Chapter 545

Fang Yuan puts his own odds of pulling this off at only twenty percent. This is the best of the three paths he sees to save Dang Hun Mountain, built on Eighty-Eight True Yang Building’s strength, his past life’s experience and intelligence from Lang Ya Land Spirit. Only an Immortal Gu can contend with Immortal Gu Gruel Mud, and from his five hundred years of experience he knows of three that might do it. Turn Rock Gu, a rank six earth path Immortal Gu, belongs to Western Desert’s Gu Immortal Sun Cu, who has held that rank for over a dozen years. A second earth path rank six Gu, Rebuilding Mount Dongshan, sits in Eastern Sea’s Hai Shi blessed land among a whole group of Gu Immortals. The third, time path rank six Landscape As Before, belongs to Tai Bai Yun Sheng, presently only a rank five Gu Master, and has not even been created yet. Against Sun Cu or the Hai Shi Gu Immortals, Fang Yuan would be a mortal exposed; against a newly ascended Tai Bai Yun Sheng, still a greenhorn to his own new strength, the odds favor him most, so he settles on the third plan. ^{ch. 545}

Northern Plains enters December. The ten year blizzard draws closer as snow swallows the whole grassland. At Warm Pond Valley, Ma You Liang shows new tribe leader Ma Ying Jie that spirit spring C has run dry, leaving only springs A and B. Northern Plains’ springs form fast and die fast, unlike the slow, plentiful springs of the other regions. A mid-sized tribe here needs at least three or four of them to survive, against the single spring that can support a clan in southern border for over ten years. Ma tribe, already down to thirty percent of its former foundation, has just lost another ten percent with spring C. ^{ch. 545}

Back at the tribe, Fei Cai was freed from slave status as a reward for saving Ma Ying Jie, and stays on as his personal attendant. Fei Cai asks why spirit springs matter so much. Ma Ying Jie explains that Gu Masters are the tribe’s pillars, needed both to survive the blizzard and to compete for new ground once it passes. Fei Cai wonders if Warm Pond Valley might hide a fourth spring, and Ma Ying Jie allows it is possible but unlikely, since northern springs only appear in bulk once a blizzard has finished. Moments later Fei Cai loses his footing on a slope and tumbles down it, dislodging a stone that had been covering a brand new spirit spring, larger even than spring A, which pours out over a hundred primeval stones within moments. Overjoyed, Ma Ying Jie renames him on the spot, from Fei Cai to Fei Hong Yun, calling him the tribe’s lucky star and crediting the find to their ancestors in Longevity Heaven. ^{ch. 545}

Seven days later, Hei tribe’s army surrounds Warm Pond Valley and poisons all three springs that same night, ruining them. A surrender letter follows, technically within the rules Ancestor Giant Sun once set. Ma Ying Jie had not expected Hei Lou Lan to press further after already achieving the battle’s final victory. Ma Ying Jie is furious, and Ma You Liang at first sees surrender as a way into Imperial Court blessed land regardless. Ma Ying Jie disagrees: with over one hundred and thirty Ma tribesmen left, Hei Lou Lan could cite the purity of Huang Jin bloodline to bar outside marriage and keep Ma tribe permanently small. His answer is to grant the Ma surname to outsiders and grow the tribe that way, with the option to strip it from them later if Ma tribe’s fortunes recover. ^{ch. 545}