Chapter 232

Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing conceal their Gu Master auras with the Breath Concealment Gu, so when the elderly village head enters, himself only a rank one Gu Master, he senses nothing. The old lady announces her good news: the village head has agreed to help the two strangers, giving them a cart of purple maple leaves to sell once the caravan comes, in exchange for seven days plowing the village’s eastern fields. Fang Yuan weeps with gratitude and stammers his thanks, playing the role so well that Bai Ning Bing’s own performance visibly falls short of his. ^{ch. 232}

That night, alone, Fang Yuan admits the leaves are not the true goal. A caravan is coming within days, and joining it, disguised as mortals under the village head’s guarantee, will let them cover their tracks toward Shang clan city without an investigative Gu of their own, since their Earth Hearing Ear Grass was destroyed. Bai Ning Bing agrees it is a sound plan; even if discovered, she judges a rank three and a rank two cultivation between them are enough to escape, since caravan heads are usually only rank three, and a rank four leader like Jia Fu is rare. ^{ch. 232}

Fang Yuan decides it is time to use the Iron Bone Gu and Jade Bone Gu. The Iron Bone Gu is a rank three Gu, and Fang Yuan is only rank one; Bai Ning Bing transfers a large amount of primeval essence into him, barely enough to qualify him to activate it, and nearly all of it is consumed converting the Gu into iron liquid that merges with his skeleton. The pain is total, reaching even his soul, and after a long while he cannot help letting out a groan, though he never once cried out even while his whole body burned. The text notes that many well known Gu Masters have died from the pain of using a Gu like this one. Fang Yuan endures it and stays conscious, though he nearly blacks out, and the next day the lingering pain leaves him too weak even to leave the bed, unable to work the fields at all. ^{ch. 232}

Bai Ning Bing plows the fields alone that day, then in the evening uses the Jade Bone Gu on herself to test whether Fang Yuan had truly suffered as much as he claimed. She finds that he had. Proud as she is, she groans and grips the bedsheets through the pain, and where Fang Yuan stayed conscious to the end, she does not: an intense dizziness takes her, and she loses consciousness. ^{ch. 232}