In the academy’s Gu room, cased Gu sorted by the same nine ranks as their masters, Fang Yuan finds every container holds only rank one stock. His first choice for a vital Gu, the Gu whose bond ties to a master’s own life, was meant to be the Flower Wine Monk’s Liquor Worm. With no trace of it found, he settles for a Moonlight Gu, the crystalline blue crescent bred by the Gu Yue clan’s own secret method. He picks one without deliberation and pockets it. ch. 8
From the Gu room he walks straight to the tavern for two more jars of wine, the same nightly purchase he has made for seven days running while he wanders the village border hoping to draw the Liquor Worm out. His stock of primeval stones is nearly gone. He knows the reward for refining first will go to someone else: talent decides that race, and his C grade gives him no real chance against it. ch. 8
Fang Zheng catches him outside the tavern and says their aunt and uncle want to see him, scolding him for the drinking. The two brothers face each other, changed since the ceremony: Fang Yuan has fallen from the clan’s expectations and Fang Zheng has risen into them, drawing the praise and attention his brother once held. Fang Zheng finds his brother’s flat stare hard to meet and looks away. Fang Yuan brushes past him with a flat order to keep moving, and Fang Zheng follows behind him with his head raised rather than lowered. ch. 8
