Chapter 41

At the rock gambling den, Fang Yuan tells the female Gu Master he wants to buy rocks without inspecting them first, a request so blunt it marks him in her eyes as a total newcomer to the gamble. He points out six purple gold fossils in turn, and as the pile grows the clerk revises her guess from heavy gambler to a wealthy young master from the main Gu Yue family branch, growing more attentive as she imagines attaching herself to him. ^{ch. 41}

Fang Yuan pays sixty primeval stones for the six rocks, drawing the attention of the other Gu Masters in the tent, some of whom mock his claim that purple gold is his lucky color as no way to choose a rock. He refuses the den’s free opening service and grinds the fossils himself, channeling primeval essence into the Moonlight Gu so a blue light wears each rock’s surface to powder, a level of control that normally takes two to three years of practice with the Gu to reach. ^{ch. 41}

The first, second, and third rocks all grind down to solid stone with nothing inside, and the watching Gu Masters lose interest, one joking he will eat the spilled rock powder if Fang Yuan pulls anything good from the pile. The fourth rock briefly excites the crowd when its composition turns ink black, and the female Gu Master warns him to move carefully from here on since a hibernating Gu is fragile and too much strength will kill it, but the rock still grinds down to a rock sealed inside a rock, empty of any Gu. ^{ch. 41}

Undiscouraged, Fang Yuan takes up the fifth rock, and in ten breaths the purple gold surface wears away to reveal a rough surfaced yellow mud ball underneath. ^{ch. 41}