Chapter 113

On the treehouse’s second floor, Gu Masters crowd the central counter as bidding for the red steel Relic Gu reaches its final hour, one onlooker noting that in just fifteen minutes he has already seen over ten Gu Masters put in quotes. The crowd guesses the winner will be Mo Yan or Chi Shan, both rank two upper stage and each able to reach peak stage and match Gu Yue Qing Shu, who has been hanging over them in recent years, and someone adds that even rank three elders have bid, Lord Yao Ji among them that very morning, guessed to be paving the way for her granddaughter Gu Yue Yao Le’s coming Awakening Ceremony. No one in the crowd names Fang Yuan, who is still seen as merely a lucky heir, and he judges that the less attention falls on him the more smoothly he can secure the Relic Gu, reckoning himself ninety-nine percent certain of winning it. ^{ch. 113}

The counter’s leaves close over the Relic Gu and unfold again to reveal a Revert Gu instead, a black, palm-sized, oval stone whose white-lined eye pattern blinks about every two seconds; its function, decomposing a rank two Gu worm back to rank one through reverse-refining, is illustrated with the example that using it on Fang Yuan’s White Jade Gu would revert it to a White Boar Gu and a Jade Skin Gu. Fang Yuan loses interest at once, and the crowd, uninterested in the Revert Gu, disperses to hunt for word of who actually won the red steel Relic Gu. ^{ch. 113}

Summoned by sound transmission to the third floor, Fang Yuan is shown by Jia Fu a bamboo paper recording every quote he has made, each bid, Jia Fu notes, falling short of the final price by only ten or so primeval stones, out of which he actually won only a Black Boar Gu, a Liquor worm, and the red steel Relic Gu, prompting Jia Fu to try to recruit him. Fang Yuan declines, citing his wish to stay with the clan, and Jia Fu explains that his suspicion over Jia Jin Sheng’s death was cleared a year ago using the Bamboo Gentleman, and that the divine investigator Tie Xue Leng he has invited is not expected to arrive until the year after next, news that visibly relieves Fang Yuan. Jia Fu hands over the red steel Relic Gu along with a token of goodwill for any future need. ^{ch. 113}

Leaving through the hidden door, Fang Yuan startles a young female Gu Master caressing the wall, then passes Chi Shan, whose face looks unsightly, and Chi Cheng, who snorts and turns away; Chi Shan gives him a silent nod, which Fang Yuan returns. He reflects that a year ago he had hoped to build ties with Jia Jin Sheng for the future large-scale Gu fighting competition, only to end up killing him, and that Jia Fu’s token now serves in his place as an admission ticket to that same competition. ^{ch. 113}