Chapter 530

In a tent behind Liu tribe’s line, Chang Ji You finally asks his mother what kind of man his father was. He never met Chang Shan Yin, who fought Ha Tu Gu to the death around the time Chang Shan Yin’s own mother died of poison, before Chang Ji You was even born. Ni Xue Tong calls the father he never knew a legend, a hero who wiped out Ha Tu Gu and its bandits single-handed. Chang Ji You cuts her off. He is tired of a lifetime spent being introduced as Chang Shan Yin’s son and unsettled at the thought of meeting him within days. ^{ch. 530}

Chang Biao, Chang tribe’s current leader and a rank four upper stage wind path expert, enters and sends the boy out, then seals the tent with a Gu worm. Ni Xue Tong falls into his arms in tears. She tells him she nearly let slip to Chang Ji You that the boy is not Chang Shan Yin’s blood at all, but theirs. ^{ch. 530}

He and Ni Xue Tong were childhood friends until Chang Shan Yin took her from him on their wedding day, and afterward Chang Biao could only meet her in secret, an affair that produced Chang Ji You. Fearing the boy’s bloodline would expose them once examined, Chang Biao conspired with Ha Tu Gu against Chang Shan Yin. Posing afterward as the grieving brother, he married his sister in law and raised his own son as a godson, winning the tribe’s admiration and, on the strength of it, its leadership. Exposure now would brand them adulterers, ruin Chang Ji You as an illegitimate son, and put at risk both his young tribe leader position and Chang Biao’s own tribe leader position. If it came out, his only choice would be to flee with Ni Xue Tong and Chang Ji You and turn demonic Gu Master. His own tribe would despise and hunt him then. ^{ch. 530}

Ni Xue Tong, worn down by nightmares since Wolf King’s return, asks whether Liu Wen Wu truly means to recruit Chang Shan Yin and whether he might yet uncover their old plot. Chang Biao reassures her on both counts: nothing in Chang Shan Yin’s conduct suggests he suspects them by name, only that a traitor exists somewhere in the tribe. He reads Liu Wen Wu’s real aim in courting Chang Shan Yin as sowing discord and wavering his fighting spirit rather than recruitment, which Liu Wen Wu privately expects to fail. Chang Shan Yin, he says, takes Chang Ji You for his own son. He puts it to her that Chang Shan Yin, picturing his wolf group killing Chang Ji You, might hold back. ^{ch. 530}

Their moment breaks when Sun Shi Han crashes through the large lizard house Gu’s window, bruised and screaming that Wolf King has attacked him and is in revolt. Fang Yuan follows him out and beats him down with his fists alone, since neither man dares draw a Gu worm under their poison vow, breaking his nose and knocking out his front teeth as the gathered Gu Masters watch without interfering. Sun Shi Han, between blows, accuses Fang Yuan of guilt, reminding the crowd that his wife and children sit in the enemy’s camp, and the beating only grows worse for it, his remaining teeth loosened and blood spat across the ground. Onlookers marvel that an enslavement path master hits this hard in close combat. Several of the army’s own higher ups admit they have wanted to see this scoundrel thrashed for a long time. ^{ch. 530}

Hei Lou Lan arrives to find Fang Yuan grinding Sun Shi Han’s face into the soil. He demands to know whether Wolf King means to rebel. Fang Yuan answers that he has no such intention, only that he will not let any scheme reach his wife and children, whose deaths in the coming battle he calls simply their honor. The mutated wolves he asked for were bought fairly with his own battle merit, owed to no one. If Hei Lou Lan doubts him, he says, Hei Lou Lan can keep the wolves and answer for the battle’s outcome himself. ^{ch. 530}

By an old army rule, a man made use of cannot be doubted and a man doubted cannot be used, so refusing him now would only leave the army blaming Hei Lou Lan if the battle turns. His own true martial physique, meanwhile, is starting to outgrow what his dark limit Immortal Gu can contain, and he still needs a strength path Immortal Gu of his own to reach Gu Immortal realm. He presses Fang Yuan only on the brawl itself. Fang Yuan shrugs that Sun Shi Han’s face offended him and that he has merely improved it, and offers, easily, to pay the standard ten thousand battle merit compensation, which he does not currently have. ^{ch. 530}

Sun Shi Han hears the offer and faints from sheer rage, while the watching Gu Masters, many of whom despise him already, struggle to hold in their laughter. Tai Bai Yun Sheng alone reads it differently: he judges Chang Shan Yin ruthless but principled, a man who stopped short of striking at family and so kept some claim to being a true man. Threatening Fang Yuan meant branding him with his own tribesmen’s blood. That would damage his reputation enough to let Hei Lou Lan control him. The threat failed, and publicly humiliated through his own man, Hei Lou Lan has no choice left but to hand the wolves over. ^{ch. 530}