Chapter 37

In the Mo family study, Gu Yue Mo Chen slams the table in a rage at Mo Yan, who has just learned that Fang Yuan, a boy of fifteen, killed the family servant Gao Wan. Mo Yan protests that a mere servant’s death means nothing to the clan, but Mo Chen scolds her for continuing to show hostility toward Fang Yuan after she went looking for trouble with him, which breaks the elders’ rule that a junior’s dispute is not for elders to interfere in. Kneeling under his anger, she explains that Fang Yuan tricked her into entering the academy, hid in the dormitory refusing to answer her taunts, and killed Gao Wan the moment she left. ^{ch. 37}

Mo Chen has a servant carry in a wooden box that Fang Yuan left at the family’s back door that morning, and inside Mo Yan finds sliced flesh, pale skin, long strands of intestine, a few pieces of bone, either leg bones or ribs, and, pooled in blood at one corner, two fingers and half a toe. Though a rank two Gu Master who has gone out to gain experience and has killed people before, she nearly vomits at the sight and drops the lid. ^{ch. 37}

Mo Yan is shocked to learn Fang Yuan sent the box, recalling the quiet, unremarkable youth she first saw eating alone at the inn, and her shock turns to fury as she declares she will bring him in to answer for his crimes and starts for the door. Mo Chen throws an ink slab that strikes her shoulder to stop her, then rebukes her for having let a mere rank one initial stage Gu Master lead her by the nose through the whole affair, telling her that her rage is stopping her from seeing what Fang Yuan’s actions mean. ^{ch. 37}

Mo Chen reads the gesture for her: the quiet back door rather than the busy front door shows Fang Yuan’s wish to settle the matter, while the sliced corpse inside is a threat that the rest will appear at the main entrance if the Mo family pursues the killing, humiliating the family before the whole clan. He credits Fang Yuan’s composure in deceiving Mo Yan, his patience in enduring her scolding, his courage in killing Gao Wan, and now his wisdom in sending the box, and sighs that such judgment wasted on only C grade talent is a pity, since a B grade version of the boy would have become an influential clan member. ^{ch. 37}

Asked how she will settle the matter, Mo Yan proposes killing Gao Wan’s whole family to defend the Mo family’s reputation, but Mo Chen judges the plan flawed. He confines her to the house for seven days, forbids her from bothering Fang Yuan again, orders thirty primeval stones paid to Fang Yuan as compensation, and has Gao Wan’s family paid fifty primeval stones and expelled from the clan. ^{ch. 37}