Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Path of Shadows and Steel

The iron doors of their cell creaked open, as they did every morning, a sound that had become as familiar to Li Jian and Li Xuan as their own breath. This time, however, the door felt heavier, the world beyond it darker than it had been before. Bo Xiāo's hulking silhouette stood in the doorway, casting a shadow that seemed to swallow the room. His presence was suffocating, an aura of malevolence that had grown sharper, more oppressive with each passing day.

"On your feet," Bo Xiāo growled, his voice like gravel grinding underfoot. "Today, you'll learn what real strength is."

The brothers, still battered from the previous day's training, rose slowly, their bodies aching, but stronger than before. They had changed. The weeks of torture disguised as training had tempered them, their bodies hardened, their minds sharpened, and their empathy slowly eroding.

They followed Bo Xiāo in silence, their footsteps echoing in the narrow corridors of the Iron Eagle Gang's hideout—a maze of stone and shadows that reeked of sweat and blood. The walls seemed to close in on them, the air thick with something more than just grime. It was as if the very building breathed darkness, every corner concealing secrets too foul to speak aloud.

As they walked, Bo Xiāo's voice cut through the gloom like a knife. "Your training changes today. You've learned to fight, learned to break your bodies down and build them back up. But strength isn't enough. Not in this world. You need power. Control. Influence."

Li Jian exchanged a glance with Li Xuan. There was something different in Bo Xiāo's tone today—something more sinister, more dangerous. The brothers followed him deeper into the hideout, their minds bracing for whatever came next.

The training ground was nothing like the others. This one was colder, darker, more isolated. Wen Qing stood to one side, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword, his eyes calculating, ever the silent observer. Xiao Lan was there as well, her jade-like skin gleaming in the dim light, her expression hungry, as if she were waiting for the chance to tear something—or someone—apart. Shi Yong lingered in the shadows, his sunken eyes watching the brothers with a predatory gleam.

Bo Xiāo turned to face them, his massive form blocking out the torchlight. "Your training splits here. Li Jian," he said, nodding toward the elder brother, "your path is direct—steel and fists. Power through force. Wen Qing will continue your sword training, refining what little skill you have. Xiao Lan will teach you the art of breaking bodies with your hands."

Li Jian's jaw tightened, his fists already clenching. He understood what Bo Xiāo meant. Direct power. Blades, fists, strength—it was who he was, who he had always been. The path of destruction.

"And you," Bo Xiāo said, turning his cold gaze to Li Xuan, "your strength lies elsewhere. You fight with precision, with subtlety. You'll learn the art of poison and alchemy from Shi Yong. But you'll also need something more." He gestured to a small table on the far side of the room, where a set of small, sharp throwing weapons gleamed in the dim light. Shurikens. Daggers. Needles.

"Speed and silence," Bo Xiāo continued. "You'll learn to kill without being seen. To cripple without being caught. Both paths are power. But only one will determine who survives."

The days blurred together after that. Li Jian's mornings became a brutal symphony of steel and blood. Wen Qing drilled him relentlessly, his sword strikes now aimed at precision and lethal force. Every mistake was punished, not with words, but with pain. Wen Qing's blade would flash in a blur, slicing through the air before slamming into Li Jian's ribs, legs, or arms.

"Control your strength," Wen Qing would say, his voice cold and detached. "A wild beast can kill. But a man who controls his weapon controls death."

By midday, Xiao Lan would take over. Her methods were far less refined than Wen Qing's but no less effective. She fought with her body, using her fists, elbows, and knees with terrifying speed and brutality. Li Jian quickly learned that Xiao Lan wasn't teaching him to fight—she was teaching him to break. Every strike she landed felt like a hammer blow, and every time he fell, she forced him back to his feet.

"Strength isn't just in your arms or your sword," Xiao Lan snarled after one particularly brutal session. "It's in your will. If you can stand after everything breaks, you'll never lose."

