My name is Fang Zheng
Wei Yang, still airborne from Fang Yuan’s punch, judges the spiral bone spears too weak at rank two to threaten him. Bai Ning Bing, her arrogance stirred by facing him two on one, realises he carries no permanent strength boosting Gu and has only ordinary human strength; short on Gu to spare, she closes in on foot to finish him with a kick. At the last instant Wei Yang flashes into light and vanishes, and the spears meant for him stab into bare flagstone while Bai Ning Bing’s kick shatters the ground in spidering cracks. Little Xiao reads the escape as a deliberate blow to their morale, timed to turn a killing strike into disappointment. ch. 266
Wei Yang reappears over fifty meters away, more than half the stage’s length, and explains the Gu to them: the rainbow light Gu, the fastest movement Gu of rank three, whose speed Wei Yang says far surpasses that of many rank four Gu. Its first weakness is that the Gu Master’s own reactions cannot keep pace without a supporting Gu such as lightning thoughts or flash of inspiration, or they risk flying past their mark into a wall; its second is a primeval essence cost that ranks middle to high among rank three Gu. He leaves the third weakness for them to guess, and Bai Ning Bing answers at once that it cannot be paired with a strength boosting Gu. Impressed, Wei Yang calls her “Miss Bai Yun,” and her gaze turns to ice with killing intent; he tries “Lady,” which fares no better, and settles on “Sir Bai Yun” only once her face relaxes. ch. 266
Praising Fang Yuan’s nerve, Wei Yang turns to light again and closes the distance almost too fast to see, slashing both of them with his twin broadswords. Bai Ning Bing feels her ice muscles will not hold against the blade and retreats; Fang Yuan stands his ground behind the canopy Gu and flying bone shield, his punch missing Wei Yang by an inch as the man flees again into light. The exchange repeats at the same blinding speed for several minutes, Fang Yuan unable to land another hit and Bai Ning Bing’s spears finding only air, until Wei Yang halts, guesses aloud that they mean to outlast him on expenditure, and reveals a light source Gu that halves his own primeval essence cost for light type Gu. Fang Yuan concedes the match, and Wei Yang accepts the win warmly. ch. 266
Little Xiao explains that Wei Yang is Shang Yan Fei’s third general, called the White Light Swordsman, and admits he himself could not trade twenty blows with him. Bai Ning Bing, who by her own history has never lost so badly, promises Wei Yang a rematch once she has better Gu and addresses him by his bare name, which visibly irritates Little Xiao. Fang Yuan insists Wei Yang held back and vows his own rematch, then talks the group into a shared meal so he can learn Wei Yang’s history. Little Xiao, warming to Fang Yuan far more than to the strange “Bai Yun,” offers to pay at a cheap new restaurant, and Fang Yuan lets him, joking that he is broke until his recipe sells and admitting the city’s prices have shocked him, all of which reads to Wei Yang and Little Xiao as an upright, plainspoken man’s honesty. Bai Ning Bing, already used to watching Fang Yuan perform, stays quiet. ch. 266
Over the meal, Little Xiao gives his real name, Xiao Yan, twenty seven years old and a specialist in fire type Gu, recently risen to rank three middle stage. Feigning drunkenness, Fang Yuan volunteers that Hei Tu and Bai Yun are false names and gives his own as Gu Yue Fang Zheng, hers as Bai Ning Bing, calculating that the Bai clan warrant will out them regardless and that confessing first will look like good faith. Xiao Yan, moved, takes it as a gesture of trust between demonic Gu Masters. Wei Yang registers the surname Gu Yue as the piece of intelligence his clan leader sent him to find. ch. 266
