Chapter 739

Once the extorters leave, Fang Yuan asks, feigning hesitation, how often this happens. Gu Ye is not resentful that Fang Yuan gave no help; he expected nothing. Instead he comforts Fang Yuan, saying it is not too frequent, only that the coming auction is driving scavengers to scrape together capital. ^{ch. 739}

Fang Yuan plays indignant at the practice. Taking it at face value, Gu Ye grows even more certain that Fang Yuan’s fall mirrors his own and runs slightly worse. ^{ch. 739}

Gu Ye looks at the single immortal essence stone with open irony, calling it at least something to cover the humiliation. He notes that Divine Lord Tian Du and Shi Hou still fear Zombie Alliance enough to give this much face. Fang Yuan feigns shock and asks if that face is worth only one stone. ^{ch. 739}

Gu Ye explains that immortal zombies’ dead blessed lands cannot be worked or produce immortal essence, so zombies depend on outside resources even more than living Gu Immortals. They survive by planning meticulously and enduring rather than fighting. Calling on a rank six immortal zombie for help costs at least two stones, a rank seven at least twenty, and the whole Alliance can be hired by anyone with enough. Without money or the will to pay, a member’s face is worth only what was just bargained for. ^{ch. 739}

Fang Yuan reflects that he has been spared this fate: his Hu Immortal blessed land still functions, and Wisdom Gu has done the rest. The light of wisdom won him his Immortal Gu recipe deal with Lang Ya land spirit, pulling him out of an earlier mire. It also let him innovate airsac Gu, opening a guts Gu business that forced Immortal Crane Sect to compromise. Aloud he only bows and thanks Gu Ye for the lesson. ^{ch. 739}

Gu Ye waves off the thanks, saying Fang Yuan would learn these truths himself in time. He offers instead to bring him straight to Zombie Alliance. ^{ch. 739}

Gu Ye leads him back to a ruined central plaza. Gu Ye mobilizes his primeval essence there. The floor turns translucent like jade, green light circling as Gu worms flutter within it. Space path and wood path Gu worms fly from his body and gather into Green Crystal Hero’s Path, a top tier mortal killer move Zombie Alliance researched. It links old earth wood to the Alliance’s garrison across hundreds of thousands of li, since immortal zombies, bodies filled with dao marks, cannot use ordinary transport or Fixed Immortal Travel. Connecting heaven Gu and hole earth Gu fail them as well, since those mortal Gu draw heavenly power from a living aperture at each end. Gu Ye adds that he spent two years tending the myriad poison date tree to earn the contribution points for this move, which every member taking outside tasks must hold. ^{ch. 739}

The light crosses over a hundred thousand li and sets them down on a plaza in southeast Dark Flow Giant City. The giant city is pitch black, like a beast sprawled on the ground, its darkness thickening toward the center. Sparse street lamps leave long dark stretches that make the place feel abandoned, though faint noise rises from below. Gu Ye explains this is Zombie Alliance’s Northern Plains headquarters, almost mountain sized and divided into seven floors. Five floors are for mortal Gu Masters, one is for immortal zombies and affiliates, and the highest is for the conference hall, where three rank seven immortal zombies stay stationed year round. The Alliance covers mortal members too, most of whom work the dark path. ^{ch. 739}

At a large hall, tall stone statues flank the doors. They are bulkier even than Fang Yuan’s eight arm zombie form. Gu Ye explains they are Yin Liu Gong’s immortal killer move Stone Casket, sealing immortal zombies rather than ordinary ones inside. Yin Liu Gong is one of three deputy city lords appointed after the city lord left Northern Plains, and commands immortal zombies in battle. Fang Yuan silently commits the name to memory, since it never appeared in his previous life, when his own rise came centuries later. ^{ch. 739}

Gu Ye has him push the door: opening it is the test for joining. Fang Yuan eases it open a sliver, drawing more than twenty gazes through the crack, then shoves it fully open. Gu Ye laughs and claps his shoulder, saying anyone who can open this door counts as a person of Northern Plains, and that the Alliance’s meeting happens to be held today. ^{ch. 739}