Chapter 529: Picking the Wrong Fight for all the Right Reasons
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At this point, bruises could be seen visibly forming on the girls skin, as blood began to trickle from the side of her mouth.
“Fucking seriously?,” Zhen Hai grumbled, “is nobody going to say or do anything?”
“I guess…this is considered a normal sight?,” Zhen Tai suggested,
“How the fuck is any of that normal?,” Zhen Guo hissed.
All around the Zhen clan scions they saw a variety of looks from the people noticing this situation, watching the scene of some upstart nobleman stomping a young girl for some minor mistake.
Looks of disdain.
Looks of fear.
Looks of disgust.
Looks of pure ambivalence.
Looks of contempt.
Whether or not these gazes were directed at the young nobleman acting with unnecessary roughness or the slave girl getting pummeled for no good reason, that part didn’t matter to the Zhen clan scions.
No, what mattered to them was the fact that despite all of these varying looks of emotional reactions, originating from free citizens and enslaved alike, absolutely none of them did anything to actually stop this young nobleman.
The most anyone did was notice the scene, have a mild emotional reaction, and then go back to whatever they were doing, be it walking or a task they were in the middle of doing.
Even the booths nearest to this beating in progress didn’t do much except try to do business as usual, their faces clearly straining as they attempted to ignore the violence and maintain a somewhat neutral expression at least.
It would appear that if anyone was going to interfere at this moment, it was going to have to be them.
“Alright, fuck this!,” Zhen Hai declared as he began to crack his knuckles.
“Zhen Feng, Zhen Tai! Back me up, we’re going to put a stop this.”
“Okay.”
“Right!”
This call to action wasn’t anything unusual to the Zhen Clan scions.
Back in Stone Claw City, there were multiple times where they had to crack skulls because some jackass would attempt to shortchange them on a job, use violence to get a “five finger discount”, and they would occasionally have to protect someone that was under their employment because some wannabe bandit wanted to flex that evening.
As far at they were concerned, this nobleman looking motherfucker was just another jackass in need of a whooping.
But before the trio could do anything, Zhen Yue and Zhen Guo stopped them.
“Huh? What the fuck?,” Zhen Hai asked.
“Why are you stopping us?,” Zhen Feng followed up.
“Think about where we are for a second. We’re not in Stone Claw, we’re not on Stampeding Bison right now, and we are incredibly deep in territory that while not hostile, isn’t exactly friendly towards us,” Zhen Yue explained.
“So?!”
“Take a look at those guys real fast,” Zhen Guo added, “high quality silks, literal aether stones as decorative pieces and at least two of them are strapping Bronze aether treasure weapons! Those guys are clearly the local powers around here and I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them is at least a disciple of the main branch, or worse, a descendant.”
Hearing this possibility, Zhen Hai and the others developed some rather complicated expressions.
As descendants of the patriarch, they had been brief on the journey here on how their grandfather wanted to make amends with the main branch family as per the wishes of their late grandmother. Therefore, they were made aware that if any conflicts occurred with the main branch before grandfather had a chance to finally bury that decades old hatchet, it could jeopardize everything.
Even though they hated doing so, it appeared the only thing they could do was step back and ignore-
“Hold up…,” Zhen Tai interjected, noticing something was off about this three vs two arrangement, “where’s Zhen Xing?”
The scions paused and looked at each other for a moment, realizing that one of their own wasn’t a part of the group.
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*POW!*
“WHOA!”
It wasn’t until they heard Zhen Xing’s shout coming from ahead of them, and the sound of flesh colliding with flesh, that they realized where he had gone off to.
“Oh fuck,” Zhen Yue cursed.
“I honestly didn’t expect him to have that in him,” Zhen Tai observed.
“Uhh…we should probably go and back him up,” Zhen Feng suggested.
“YUP!,” Zhen Hai agreed.
“Oh where’s Xiao Liu when we need him?,” Zhen Guo complained.
And with that, it looks like the Zhen Clan scions had decided to pick a fight.
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A brief interlude to explain what the fuck just happened and why…
‘Huh…why does this feel familiar? And not in a good way?,’ Zhen Xing thought to himself as he stared at the nobleman beating up the slave girl.
In this moment in time, the Zhen Clan scions had confirmed that nobody was acting to stop this young nobleman from beating on this poor slave girl, despite how battered and bruised the latter was becoming by the second.
It was at this point that Zhen Xing’s cousins began to argue whether or not they should do something to stop this continued abuse of power.
That is, except for Zhen Xing.
He was busy having an…introspective moment.
‘Was I…no…am I like this?,’ he asked himself.
It’s not often one gets to witness their own behavior from an outside perspective, but this just so happened to be one of those rare few times.
That sounded a bit absurd, given that the Zhen branch clan didn’t have slaves to abuse and whatnot, but…Zhen Xing could recognize a bully when he saw one, especially the type of bully who took out their own frustrations on other people.
Namely, because he was exactly the same not too long ago.
‘I know I apologized to Xiao Liu because I was afraid of him kicking my ass out of revenge for all the years I bullied him, but…damn….I can’t help but think he’d be justified in doing so.’
Zhen Xing would never admit this, but part of the reason why he bullied Zhen Liu so much was because he was…jealous.
Not specifically at Zhen Liu, but at his cousins as a whole and for different reasons all around.
He was jealous of his cousins Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue for their monstrous talent and formula compatibility.
He was jealous of Zhen Guo for being so confident about his looks and actually having the aforementioned looks to back it up.
He was jealous of Zhen Feng and Zhen Tai, both being able to find something in life they could enjoy with a passion, food and fighting respectively.
He was even jealous of Zhen Liu, from before he suddenly blossomed as a hidden talent, for having someone in his life that loved him as much as Jin Fang did.
Zhen Xing was jealous of all of his cousins because when he took a step back and compared himself to them, there wasn’t much to him.
He didn’t have the same level of talent as Zhen Hai and Zhen Yue, he looked average at best, he didn’t really have anything he could enjoy with a passion and in terms of relationships that went beyond friendship, he had jackshit.
As such, fueled on by these jealousies, Zhen Xing ended up taking out his frustrations on Zhen Liu who, at the time, was a simply a crippled kid with no future.
Zhen Liu was the only person who had “less” than him.
But then, Zhen Liu had a miracle and kicked his ass so hard that he had to put a stop to any and all of his bullying related activities for the foreseeable future.
Zhen Xing had figured he would eventually surpass Zhen Liu again and be able to put him back in his place…but then that didn’t happen.
Instead, Zhen Liu ended up getting more and more accolades and progress even further than Zhen Xing, to the point that Zhen Xing had to grovel for forgiveness for his past actions.
With no means of letting out his frustrations onto others anymore, Zhen Xing was forced to confront his own feelings and hang-ups and he…couldn’t. Not at the time at least.
‘If this guy is truly how I was like once upon…I know what I need to do.’
Now confronted with someone who was essentially how he was not too long ago, Zhen Xing took a deep breath before deciding to do something that he never thought he’d do.
Act heroic.
‘Here goes…something.’
As his cousins continued to argue, Zhen Xing strode up to the angry nobleman, every step of his somehow increasing his confidence until…
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*POW!*
He got close enough to use his own foot to stop the stomping in progress.
‘Huh…I think I remember reading somewhere that you shouldn’t beat yourself up over past mistakes…it didn’t say shit about beating someone else for making the same mistakes you did!’
