Chapter 158

Newly installed as acting head of the medicine hall, Gu Yue Chi Zhong asks Fang Yuan to hand over the Nine Leaf Vitality Grass that Gu Yue Yao Ji once wanted by decree. This time the request comes as a trade between equals rather than an order, since Fang Yuan now holds elder rank himself. Chi Zhong offers a Prize Token in exchange, reserved for Gu Masters judged to have served the clan well. It grants entry to the clan’s underground Gu cave, where four of the clan’s ten best-traded Gu are said to have originated. Fang Yuan accepts and transfers the Nine Leaf Vitality Grass on the spot, and Chi Zhong absorbs it at once. ^{ch. 158}

He needs to prove his authority to the clan. Handling the matter himself is how he strikes that balance, since he answers to the clan leader, the Chi faction and the medicine faction all at once, and doing it well is also how he shows his own ability. Fang Yuan, for his part, reasons that Gu worms are only tools and that giving up a smaller gain for a larger one is simply how the clan should renew itself, the old making way for the new under the pressure of the wolf tide. ^{ch. 158}

Afterward, Fang Yuan brings Chi Zhong to visit his uncle and aunt, who greet the two elders with visible fear. Since Fang Yuan’s promotion, the couple has worried he will take revenge for the years they spent bullying him. His uncle claims poverty, saying the wolf tide closed their tavern and cut their bamboo-house rents. Fang Yuan does not believe it, judging that his uncle has savings and is only playing pitiful to blunt any revenge. He instead hands over the three hundred primeval stones he received as his elder’s payout, calling it repayment for their care, in words so laced with sarcasm that his uncle and aunt only grow more afraid. They hesitate to accept until Chi Zhong tells them to. Fang Yuan then takes his leave. ^{ch. 158}

Watching from a corner, Mother Shen and her daughter Shen Cui see Fang Yuan and Chi Zhong go. Shen Cui asks if she chose wrong; her mother tells her Fang Zheng, an A grade talent, will achieve just as much. Shen Cui has already given herself to Fang Zheng and cannot take it back, and she answers with only a flicker of new resolve in her eyes. ^{ch. 158}