Chapter 233

The next day it is Bai Ning Bing’s turn to be too pained to move, while Fang Yuan, mostly recovered, returns to the fields. The old lady visits her and, from her build alone, has already worked out that “he” is a woman; she assumes the sounds she overheard these past two days were a couple’s intimacy rather than the two of them enduring Gu pain, and tells Bai Ning Bing gently to restrain herself. Bai Ning Bing is mortified and denies it, too shaken to protest properly. ^{ch. 233}

At dinner, the old lady delivers the same warning to Fang Yuan directly, calling Bai Ning Bing his wife. He catches on and plays along. Bai Ning Bing spends the meal glaring at him coldly. The text notes that any woman travelling this world would disguise herself as a man for safety, which makes the awkward misunderstanding useful: Fang Yuan concludes it actually helps conceal the one flaw Bai Ning Bing’s own disguise cannot fully hide. ^{ch. 233}

That night Bai Ning Bing again asks when Fang Yuan will return the Yang Gu; he answers that it will be once he reaches rank three. She does not believe him, and privately resolves to get at least a Poison Vow Gu, a Three Hand Gu, or even a Seize Gu of her own once they reach Shang clan city, rather than trust his word. ^{ch. 233}

Fang Yuan’s cultivation gains a new avenue: the Iron Bone Gu and Jade Bone Gu have permanently strengthened his body enough to finally use the Crocodile Strength Gu he has kept fed, unexpectedly, on crocodile meat the Bai clan itself supplied. Such Gu strengthen the body permanently, but a mortal body has limits before rank six, and it was exactly this limit that had kept the Crocodile Strength Gu out of his reach until now. Bai Ning Bing’s Ice Muscles Gu already stops her from sweating, which rules out something like a Blood Sweat Gu for her; the text adds that pairing it with a Jade Bone Gu would make an especially strong combination. Fang Yuan, by contrast, is aiming to form the pairing he calls steel tendons and iron bones, and with his new foundation he can now add the strength of one crocodile on top of two boars. ^{ch. 233}

Seven days pass, and the promised cart of purple maple leaves is theirs. The caravan itself arrives three days later than the village head expected, only appearing on the ninth day: a huge column of bus sized black skin fat beetles, colored ostriches, mountain large spiders, winged snakes and toads, carrying goods and people. Watching it assemble, Fang Yuan notes it is not one clan’s caravan but an alliance of several, with one chosen leader and several vice leaders beneath him, which he judges will make it easier to slip in unnoticed. ^{ch. 233}

At the village bazaar, Fang Yuan quotes two and a half primeval stones for the cart, though the leaves are cheap enough that the whole cart could not fetch even two; three interested buyers are deliberately turned away at that price. By evening, while everyone else has sold most of their herbs, meat and milk, the cart is still unsold, and passersby mock them for it. Fang Yuan drags it back to the old village head’s house looking dejected, and the old man sighs that he had told them two primeval stones was already generous, and that one and a half would have sold it easily. ^{ch. 233}