Fang Yuan works out that refining the Liquor worm will cost between eleven and sixteen primeval stones, more than the five to eight the Moonlight Gu would need, since a stronger will resists harder and a rarer Gu carries a tougher one. He holds seventeen stones total; success could still leave just one. Under the crescent moon he returns to the inn, where a grumbling worker turns fawning the instant he recognizes him. Fang Yuan reflects that a Gu Master’s road costs heavily at every step, in cultivation, battle, and refinement alike, and recalls that the Gu Master Jiang Ya had vented his temper on hunters that same evening rather than spend primeval stones on more wine. ch. 17
Back in his room, Fang Yuan studies the sleeping Liquor worm: pearl white, faintly lit like a lustrous pearl, about half the weight of a chicken egg, and carrying a faint wine fragrance that is its own scent rather than any bamboo wine’s. He draws green copper primeval essence from his sea and wraps it around the worm to begin refining. It wakes at once and fights back hard. Its resistance costs him more than double what the Moonlight Gu had drained. He pours in essence through the whole night, and by morning barely a sliver, under one percent of its body, has taken the green colour. ch. 17
Fang Yuan reasons out the truth: this was the Flower Wine Monk’s own vital Gu, once rank five, fed unevenly across years underground until its grade fell to rank one while its will stayed iron hard. A human will, he judges, resists harder than a natural Gu’s, and a Demonic faction master’s will harder still. He now reckons the refinement will need at least thirty primeval stones, not the seventeen he has, but he refuses to abandon it. He cannot ask the clan for help, since no Liquor worm belongs in Gu Yue Village and its origin would tie him to the dead monk’s case. Hungry after the night’s effort, he goes down to eat breakfast, and his younger brother Gu Yue Fang Zheng finds him there and demands to know why he slept at the inn instead of coming home. ch. 17
