Chapter 202

Bai Ning Bing tests the Chainsaw Golden Centipede that Fang Yuan lent her, copying how he swings it and willing it to lengthen and shorten like a whip, then arms herself with his Sky Canopy Gu as well. Fang Yuan sits cross-legged with his eyes closed, reading his own aperture. His aptitude has risen from just over forty percent to ninety percent, more than doubling. His cultivation, meanwhile, dropped from rank three back to rank one. ^{ch. 202}

He weighs what he has left to work with. Aptitude, resources and Gu worms are the three things a Gu Master cannot do without. Years of scraping by on all three in Qing Mao mountain would have gone very differently with this new aptitude and none of the old safety. The Heavenly Essence Treasure Lotus, a rank three Gu rooted in his aperture, is what saves him. It once gave him a rank three cultivator’s recovery speed off the clan’s own foundation spirit spring. Now it raises his thin green copper primeval essence at an extreme rate. ^{ch. 202}

Counting them off, Fang Yuan holds twelve Gu worms, three to four times what an ordinary Gu Master carries. Even Divine investigator Tie Xue Leng, by comparison, only raised about seven. Feeding them strains the tusita flower’s stores. The Four Flavors Liquor worm’s wine will last half a year, the Plunder Gu’s food five months, and the Earth Communication Ear grass’s ginseng roots a full year. The surviving Yang Gu must be let out to drink yang qi or starve. It is the very Gu suppressing Bai Ning Bing, keeping her a bodyguard rather than an enemy. ^{ch. 202}

Bai Ning Bing interrupts him with a smashed white eggshell the Chainsaw Golden Centipede dug up. Fang Yuan’s face tightens: it is a six legged crocodile egg, which means the beach is a breeding ground. Before he can finish ordering a search for more eggs, hundreds of the crocodiles come ashore from the river and charge the two of them. ^{ch. 202}

Snow still covers the ruined site of Gu Yue village on Qing Mao mountain, where Tie Ruo Nan kneels in the drifts crying for her father. Days earlier, a dying Tie Xue Leng sent out the Mountain Giant Puppet Gu and the Iron Fist Grappling Gu to carry her to safety from his battle with the Gu Yue first head. Both Gu had already been infected by the Blood Frenzy Gu, and dissolved into blood not long after finishing their task. Tie Ruo Nan raced back toward the mountain, was besieged by beasts on the way, and was saved only by Tie family reinforcements her father had already sent for. What they find on the mountain is ice, snow, and every living thing frozen. After days of searching, they accept that the Divine investigator has fallen. ^{ch. 202}