Living Treasure Door
The door needles Shang Yan Fei over the nickname Little Fei Fei, and though it calls him an old friend, it refuses to help him steal from inside the treasure realm. Getting nowhere by complaining that it is lonely and bored, it finally agrees to talk business, but only on one condition. It wants its nose dug, chanting the demand until Shang Yan Fei gives in. Even as a rank five Gu Master and lord of Shang clan, he has no real power over the door, since the treasure realm was left by Shang clan’s ancestors and built by a Gu Immortal beyond rank five. ch. 274
He calls out the Blood Handprint Gu, a rank five Gu able to turn any blooded creature it strikes into a puddle of blood and the weapon that built his fierce name across the southern border, and uses its huge palm to dig the door’s nostril at its direction. The sneeze that follows blows out four colored materials as a gift: red typhoon mountain pepper, which the narration calls an extinct, godlike material for refinement; yellow worry soil, used in refining rank six Gu; blue ice heart, found only at the core of an ice mountain ten million years old; and a green Grass Skirt Gu, rank five and without any defense, but able to draw primeval energy from the air and refill an aperture rapidly. ch. 274
Shang Yan Fei asks for the rank five Man Triumphing Heaven Gu, which can force open an aperture in someone born without cultivation talent, and the door tells him the treasure realm’s rules require an offering of even greater worth. He gives up the Blood Handprint Gu itself, and the door notes this was one of his most useful Gu and asks if he has abandoned his hunt for the Blood Sea inheritance. Shang Yan Fei explains that true inheritances are hidden among countless false ones, so hard to find that Shang clan’s years of searching have turned up only two, and that he will sacrifice the Blood Handprint Gu for now and may redeem it later. Most of his Gu worms come from the Blood Sea inheritance, and that same bloodline focus is why he can sense something in Shang Xin Ci the moment she enters Shang clan city. ch. 274
The door swallows the Blood Handprint Gu whole, then spits up the Man Triumphing Heaven Gu, shaped like a thousand year ginseng root with a body above and legs branching below. It warns that the Gu will turn wild again within three breaths of leaving the treasure realm, and Shang Yan Fei refines it on the spot with his Purple Crystal Primeval Essence. He leaves elated, thinking only of awakening Ci Er’s aperture and, after a few more Gu, recruiting Fang and Bai as her support, certain that strength is the one precondition for her happiness. The door is left alone again, complaining to the empty walkway. ch. 274
At a feast, Xiao Yan makes good on his word to host, having stepped in ahead of Fang Yuan back at the battle stage, and treats him and Wei Yang at a large restaurant while Bai Ning Bing eats in silence. Xiao Yan openly envies brother Fang Zheng for saving the clan leader’s precious daughter and for the Purple Thorn Token that followed, having lived in Shang Clan City long enough to know exactly what the token is worth. Wei Yang asks what the two plan to do next, and Fang Yuan says they mean to stay in Shang Clan City, sell off Gu they no longer need, and buy a matched set. Wei Yang approves out loud and privately hopes it improves his odds of recruiting them, and Xiao Yan urges the pair to consult knowledgeable Wei Yang directly, noting that his own fire path came from that same advice. ch. 274
