Chapter 142

On the mountain path, Gu Yue Qing Shu’s ice blade storm forces Bai Ning Bing’s primeval essence to run dry, and the fight leaves Qing Shu with two fingers left on his left hand and three on his right, his palms sliced by ice blades before new branches regrow from them into a wooden cage that traps Bai Ning Bing. The Wood Charm Gu’s power has corroded Qing Shu’s body past his hands into his organs, taking his sight and hearing and pushing him to the brink of death even as he activates the Green Vine Gu to attack Bai Ning Bing through the cage’s openings. Relying only on touch to judge Bai Ning Bing’s position, Qing Shu manages one last strike, a vine closing around Bai Ning Bing’s throat and lifting him as both men are carried toward death together. ^{ch. 142}

Fang Yuan watches the fight’s end from hiding, where five corpses of Bai clan Gu Masters lie with their eyes open, killed by his own Stealth Scales Gu ambushes with the aid of the Moonglow Gu, the strength of two boars, and five hundred years of experience. He had told Qing Shu he was returning to the village but instead stayed to loot corpses, collecting the Gu worms from Man Shi and his groupmates, only to find Xiong Li’s body and Gu worms already taken, which he attributes to Xiong Lin, regretting the lost chance at the Brown Bear Innate Strength Gu. He reasons the Gu may already be back with the Xiong clan regardless, since Xiong Li had the strength of a bear without it. ^{ch. 142}

Fang Yuan grows roots from his ear into the mountain wall to listen to the battle’s end and weighs whether to rush in and finish Bai Ning Bing himself, but judges the distance, about twenty steps, beyond his Moonglow Gu’s ten step attack range, and decides the risk from Bai clan’s rank three and rank two elites is not worth it against a man destined to die anyway. He steps back just as reinforcement groups of at least twenty each approach from both Gu Yue village and the Bai clan village, and Fang Yuan, closer to the mountain path, enters first. ^{ch. 142}

Finding Bai Ning Bing still barely alive in the vine cage, Fang Yuan moves to strike but is driven back by a hail of pin needles from Qing Shu’s Pin Needle Gu, since Qing Shu’s blurred consciousness now treats any approach as an attack. Bai clan Gu Masters arrive and warn Fang Yuan off, and he retreats a few steps, an act the narration calls weak and cowardly that leaves the Bai clan Gu Masters relieved. ^{ch. 142}