White form immortal snake
On Qing Mao Mountain, Bai Ning Bing tells the Bai clan leader he carries the Northern Dark Ice Soul, one of the ten absolute aptitudes an A grade with ninety-nine percent primeval essence can advance into, and that his aperture is already failing under its burden. He takes the news calmly, at peace with an end he no longer fears. The clan leader refuses to accept it and leads him through a secret passage to the Bai clan’s restricted spirit spring, telling him along the way that their clan remains only small to medium scale, and would need to annex both the Gu Yue and Xiong clans and hold at least three springs to count as a large one. ch. 173
In the spring lives a rank five white form immortal snake Gu the clan calls Great Immortal, left by the Bai clan’s first ancestor to guard a secret inheritance for whichever descendant it approves. Bai Ning Bing refuses to kneel before it. After a long standoff, the snake flies into his aperture and takes the central place among his Gu, rather than carrying him bodily into the sky as the clan’s own secret records describe, and the clan leader cannot explain the mismatch. ch. 173
In Gu Yue village, Tie Xue Leng hands his daughter Tie Ruo Nan the case to run herself, and the two walk the wolf-tide-ruined streets together as her first survey of the ground. A shout of abuse from a courtyard leads them to Fang Yuan, and when Tie Xue Leng asks him to show them around, Fang Yuan agrees at once and takes the lead. He walks the pair through the village and sends them off to rest for the night, naming the underground cave as the one place closed to outsiders. ch. 173
Once Fang Yuan leaves, Tie Xue Leng asks his daughter what she makes of him. She says her instinct reads him as hiding something. Her father reminds her that intuition alone will not stand up as evidence, and tells her not to lean on her Intuition Gu to build this case. ch. 173
