Chapter 58

Called aside by Gu Yue Bo after the hearing, the academy elder listens to a story about Ren Zu, who once tamed the Rules and Regulation Gu and used them to capture every Gu in the world save the longevity Gu, only to watch nearly all of them escape the moment he opened the net, until a new rule bound the pair to catching only one Gu at a time going forward. The freed Strength Gu and Wisdom Gu each refuse to be commanded and offer to serve only in exchange for a portion of Ren Zu’s own youth; Ren Zu pays for Strength Gu but balks at paying for Wisdom Gu, and Wisdom Gu instead tricks him into speaking the Rules and Regulation Gu’s names aloud, learns them, and escapes for good. ^{ch. 58}

The academy elder reads the story as Gu Yue Bo’s own analogy, casting Fang Yuan as a Wisdom Gu that slips every trap set for him, and Gu Yue Bo agrees, telling him the academy is a small matter beside the clan itself and that a student’s confidence comes from the support of family and elders rather than classroom pressure alone. ^{ch. 58}

He credits Fang Yuan’s provocations with sharpening this year’s students, including Fang Zheng, Mo Bei, and Chi Cheng, waves off the academy elder’s worry that no one can overturn the situation at rank one under Fang Yuan’s suppression, answering that a setback is not scarier than death, and announces he will begin secretly tutoring Fang Zheng himself starting the following night. ^{ch. 58}

Gu Yue Bo tells the academy elder that Fang Yuan is still a rash youth rather than a true schemer, that the clan has stood for nearly a thousand years since its first generation despite plenty of discontented members before him, and that kinship rather than rules alone will fold Fang Yuan back into the clan once his anger is spent, closing with the reminder that a great man’s capacity is measured by how much he can hold, the way a sea takes in the water of a thousand rivers. ^{ch. 58}