Suspicion and probing
The crowd erupts once Fang Zheng’s Jade Skin Gu breaks under two bare-handed punches, calling it inhuman that Fang Yuan feels no pain doing that much harm to himself. The academy elder climbs onto the stage, confirms Fang Zheng is only knocked out rather than badly hurt, and turns to heal Fang Yuan’s ruined fists, whose flesh and bone the impact has laid open. ch. 86
While the elder’s moonlight knits Fang Yuan’s bones and skin back together, itching and burning as it works, he also scans Fang Yuan’s aperture and finds only the Moonlight Gu and the Little Light Gu there, cultivation at rank one peak stage and nothing to explain the strength he has just shown. Fang Yuan had already hidden the White Boar Gu and Jade Skin Gu in his second secret cave, and trusted that even rank four Gu Yue Bo could not find the rank six Spring Autumn Cicada by inspection alone, so the elder’s search turns up nothing. The healing leaves Fang Yuan’s arms whole again, though he judges they will stay weak to the grip for seven or eight days before that side effect fades; an injury of the same kind, he reflects, would have taken a year or two to heal back on Earth. ch. 86
Onlookers debate how a fifteen year old could hit harder than an adult, and settle on comparing him to Chi Shan, whose own strength outgrew ordinary men in childhood; that is the explanation Fang Yuan wants them to reach, rather than any suspicion of a hidden backer. The academy elder declares Fang Yuan first place for the year end exam. ch. 86
Clan leader Gu Yue Bo grants Fang Yuan a hundred primeval stones, priority in choosing his next Gu worm, and free choice of any small group to join, a reward he says the clan elders will not oppose; Gu Yue Chi Lian and Gu Yue Mo Chen, named as the head of the clan elders, stay grim and silent rather than object. Privately, Gu Yue Bo cares little for the exam result itself and worries instead that today’s defeat, coming right after Fang Zheng’s confidence peaked, has undone a year of careful coaching. Fang Yuan, hearing the offer, feels trouble has arrived. ch. 86
