Chapter 450

Everything unfolds as Fang Yuan expected. A day later, Ge tribe leader tells him he has decided against staying in Hong Yan valley after all: he means to migrate the whole tribe to the heroes assembly and seek a place in the imperial court. Fang Yuan, recognizing this as another attempt to use Chang Shan Yin’s name to escape Man tribe’s grip, agrees at once, since traveling with Ge tribe would lower his own risk on the open grassland. He urges speed, since Man tribe will notice the moment they move, and says that because Ge tribe is relocating, he will not risk the promised visit to Man tribe after all. He explains that Man tribe would not dare kill him outright, being part of the righteous faction, but could use Ge tribe’s value as an excuse to hold him under some pretext instead, so he writes a letter for Ge tribe leader to have delivered in his place. ^{ch. 450}

Back with his son, old Ge tribe leader opens the letter himself rather than have it sealed, reasoning aloud that Fang Yuan sent it as an ordinary letter rather than by letter Gu on purpose, so that Ge tribe would see its contents and read his intent to keep cooperating with them on the road. The letter apologizes for missing the promised visit, cites closed-door cultivation, and offers to buy bone bamboo Gu from Man tribe at one hundred twenty percent of market price, along with a long list of refinement materials and third watch Gu. Ge Guang thinks Ge tribe should simply give Chang Shan Yin what he asks for, given all he has done for them, but his father’s eyes only turn cold. ^{ch. 450}

He tallies the cost of the whole affair: an elder dead in a challenge from Man Duo, Ge Yao dead in poison grassland, many ordinary Gu Masters lost to the wolves, and neither tribe truly winning. Only one person profited outright. Chang Shan Yin arrived in northern plains with nothing, and now walks away with over a million primeval stones and a rank five hints and clues Gu. The old leader realizes Ge tribe used Chang Shan Yin, but Chang Shan Yin used them in turn, drawing benefit from both sides of a fight that was never truly his. He reasons the letter’s real purpose is not the trade, worth only a few hundred primeval stones to Man tribe, but a signal of goodwill: accepting it, or even gifting the goods outright, would let Man tribe show it bears Chang Shan Yin no ill will despite his open support for Ge tribe. For a moment he wonders whether Chang Shan Yin sides with the weaker Ge tribe less from righteousness than because he can matter more there than as one more asset to an already powerful Man tribe, and the thought chills him; he pushes it away as measuring a great man by a small man’s yardstick. ^{ch. 450}

Three days later, Man Tu and Man Duo watch Ge tribe leave south from a hilltop. Man Duo asks why his father also gave Ge tribe one thousand five hundred tonnes of provisions on top of the free goods for Chang Shan Yin, when they are letting their prey escape. Elder Man Hao explains at Man Tu’s prompting: the provisions are laced with wolf lure Gu, and three myriad wolf groups already wait in ambush ahead. Once Ge tribe is battered past resisting, Man tribe will arrive as rescuers and absorb them, using the provisions afterward as proof of its own good faith. ^{ch. 450}

Man Duo grasps the plan at once, though Man Hao separately worries that the losses Ge tribe suffers first will shrink what is left worth taking, even costing Man tribe resources to tend the injured. Man Duo’s own worry is different: Ge tribe travels with Chang Shan Yin, hailed as the Wolf King, and he doubts wolves alone can stop him. Man Tu frowns at this. Because Ge tribe left too quickly, and Man tribe, bound by the righteous faction’s restraint, could not act openly, they had time to gather only three myriad wolf groups. If Ge tribe survives the assault, Man tribe can only let them go; if Ge tribe is badly hurt, Man tribe gains an excuse to send in troops framed as reinforcements. Chang Shan Yin remains the greatest uncertainty in the plan. ^{ch. 450}

Man Hao, disdainful, reassures them: Chang Shan Yin earned the Wolf King name over twenty years ago, his current cultivation is only rank four initial stage, and Man tribe secretly confirmed at the banquet that his soul strength has fallen from a thousand man soul to a hundred man soul. He goes on, calling Chang Shan Yin no more than a weak, barely surviving Old Wolf King commanding only a thousand wind wolves, a thousand poison beard wolves, and a thousand water wolves, nothing against three groups of ten thousand, and predicts his reputation is about to collapse, clearing the way to devour Ge tribe. Man Duo does not argue the point, but answers only that he hopes it is so. ^{ch. 450}