Chapter 144

Continuing his answer to Fang Zheng, Gu Yue Bo recalls telling Qing Shu years earlier that only Qing Shu himself could find his own reason to live, then repeats to Fang Zheng the same answer he once gave Qing Shu: that an organisation always has sacrifices, that death comes for everyone from the moment of birth, and that what warms the heart between life and death is love. He hands Fang Zheng a letter Qing Shu wrote recording years of thought on that same question. ^{ch. 144}

The letter compares the clan to a forest where old trees shelter the young and, in dying, become the soil that feeds new growth, and states that Qing Shu, though afraid of death like any Gu Master, has come to accept that he may die of age, illness, or battle and still leave without regret, closing with the line that he has found his answer. Reading it, Fang Zheng weeps, remembering how Qing Shu comforted him after mistakes and encouraged him through setbacks. He tells Gu Yue Bo he has found his own answer too, that he wants strength to protect his family and clan and end the suffering the wolf tide brings, and Gu Yue Bo, seeing Qing Shu’s resolve in him, tells himself that Qing Shu did not die in vain. ^{ch. 144}

Elsewhere, Bai Ning Bing reads of Ren Zu, who gouged out his own eyes to make a son and daughter against his loneliness, only for them to neglect him for the outside world, and of Ren Zu asking his Attitude Gu about a light he can still see in his blindness, which the Attitude Gu names the eternal light of the Faith Gu; Bai Ning Bing laughs at this and throws the book, nearly hitting the Bai clan leader as he enters. The Bai clan leader tells him losing an arm is no great matter, reports that three frenzy lightning wolf packs are now moving near the village, and asks him to be seen that night to steady clan morale, which Bai Ning Bing agrees to with visible impatience. ^{ch. 144}

Alone, Bai Ning Bing reflects that he has hidden from everyone, including the Bai clan leader who raised him, that the clan’s ancient records name the Northern Dark Ice Soul physique one of the ten extreme physiques, also called the absolute death talents, whose self-destructive power grows extreme as the aperture wall nears its limit. Having nearly died in the fight, he no longer fears death, and though still unsure what living is for, he feels the answer lies with Fang Yuan, in whose hands the Stone Aperture Gu now sits. ^{ch. 144}

In his rented room, Fang Yuan studies that Stone Aperture Gu, a single use Gu that turns a Gu Master’s aperture wall into stone and pushes their current rank to its peak stage at the cost of ever advancing further and of naturally regenerating primeval essence, reserved for Gu Masters with an unrecoverable aperture injury or no other way to gain strength quickly; he judges Bai Ning Bing refined one to delay, not stop, whatever is destroying him. Fang Yuan finds the Gu useless to himself but keeps the red steel Relic Gu and Water Shield Gu he took from Bai Ning Bing as valuable, and later trades the unremarkable Gu worms taken from Gu Yue Man Shi’s group for merit points, while the three clans, needing each other against the worsening wolf tide, suppress the fallout of the Qing Shu and Bai Ning Bing battle and let Xiong Lin’s report of Fang Yuan’s White Jade Gu pass on the excuse that it was bought from a caravan. ^{ch. 144}