In his family’s garden, Gu Yue Mo Bei vents his frustration on a wooden practice puppet, having trained seven straight days yet lasting only two strikes from Fang Yuan before losing consciousness. His sister Gu Yue Mo Yan, a rank two middle stage Gu Master, returns from an investigation mission of more than ten days and spots the bruises on his face. Mo Bei lies that he tripped and fell, unwilling to admit he was beaten, and Mo Yan advises him to wrap his limbs in thick towels for protection until he has a defensive Gu of his own. ch. 31
Mo Yan visits her grandfather Gu Yue Mo Chen, who recognizes her by the door alone, since she is the only one who enters his study without knocking. She reports that the wolves’ den is nearly full, that there will be no outbreak this year but definitely a wolf tide next year, and that the pack holds around three Thunder Crown Wolves. Three villages can each take one wolf, so the number is manageable. When she presses about her brother, Mo Chen tells her, laughing, that Fang Yuan knocked Mo Bei out twice at the school gates, once seven days ago and once again today. He tells her that defeat is fuel for growth, that Mo Bei’s B grade will surpass the C grade Fang Yuan with the family’s support, and that she must not interfere or the Mo family will look like it is bullying a rival. Mo Yan agrees aloud, but leaves with her own plans already forming, her eyes shining with an ominous light her grandfather never sees. ch. 31
That evening at the inn, Fang Yuan eats by the window and watches the villagers heading home as the sun sets, among them Gu Masters in blue uniforms with a headband and belt. A rank one Gu Master wears a blue belt with a bronze plate reading the number one, while a rank two Gu Master wears red with a steel plate reading two. He counts six or seven rank one Gu Masters and one rank two Gu Master among the crowd. By his reasoning, a family elder holds rank three and a clan head holds rank four. Rank five is rarer still: only two men in the Gu Yue clan’s history, the first and fourth generation clan heads, ever reached it. By watching a street for a few hours, Fang Yuan reasons, anyone can gauge a clan’s strength, and Gu Yue village shows around twenty people passing, six of them Gu Masters, with a fifty percent chance one of the six is rank two. That strength lets the Gu Yue clan hold one of Qing Mao Mountain’s best resource sites, yet the mountain is only a small corner of the Southern Border, leaving the clan only middle to low tier. He judges that his rank one initial stage gives him no standing to roam the Southern Border. He needs at least rank three to travel further, so Qing Mao Mountain is too small for his ambition. As he eats, a burly middle aged man strides up and tells him he is in huge trouble for striking the Mo family’s young master, since the young miss has come herself to settle the score. ch. 31
