Great Future Plans
Ren Zu ran to his son and found Verdant Great Sun a white ghost beside a lake, drinking its wine-scented water with open delight. Ren Zu begged him to stop and come home; Verdant Great Sun answered that this was no bewitching soup but soul calming wine, the finest in the world, able to still a restless soul. ch. 411
Ren Zu could not care what it was called, and tried to pull him up, but found him heavy as a mountain. Some who die grow light as a feather, Verdant Great Sun told him, and others heavy as one: he had carried reputation Gu in life and died bathed in its glory, and neither fame nor fortune travels past death, so reputation Gu left him the moment he died. Only fixed immortal travel Gu still traveled with him now, able to carry his soul beyond the door or anywhere in the outside world, though only walking the road of life himself could truly bring him back. ch. 411
Ren Zu realized wisdom Gu had played him. He had reached the deepest dark of the Door of Life and Death and found his son, but still could not simply carry him home. Fairness Gu told him plainly that death was destiny’s judgment and had to be accepted, that his son lived the most tranquil life imaginable here, free of the outside world’s worries and steeped in the finest wine there was. Ren Zu looked at his son a last time, said his farewell to both him and fairness Gu, and turned to leave by the second road, the road of life, from darkness toward light. ch. 411
The road of life proved countless times harder than the road of death had been. Where the suffering Gu had thinned the further he walked before, here every step drew more of them, until courage Gu alone could no longer hold them back and told him to return to Dang Hun Mountain for guts Gu, since courage without guts would not be enough to survive. Guts Gu only slowed his soul’s loosening in Luo Po Valley’s bewildering fog, and the Luo Po wind cut the loosened soul apart regardless; he nearly lost his way entirely, until faith Gu’s light guided him out with only the barest core of himself still intact. ch. 411
At the reverse flow river, the last barrier, every step forward met a current of suffering pushing back, and Ren Zu forced his way toward the light until only one step remained. He let out a breath and paused, and in that pause, forgetting wisdom Gu’s warning that stopping even for a second meant being swept back, the river carried him away into the depths of Luo Po Valley, too exhausted to move, and trapped him there. ch. 411
Fang Yuan breaks the last gutstone and groans with satisfaction. His soul’s injury has healed completely, its foundation now standing five times stronger than before, and the feeling that rises in him is not physical strength but a clarity of spirit, a sense that he could handle anything set before him. ch. 411
He regrets only that Dang Hun Mountain held just over a hundred gutstones, not all of them carrying guts Gu. The mountain had already changed hands and been stripped bare before Hu Immortal found it and moved it into her blessed land. Over the decades that followed she fed it fox after fox, close to ten thousand lives for each new gutstone the mountain grew, more from stronger beast kings, but she used nearly all of it herself, and only in the eight years since her death did the remainder grow back to what Fang Yuan has now finished off. ch. 411
He will not repeat her method: it suited a blessed land at full strength, but this one is weak and its fox groups already thinned, and killing more of them now would cost him more than it is worth in the long run. ch. 411
With his soul whole again, Fang Yuan turns fully to his plans. Winning Hu Immortal blessed land has reshaped them as much as it has helped them. Dang Hun Mountain lets his soul’s foundation keep growing, and his previous life’s experience commanding blood bats is an advantage too large to waste, so the enslavement path is now the obvious choice, though its Gu Masters are easily struck down once found, so he cannot let his strength path cultivation slip either. He decides to walk both paths at once, raising two sets of Gu worms together, a plan that would have been impossible before this blessed land and is manageable now. ch. 411
The ideal is to refine second aperture Gu, which would let him keep his enslavement and strength path worms in separate apertures, undisturbed by each other, with enough primeval essence to command both sets at full strength. He imagines an army of beasts and insects blackening the sky at a wave of his hand, and any enemy foolish enough to try beheading its leader learning exactly how cruel reality can be. ch. 411
He takes out the second aperture Gu he already holds, shaped like a peanut shell, gold and traced with veins of scarlet, the embryo form of the real thing, made by combining false Gu and lifespan Gu and able to survive forty years. He has enough immortal essence to refine it properly, and two third watch Gu would not be hard to find, but divine travel Gu is the piece still missing. ch. 411
Only one of any given Immortal Gu can exist in the world at a time, and since the divine travel Gu that once existed became fixed immortal travel Gu, a new one is free to form. Divine travel Gu is unusually easy to obtain. Legends of Ren Zu records that drinking the world’s four finest wines is enough to let it condense in a person’s body, and with human brewing having advanced far past the ancient era, fine wine is more plentiful now than it ever was. Gathering four such wines would take effort but is within reach for Fang Yuan, with the blessed land and the little land spirit behind him. ch. 411
The real danger is that anyone else could win the same race. Southern Border’s Fei clan holds a top wine called Zhuang Si Fei, Eastern Sea’s rank seven Gu Immortal Zui Xian Weng has built a sea of hidden wines and holds a yearly wine reception, and Northern Plains’ imperial court keeps the long life wine, any of which gives its holder better odds at divine travel Gu than his own. ch. 411
Fang Yuan’s list grows heavier for it: survive the earthly calamity, manage the blessed land, and race to gather four top wines for the second aperture Gu. One concern outweighs the rest. Time flows five times faster here, so Spring Autumn Cicada’s own recovery will turn extremely quick as well, and three rebirths is already more luck than he can expect to spend again. Before it recovers, he means to secure success at first attempt Gu, immediate success Gu, smooth success Gu or something like them. He lacked the strength to chase such Gu before. Now, with the blessed land’s resources behind him, he can finally try. ch. 411
