Answer
Fang Zheng rushes over shouting for Qing Shu but is likewise driven back by the pin needles, then turns to Fang Yuan in confusion when Qing Shu cannot answer him. Fang Yuan ignores him and secretly uses the Plunder Gu on Bai Ning Bing, pulling free a red steel Relic Gu the Bai clan leader once gave Bai Ning Bing but that Bai Ning Bing never used after reaching rank three so quickly, instantly refining it with the Spring Autumn Cicada while keeping it visibly in his clothes rather than his aperture so it looks unrefined. Seeing their clan’s Gu worm taken in front of them, the watching Bai clan Gu Masters grow furious and rush toward the mountain path shouting to stop him and save Bai Ning Bing. ch. 143
Fang Yuan judges Qing Shu close to death and that he has only one more safe use of the Plunder Gu, so he weighs Bai Ning Bing’s remaining Gu worms: the Frost Demon Gu, the most valuable and on par with the Wood Charm Gu, lets its user become a frost demon, though prolonged use drains the user’s life force into an ice statue, a risk Bai Ning Bing knew well enough that he never used it as heavily as Qing Shu used the Wood Charm Gu, and the Blue bird ice coffin Gu, resting in Bai Ning Bing’s throat, the second most valuable but out of a rank two Plunder Gu’s reach. He ultimately catches only the Water Shield Gu, which he judges will pair well with his White Jade Gu for defense. ch. 143
The Bai clan Gu Masters fell the tree Qing Shu had become and free Bai Ning Bing, who the text says has lost his right arm, from the wooden cage, and are on the verge of killing Fang Yuan and Fang Zheng when Gu Yue clan reinforcements arrive, so the two sides retreat from each other in mutual understanding rather than fight further given the pressure of the wolf tide; Qing Shu’s corpse and Gu worms are carried back by the Gu Yue clan. ch. 143
At Qing Shu’s burial on a slope behind the village, a clan elder speaks over the grave while mourners weep, and Fang Zheng lingers afterward, grieving and unable to accept that the Qing Shu who always smiled and cared for him is dead, kneeling in the rain and clawing at the soil. Bai Ning Bing, recovering with his right arm, described here as broken, wrapped in a white bandage, lies awake for hours as the rain recalls his adoption by the Bai clan leader; he wonders what living is for, thinks of Qing Shu’s sacrifice without understanding it, then of Fang Yuan, in whose gaze he senses something like an answer to his own question. ch. 143
That same night, Fang Zheng asks Gu Yue Bo the same question in the dark, and Gu Yue Bo tells him that another young man asked him the same thing more than ten years before: Gu Yue Qing Shu, his own adopted son. ch. 143