Li Xuan's training took him down a darker path. Shi Yong taught him the art of alchemy, but it was not the peaceful, healing kind. This was the alchemy of death—poisons that could paralyze a man in seconds, powders that could turn blood to acid, toxins that killed with a single breath. Every day, Li Xuan mixed and tested, the stench of chemicals filling his nostrils as Shi Yong watched, his eyes cold and distant.

"Alchemy is about balance," Shi Yong would whisper, his fingers moving over the ingredients with surgical precision. "Too much, and you kill the wrong person. Too little, and they survive. Learn to mix it perfectly, or you'll poison yourself before you even reach your enemy."

But it wasn't just alchemy. Li Xuan's afternoons were spent learning the art of throwing weapons. The shurikens, small and deadly, were his favorite. He practiced in silence, his hands moving quickly as he flicked the blades toward wooden targets, embedding them in the center with increasing accuracy. His goal wasn't strength—it was precision. To strike where his opponent least expected. To kill from the shadows.

"Your brother fights in the light," Shi Yong had told him one day, his voice a low rasp. "But you… you'll be the shadow that slips in before the kill."

The brothers were also taught other things, things that dug deeper into their minds than the physical training ever could. Bo Xiāo, when he wasn't tormenting them through physical agony, lectured them on the world of cultivation—the limited knowledge he possessed spilling out like poisoned honey.

"The world beyond this slum," Bo Xiāo said one day as the brothers knelt before him, "is full of power and wealth. But none of it comes clean. Cultivation is a ladder built on the broken bones of those too weak to climb it. You want power? You step on the necks of those beneath you."

And so, they learned. About the BloodCrow Sect and the other hidden sects, each one ruled by cruel hierarchies and ruthless politics. About the forbidden techniques that could bring untold power—at the cost of one's soul. And they learned about the Black Market, where anything could be bought for the right price: slaves, forbidden items, drugs.

Bo Xiāo's words became like the poison they had once feared, slowly working their way into the brothers' minds, warping their thoughts. What had once disgusted them—the idea of slavery, the selling of lives for profit—now barely stirred any feeling at all. It became another fact of survival. Another tool.

They were also taught literacy and mathematics, though not in the way they had expected. Wen Qing, ever the strategist, taught them to read and write, but the lessons were always tinged with an undercurrent of manipulation.

"You don't learn to read to gain knowledge," Wen Qing said as he watched Li Xuan scratch out a simple passage. "You learn to read to gain control. Information is power. With the right words, you can make a man believe anything."

Mathematics wasn't much different. Xiao Lan, with a cruel smirk, showed them how to use numbers not for trade, but for exploitation. "Numbers are how you control the weak," she said as she calculated the extortion fees for the gang's protection racket. "You make them owe more than they can ever pay. And then they're yours."

And then there was the food. Gone were the scraps they had lived off in the slums. Now, every day, they were fed rich, filling meals, meats roasted to perfection, bowls of rice and vegetables that filled their stomachs. Clean water, fresh and cold, was brought to them, and though they were never allowed to linger, the brothers found themselves almost reluctant to admit how much they enjoyed it. The luxuries they had never known in the slums now surrounded them, but they could never let themselves enjoy it fully. They were prisoners still, and the price of comfort was higher than they wanted to pay.

Weeks passed, and the brothers grew stronger. Li Jian, now more a weapon than a man, honed his skills in direct combat, his body and sword moving with lethal efficiency. Li Xuan, the shadow in the background, learned to kill quietly, his shurikens and poisons ready to strike from the darkness. They had reached the fifth level of Qi Condensation, their bodies reinforced by the Qi they now wielded, their minds hardened by the cruel truths of the world Bo Xiāo had shown them.

But with every lesson, with every step forward, they felt something slipping away—something they had once held on to in the slums. Empathy. Compassion. The desire to be better.

In the world of the Iron Eagle Gang, those things had no place. And the brothers, though they had once been disgusted by the bloodshed, by the manipulation and the cruelty, now barely felt anything at all.

This was the world they lived in now.

And Bo Xiāo, the towering shadow of a man who ruled over them, had no intention of ever letting them leave.