Chapter 396

The bronze hall goes silent and the air turns heavy as Fang Yuan sits with the newly refined, rank six second aperture Gu floating before him, though his attention stays fixed on Bai Ning Bing instead. Bai Ning Bing, his male body fully recovered, stands behind him holding the ice blade, his face unreadable. Tie Ruo Nan approaches, her expression somewhere between grief and joy, taunting Fang Yuan that he never imagined this day would come, but he keeps his eyes on Bai Ning Bing and says nothing. ^{ch. 396}

Bai Ning Bing confirms it: this is the day he finally defeats Fang Yuan. Since his resurrection at Qing Mao mountain he had schemed to recover his male body, forced for years to serve as Fang Yuan’s chess piece. He calls Fang Yuan the most terrifying enemy of his life, though not the strongest, a man of innate talent for scheming and vicious method, and insists that he himself is no ordinary man who would simply accept becoming someone’s subordinate. The more he was controlled and used, he says, the harder he worked at finding a way to escape and strike back. ^{ch. 396}

He explains the mechanism: knowing Fang Yuan could trigger Yang Gu’s self-destruction on him at will had kept him from acting rashly, until the idea came to restage the very scene from Qing Mao mountain where Fang Yuan once handed the Gu over willingly, timing a self-destruction of his own to land exactly when Fang Yuan would reach for Yang Gu. Since there was a chance Fang Yuan might not reach for it, the self-destruction had to look convincing without being real, and Bai Ning Bing chose ice crystal Gu to fake it. ^{ch. 396}

Fang Yuan, his voice dull, names the Gu. Bai Ning Bing confirms it, tracing the choice back to Shang clan city, where he had taken ice crystal Gu, suited to men, over the snow fairy Gu that Wei Yang urged on him as a woman’s choice, to Wei Yang’s lasting regret. It was never spite: snow fairy Gu’s transformation would have shown his true form too plainly, while ice crystal Gu paired with ice explosion Gu could mimic the northern dark ice soul physique’s self-destruction closely enough to fool even Fang Yuan. Fang Yuan admits that only his focus on the refinement let the trick work; Bai Ning Bing agrees it was a gamble he had nearly abandoned, until events pushed his hand. ^{ch. 396}

That push was poison vow Gu. Bai Ning Bing had first meant to ride out the vow itself, accepting being used for a time in trade for its flaw, but Fang Yuan’s confidence in the vow between himself and Shang Ya Zi, and the leak of Bai Ning Bing’s own secret inquiry into the Bai clan contract, left him certain Fang Yuan always planned for the worst. If Fang Yuan ever found a way around the vow while he remained bound by it, he would be a captive piece forever with no recourse of his own, so he went looking for outside help. ^{ch. 396}

He credits Fang Yuan, mockingly, for the introduction: Doctor Su Shou, one of Southern Border’s four great doctors, whom he met at a banquet Shang Yan Fei held to thank the pair for escorting Shang Xin Ci, where she treated Fang Yuan’s disfigured face while Fang Yuan, hoping the visit would make Bai Ning Bing give up on escaping him, brought her along on purpose. Su Shou, who loathed ugliness and treated beauty for free no matter who asked, refusing the unlovely even for more money, warmed instantly once she saw Bai Ning Bing’s real appearance. It was from her that Bai Ning Bing first learned how important Fang Yuan’s Yang Gu truly was, and before they parted she promised to help him with anything, whenever he needed it. ^{ch. 396}

Fang Yuan, still coughing blood, is kept alive by healing Gu against the numbing cold of the blade through his chest, and treats his own wound as a minor detail beside what he is hearing. He asks whether the person is Doctor Su Shou, and Bai Ning Bing confirms it. Then Fang Yuan recalls a second meeting he had missed, the time Bai Ning Bing lost to Yan Tu and went to Su Shou for treatment, and demands to know whether that too was staged. ^{ch. 396}

It was: Bai Ning Bing had thrown the fight on purpose, calling a lost vital Gu a fair trade for an excuse to see Su Shou again, and on that visit had gambled everything by telling her the whole truth. Su Shou, sympathetic, worked to free him from what the narration calls Fang Yuan’s demonic claws, and when Bai Ning Bing asked whether poison vow could be dispelled, she said no, but that its binding could be broken. ^{ch. 396}

Su Shou traced the method to her own youth, tricked by a sect junior brother into swearing a mutual poison vow and later freeing herself from it: deliberately letting the vow activate and kill the vow maker, then reviving them, since only that removed the poison. She warned Bai Ning Bing this forceful removal was near impossible for most healing Gu Masters, that her teacher’s legacy barely let her manage it, and that even so there was a one in three chance of failure meaning death. Bai Ning Bing decided on the spot, and with her help the poison vow’s binding came off. ^{ch. 396}

Free of the vow, Bai Ning Bing reached out to the Tie clan, and Tie Ruo Nan learned the truth that the man before her was Fang Yuan and not Fang Zheng, along with what had really happened on Qing Mao mountain; the two began working together in secret against him. ^{ch. 396}

Tie Ruo Nan recounts her own part: an earlier attempt using iron cabinet Gu and qi flow Gu to stage a self-destruction failed when Fang Yuan did not come to the rescue, so she gathered a group instead and made new plans at San Cha mountain. Fang Yuan fought that group of seven alone and cut them down, which brought Tie Mu Bai himself into it; afterward Tie Ruo Nan trained under his teaching and waited, patiently, for word from Bai Ning Bing, which is also why she never went looking for Fang Yuan despite her hatred for him. ^{ch. 396}

The apparent captivity that had held Bai Ning Bing for days under Tie clan’s four old-timers, which looked to onlookers like reprisal for a Tie clan death in the inheritance, was staged the same way, cover for the plot against Fang Yuan all along. Tie Mu Bai’s death afterward drove Bai Ning Bing to hide deeper still, ruling the dog beasts from inside Fang Yuan’s own trust. Once the land spirit died, holding the whole formation together alone grew harder and the pressure on him increased, but at the same time he felt his whole body relax, free at last from the land spirit’s surveillance; still cautious, he let Yan Jun through to test Fang Yuan’s defenses, and Feng Tian Yu being sent out to meet him confirmed the land spirit was truly gone. Relieved, he steered the battle again, this time to open a path for Tie Ruo Nan and the four old-timers, which is how she reached the hall alone. ^{ch. 396}

Tie Ruo Nan tells Fang Yuan to surrender: outside, Tie clan’s enslavement path grandmaster Tie Bai Qi now commands the dog beasts against the massed Gu Masters, and the four old-timers seal the hall from outside with iron cabinet Gu and qi flow Gu so no one can reach him. She takes the second aperture Gu from where it floats and pronounces his fate. Fang Yuan says nothing. ^{ch. 396}