Chapter 148

A new decree posted beside the battle merit board, where Fang Yuan now sits among the top ten, orders every Gu Master who holds Nine Leaf Vitality Grass to hand it to the medicine hall for unified production. The decree cites rising casualties from the wolf tide. Fang Yuan’s own name is on the list. He reads it as Gu Yue Yao Ji’s retaliation. She had already blocked his bid to trade battle merit for a Three Steps Fragrant Grass Gu after he refused to sell her a Liquor worm, and the Nine Leaf Vitality Grass is now his most important source of income. ^{ch. 148}

The crowd praises Yao Ji as selfless and just, noting that Gu Masters from both the Chi and Mo factions have already surrendered theirs. Fang Yuan recognizes the trap: refusing would mark him a traitor to the clan. The demand is dressed as sacrifice for the common good, never stated as an attack on him directly. ^{ch. 148}

Fang Yuan’s answer is to advance to rank three before the clan can act further. A rank three Gu Master becomes an elder, and even the clan head cannot lightly infringe on an elder’s benefits. He suspects the Chi and Mo factions’ Gu Masters were quietly compensated by Yao Ji for their own surrenders. He also weighs how much the clan has already overlooked because of the wolf tide: no investigation into Qing Shu’s death, no challenge over the Water Shield Gu and Plunder Gu he carries, no scrutiny of how fast his cultivation has climbed. In his previous life he stalled at rank two peak stage for over a hundred years before a Gu obtained at great cost raised his aptitude enough to break through. ^{ch. 148}

He already knows a shortcut: the Man-beast Life Burial Gu, a demonic-path recipe he found in his previous life for forcing a rank two Gu Master through to rank three. Its materials are not rare, and though gathering them might normally take him two to three years, the wolf tide has let him collect enough primeval stones and Gu worms already. Only the right moment is left. ^{ch. 148}

In the bamboo building, the Gu Masters who have surrendered their own vitality grass gloat over Fang Yuan’s predicament and credit Yao Le for persuading her grandmother to act. Xiong Jiao Man arrives to say goodbye to Yao Le before leading her six remaining Gu Masters back onto the battlefield. ^{ch. 148}