Chapter 87

At the arena, Fang Yuan recognizes clan leader Gu Yue Bo’s demand that he choose a post-academy group as a deliberate test, since joining any of the clan’s three strongest groups, the clan leader’s own Qing Shu group, the Chi faction’s Chi Shan group, or the Mo faction’s Mo Yan group, would mark him as another faction’s pawn and draw suspicion onto whichever family recruited him, when in truth he has no hidden backer at all. He privately rules out a quiet placement with Jiang He’s group as well, since that group is backed by the punishment hall elder and joining under everyone’s watchful eye would be just as conspicuous. As he hesitates, Gu Yue Bo threatens to choose a group for him, and Fang Yuan braces to accept whichever weak group is left rather than let the clan leader decide for him. ^{ch. 87}

Before he can speak, a neither-tall-nor-short Gu Master with sickly dark yellow skin and triangular eyes, identified by onlookers as the sickly snake Gu Yue Jiao San, invites Fang Yuan to join his group as its attacker. Fang Yuan, who has never met or spoken with Jiao San before, accepts on the spot, cutting off Gu Yue Bo’s plan, while students and Gu Masters call the choice foolish for passing up the clan’s top groups for Jiao San’s team, and the clan leader and elders show open disappointment. ^{ch. 87}

Three days later, under falling snow, Jiao San leads a five-person group including Fang Yuan out on Fang Yuan’s first clan mission, telling him not to be nervous since the work is simple. Fang Yuan now wears a Gu Master’s dark blue battle attire with bamboo leg wrappings and bamboo shoes, a bright blue headband, and a navy belt bearing a bronze plate carved with the number one, marking his status as a rank one Gu Master who has left mortal life behind. ^{ch. 87}

As they run, Jiao San’s warm and kind manner makes Fang Yuan recall the legend of Ren Zu, who used Rules and Regulation Gu to gain strength at the cost of his wisdom and was left with three Gu worms named Suspicion, Trust, and Attitude; Ren Zu caught Attitude Gu, shaped like a mask that would not stay on his face however it was tied, until it told him he was heartless, having already given his heart to Hope, and that a heartless man cannot wear an attitude, since attitude is only ever the mask of a heart. Fang Yuan concludes that Jiao San’s own kind attitude is such a mask hiding some other intention, and while Jiao San studies him, Fang Yuan studies Jiao San in turn. ^{ch. 87}