Meeting of Brothers
Loopholes keep opening on Tian Ti mountain with rising frequency. Watching are not only Immortal Crane Sect’s elite disciples but many Gu Immortals hidden nearby. After three failed tries, Fang Zheng finally sends the lightning symbol paper crane Gu into the blessed land. ch. 420
A letter sending green bird Gu flies in through the loopholes too, and He Feng Yang darkens at the sight, wondering what Feng Jiu Ge is after. A moment later his eyes go pin small with shock. Fang Yuan is giving up six hundred square kilometers of blessed land, its grassland image filling Tian Ti mountain’s whole waist. ch. 420
A Gu Immortal reaches it first: Jian Yi Sheng, delighted, moves to pull the huge parcel into his own blessed land. Blue charm lightning shadow blindsides him with a lightning strike that sends him flying. Caught off guard but unwilling to yield, he turns and fights it, and their clash draws a huge commotion that shakes the ground. ch. 420
More than a dozen other Gu Immortals descend on the abandoned land like a hungry pack, tearing off shares of it while cursing each other over the split. Jian Yi Sheng has never suffered such a beating in his life. He rages that Fang Yuan schemed this humiliation against him and demands a fair fight, firing off the flying sword letter Gu, a Gu fast enough to tear through space and reach the blessed land without even needing a loophole. Immortal Crane Sect’s disciples stare in disbelief at conduct so unbecoming a Gu Immortal. He Feng Yang covers his face in shame at him. ch. 420
A bright white gold light opens a thirty meter red door with a rainbow plaque, and pink clouds gather as its light sweeps over Fang Zheng. He vanishes on the spot, sent inside the blessed land by a feat the land spirit could never manage for the swamp crab or the lightning shadow, but that is simple enough for a single man. He Feng Yang eases seeing him get through. A lightning bolt, blue charm lightning shadow lunging for the same opening, is thwarted by a hair’s breadth as the door moves away in time. ch. 420
Fang Zheng’s surroundings blur and clear into a grassland under thick dark clouds, lakes rippling nearby. He realizes he has reached Hu Immortal blessed land, his Gu worms sealed exactly as during the earlier competition. A smoky shadow swells into a mirror sized image of Fang Yuan, reclining with legs crossed, one hand at his knee and the other cupping his chin, black hair loose over a lazily squinted, dangerous gaze. Fang Yuan greets him as “my cute little brother,” surprised to see him again in central continent. ch. 420
Fang Zheng’s body shakes with fury. He brands him a crazy, hopeless demon who murdered their entire clan, and vows to kill him personally, then charges the image, which only scatters and reforms since it is smoke. He goes on to call him a coward for hiding behind a projection, a shameless traitor, and an inhuman animal for killing the clan to save himself. ch. 420
Fang Yuan laughs it off, calling Fang Zheng still as foolish as ever. The clan was doomed regardless of his own choices, he argues, so there was no reason he alone should have died for it. Had he not fought back, Fang Zheng himself would never have been carried back to central continent, he adds, casting himself, in his own telling, as Fang Zheng’s benefactor. Fang Zheng swears at him first, then calls this a distortion of the truth, shameless past belief. ch. 420
Fang Yuan’s laughter fades into a sigh. He calls his brother a huge disappointment who has not grown in years despite his cultivation, no more than a pawn. Then he turns to business, dismissing Immortal Crane Sect’s promise of an elder’s seat outright while agreeing to discuss a trade. The narration frames the two of them as twins, almost identical and as close in blood as two people can be, and calls them life-and-death enemies nonetheless. Restraining his own killing intent, Fang Zheng relays the clan’s terms: the sect wants only the gutstones on Dang Hun Mountain, to be gathered by disciples sent in batches under Fang Yuan’s lead. ch. 420
Fang Yuan cuts him off before he finishes, saying he does not trust the sect’s sincerity. He hands back the lightning symbol paper crane Gu, now carrying his own list of requested Gu worms and materials, along with an offer of the swamp crab’s corpse in place of primeval stones, which he has none of. Fang Zheng is teleported out before he can answer. ch. 420
Fang Yuan has the land spirit check for anything suspicious once his brother is gone. He is wary that Immortal Crane Sect’s resources could hide an Immortal Gu’s aura, even inside an aperture too small to carry one safely. Finding nothing, he relaxes. ch. 420
He judges his position better than he expected. Immortal Crane Sect’s willingness to shield him just to keep Hu Immortal blessed land for itself shows real nerve for one of the ten great sects. Its own system now works for him, too, since the sect’s need for the bigger picture forces Fang Zheng to negotiate rather than attack no matter how much he hates him. Even a false disciple identity shields him from outside suspicion of dealing with the demonic path, since the sect itself has already claimed him as its own. The same identity, however fake, has already scared off rivals, as Jian Yi Sheng and Feng Jiu Ge’s letters show. He remains as demonic and unrestrained as ever underneath it, free to trade for what he needs regardless. ch. 420
The arrangement lets him drop an earlier plan to raid Lang Ya blessed land for connecting heaven Gu. He knows the sect will not give up on Hu Immortal blessed land forever, and is only negotiating now out of wariness and want of a better option, so he resolves to give it no weakness to exploit. Killing Fang Zheng for his blood skull Gu would raise his own aperture’s aptitude only slightly, while making an enemy of the whole sect. If exposed, it would brand him a traitor to Immortal Crane Sect, drawing every greedy eye among the ten sects and the demonic Gu Immortals toward his blessed land; no secret stays absolute. He decides his brother is secondary for now: stabilizing his hold on the blessed land’s resources matters more than a small gain in aptitude that still needs resources to spend. ch. 420
