The Liquor worm perches on a bamboo pole only fifty or sixty steps from Fang Yuan, and he holds his breath, backing away rather than risking a hopeless chase. A Gu Master who has only just opened his primeval aperture, like him, has no hope of catching it while it can still fly at full speed. He waits instead for it to drink itself drunk, since a slowed worm gives him his only real chance. The worm drops its guard, buries its head in a wine soaked flower bud, and drinks until its tail curls and sways with a drunken rhythm. ch. 14
Once it lifts off, heavy and slow, Fang Yuan runs after it through the bamboo forest, across a mountain stream, and past a startled cloud of Dragonpill crickets. He keeps the worm in sight the whole way. At last he sees it dip into a crevice in a boulder where a branch of the mountain waterfall pours down, and he stops, heart pounding, sweat soaking his whole body. The gap is wide enough at first for two men to walk abreast, but Fang Yuan fights through rushing water and cold before it narrows and he must turn sideways. Brushing past slick moss in total darkness, he keeps going until a thin seam of red light appears ahead. ch. 14
Pushing through the seam, Fang Yuan enters a hollow space about eighty square meters wide, deep inside the mountain’s stone heart. Damp moss covers the walls, but the air itself is dry, and withering vines cross half the surface, carrying a few dying flowers. Fang Yuan recognizes them as Wine Sack Flower Gu and Rice Pouch Grass Gu, both rank one natural Gu that need nothing but poured primeval essence to grow. The Liquor worm sleeps on a ball of dead roots nearby. Fang Yuan gathers it into his arms, then kneels and pulls the vines apart to reveal a bundle of skeleton bones hidden beneath. He smiles, certain he has finally found the Flower Wine Monk, but as he reaches to strip away the last vines a voice full of murderous intent speaks behind him. ch. 14
