Chapter 385

Chou Jiu begins his story from the start, until Fang Yuan cuts him off for time, so he compresses it. Born Zeng Ah Niu, an ugly, bullied herb gatherer who fell into Shadow Sect’s blessed land by a lucky accident, he became one of only two disciples there. The other was a senior sister, Chen Jiu, raised by the land spirit from childhood and utterly innocent of the outside world. They fell in love, swore an oath before the blessed land’s sea to protect each other, and explored the Door of Life and Death together, capturing life Gu and death Gu. He calls it the happiest time of his life. ^{ch. 385}

An earth calamity injured the land spirit and opened a hole to the outside world, letting in a badly wounded stranger who called himself Shang and had striking red hair. Chou Jiu saved him. The stranger’s charm and looks won Chen Jiu over during his recovery. After repeated arguments, she broke her oath, injured Chou Jiu, and left with him. Chou Jiu later learned the man was Shang Yan Fei, leader of the powerful Shang clan. ^{ch. 385}

Fang Yuan, already knowing from his previous life who this must be, listens without reaction. Chou Jiu confirms it: the thief is Shang Yan Fei, and Chen Jiu is now known as Doctor Su Shou. He alone has spent years hunting the two of them through southern border, with nothing to show for it before dying here today. Fang Yuan sees through the scheme at once. With Chou Jiu and Chen Jiu the only two of Shadow Sect that anyone knows of, killing Chou Jiu forces Fang Yuan to seek the secret from Shang Yan Fei and Doctor Su Shou instead, and any fight that follows serves Chou Jiu’s revenge either way. ^{ch. 385}

Chou Jiu laughs, admitting the open scheme and praising Fang Yuan’s bluntness, and asks whether he will still pursue it. Fang Yuan says of course. The Door of Life and Death holds Immortal Gu of its own kind, just as the Spring Autumn Cicada belonged to the river of time, and the prize is too great to pass up even with the trap laid bare. Chou Jiu, moved to tears, calls their meeting and his coming death an extraordinary fate, and hopes Fang Yuan is the one meant to find Shadow Sect’s blessed land after all. ^{ch. 385}

Grown tranquil, he says no one lives forever, not even the Immortal and Demon Venerables. He chooses to end his own life rather than let Fang Yuan do it. He bites off his own tongue. Blood sprays as the killer ghost doctor, future head of the four great doctors, dies by his own hand. ^{ch. 385}

Fang Yuan sees the prize at once: Shadow Sect’s blessed land and the Door of Life and Death, a possible foundation for his future hegemony, worth reshaping his plans around. Every rank five Gu Master in the blessed land is now dead by his hand, Tie Mu Bai, Wu Gui, Ku Mo, Wu Lan Shan and Chou Jiu among them. Each carried a lifetime’s foundation and strength that, alone, could easily have overwhelmed him. ^{ch. 385}

He works out that Doctor Su Shou’s birth name was Chen Jiu, and that Chou Jiu’s chosen name carries the hatred born from that old love. He recalls that in his previous life, Chou Jiu threw himself into the battle of Yi Tian mountain to confront the couple, was captured, exposed their history, and was killed by Shang Yan Fei for it. Fang Yuan declines to judge the tangle of kindness, grudge, affection and hatred between the three. Doctor Su Shou’s choice of the handsome Shang Yan Fei over the ugly Chou Jiu is, to him, as understandable as it is common in the world. ^{ch. 385}

Chen Jiu, drawn to beauty by nature, treats patients by their looks: the ugly go untreated, the average pay by mood and fee, and the beautiful are healed on the spot for free. Challenged over it once, she answered that ugly people staining the beauty of life should simply die, while beautiful things deserve to be cherished and protected. The words caused an uproar in Shang clan city, until Shang Yan Fei personally stepped in to suppress it. Fang Yuan recalls that when he and Bai Ning Bing once saw her together at Shang clan city, she was cold to him and warm to Bai Ning Bing. He notes idly that each of the four great doctors has a peculiarity of their own: Travelling Doctor Jiu Zhi wanders disguised as an old beggar, and Divine Doctor Sheng Shou is a man who prefers other men. ^{ch. 385}

From Chou Jiu’s body, Fang Yuan takes mostly healing and movement Gu, including a rank five movement Gu called warp Gu, twisted and misaligned in shape to match its owner’s own ugliness. He devours the aperture with his beast strength placenta Gu. He recalls that in his previous life, Chou Jiu’s throat was cut at Yi Tian mountain, only for him to return from the dead soon after. The cause was a remnant life Gu, suppressed for now by the blessed land’s power but able to revive him once the land finally crumbles. Chou Jiu’s repeated praise and flattery, and his show of facing death without fear, had all been aimed at leaving a good impression so his corpse would go untouched. Fang Yuan, who does not ordinarily mutilate corpses either, sees through the performance and makes an exception anyway. He tears Chou Jiu’s body into minced meat, then burns the remains to ash and scatters them on the wind, daring him to resurrect from that. ^{ch. 385}