Truly a great resolve
Fang Yuan weighs how to raise a huge sum of primeval stones before the red steel Relic Gu’s one-day sale window closes, since growing out nine vitality leaves at a stretch already costs him half a day and he has no faster way to earn. By his reckoning, a year hence the wolf tide will strike, Gu Yue Qing Shu will die sacrificing himself to block the broken front gate, and Qing Mao Mountain’s three clans will lose at least half their population though not as much as ninety percent, which will gut the value of a wine tavern facing the eastern gate and of bamboo buildings nobody will be left to rent. Reasoning that selling now to an individual would fetch more than selling to the clan, and that a huge transaction would ordinarily cost him time he does not have, Fang Yuan settles on his uncle Gu Yue Dong Tu, whose years of running the tavern, the bamboo buildings, and the vitality leaf trade must have left him with a large stash of primeval stones and a pressing need for continued income. ch. 112
At the estate, his former servant Shen Cui opens the door and kneels in shock and fear at the sight of him, a rank two Gu Master and the man who killed a Mo family servant and sent back the minced corpse. The housekeeper Mother Shen soon arrives to serve him tea in a living room stripped of much of its furniture, its servants sold off or let go, just as Fang Zheng had told him. Aunt storms in, screaming that he is a traitorous scoundrel with no conscience for daring to return, a year since she last saw him and her face visibly haggard in that time, until his declared purpose, selling the wine tavern and the bamboo buildings, stuns her out of her rage. Doubting he means it, she wavers, and Fang Yuan tells her he will only wait five minutes for an answer before Uncle himself appears. ch. 112
Gu Yue Dong Tu, visibly aged and stripped of his fighting Gu worms and his hidden elder standing since losing the Nine Leaf Vitality Grass, questions why Fang Yuan would give up a steady income, and Fang Yuan answers plainly that he wants to buy a red steel Relic Gu. Fang Yuan refuses to include the Nine Leaf Vitality Grass itself, offering only the wine tavern, the bamboo buildings, the land, and the eight servants, unwilling to let his uncle’s influence recover through it. The two talk in private for two hours and sign a transfer agreement: Gu Yue Dong Tu regains the tavern, the bamboo buildings, the servants, and the land, while Fang Yuan comes away with three family servants, each carrying a box of primeval stones, bound for the treehouse. ch. 112
Aunt rejoices at the deeds in Gu Yue Dong Tu’s hands, mocking Fang Yuan as a fool for giving up a profitable business, but he snaps at her to be quiet and warns that they must stay cautious now, since Fang Zheng is only their adopted son and his future is still unsettled. The primeval stones spent will be replenished within two or three years of running the business again, yet Gu Yue Dong Tu remains troubled, turning over in his mind that he himself could never have given up such a comfortable future for a single Relic Gu, and finding in that a grudging admiration for Fang Yuan’s resolve. ch. 112
