A Bloodied Youth in Twilight City

Twilight City, Moonfall Nation.

In the busy streets of Twilight City, a swift figure flashed past the crowd of citizens. All the citizens felt was a violent gust of wind intending to lift young women's robes and fly away innocent old ladies.

But they didn't panic, because for them, this was something that happened everyday.

As mortals, they had other more pending matters to worry about instead of a mysterious gust of wind. So, most citizens chose to ignore it, while others, used it for more perverse means — checking out a lady's youthful legs.

Of course, these acts were mostly practiced by old men. The young people of the city would never dare do it, unless they wanted to earn a beating, of course.

Among the crowd of mortals however, was a slender youth, covered in rags and dirt. This youth wasn't interested in such obscene matters unlike his elders. Instead, he observed and listened to his surroundings. Sneakily scurrying away silently from time to time.

The people in the streets were constantly distracted, which was the perfect opportunity for this young boy to sneak in and rob them of their belongings.

A distracted old man was arguing with a merchant, while the young boy bumped into him "accidentally" before disappearing the next second.

Of course, this old man was unaware that anything was missing. And just like him, there were others.

This young boy spent his day pickpocketing the unsuspecting crowd. By the end of the day the young man had collected a fair few pieces of jewellery worth a few thousand silver.

Counting all of today's winnings, a greedy smile grew on his face as he quietly slipped away into an alley and disappeared.

....

"Master, we've been travelling for 7 days straight without resting, how about we rest in this city?" Complained Fei Ruo. A pout evident on her face. Despite her high cultivation and being very capable of travelling nonstop for 2 months, she still wished to sightsee every city and town they passed, since she had never travelled this far before.

"We're very close to Moonfall City, if we rest now it'll take longer. Just a few more days, okay?" He said, a smile on his face.

During these 7 days they had passed many villages and on each one, Fei Ruo had asked the same question.

Even a mule could tell what Fei Ruo wanted to do. So it wasn't a surprise for Zhao Long when she had asked him the same question by the third city they had passed on the third day.

Even so, this wouldn't stop Zhao Long from arriving to his destination on time. Besides, most of the villages they had passed were mortal villages where there were close to no cultivators.

Most villages and cities in Moonfall Nation were ignorant of cultivators that roamed the world. Instead, it was the powerful martial artists and martial associations that ruled this country.

Sects such as the Soaring Dragon Sect, which were powers focused on cultivation, were usually hidden behind mountains and forests near the big cities or villages. Most human cities were unaware that immortals existed.

Despite this, the mortals still had legends of heaven defying cultivators that trained to become immortals. So, even though such rumours circulated through mere hearsay, that's all it was.

Most cultivators passed off as martial artists or refined scholars.

As for the demonic beasts? The most powerful ones inhabited forbidden areas for both mortals and cultivators, so it was easy to avoid catastrophes where demonic beasts would invade mortal territory. Even if this wasn't the case, the mortals were often protected by the hidden sects as well as the Martial Artist's Association.

Up until now, there haven't been any risks of powerful demonic beasts invading human territories, as these beasts were quite peaceful and weren't interested in leaving their own territories unless they had to.

"Twilight City huh... it's one of the few smaller mortal cities." commented Zhao Long as they entered the city gates.

As Zhao Long and Fei Ruo entered the city gates, they were immediately greeted by a huge commotion at the gates.

A huge crowd was gathered in a circle, everyone observing what was going on inside it. As Zhao Long walked towards the crowd, he was able to hear what the people were talking about.

"Poor boy, provoking Zhuge Jian is just seeking his own death!" An old man that had been watching from the start commented, shaking his head.

"Ha! Have you seen his clothes? He's obviously stolen something from him! Old Zhuge is a ruthless man, this kid definitely wanted to die!"

Hearing those comments Zhao Long frowned slightly as he began walking through the crowd to see what had happened.

At this moment, some other people that had been nearby spoke.

"Heavens! When is the city lord going to clean the streets from these beggars? So annoying!" A noble lady commented as she saw the scene.

"That child is already half-dead. Might as well leave him be! Serves him right for stealing people's belongings!" Another passerby added.

"Let's leave, someone should alert the guards and throw that body somewhere!" One fat man exclaimed as he left the scene.

It was at this moment that the crowd began to disperse, as it seemed like the young boy was dead and the commotion had died out.

It seemed like the culprit, Zhuge Jian had left long ago. Zhao Long and Fei Ruo had only just arrived, which meant that the incident had happened not long ago.

As the crowd cleared, the scene in front of Zhao Long finally cleared. Before him was a bloodied youth with but a few breaths of life left. If left alone, he would definitely die within the next few minutes.

He's still alive.

