Chapter 449

No, old Ge tribe leader says: beauty is only ever the excuse. Man Duo’s real goal, backed by his father, is to fold Ge tribe into Man tribe through the marriage. He explains he understood this all along, and only agreed to betroth his daughter because a great blizzard, one that comes once every ten years, is coming; the marriage would have let Ge tribe shelter inside Hong Yan valley, sacrificing her happiness to protect the whole tribe. Instead she fled the wedding and died in poison grassland. ^{ch. 449}

He goes further: tonight’s banquet was never really about Chang Shan Yin. Man tribe’s true target was Ge tribe itself, and the old leader had brought Fang Yuan along as a shield. He had voiced full trust in Chang Shan Yin in front of everyone despite his own private doubt, because doubting him openly would have let Man Duo’s chase smoke Gu scheme drive a wedge between Ge tribe and their only protection. Without Chang Shan Yin’s support, he says, the two of them might not have returned from the banquet alive; he suspects Man tribe was behind the wind wolves that attacked Ge Guang earlier, citing how often beast groups are used for murder on the plains, and warns that even without killing them tonight, Man tribe could still have imprisoned father and son and used Ge Yao’s death as an excuse to swallow the leaderless tribe. ^{ch. 449}

He adds that the rank five hints and clues Gu is never a plain gift here: giving it was meant to keep Chang Shan Yin bound to Ge tribe, whether or not he had actually killed Ge Yao. ^{ch. 449}

Ge Guang, shaken, finally understands the danger they were in and praises his father’s wisdom. The old leader answers that he is growing old and that Ge tribe’s future now rests on his son. He has concluded that Man Tu’s greed will never be satisfied, and that with Ge Yao gone, Ge tribe has no excuse left to keep using Hong Yan valley. Rather than be swallowed by Man tribe, he decides the tribe will migrate in a few days to seek a place at the heroes assembly, traveling under Chang Shan Yin’s protection since Man Tu is wary of provoking him. Even so, he calls Chang Shan Yin’s willingness to keep helping them, after surely understanding their situation, the mark of a genuinely righteous man. ^{ch. 449}

Days pass. Fang Yuan burns his last bone bamboo Gu with ghost fire, completing a box of a hundred he has worked through these past days, and heals eight of Battle Bone Wheel’s worst wounds, lifting it out of emergency danger though it stays cracked and injured. His own cultivation sits at rank four peak stage, his aperture walls transparent crystal and his primeval sea ninety percent full, but all of it is still light gold primeval essence rather than the true gold his adapted body should hold, so his advance to rank five has stalled. He weighs using third watch Gu to speed his own adaptation, which would make his own time flow three times faster, but rejects it: not to spare his lifespan, but because the same acceleration would triple Spring Autumn Cicada’s own recovery. ^{ch. 449}

Of his two rank five Gu from northern plains, Battle Bone Wheel is still recovering and hints and clues Gu can be used to scout and track. He notes it is unfortunate that Ge tribe leader owned a Gu that could have searched for his own daughter, yet never dared to use it. Fang Yuan reads the whole conflict clearly: Man Duo wanted Ge tribe as a path to power he could not win through cultivation alone, Man Tu wanted to absorb the tribe outright, and Ge tribe had offered Ge Yao’s marriage to secure Hong Yan valley against the coming blizzard. Once she fled, Man tribe used it as a pretext to pressure Ge tribe, and Fang Yuan suspects they may even have arranged Ge Guang’s ordeal, hoping to leave the tribe leaderless and easy to take. ^{ch. 449}

He reasons that Ge tribe has stayed safe until now not only because of him, but also because of its own standing as a former large tribe, and sees his own part plainly: feigning ignorance while both sides competed, he spread his name and grew stronger off their rivalry, the only party who gained without loss. Of Ge Yao he thinks only that she was a sacrifice to the two tribes’ political struggle, and he guesses, uncertain, that her escape may have been her father’s own probe of Man tribe that went wrong, perhaps because one of Man Tu’s other sons struck at her rather than let Man Duo gain power through the marriage. He sets the guess aside: strength decides everything underneath any scheme, and if old Ge tribe leader himself held rank five cultivation, he would have used hints and clues Gu to find his daughter long before. Fang Yuan expects that the shrewd old leader, to survive the coming blizzard, may soon need to seek out the imperial court’s power as well. ^{ch. 449}