now, Bao's expression - pale, stricken, utterly violated by the depravity unfolding before him - it plucked at those old wounds with lancing precision. Dredging up a trauma Jon had spent years ruthlessly suppressing. And never really succeeded at.

His jaw clenched until the hinges ached as he battled against the raging tide of his emotional response.

This was stupid, irrational - letting himself get drawn into others' altercations. Jianyu was leagues beyond his abilities, a virtual demigod compared to Jon's nascent skills. No matter what happened here, the cultivator wouldn't just let him walk away. And yet...

And yet, Jon couldn't tear his gaze from Bao's silent, imploring terror.

The echoes of past anguish reverberated through his soul, a stark reminder of just how viscerally he understood the torment being inflicted on the child in this moment. How easily those old scars could be ripped back open, leaving him just as traumatized and broken as the quivering boy before him.

His heart thundered arrhythmically against his ribcage as the truth became inescapable. There would be no walking away from this, no slinking off into the night to let someone else clean up the mess.

Jianyu had sensed the spark of potential in Jon, had pinpointed him as a subtle threat - his interest piqued. The escalating situation had put him directly in the crosshairs.

He was already in the thick of it whether he liked it or not.

But even if escape was possible, even if trying to flee was the smartest play...Jon found himself grimly unable to turn his back on Bao's silent pleading. Not when the kid's anguished features mirrored his own shattered childhood so excruciatingly.

His pulse thundered like a wardrum in his ears as the decision solidified in his soul. Jianyu was a frothing wildcard, unhinged and utterly without compunction. There would be no appealing to the man's reason or compassion.

No, this would only end one way - with violence, brutal and unhesitating.

A tremor raced through Jon's clenched fists as the reality sank in. He could easily die here, cold and alone on this forsaken land. And for what? For daring to intervene in something that had absolutely nothing to do with him?

Those eyes, those fucking eyes flashed through his mind once more - Bao's haunted gaze a twisted reflection of the helpless little boy Jon had once been.

Ah, fuck it all, he decided, squaring his shoulders as resolution crackled to life in his core.

Stepping forward, he leveled Jianyu with a look that could have melted permafrost - heated intensity simmering beneath a carefully cultivated veneer of studied calm.

"Hey," Jon began, proud of how steady his voice emerged despite the white-knuckled grip he maintained on his composure. "You can clearly see that the kid's not good seeing this. Can't you wait until we at least get the hell out of here?"

He could feel the ragged edges of old wounds slicing through his meticulously maintained poise. The bitter taste of childhood terror and helpless grief coated his tongue anew as the memories ambushed him with startling ferocity.

But outwardly? Jon was the picture of sardonic nonchalance - hands tucked casually in his pockets, a wry twist to his lips as he regarded the cultivator with an arched brow. As if commenting on something as mundane as poor restaurant service rather than pleading for a child's psyche.

"I mean, c'mon bro," he went on with a short bark of strained laughter as the full absurdity of it all threatened to overwhelm him. "We get it - you're a big bad ass cultivator doing your cool cultivator thing. But maybe go terrorize someone else until the kid's tucked in for bedtime stories, yeah?"

At Jon's words, Jianyu let out a jovial snort of laughter - lips quirking in an expression of sinister amusement that set every one of Jon's instincts screaming in primal warning.

If I learned anything about bad guys in movies, his inner voice drawled with wry resignation, it's that they always say something douchey then attack right after a Machiavellian smirk like that. So come at me then, you bastard.

As if on cue, Jianyu regarded Jon with undisguised curiosity - head canting slightly as he studied the younger man through narrowed eyes. "Tell me something, Jon Li," he purred in silken tones that contrasted starkly with the barely-leashed menace simmering in his core. "Where does such bravado come from? How are you so daring in front of someone much, much stronger than you?"

The implicit threat hung in the air - caustic and utterly unambiguous. Jon could practically taste the anticipatory violence crackling between them like a livewire, Jianyu's restraint clearly stretched to a hair-trigger.

And yet, seemingly oblivious to the perilous tension, Jon simply shrugged one indolent shoulder - the picture of insouciant irreverence.

Let's see how long it takes for this to blow up in my face. He mused internally, cringing in horror at the thought.

"Bao," he called out, voice deceptively mild as he avoided Jianyu's weighted query entirely. When the child glanced up at him with terrified, questioning eyes, Jon offered him a gentle smile that belied the steel underpinning his tone. "Do me a favor - go to your mom and dad."

Before the bewildered Bao could so much as muster a protest, Jianyu was a blur of explosive motion - every sinewy line of his body coiled for violence as he launched himself at Jon. Moving with blinding, unnatural speed.

There we go, was Jon's only thought - a strange calm settling over his features as he centered himself for the onslaught.

Then, with an earth-shattering boom, their bodies collided - knuckles meeting flesh in an eruption of pure concussive force. A shockwave ripped outward from the impact point, whipping up the surrounding foliage into a maelstrom of tossing branches and swirling detritus.

"Uncle Jon!"