Chapter 219

Back at the map, Bai clan leader gives up: Bai Gu mountain’s back range is too vast to pinpoint from this alone, and she notes to herself that Fang Yuan is too guarded to ask for directions outright. She resolves to press harder for the spirit spring’s location. Her plan is to strike first herself if the spring’s guardian beasts are few, but if they are numerous, to let Gu Yue clan take the losses while Bai clan reinforces and profits afterward, perhaps even absorbing the clan’s survivors. She does not know that the Gu Yue reinforcements she fears are a fabrication: only two of the Gu Yue clan remain anywhere, Fang Yuan and Fang Zheng. ^{ch. 219}

In fact, Fang Yuan has learned something real from Bai Lian: the righteous inheritance does sit at the back mountain, information she did not fake. Bone beasts and Gu dominate that ground. Claiming it as clan territory would be difficult. Fang Yuan filters her exaggerations through his own five hundred years of experience and concludes that he and Bai Ning Bing, working together, would need at least half a year to reach the inheritance site. Bai Gu mountain itself holds far more danger than the woods: large beast groups, ferocious predators, and dangerous wild Gu force them to avoid whole areas. ^{ch. 219}

Word spreads that Fang Yuan’s team beat Bai Zhan Lie’s in the day’s hunt, and camp gossip turns on the two Gu Yue visitors. Some call Fang Yuan’s interest in Bai Lian shameless given Bai Ning Bing already at his side. Others note that Bai Zhan Lie and Bai Lian grew up together, his feelings for her unreturned. Despite winning, Fang Yuan looks gloomy through it all. That night, after the twins toast him and are led away, several new Bai clan youths take the freed hunting spots; two of the men among them lean toward Bai Zhan Lie, one glaring at Fang Yuan through the banquet, the other apathetic. Bai clan leader again presses Fang Yuan about his clansmen’s absence; he claims they must be delayed, and she answers that she has already sent scouts. ^{ch. 219}

Privately, Bai clan leader worries that time is running out before the fictitious Gu Yue reinforcements arrive and give Fang Yuan support she cannot counter. Bai Ning Bing is even more anxious than she knows: watched constantly by hidden Bai clan Gu Masters and slowed by the forest terrain, she and Fang Yuan cannot act, and she cannot ask him openly what he intends. Bai Mo Xing proposes, in a whisper, a way to intensify the pressure on Fang Yuan, and Bai clan leader agrees to try it. On the third day of the team contest, Bai Zhan Lie catches a rare Swimming Dragon Butterfly Gu and pulls decisively ahead in score. Bai Lian declares their only chance now is a risky one: hunting bone beasts and wild bone Gu inside Bai Gu mountain itself. Bai Ning Bing’s heart leaps. This is exactly the opening she needs to reach the mountain. Fang Yuan objects that it is too dangerous for their limited strength, and Bai Ning Bing, watching him stall, wants to strangle him for it. Bai Lian answers with a plan: coax the twins Bai Sheng and Bai Hua into joining the hunt, since their hidden Gu Master escort will then be forced to protect the whole group from any danger they meet. ^{ch. 219}

The next day, at dusk, Bai clan leader watches the group of seven, Fang Yuan’s party and the two young twins, move through what looks like a peaceful mountain. It is not peaceful at all. To clear their path, Bai clan has secretly spent six hours and sacrificed tens of Gu Masters, and three elders are hurt, two so badly they are carried back unconscious. Guided by Bai Lian, the group reaches the back mountain, and Bai Lian suggests turning back as darkness falls, but Fang Yuan insists on exploring further. He searches openly, working from memory, until Bai Ning Bing privately panics at how little he bothers to hide it. Strangely, none of the others seem to notice anything unusual, and they let him search in silence. Watching from camp, Bai clan leader grows excited, guessing they are close to the spirit spring. When the group then enters a cave, she wonders aloud whether the spring might be inside it. Just then, a subordinate returns, bringing a captured Tie clan Gu Master and news he calls important. ^{ch. 219}