Chapter 660

In a quiet room at Snowy Mountain, Fairy Li Shan brews tea beside four empty cups. Tai Bai Yun Sheng arrives, checks the surroundings, and greets her as senior. She already knows his name, herself an influential rank seven Gu Immortal, though older than she looks. He opens his immortal aperture, releasing Hei Lou Lan and, in his towering eight-armed immortal zombie form, Gu Yue Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 660}

Hei Lou Lan greets her as little aunt. Fairy Li Shan reveals that this tie has always been secret from outsiders, and praises Fang Yuan for the huge feat of bringing down Eighty-Eight True Yang Building. Fang Yuan deflects the credit, admitting he had doubted Hei Lou Lan’s proposal until learning of her tie to Fairy Li Shan, and asks that her Mountain Pledge Gu now firm their alliance with an oath. ^{ch. 660}

Fairy Li Shan offers tea, but Fang Yuan asks to make the oath first. She calls out Mountain Pledge Gu, a beetle-shaped rank six information path Immortal Gu as famous as sea oath Gu, whose pledge to a chosen mountain cannot be broken while that mountain stands. Fang Yuan points outside and chooses the mountain there. It is Snowy Mountain, Fairy Li Shan tells them, the largest demonic path nest of northern plains. She owns the third branch peak and is its third leader. Tai Bai Yun Sheng stares at her in shock, never having suspected this gentle, refined woman was a demonic path Gu Immortal. ^{ch. 660}

Dong Fang Chang Fan lies coughing on his sickbed. Dong Fang Yu Liang stands beside him, grieving. Chang Fan tells him not to grieve, since birth, age, sickness and death are nature’s way, and names him the tribe’s most talented, the one to carry its growth. Yu Liang, who lost his parents at eleven and gave up their inheritance for his six year old sister Dong Fang Qing Yu, was noticed by Chang Fan, taken in as a trusted aide, and later appointed tribe leader over opposition. After Yu Liang’s defeat in the Imperial Court contest brought suppression from rival factions, Chang Fan protected him again at considerable cost. ^{ch. 660}

Extremely weak now, Chang Fan calls for Yu Liang’s hand and passes him a Gu. Activated, it will lead him to a secluded place holding cultivation resources, insights on immortal ascension, the tribe’s secret history, and all of Chang Fan’s wisdom path comprehensions. He warns Yu Liang to prioritize his safety, not be impatient, and reveals that the tribe harbors demonic path spies. Chang Fan then dies. Dong Fang tribe mourns for three days and nights, while righteous and demonic Gu Immortals alike feel relief at his passing. ^{ch. 660}

Chang Fan was a legend. Dong Fang tribe held only the name of a super force at his birth, until he rose as a Gu Immortal and rebuilt it almost entirely himself, through wisdom path scheming, alliances, and turning enemies against each other. Northern plains’ Gu Immortals came to fear his scheming, and secretly agreed to ban selling him lifespan Gu and to sabotage his search for it. The schemer was, in the end, schemed against himself. ^{ch. 660}

Days later, at crescent lake, leftover snow still lingers from the blizzard disaster. The destruction it caused in northern plains was many times lighter, since Fang Yuan had wrecked Giant Sun Immortal Venerable’s arrangement and poured the disaster into Imperial Court blessed land. With Imperial Court blessed land gone and True Yang Building destroyed, the once-in-ten-years blizzard disaster will not return. Three days after the Snowy Mountain alliance, Fang Yuan and Tai Bai Yun Sheng cross the changed, barren terrain, its intense change giving Fang Yuan some trouble, searching for the purple stone tree passage into Lang Ya blessed land. Little Hu Immortal still watches treasure yellow heaven for Lang Ya Old Immortal, in vain. ^{ch. 660}

Fang Yuan takes back Fixed Immortal Travel to reach crescent lake, avoiding a direct teleport into Lang Ya blessed land to prevent misunderstandings, planning instead to use Thieving Heaven Demon Venerable’s old passage properly. The changed surroundings block a direct teleport to the purple stone tree itself. Instead they reach the lake through a cave Tai Bai Yun Sheng once dug and lived in for two to three months, still intact. Fang Yuan lends him Fixed Immortal Travel and enters Tai Bai Yun Sheng’s immortal aperture to arrive there himself. ^{ch. 660}