Chapter 294

Fang Yuan recognises two faces in the ring around him: Bai Zhan Lie, once a drinking companion, and Bai Lian, who had tried a honey trap on him and been played at her own game instead. Bai Feng and Tie Dao Ku he does not know by sight, though he reads them at once as the victims’ families. Bai Feng accuses him of slaughtering Bai clan’s two young clan leaders. Tie Dao Ku charges that Fang Yuan dug a pitfall with sinister intent, killing his young master and blasting his clansmen’s corpses apart. Fang Yuan laughs and admits it. He claims that the pitfall was meant for grass skirt monkeys and blames the Tie clansmen for having no eyes, then says he is glad they are dead and that it serves them right. ^{ch. 294}

Onlookers gather, debating whether Fang Zheng has gone mad to provoke a clan as strong as Tie, and note that even if Tie clan’s leader came in person, Shang Yan Fei would still be bound to protect him. Bai Feng and Tie Dao Ku both vow to settle accounts on the battle stage instead. Fang Yuan needles Bai Feng back: without him, Bai clan would never have found the Bai Gu inheritance at all, and perhaps they do not truly want to know where their two young clan leaders are. The remark stuns the group into wondering whether the pair might still be alive. Bai Feng and Bai Lian press him, insisting their own search of the Bai Gu inheritance ground turned up no trace of either. ^{ch. 294}

Fang Yuan offers a trade: a meal at Shi Zi restaurant, known for its lion meatball delicacy and, more usefully, for private rooms where Shang clansmen conduct affairs they want kept quiet. Bai Feng, hating him but needing the answer, agrees to go. In the sealed room, Fang Yuan insists Tie Dao Ku wait outside, since the matter concerns only Bai clan, and Tie Dao Ku leaves in annoyance once Bai Feng backs the request. ^{ch. 294}

Once the room is sound-sealed, Bai Feng demands the truth, warning that Shang clan city has Gu worms enough to catch a lie. Fang Yuan tells him flatly that both young clan leaders are dead, killed the moment Bai clan became his enemy. The Bai clansmen surge up in fury. But they are in Shang clan territory, Fang Yuan holds a purple thorn token, and killing him here would turn Shang clan against their whole clan, so no one moves. Fang Yuan then remarks, almost admiringly, that Bai clan still finds the energy to chase him even with its spirit spring drying up. Bai Feng’s shock at the words gives the secret away before he can deny it; he had believed only the clan leader and a few elders knew. Fang Yuan claims the two young clan leaders told him themselves, begging for their lives before he killed them, though he is simply inventing a source no one can check. Bai Lian, Bai Zhan Lie and the others, hearing of the spirit spring for the first time, turn frightened and question Bai Feng directly. Bai Feng, realising his own reaction has already confirmed it, feels the same old regret. His father once drove him from the clan in his youth specifically to temper this impulsiveness, and years of cultivated shrewdness still have not fully broken the habit. ^{ch. 294}