Chapter 154

Gu Yue Mo Chen weighs regret and confusion at once: he once meant to recruit Fang Yuan but held back over his aptitude, and now watches his old rival Gu Yue Chi Lian, who the hall’s whispers say has backed Fang Yuan since over a year earlier, reap the reward instead. What puzzles him is that Chi Lian looks wronged rather than smug about it. ^{ch. 154}

The truth is that Fang Yuan cornered Chi Lian the night before by threatening to expose that his grandson Chi Cheng’s B grade aptitude is faked and the boy is really only C grade, a secret whose leak would wreck the Chi faction’s standing. Chi Lian wanted him eliminated on the spot, but Fang Yuan’s new rank three status as a fellow elder, and the risk that the secret was already written down somewhere, forced him into grudging cooperation instead. ^{ch. 154}

In the hall, Fang Yuan turns on Gu Yue Yao Ji, charging that she pulled the medicine hall’s healing Gu Masters off the wounded to search for her missing granddaughter and calling her unfit to lead the hall. The other elders, whose own factions carry unhealed wounded, quietly agree with him. He proposes to the clan leader that her title be suspended for review, and adds that Elder Chi Lian supports the idea too. Chi Lian, blindsided and furious, can only half agree when the clan leader asks him directly, admitting she overstepped without endorsing the suspension outright. ^{ch. 154}

Yao Ji, already sleepless for three days, vomits blood and collapses at the news, and is carried out on a stretcher. Seeing his chance, Chi Lian suggests Fang Yuan take over the medicine hall himself, a proposal the chapter frames as a deliberate jab meant to bury Yao Ji’s faction rather than a real offer. Gu Yue Bo instead names elder Chi Zhong as temporary head of the medicine hall and confirms Fang Yuan’s new rank and elder status, and the assembled elders close in to offer their congratulations. ^{ch. 154}