Jia Jin Sheng, I actually did not want to kill you
After three days stopped in Gu Yue village, the merchant caravan sets out again into a heavy rain that blends the distant mountains into ink. Gu Masters shield the goods with a floating dome of primeval essence from the One-stretch Golden Light Worm, hair grown thick by the Green Silk Gu into a raincoat, and a thin water-cloak from the Water Spider Gu, while mortal warriors in straw raincoats trudge through the mud unprotected. Villagers gather at the entrance to watch the caravan go, the children calling out that they must return next year, the adults more subdued about who will still be there to greet them. Fang Yuan stands alone on a secluded hillside under a butter yellow umbrella, watching the caravan shrink into the mountain forest, glad rather than annoyed at the weather. ch. 47
He killed Jia Jin Sheng the night before and cleaned up the scene, and the rain now works in his favor, since it washes away the blood scent that lingered because the cave had no ventilation. He reasons that the fresh water will keep him safe from smell-tracking methods for a short while, though the risk of exposure only grows as time passes. With five hundred years of experience behind him, he sees through the situation clearly: the Jia family head placed Jia Jin Sheng and Jia Fu on the same caravan deliberately, to humble Jia Jin Sheng and to test whether Jia Fu is too overbearing to be trusted with the position of clan head. Fang Yuan judges that Jia Jin Sheng, weak in cultivation but high in status, made a suitable pawn, easy for him to manipulate given his limited experience. ch. 47
He had planned to use Jia Jin Sheng three ways: to build a smuggling network through his connections, to stir civil war among Qing Mao Mountain’s three families with the image wall, and to work his way into the Jia family’s own succession dispute. The Flower Wine Monk’s inheritance, a rank five Gu Master’s legacy, upended that plan, since Jia Jin Sheng could no longer be controlled once such a prize was in play and had to be discarded instead. Before vanishing, the image wall left a message written in blood, telling Fang Yuan to break the wall and follow the trail to a hidden cave holding the inheritance. Killing Jia Jin Sheng in haste leaves him only temporarily safe, so he decides not to break the wall or return to the cave yet, choosing instead to stay in the village and wait out the coming investigation. ch. 47
He plans to spend this time refining primeval stones toward middle stage primeval essence, since doubled power will make the inheritance easier to claim later. He notes that a demonic cultivator’s inheritance carries harsher trials than a righteous cultivator’s, with death as the price of failure. As the rain chills his shoulder, he thinks once more of the man he killed, admitting to himself that he had not wanted to. ch. 47
