Chapter 245

The caravan crosses Hun Mu mountain, where Fang Yuan trades half his goods for the mountain’s strange timber, then Ju Yu mountain, where his Huang Jin mountain lamp oil sells well and three rainstorms leave him with a stock of blue oil raindrops, a material with many uses. At Fang Zhuan mountain he sells the Hun Mu timber to a Da Fang clan elder who collects wood carvings, and by the time they near Xiao Yue mountain his repeated trades, credited publicly to Shang Xin Ci, have built her a reputation for business talent. ^{ch. 245}

Camped near a cliff at the edge of Xiao Yue mountain, the group hears Jia clan’s leader warn that everything ahead is uninhabited wilderness thick with beasts, the most dangerous stretch before Xue Lei mountain, beyond which lie a few more clan villages and, past those, Shang clan city. Fang Yuan’s trading has been earning five to six times its cost after a few deals, and Shang Xin Ci, Zhang Zhu and Xiao Die, the only ones who know he is behind it, now see him differently. She invites him to dine and question him on trade daily, though he normally accepts only one invitation in three; Zhang Zhu warns her to stay careful of two people so clearly hiding a past, but she insists she knows her limits and never asks beyond business. ^{ch. 245}

Fang Yuan skips the invitation again this night. Alone with Bai Ning Bing, he resumes drawing her snow silver primeval essence into his aperture, sturdy enough now at rank two middle stage to take the strain that would have broken it at rank one, and his aperture walls near the sheen that marks rank two upper stage. He resolves to push through to the breakthrough in one sitting. ^{ch. 245}

A Grey Wolf King’s howl sets off a mass wolf assault, and the camp’s first line of defense collapses within minutes. Bai Ning Bing offers to fight; Fang Yuan refuses, telling her not to forget her identity, and turns away Xiao Die’s plea that they seek Zhang Zhu’s protection as well. The attack lasts fifteen minutes before the wolves retreat, leaving three Gu Masters dead, over a dozen injured, countless servants killed, and most of the goods damaged, Zhang clan’s own hit worst of all. ^{ch. 245}

Fang Yuan takes his own losses, over a thousand primeval stones of borrowed goods, with a bitter smile and no real concern, because he never stopped cultivating through the fighting: that night he breaks through to rank two upper stage after only a few months of training, a speed that startles even Bai Ning Bing, who taught him the method. ^{ch. 245}