Dual Cultivation God Returns

Chapter 188 On the balcony

In the morning, Wu Long and his group arrived at the city port and boarded a small ship together with the pirate mother-daughter pair and some of their trusted crew.

The ship sailed into the open sea and after traveling for some time they reached distant from the island waters where they were greeted by the sight of a majestic ship, five times the size of the ship Cao Mei had.

"Heh, no wonder the Liugwei Kingdom was not able to attack your base, it was never on the land anyway"

Wu Long chuckled. The ship was more like a floating fortress and was in itself a naval spiritual treasure.

"It was part of the Liugwei Kingdom royal family's treasury, and the only ones who knew about this ship were the king and the queen. She once told me about it in secret, and after the revolt I took it from the hidden location, to take away the surviving loyalists.

Since then, while the royal family now knows of it they try everything in their power to suppress information about its existence because they do not want other kingdoms to covet it. They still want to recover it and make it the source of their authority"

Cao Xiang commented.? Wu Long nodded, as it indeed was a valuable treasure to the kingdoms while being most likely common to the empires.

Its speed was a lot faster than any normal ship despite its size and loading capacity, and it did not require wind to travel at a uniform speed, only sufficient spirit stones.

Such a ship also could possibly travel the coastal line of any continent relatively safely, meaning that unlike normal ships it would be able to bypass countries and arrive at a country not connected to one of the three seas between the continents.

With this ship, if Wu Long wished to arrive at the Tuamei Kingdom where the Yin Yang Unity Palace was located, he could just sail there directly without needing to pass all the countries by land. Though of course, even this ship would not survive going further into the inner ocean in the center of the three continents because of the broken space there or the outer ocean outside the circle of continents because of the high-level demonic sea beasts.

The only reason it took so long for him to travel by land was because he made frequent and prolonged stops in each kingdom he passed.

As they boarded the ship they were guided to comfortable rooms that were on the upper levels, guaranteeing a nice view of the sea and the ship's surroundings.

At some point later, Wu Long was on a balcony that overlooked a great view of the ship with Shen Min while Ye Ling took the others sightseeing around the boat. They did not know what was going on but since she was trying to leave the two alone none of them objected or raised any questions, because Ye Ling was bound to have reasons for her actions.

"You don't seem very happy with my decision to spare the Pirate Queen"

Wu Long said, and Shen Min widened her brown eyes.

"What do you mean? I have no..."

"Min'er, stop hiding behind your lighter side"

Wu Long said as Shen Min was genuinely surprised by this conversation, but soon one of her eyes darkened and turned dark gray while the other one turned lighter brown than before while the expression of surprise faded from her face.

Wu Long smiled at the greater control she now had over her physique.

She might have been able to, although not entirely intentionally, hide from Wu Long when they met since he did not know about her physique, but now he could see through that as clearly as day. It was related to their bond a lot more than his knowledge of her physique since its hiding ability was truly extreme.

"She tried to cause you harm... us too"

Shen Min said after some time of silence. She was not planning to object to Wu Long's decisions and was struggling with herself to try and not feel dissatisfaction, which triggered her physique and she did not bother to take control back until she would be able to reconcile her feelings.

"Hmm, that may be true, and maybe not. You are largely right. Regardless of her motivations, she was the one who could have brought us harm with her actions"

Wu Long said as he looked at her and she looked back at him attentively with her different-colored eyes.

"What was her aim?"

"Hm? Didn't you just say 'regardless of her motivations'?"

"Aim and motivation are two different things, Min'er. Motivation is what makes a person do something, and aim is the desire driving the action.

What I am asking you about is, not 'why' she tried to harm us, but did she 'want' to harm us?"

"But she did not do it unintentionally, she purposefully lured us into a trap"

"Yes, but intent and aim are also different. Intention is the determination, commitment, and resolve to do something, while the aim is the desire. Was there the active desire to harm us, or was there only necessity?"

Shen Min looked down with a pondering expression for some time but could not detect any actual desire to hurt them in Cao Xiang's actions. Only the necessity.

"What about the reality of her actions having taken place?"

"You are correct again. She did take actions that could have harmed us, but have there been any actual harm to us?"

"But if..."

Shen Min said but her words trailed off.

"There are not that many ifs in this world, and the fact that we are not harmed is now true. There are many scenarios that could have happened, but we have to base our actions on the actual reality that happened, and not the hypothetical thing that might have happened"

"But hypotheticals are there to prevent such things from happening in the future"

Shen Min said while being a little confused. The fact that they could have been harmed was still real.

"Yes, but if you are talking about the future and not the past, then motivations are not as unimportant as they were in our conversation about her actions.

If you are worried about the past, there was no aim to harm us, and while her actions did take place and were intentional, they ultimately could not harm us.

If you are worried about the future, you have to examine her motivations. Her motivation was simple, it was to protect her daughter. Now that her daughter is secure, she would not have the reason to harm us in the future"

"What if they threaten her with Cao Mei again? Will she not then try to harm us again?"

"That would be true if she thought we cannot do anything against those people. It is just the difference between her knowing that we can protect the Pirate Princess regardless of what those people are saying and not knowing that"

As Wu Long continued his explanation Shen Min pondered a little. She started to see his point of view a little more clearly. It was true that what happened did not bring any harm. The fact that it could was true, but its importance now depended on whether they gave it importance or not, since it did not have the weight of reality. So if they decided that it was not important it could be ignored.

She still had some lingering concerns, but the knot that she had toward the situation was now largely untangled and she felt a lot better about it. Though it would still require some time until she could completely reconcile it.

Shen Min ultimately shook her head, shaking off the lingering thoughts about that for now, and looked down at the people working on the ship deck several stories below.

"Wu Long, why did you explain this to me? It is not like I would object... I do not want to bring you trouble, and I don't want to contradict your decisions"

She said slightly confused. She truly did not want to burden Wu Long with her feelings of dissatisfaction.

"Because I care about you, and want you to not just follow along with what I want because it is something I want, but understand my point of view.

You may even ultimately not agree with my opinion, and that would be normal. But at the very least, I want you to know why I do things the way I do.

I also do not want you to hide away your dissatisfaction and kill your will"

He said as he placed his hand on her cheek and caressed it with his thumb.

She lightly closed her eyes and rubbed her face against his warm palm, feeling his care and attention as she smiled. Any negative emotions were pushed back by this warmth.

She went for a kiss and he replied, embracing her as they passionately exchanged saliva and twined their tongues.

"Muah... haah... haah... you once told me you like to follow your instincts..."

She said as a certain light appeared in her heterochromatic eyes when their lips parted and she heavily breathed. Wu Long smiled and his hand firmly grabbed her buttcheek, kneading it while talismans flew out of his other hand, placing themselves all around the balcony, sealing the entrance door as well as obscuring it from the view from outside.

"I certainly do"