Chapter 293

Six Bai clan Gu Masters, led by elder Bai Feng, reach Shang clan city still hunting Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing. Tie Dao Ku, a Tie clan investigator tracking his own clan’s dead, has followed the only trail that did not run cold. Bai Zhan Lie, grandson of the Bai Zhan Wen that Fang and Bai killed, wants the pair alive so he can kill them himself. At the gate, Bai Feng’s yellow pear token exempts three of the six from the toll, and the rest pay thirty primeval stones between them. The guard erupts, denying it hotly and accusing Bai Zhan Lie of slander, when Bai Zhan Lie asks about the wanted pair. Bai Feng, despite his own rank three cultivation, is quick to apologise, and the guard only quiets once Tie Dao Ku invokes Tie clan’s own standing. ^{ch. 293}

The group heads to a battle-zone restaurant Bai Feng remembers from his own youth, and overhears passers-by talking about a fighter called Gu Yue Fang Zheng. On the stage, Fang Yuan’s opponent forfeits within the first second of the bell, and Fang Yuan hands Li Ran another forty thousand primeval stones toward his debt, cutting it to thirty thousand. The crowd notes his twenty-nine straight wins, one short of the fourth inner city, and that even Li Hao died to him. Recognising him, Bai Feng cries that heaven is blind to let such a man thrive. Bai Lian explains why: a purple thorn token, earned for saving Shang clan leader’s illegitimate daughter, shields him inside Shang clan city. A companion beside her adds that Bai Ning Bing holds one too, and has joined the battle stage with a good record of her own. ^{ch. 293}

Tie Dao Ku proposes a way around the token: challenge Fang Yuan and Bai Ning Bing on the battle stage, where numbers cannot be brought to bear but a purple thorn token offers no protection either. Bai Feng agrees at once. Only then does Bai Lian notice that Bai Zhan Lie has slipped away. ^{ch. 293}

Fang Yuan, meanwhile, leaves the stage weighing his finances: an instant success Gu is coming up for auction, but he cannot yet afford to bid. Bai Zhan Lie plants himself in his path and demands to be recognised, and the rest of the Bai clan group closes around Fang Yuan in a half circle. ^{ch. 293}