Fang Zheng reports the day’s events to his uncle Gu Yue Dong Tu and aunt, who bristle at hearing that Fang Yuan robbed even his own younger brother. Uncle tells Fang Zheng not to worry over the lost stone, to draw a replacement from the treasury, and to focus on cultivation, since his A grade talent gives him a real shot at becoming the first to reach middle stage. Alone with his thoughts, Fang Zheng weighs whether to plead his brother’s case: one voice tells him Fang Yuan brought this on himself by robbing his own blood, the other warns that staying silent will make him look heartless. ch. 30
Aunt admits she and Uncle had already cut off Fang Yuan’s living allowance hoping to provoke exactly this kind of disaster, and now expects his expulsion. Uncle disagrees, since fights are encouraged as long as no one dies, and the guards only stepped in at the very end, proof the academy elder had the situation under control the whole time. He tells her the academy treats brawls among students as routine and will not punish Fang Yuan for it. Instead he means to use Fang Yuan robbing his own brother to drive a wedge between the twins, since Fang Zheng, the A grade talent, will one day surpass Fang Yuan and is worth pulling to their side. ch. 30
Three days pass, and the trouble quietly dies down. No elder steps in to punish Fang Yuan. Two or three students who refuse to accept losing their stones challenge him and lose easily, and word spreads that only hard training in martial arts can beat him. A wave of enthusiasm for training sweeps the whole batch, and only Fang Yuan himself stays as lazy as ever, isolated now that the rest of the class treats him as an enemy. Four more days pass, the elder hands out the allowance again, and Fang Yuan blocks the gate a second time, offering one stone per person in exchange for no physical pain. Mo Bei challenges him and faints after a few rounds, and Chi Cheng follows him down soon after. Fang Yuan’s battle experience outstrips theirs by ten thousand times, and after fifteen minutes he walks off with a bulging money pouch, leaving the guards to rush in and sweep up the fallen. ch. 30
