Chapter 111

On the treehouse’s third floor, Yao Ji’s granddaughter is drawn to a round, five-branched tree-stump counter displaying a thumb-sized, silver-glowing white silver Relic Gu, which Yao Ji explains is a one-use item that instantly raises a rank three Gu Master’s cultivation by a small realm and is priced at thirty thousand primeval stones, though she expects the final price to reach at least fifty thousand. She names the Relic Gu line’s ranked variants as green copper for rank one Gu Masters, red steel for rank two, this silver one for rank three, and a yellow golden Relic Gu for rank four, before leading her granddaughter down to the first floor, where a rank one Gu worm stays listed for half a day once bid on, a rank two worm for a full day, and a rank three worm for two days. ^{ch. 111}

At the reception desk, Yao Ji learns the Liquor worm has already sold to someone else despite her bid, and the rank two female Gu Master behind the counter refuses on principle to name the buyer or the winning price, a confidentiality rule the chapter credits with letting clan members bid freely without weighing kinship or courtesy against each other. A rank three supervisor, aware that offending Gu Yue Chi Lian or Gu Yue Mo Chen matters far less than offending Yao Ji, whose influence in the clan is second only to clan leader Gu Yue Bo, offers to quietly source her a replacement worm from a warehouse holding three at whatever price she names, but Yao Ji instead insists on matching the exact price the sold worm went for, and receives a figure her granddaughter complains is only twenty primeval stones above their own bid. ^{ch. 111}

Fang Yuan, the actual buyer, is already back at his own wine tavern with the Liquor worm secured, needing only sweet, sour, bitter, and spicy wine to attempt the Four Flavour Liquor worm fusion; he already has sweet wine left over from the family inheritance mission, and after hours of searching the tents finds sour and spicy wine as well, but no bitter wine, so the fusion attempt goes no further for now. ^{ch. 111}

Back at the treehouse that afternoon, the Liquor worm’s old counter now holds a leech-like Cleansing Water Gu, and Fang Yuan recognizes it as something Chi Cheng needs to clear the mixed aura his grandfather Gu Yue Chi Lian’s borrowed primeval essence has left in his aperture; he privately guesses Chi Lian will bid between six hundred thirty and six hundred forty primeval stones and that a six hundred fifty bid would win it, but places no bid himself, wary of drawing Chi Lian’s suspicion and wanting to hold his remaining stones in reserve. He credits his earlier Liquor worm win, which he estimates beat Gu Yue Yao Ji’s bid by about twenty primeval stones, to an old habit from his previous life of adding ten primeval stones to a guessed price for roughly an eighty percent chance of winning a bid, and reminds himself he still needs a scouting-type and a movement-type Gu worm before next year’s wolf tide, since this caravan will not return and Flower Wine Monk’s unfinished hidden inheritance offers no guarantee of filling the gap. ^{ch. 111}

Over the following days he returns to the treehouse repeatedly, buying a Black Boar Gu on the third day, a strength Gu worm whose effect stacks on top of the White Boar Gu he already carries rather than duplicating it the way a second White Boar Gu would. By the seventh day of the caravan’s eight-day stay, a red steel Relic Gu appears on the second floor priced at three thousand primeval stones, promising an instant small-realm boost to a rank two Gu Master’s primeval essence and drawing heavy competing bids; Fang Yuan expects its final price to clear five thousand primeval stones and possibly reach eight thousand, and recognizes that between the Liquor worm, the Black Boar Gu, and the wine he has already bought, he may not have enough primeval stones left to win it. ^{ch. 111}