Chapter 258

Waiting on the mountain passage, Shang Xin Ci grows anxious as Fang Yuan’s return stretches past several minutes, until almost eight minutes have gone by. Bai Ning Bing pretends indifference, but her own worry runs elsewhere: rank three is close, and with it the deadline of Fang Yuan’s promise to return the Yang Gu, and knowing his character from the road, her heart grows increasingly fretful. Fang Yuan reappears with fresh wounds and a story of a chasing green-hair zombie. The group departs at once. ^{ch. 258}

Over the stretch that follows, the four cross Mu Bei, Shuang Jiang, Xue Lei, Qian Ku, Ju Ren, and Lu Zao mountains, six in all, skirting Xue Lei’s Zhao Clan territory since Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing are still wanted under Bai Clan’s warrant. Fang Yuan’s cultivation rises from rank two middle stage to peak stage along the way. They finally sight Shang Liang mountain. ^{ch. 258}

Fang Yuan tells the group they will part ways once they reach the city, calling his debt to Shang Xin Ci repaid. At the gate he takes his leave in two words and nothing more. Shang Xin Ci calls him back and vows to repay his small kindness many times over. He smiles, and disappears into the crowd. ^{ch. 258}

Xiao Die calls the parting heartless. Shang Xin Ci tells her it is so as not to implicate them, since their demonic-path identity cannot be revealed even in Shang clan territory, and Xiao Die accepts it. Shang Xin Ci resolves to build a place for herself in the city and repay them one day. ^{ch. 258}

Bai Ning Bing warns Fang Yuan that without an investigative Gu he risks losing Shang Xin Ci in the crowd. Fang Yuan ignores her. He watches the two girls until they pass through the gate, then, drawing on his memory of his previous life, expects the Shang clan leader to sense his own bloodline in Shang Xin Ci once she is inside, setting off an investigation of the whole caravan that ends, he expects, with her recognized as his daughter and the group paid double compensation. ^{ch. 258}

His reasons for parting run deeper than appearance. An ordinary clan’s leader tops out at rank four, but the Shang clan leader is rank five, and its supreme elders reach rank six, capable of finding the Spring Autumn Cicada however deep it hides in his aperture. Appearing to want nothing from Shang Xin Ci also strengthens the impression that he only meant to repay a debt, which he expects will win her trust when they meet again. ^{ch. 258}

He weighs taking her chastity as the fastest way to bind her to him for good, sure she would not refuse. He rejects it. Becoming Shang clan’s son-in-law would chain him to the clan, expose his fast-rising cultivation and the bone flesh unity Gu, and, if the Spring Autumn Cicada came to light too, draw out rank six and seven Gu Masters after it. Discovery as an unidentified demonic Gu Master would also bring a Shang clan warrant far more dangerous than Bai Clan’s, since Shang clan is one of the southern border’s overlords, and his only way out then would be fleeing the southern border itself. ^{ch. 258}

Elsewhere, Shang Yan Fei sits wreathed in blood-red flame, ending a rare session of cultivation; clan affairs leave him little time to train, yet he has reached rank five upper stage, one step from its peak. As the flames fade, he opens blood-colored eyes and sends his awareness outward. A new bloodline of his own has appeared. He does not know how. ^{ch. 258}