An odd coincidence
Skirting several hundred meters clear of a wild boar king lying half sunk in a mudpit, Fang Yuan judges the beast too dangerous to fight alone and reasons that its size and slow breathing mark at least one Gu worm living inside it. He is not hunting the boar king; he uses Wang Da’s knowledge of his beast skin map to lead the pursuit toward the marked danger zone and slip past it in a wide circle, judging that his pursuer will not follow him that far. An hour later he climbs the hill where the clan elders are holding the mid-year assessment, his shirt torn and his feet caked in mud, relieved to reach ground the elders are protecting. ch. 77
At the tents he overhears students discussing an assassination during the exam, several rank two Gu Masters dead and Gu Yue Fang Zheng carried off by clan elders because he is the clan’s A grade talent. Fang Yuan reasons out the truth in his own head: Wang Da meant to kill him, lost his trail when he changed course for the wild boar king, and struck the twin brother he mistook for his target, since Wang Da’s information from local hunters never mentioned that Fang Yuan has a twin. He cannot yet tell whether Wang Da escaped, was captured, or died, and decides to keep to his original plan regardless. ch. 77
The academy elder reads out the mid-year tusk count: Gu Yue Chi Cheng leads with sixteen tusks and Gu Yue Mo Bei follows with fourteen, against a typical haul of three to four tusks for cooperating D grade students and eight or nine for the B and C grades, with Fang Zheng recording ten. Fang Yuan arrives late, pours out a bag of wild boar tusks he says he found already gathered by hunters on top of the dozen he hunted himself, and the resulting pile draws disbelief from the crowd and a murmur that the exam’s questions must have leaked. The academy elder stares at the pile, then declares Fang Yuan first place for the exam. ch. 77
In the family head room, clan leader Gu Yue Bo hears healer Gu Yue Yao Ji confirm that Fang Zheng is stable, still sleeping, and undiminished in talent. The punishment hall’s elder reports the dead assassin as a thirty five year old man of unknown identity carrying Shadow Follower Gu and Love Life Separation, and Gu Yue Bo calls that poison the rank two path’s premier venom, remarking that it explains how the assassin killed three of his Gu Masters. Gu Yue Chi Lian wants to investigate the Bai or Xiong clan at once, and the clan elder Gu Yue Mo Chen judges the assassin’s two Gu worms unlike either rival clan’s usual agents, reasoning instead that an outside demonic path Gu Master was likely ordered to kill Fang Zheng to prove loyalty and earn a place with one of the clans, though either way the matter still implicates the two rivals. Gu Yue Bo agrees, all while the Gu Yue higher ranks remain unaware that their own long vanished servant Wang Da, presumed dead for three years, is the true culprit. ch. 77
When the academy elder reports that Fang Yuan stumbled into first place by finding a hidden bag of tusks, Gu Yue Bo’s eyes shine and the hall falls into a peculiar, watchful silence as the elders read hidden meaning into the news. ch. 77
