Chapter 121

Xiong Li stands overlooking Gu Yue village, reflecting that the once-dominant clan is now falling behind as Bai village’s uprising and Xiong village’s own troubles push Qing Mao mountain toward upheaval once the wolf tide passes; he recalls Bai Ning Bing’s rise to rank three within only a couple of years with unease, despite being the top rank two Gu Master of Xiong village himself, a holder of the Grand Bear Gu known as the strongest person on the mountain. The young Xiong Lin, Xiong village’s top genius this year and the same age as Fang Yuan, asks why the group has stopped so far from the village; Xiong Li explains that this is a diplomatic mission, not a scouting one, and that they carry two tasks, delivering the Xiong clan head’s personal letter to Gu Yue’s clan head and investigating the River Swallowing Toad matter, warning the group to mind their conduct without letting Xiong village’s prestige suffer. ^{ch. 121}

The group soon meets Chi Shan’s approaching party; Xiong Li and Chi Shan, old rivals from many past clashes, exchange terse greetings before Chi Shan leads the Xiong village envoys onward. ^{ch. 121}

In a secret room, Fang Yuan begins fusing his two Liquor worms into a Four Flavours Liquor worm, drawing on four wines for the sour, sweet, bitter and spicy flavors: redberry wine, golden honey wine, bitter shell wine, and white grains liquid. He immerses the fusing worms first in the redberry wine, feeding in primeval stones until the glowing light ball shrinks to fist size after roughly a hundred pieces, then repeats the process through the honey wine, the bitter shell wine, and the white grains liquid in turn, until all four jars are spent and the light flourishes and vanishes, leaving behind the newly formed Four Flavours Liquor worm, larger than an ordinary Liquor worm and flickering with red, blue, green and yellow instead of plain white. Fang Yuan is relieved to have succeeded on his first attempt, aware that failure could have killed one of the Liquor worms or wasted the hard-won bitter shell wine. ^{ch. 121}

Reflecting on how difficult Gu fusion is in general, with rank four and rank five fusions often succeeding less than one time in ten and rank six fusions succeeding only about one percent of the time, Fang Yuan considers what he has gained: the Four Flavours Liquor worm can refine rank two primeval essence, and combined with the middle stage he reached through the red steel Relic Gu, it will bring him to upper stage, doubling his fighting strength and speeding his cultivation, though at a heavier cost in primeval stones. He has already spent over four hundred primeval stones on this fusion out of the five hundred the clan awarded him for driving off the River Swallowing Toad, with some funds left over from his earlier asset sale, and he still means to fuse his Stealth Rock Gu, taken from the stone monkey king and currently only able to conceal his body, into a Stealth Scales Gu that would also conceal his clothing, using materials Jiang Ya is gathering for him, useful for entering the secret cave and for hit-and-run tactics during the wolf tide. ^{ch. 121}

At dusk Fang Yuan leaves the cave for the village, wary of drawing suspicion after his sudden fame. At the gate he finds that Xiong Li’s group has just bested Chi Shan’s in a strength contest, with Xiong Li crediting his Brown Bear Innate Strength Gu; a humiliated Chi Shan invokes Fang Yuan’s name, telling Xiong Li he is no longer the clan’s strongest and daring him to defeat Fang Yuan first. Xiong Li, who has only heard of the A grade genius Fang Zheng, asks who this Fang Yuan is; Chi Shan explains he is Fang Zheng’s older brother, also innately strong and Gu-boosted, who single-handedly pushed the rank five River Swallowing Toad over a hundred meters to drive it off, a claim that leaves Xiong Li’s group visibly shaken and fixes both the toad’s rank and Fang Yuan’s name in their minds. ^{ch. 121}