Chapter 153

In the clan hall, elders murmur over Fang Yuan’s advancement while clan head Gu Yue Bo watches from the high seat, and Gu Yue Mo Chen privately recalls that Fang Yuan, back in his academy years, killed a servant of Mo Chen’s family and sent him the minced corpse, and regrets never recruiting the boy who did it. The elders trade guesses that Fang Yuan’s two red steel Relic Gu explain the sudden leap past his mere C grade aptitude, and Gu Yue Bo himself wonders whether even his late adopted son Qing Shu could have advanced so fast. ^{ch. 153}

Medicine hall elder Gu Yue Yao Ji storms in and demands to inspect Fang Yuan’s aperture to verify the breakthrough, but he refuses, addressing her by name and airing an old grudge over a Liquor worm he would not sell her and a Nine Leaf Vitality Grass she tried to take from him. Because he now stands as her equal in rank, the other elders hold back and simply watch rather than rushing to her defense as they once would have, and standing alone under that silence, Yao Ji feels for the first time that she has really aged. She rallies enough to press him for an explanation of where he vanished for three days. Fang Yuan claims he spent the time in closed-door cultivation inside Elder Chi Lian’s manor, and Chi Lian, gloomy and cornered, confirms it before the whole hall. ^{ch. 153}

The confirmation stuns the elders, who begin whispering that Fang Yuan has Chi faction backing behind him after all. Gu Yue Yao Ji turns pale and steps back at the news. ^{ch. 153}