Just let him fly a bit higher
Legends of Ren Zu recounts how divine travel Gu has already sent a drunk Verdant Great Sun into danger twice, once into the ordinary abyss and once into the hairy men’s cauldron; he survived both by luck and now refuses to drink at all. Divine travel Gu protests that it never meant harm, since Verdant Great Sun triggered its power himself each time, and reminds him that it once saved his life from tiger striped honey bees. Unmoved, Verdant Great Sun calls his life meaningless without wine, so divine travel Gu offers him a way out: pluck a jade sky colored bamboo from the forest atop azure heaven, gather an eight sided diamond from the star fragments of blue heaven by night, then at dawn fly into the rising sun’s light of glory and use it to transform divine travel Gu into fixed immortal travel Gu. ch. 371
Verdant Great Sun objects that he cannot fly; wisdom Gu, whose earlier advice to drink was only meant to keep from being bothered, senses Verdant Great Sun coming to find it again and hides. Cognition Gu, wisdom Gu’s own mother, answers instead, wrapping him in light and growing a pair of pure white, crane like wings from his back that it names self, warning him never to bask too long in sunlight or his sense of self will swell or shrink, and that a higher flight only makes for a harder fall. ch. 371
Verdant Great Sun flies happily, hiding in clouds whenever the sun grows strong, and reaches the edge of azure heaven, the sixth of nine heavens running white, red, orange, yellow, green, azure, blue, purple and black, where jade bamboos root in open void; he plucks a palm sized, cold, hollow segment of one. Climbing on to blue heaven at night, he searches a river of falling stardust for a long while before finding a single eight sided fragment among the seven and sixteen sided ones he passes over. At the next dawn he flies toward the rising sun, the light of glory said to shine on every living thing and reach into the river of time, and summons divine travel Gu; under that light, the Gu swallows the star fragment and enters the jade bamboo to begin its transformation, warning him again to keep flying sunward, to mind the self wings, and to head for the clouds the instant the change is complete. ch. 371
Verdant Great Sun boasts that having survived the abyss and the hairy men once already, and holding reputation Gu besides, he has grown past vanity and the light can do him no harm; reassured, divine travel Gu stops worrying as the sunlight cocoons around it and the bamboo. The cocoon splits open on a green glowing butterfly that declares itself fixed immortal travel Gu, then cries out that Verdant Great Sun’s wings have already tripled in size under the sun. Verdant Great Sun laughs off the warning, certain that larger wings only mean greater speed and power, and keeps climbing past every plea to stop and hide, asking what lies above the nine heavens, until the wings stretch to their limit and burst. He falls to the ground and dies, his body left unrecognisable. Ren Zu’s eldest son meets his end. ch. 371
At Southern Border’s Huo Tan mountain, Fang Yuan drinks wine warmed by the mountain’s own heat while Bai Ning Bing sits beside him, an untouched cup at hand, watching the three light pillars rise from distant San Cha mountain. Unafraid of death and hungry only for excitement, she has spent these months cultivating without pause, indifferent to her own rising aptitude; the narration offers two possible reasons and settles on neither, that she was spurred on by Tie clan’s four old-timers, or that Fang Yuan’s strength had simply surpassed her own. Impatient after months of lurking there while the three kings inheritance has opened twice more and Tie Mu Bai has taken over the mountain, she argues that their combined strength could beat anyone on San Cha mountain if they strike the moment he next enters the inheritance. Fang Yuan stays relaxed and unhurried: Tie Mu Bai is the glory of Tie clan, its previous clan leader at rank five peak stage, a figure so high and mighty that they are no more than rats at his feet, and Fang Yuan would rather let him fly higher and higher still. Raising his cup toward San Cha mountain, he offers a toast to Lord Senior Tie Mu Bai, smiling lightly as he mutters it; Bai Ning Bing looks over at him and finds only his black eyes, fathomless as an abyss. ch. 371
