I will lose extremely terribly
Gu Yue Qing Shu, like Fang Yuan and Fang Zheng, is an orphan; his parents died in a wolf tide when he was young. Clan leader Gu Yue Bo raised him personally after his aptitude tested as B grade, so outstanding it could be called a false A grade. Warm and loyal, Qing Shu welcomed Fang Zheng’s arrival even though it cost him his own path to the clan leader position, and cared for the younger boy wholeheartedly. A year later, in a wolf tide that breaches the northern gate, Qing Shu forces a rank three Gu through with only rank two cultivation to hold the line; his aperture is destroyed, and he dies, turned into a treeman, an outcome that has left a deep impression on Fang Yuan. ch. 105
When Fang Yuan sighs, Qing Shu misreads it as reluctance over the Liquor worm and presses his case: it is only a rank one Gu, useless for Fang Yuan’s rank two red steel primeval essence, but valuable to the incoming students at next spring’s awakening ceremony, so selling it would serve the clan. He guesses Fang Yuan means to fuse it along the common White Chrysalis route into a rank three Mist Perspiring Butterfly, and argues the White Chrysalis stage would only waste food for years, since a Liquor worm’s real value lies in refining primeval essence, an ability that route discards. He offers instead the clan’s own recipe, Moon Harbinger Gu leading to the rank three Seven Fragrances Liquor worm, promising Fang Yuan five years of use rights if the fusion succeeds and full compensation if it fails, all risk borne by the clan. ch. 105
Fang Yuan knows the offer is a trap. With his forty-four percent C grade aptitude, reaching rank three is nearly impossible, and in his previous life he stalled at rank two for over a hundred years before a talent raising Gu finally carried him through. He already holds the best recipe from that previous life: first to a rank two Four Flavors Liquor worm, then to the rank three Seven Fragrances Liquor worm, both of which keep the primeval essence refining ability the White Chrysalis route throws away. The fusion needs a second Liquor worm he does not have and four wines of four different flavors, sour, sweet, bitter and spicy, the bitter one brewed from Ai grass in a village impossibly far away, so he has kept the worm rather than sell it or fuse it any other way. ch. 105
Qing Shu presses further: if the challenge goes forward, the clan elders will judge in Fang Zheng’s favor no matter how the fight ends, and narration notes Fang Zheng could still find another reason to challenge him later even if this one is dropped. When Fang Yuan asks whether Qing Shu truly expects him to lose, Qing Shu only reminds him that Fang Zheng has refined the rank two Moonveil Gu and that Fang Yuan should not count on much of an advantage. ch. 105
Fang Yuan laughs and answers that he will lose, and lose miserably, handing over the whole inheritance to sleep on the street and beg. Qing Shu, who knows Fang Zheng is being groomed as a future clan leader, understands at once that such a scandal would ruin the boy’s reputation. After a long silence, he laughs and agrees, in his own words, that they will do just that, abandoning both the Liquor worm purchase and any push for Fang Zheng’s challenge. ch. 105
