Sensing a conspiracy behind the knock, on instinct sharpened by five hundred years of memory, Fang Yuan still invites Shen Cui inside. She lays out food and wine, sits on his lap, and declares her feelings for him, offering herself for the night regardless of his grade. As she leans in to kiss him, Fang Yuan calls it a power play and sees through the whole staged seduction. ch. 11
He grips her throat and accuses Aunt and Uncle of sending her to seduce and then frame him, with men already stationed downstairs to catch the scene. He grabs her chest hard enough to make her sob, then eases his hold and asks whether she thinks he could kill her. Shen Cui is terrified. He lets her go, telling her to try seducing his naive younger brother instead if she wants free of servitude, and she flees the room while the hidden watchers look on in confusion. ch. 11
Fang Yuan decides he cannot stay under that roof and rents a room at the village’s only inn, paying two primeval stones. He chooses to eat in the common hall among an old man drinking alone, a table of hunters with their catch, and two whispering strangers in a corner. He counts what refining the Moonlight Gu will still cost him: five primeval stones if the Gu’s will proves weak, as many as eight if it resists hard, against only four stones left in his pouch after paying the innkeeper. The Flower Wine Monk was a famous rank five master of the Demonic Faction, so Fang Yuan reasons the dead monk’s hoard must hold primeval stones worth the continued search. ch. 11
