Chapter 220

Bai clan leader tells the reporting party to wait. Nothing, she thinks, could matter more than finding the spirit spring. She turns back to the smoke image and finds the cave small and empty of any spring, and decides she needs more time. Only then does she call the messengers in. An investigative Gu Master reports finding a badly injured man while searching for Gu Yue survivors, a man who claims to be from Tie clan. He told the Gu Master that Qing Mao mountain’s three clans have been wiped out, that a demonic Gu Master escaped the destruction, and that Tie clan is now hunting him. ^{ch. 220}

Bai clan leader is startled, since the images of Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing come immediately to mind, though neither looked the part, and she recalls Fang Yuan’s tears at the banquet as proof against it. She asks how the Gu Master is sure the captive is really from Tie clan, and he hands over a Tie clan token taken from the man’s body, along with the observation that his Gu worms match Tie clan’s own. Bai clan leader still considers another possibility: that this man killed a real Tie clan Gu Master and stole the token, and is himself the demonic Gu Master Tie clan is chasing. She decides she must question him herself and orders the captive brought in. ^{ch. 220}

The captive, Tie Dao Ku, is forced to kneel by two guards despite his resistance, and shouts that he will kneel to heaven, earth, his parents, and a clan leader, but not suffer humiliation. Bai clan leader accuses him of being a demonic Gu Master who murdered a Tie clan man for his token, and he spits in reply, though the phlegm is stopped by an invisible barrier before it lands. She points out that genuine Tie clan Gu Masters below rank five usually travel in numbers and carry themselves with more spirit, while he arrives alone and in poor shape. The remark cuts through his defiance. ^{ch. 220}

Bai clan leader’s words strike his rawest memory: of the nine who left Qing Mao mountain together, he alone remains, and now only as a prisoner. Tie Ao Tian, the Tie clan’s fourth young master and a strong contender for its leadership, was blown apart before he could raise a single defense. Others in the group died in the same blast along with countless Gu worms, and of two survivors, one lost half his body and died soon after despite treatment. Tie Dao Ku’s own bronze-hardened skin, and his position at the rear, saved him. He buried his clansmen, most of them in pieces, with only a palm sized remnant of Tie Ao Tian to bury, and raised a cut stone as a grave marker. Investigating the blast site with his own experience, he concluded that almost a hundred Charred Thunder Potato Gu had been buried together, a deliberate and vicious trap. Without knowing their names, he judged the pair he calls Fang and Bai the likeliest culprits and the demonic Gu Masters Tie clan is hunting. Unable to return to his clan without answering for the young master’s death, he pressed on alone, his injuries worsening into fever and headache, surviving a beast attack and a river crossing with no supplies before he collapsed and was taken in as Bai clan’s captive. ^{ch. 220}

Back in the tent, Tie Dao Ku kneels with tears he cannot stop, and Bai clan leader is unsettled: his manner does not look like a demonic Gu Master trying to save his own life. When she presses for detail he falls silent and closes his eyes. She mentions, almost in passing, that Bai clan recently hosted two Gu Yue guests, one of them a young master. Tie Dao Ku’s eyes snap open with sudden hatred and joy at once, and he declares that these must be the demonic Gu Masters who escaped Qing Mao mountain, though the investigator had told him no names at all. Bai clan leader asks where his companions are; he answers only that they are dead, and refuses to say where, protecting their graves from being disturbed even under suspicion. Hearing this, Bai clan leader’s heart sinks, since these are not words a demonic Gu Master would say. She summons the smoke image again, and it shows Fang Yuan, deep in the cave, gripping Bai Hua and Bai Sheng by the throat and ordering the Bai clan out. Bai clan leader is stunned into silence, then smashes the table in front of her and screams that they were demonic scoundrels all along. ^{ch. 220}