Chapter 468

Old Man Yan Shi withdraws the Immortal Gu from Bai Ning Bing’s aperture and tells her the everlasting Gu’s reinforcement will hold for three months before she must return for another. Since the battle at San Cha mountain, her aptitude has recovered fully, restoring one of the ten extreme aptitudes, the Northern Dark Ice Soul physique; the pressure of a hundred percent primeval essence on her aperture would have killed her without his reinforcement. He is her life saving benefactor, and she feels no gratitude for it. She stands upright with an ice cold demeanor even as he speaks. Once he takes the Gu away, she opens her blue eyes: her gaze cold, her expression indifferent. She is no longer the green novice she once was: traveling alongside Fang Yuan taught her a great deal. She knows Old Man Yan Shi sought her out through Chou Jiu to make use of her, and that her place in Shadow Sect is nothing more than a transaction to her as well. ^{ch. 468}

Old Man Yan Shi offers to restore her male body if she pledges true allegiance to Shadow Sect and swears a new sea oath. She refuses. Suppressing her aperture is already a fair transaction, she says, one she repays by helping Shadow Sect deal with Fang Yuan and take fixed immortal travel Gu from him while she joins only temporarily; she will win her male body back herself, and spectacularly, because relying on others is not something she, Bai Ning Bing, does. Once she leaves the secret room her cold composure loosens into a wary frown; she has never trusted this wisdom path Gu Immortal, sensing a hidden motive in him. She has never feared death, Gu Immortal or not, but their shared goal against Fang Yuan is reason enough for the transaction. ^{ch. 468}

Her thoughts turn to the scene at three kings blessed land, where Fang Yuan, in a mortal body, flew up and refined an Immortal Gu before a crowd. The blessed land collapsed soon after; the winds of assimilation scoured San Cha mountain barren, and word of the little beast king spread across southern border as every faction hunted for him. Having traveled with him, Bai Ning Bing became a target of righteous and demonic factions alike, and only Wei Yang’s brotherly feeling and, later, a gravely wounded meeting with Chou Jiu kept her from capture. Chou Jiu healed her and proposed she join Shadow Sect against Fang Yuan. Her own scheme against Fang Yuan had already failed, and she suspected by then that he held a prediction Gu; learning that Chou Jiu’s own patron was a wisdom path Gu Immortal like the one she suspected moved her to agree. She did not fear death, but losing without also killing him would be her greatest defeat, one too lackluster to accept. She swore before Old Man Yan Shi and Chou Jiu on the Immortal Gu Sea Oath Gu: free once Fang Yuan is dead, and untouched by Shadow Sect in the meantime. ^{ch. 468}

Once she is gone, Old Man Yan Shi’s expression darkens: this demonic natured disciple is hard to control, allied with him only by circumstance, not one to stay under anyone for long, though he judges it does not matter beside his own long years of planning. A divine sense reaches him through connecting heaven Gu, offering the second aperture Gu recipe for his divine travel Gu; its sender calls himself Lang Ya old immortal. Old Man Yan Shi laughs: the true big fish, Lang Ya land spirit, has taken his bait, not merely Fang Yuan. Lang Ya blessed land, he judges, is the present age’s foremost blessed land despite falling from a grotto-heaven, rich in stored recipes and in Immortal Gu, and he means to have its Heavenly Essence Treasure Imperial Lotus above all. The second aperture Gu recipe that Lang Ya blessed land held was his own planning from the start, set knowing the land spirit’s love of collecting and refining would draw him to want the Gu. He accepts the trade, and divine travel Gu crosses over with such force it cracks the land spirit’s connecting heaven Gu until it collapses after several breaths, though the land spirit, who has many more, does not care. Burning with excitement, Lang Ya land spirit opens another connecting heaven Gu at once and begins buying refinement materials without restraint. Old Man Yan Shi calls it easy prey. ^{ch. 468}

Fang Yuan, watching the same transaction, learns from little Hu Immortal that Lang Ya old immortal bought the divine travel Gu, exactly as he expected. Watching the land spirit spend lavishly, he recognizes several of the sellers by name: metal path Tie Jia Zi, soul path Wang Gan Yang, wood path Fairy Tan Xiang, enslavement path Great Immortal Xue Xiong, all Gu Immortals who, in his previous life, joined the second wave of attacks that eventually brought Lang Ya blessed land down after seven waves in all. He realizes a scheme lies behind that history that no record ever caught. Old Man Yan Shi’s real target, he suspects, is Lang Ya blessed land itself, and he wonders how many of the seven waves the man organized, and whether the northern plains Gu Immortals selling to the land spirit act on direct orders or on subtler manipulation. He does not yet know the organization behind this is the Shadow Sect he has already heard of. He is certain of one thing only: the seventh and final wave, which stripped Lang Ya blessed land of every recipe, was the heavenly court’s own move, and no southern border immortal could command that. He sets the danger aside and turns back to treasure yellow heaven: it is time to buy relic Gu. ^{ch. 468}