He seemed barely 12 to 13 years old, and his body was covered in many bruises, and he looked like he was bleeding out in some places.

The boy's eyes seemed resolute, his eyes carried killing intent.

If he had had the energy, he would have already tightly clenched his fists in frustration.

"Do you want to become stronger?" Asked Zhao Long.

The boy's eyes might be resolute, but slowly, the light seemed to be fading, so when Zhao Long asked him this question, the youth's eyes seemed to shine for a moment before becoming dull as tears fell.

The boy was so badly battered that he couldn't even move his head to reply. But Zhao Long knew that his tears had answered his question.

'I want to. But I can't anymore...'

That's probably what the youth was thinking at that moment.

As soon as he saw his tears, Zhao Long smiled.

"Don't give up. I'll give you a chance."

Before the youth could even process his words, Zhao Long had taken out a small flask with an unknown liquid and poured the contents into the youth's mouth.

The crowd had already dispersed, so the street was a lot less populated now and no one was paying attention to Zhao Long's actions.

When the liquid entered the youth's body, at first nothing happened, but seconds later, blood began to tirelessly seep out of the youth's orifices. The youth that had previously been half-dead was now covered in incredulous amounts of blood that came from who knows where.

Any passerby would think the boy had already bled to death.

Zhao Long waited a few seconds until all that could be seen from the youth was a pair of green eyes, while the rest of his body was completely covered in blood.

Once this happened, a smile grew from Zhao Long's face as he quickly grabbed the youth by the back of his collar and brought him away from the street, into an uninhabited alley.

Once they were in the alley, Zhao Long put the youth down and Fei Ruo who had been following the entire time observed with interest from the side. By the time they had arrived at this alley, the youth had stopped bleeding.

"What's your name?" He asked.

The blood-covered youth glanced at Zhao Long in amazement before hastily replying.

"Gu Shen." he replied simply.

Seeing this, a look of amazement passed through Fei Ruo, who had witnessed this youth being in his last breath, unable to move. However, the bloodied youth before her could move and speak. Just what had her master done to the youth?!

"You... why did you save me?" He asked Zhao Long as tears streamed from his eyes once more only, these tears were more visible now as they cleaned his blood-covered cheeks when they streamed down.

Zhao Long smiled as he glanced at Gu Shen.

"Because it looked like you didn't want to die yet. Was I right?"

Gu Shen clenched his fists as he nodded slightly.

"Thanks." He replied.

Zhao Long just nodded along and added.

"I suppose you can take care of yourself right? If so, we'll be leaving."

With these words, he prepared to leave, but before he was able to Gu Shen's voice rang.

"M-Mister wait!"

"Hm?"

Zhao Long turned to face the youth once more. But what he met wasn't what he expected. Gu Shen was now kneeling before him as he begged.

"Mister, I know you're powerful, and I am very thankful that you've saved me. But please don't leave me! I... I can assist you, cook for you, even... even warm your bed! So please take me in!" He begged with gritted teeth.

Hearing the youth's very sincere plea, Zhao Long's eyebrow twitched, as a voice inside him laughed out loud.

"Hahahaha! Brother, it looks like you got yourself a little boy toy! Hahahaha!"

It was Wu Yagui, who was laughing at the youth's remarks.

Slightly annoyed, the Zhao Long who was but a mere 15 years old in this body would have long laughed out loud at Gu Shen's ridiculous suggestions, but the Zhao Long who had thousands of years of experience was instead very embarrassed hearing Gu Shen's remark.

To begin with, Zhao Long's current body was that of a 15 year old. Not much older than Gu Shen, so it obviously made him feel like a bad man if he actually took in the youth to "warm his bed".

So upon hearing Gu Shen's words, though he was frustrated, he still calmly replied.

"Stand up. There's no need to kneel and beg. There's no need to warm my bed either. I'm not interested in children. And I'm not much older than you anyways." He replied as he looked at the youth rather strangely.

"Eh? But your aura..." The youth whispered subconsciously, before covering his own mouth in an attempt to stop his own words.

"My aura?" Zhao Long's eyebrows lifted.

"You can see my aura?"

Seeing his secret was revealed, Gu Shen sighed and nodded.

"Your aura looks old and scary. So you're obviously much older than you look, Mister." He explained as he pointed out Zhao Long's age.

"Is that so..?"

Inside his head, Wu Yagui's voice sounded with excitement.

"Hahaha, this kid is funny. Brother! Keep him. He might be useful to you!"

Looking as though he had decided on something, Zhao Long smiled before saying.

"Ruo'er, it looks like we might stay the night in this city after all. Let's go to an inn."

Hearing Zhao Long's words, the youth's eyes glittered as he asked.

"What's your name mister?" he asked curiously.

"Zhao Long." He answered with a smile.