Chapter 400

The fixed star Gu hiding in Fang Yuan’s forearm feels like a rope around his neck. Removing it safely will take time and preparation, and the only way to strip it off immediately, short of Bai Ning Bing taking it back herself, is to cut off his own left forearm, an urge that burns in him. ^{ch. 400}

Discarding the arm would leave the four old-timers nothing but a severed limb to retrieve, but it comes at a real cost: regrowing a limb from nothing takes heavy future effort, and losing it now would instantly warn Tie clan and Bai Ning Bing that he already knows their plan. They would attack at once, pulling both of them into the assault on the hall alongside everyone else, a worse position than the one he faced last time. He cannot tip his hand this early. His only advantage from rebirth is foreknowledge, and both Tie clan and Bai Ning Bing are still useful to him as things stand; losing the arm now would force a confrontation, push events off the track of his previous life, and cost him that advantage entirely. ^{ch. 400}

But if he keeps the arm, how does he escape and turn the situation around under such dire circumstances? He turns every person, incident and Gu of his previous life over in his mind, the possibilities multiplying and tangling until the effort leaves his ears buzzing. Then he stops short. An idea strikes him, absurd on its face: step back, and perhaps the sea and sky grow wider; perhaps the whole problem deserves a wider view. He shakes his head and calls the risk too great, but the thought will not let go of him, and he swings between imagining an overwhelming reward and warning himself that even one miscalculation would finish him worse than falling into Tie Ruo Nan’s hands outright, especially with Spring Autumn Cicada already spent and no rebirth possible again for some time. ^{ch. 400}

He laughs at his own hesitation, telling himself that a great demonic leader should not be so afraid to act, that only an overwhelming gain is worth relentless pursuit, and that fortune and risk travel together. Better to rise in one great leap than build slowly and safely. He commits to the plan, calling it death without burial if he fails and a dragon’s ascent if he succeeds, life itself no more than a grand gamble across a few hundred years. ^{ch. 400}

Beneath his feet, Wang Xiao keeps trying to negotiate over the entrance to Wu mountain. Fang Yuan’s mood swings between laughter, solemnity, frowning and sudden mirth, at one point even reciting poetry to himself, and it terrifies Wang Xiao into believing he is dealing with a madman. The narration notes that the demonic path’s isolation and constant mortal danger make mental illness common among its practitioners, and that even a Gu Immortal has no confidence handling one who seems unstable. ^{ch. 400}

Fang Yuan asks, frowning, whether Wang Xiao really means to give up the entrance; Wang Xiao says he will, if released. Fang Yuan’s gaze sharpens instead, and with a press of his foot he crushes Wang Xiao’s skull. In his previous life it took Zhang San San’s slavery Gu to pry the true entrance from this devious, cold-hearted man; in this new plan Wang Xiao has already been written off, not worth the time to question, and the narration calls his death a pathetic end for the lord of Wu mountain. ^{ch. 400}

Fang Yuan takes his Gu and devours both his and Yun Luo Tian’s apertures with beast strength placenta Gu, reporting to the land spirit that its aptitude now reads eighty-three percent and that immortal essence spent came in slightly over two portions, more than expected. He asks Ba Gui whether it wants him to stop, startling it that he already knows its thought. He leaks the aura of Spring Autumn Cicada for it to sense, and the land spirit, stunned, recognizes a rank six Immortal Gu, names it as the seventh mysterious Gu in the world, and struggles to believe a mere mortal could possess one. ^{ch. 400}

Unlike his previous life, when he spent long, failing effort trying to win Ba Gui over before finally gambling with the truth, this time Fang Yuan leads with the Cicada’s aura and states plainly that he is a future Gu Immortal who rebirthed into the past with it, that he is Ba Gui’s next master, and that he already succeeded once at refining the second aperture Gu. Between his knowledge of the future and his experience with the refinement, the land spirit is quickly won over, delighted regardless of any lingering doubt, since a proven success raises the odds of the second aperture Gu’s completion by thirty percent. ^{ch. 400}

Fang Yuan wastes no more words: he needs to kill someone first. Long Qing Tian dies moments later. In the previous life this man entered a weakened stretch of the land and used jade sky Gu there, poisoning the blessed land and opening a damaging loophole while poisoning Fang Yuan in the process; this time Fang Yuan strikes before he can enter that ground, restraining him with heavenly power and killing him with ease. The land spirit begins to believe him, admitting that the three kings’ modifications have weakened its control over the land so badly it could not even sense the fixed star Gu on his own arm. ^{ch. 400}

With no poison to hold him back this time, Fang Yuan freely devours Long Qing Tian’s aperture and keeps the jade sky Gu itself among the loot: a hollow, palm-sized, jade-textured stem from the immemorial era, rank five, carrying a poison so strong and so hard to counter that it can fade a victim to death in green light. He judges it too useful to waste and keeps it carefully. ^{ch. 400}

Transferred instantly by Ba Gui, he appears before Zhang San San and kills the demonic enslavement master before he can react, taking the rank five slavery Gu that was his real target all along. Another flash puts him before killer ghost doctor Chou Jiu, who barely has time for shock before Fang Yuan uses that same slavery Gu on him. With the land spirit suppressing Chou Jiu’s own worms, the yellow light lands easily, though Chou Jiu, defiant and unaware that he begged for exactly this in the previous life, swears he will not be humiliated. ^{ch. 400}

Controlling a rank five Gu Master is still a genuine contest of souls. Chou Jiu resists with everything he has, sweating and sneering that soul foundation decides these contests and that enslaving a man a rank above him is wishful thinking, until a slap from Fang Yuan cuts the boast short. The interruption tips the balance, and the yellow light sinks deeper into him as the chapter ends on the edge of success. ^{ch. 400}