The future is in sight
Jiao San and his group break into Fang Yuan’s rented room expecting to find him beaten and in need of rescue, but the room is empty and no one inside admits to a plan. The old landlord, himself a Gu Master, confronts them over the broken door, and Jiao San pays him compensation along with an extra sum to smooth things over. The landlord reports that his tenant paid a month’s rent, bought a large quantity of goods the day before, and asked where cheap coal could be found, then left for a coal mine in a valley north of the village and never returned. Jiao San takes this as proof Fang Yuan was delayed digging coal and leads the group away, but by the third day Fang Yuan still has not reappeared, so Jiao San tells the others that the growing wolf hordes and more active wild beasts around the village may have caught him. ch. 92
On the fourth day, in the aperture, the black green primeval essence has been crashing against a crystal wall that Fang Yuan has kept cracking for three days and three nights, and the green copper primeval sea has fallen from its 44 percent limit to around 20 percent from the deliberate strain. When only about 13 percent of that essence remains, the crystal wall finally shatters, and a new white light wall appears in its place along with traces of red primeval essence mixing into the sea, marking Fang Yuan’s advance to rank two initial stage. Overcome by nausea and exhaustion from four days and three nights of non-stop cultivating, he judges his closed door arrangement at the rental house a success worth its cost, then forces himself to cover up before falling asleep within seconds. ch. 92
He sleeps through to the afternoon of the second day, his spirit recovered to about half, and steps outside for the first time in five days, drawing the attention of Jiang Ya’s brother Jiang He. Five days earlier Fang Yuan had given Jiao San the false coal story, left Gu Yue village, and used his shared secret with Jiang He over old man Wang to stay in Jiang He’s hamlet and advance to rank two there without interruption, judging the rock crack secret cave less safe than Jiang He’s place should Jiao San’s group search for him. He reasons that Jiang He has no motive to kill him over their shared secret, since a Gu Master’s death draws a punishment hall investigation that could expose old man Wang’s own secret. ch. 92
Jiang He, who had privately doubted Fang Yuan’s chances, is shocked to see him succeed in one attempt and grows visibly more friendly, treating him to a meal before walking him personally to the hamlet’s entrance. He warns that the wolf nest area has grown fiercer and urges Fang Yuan to stay another night as snow begins to fall, but Fang Yuan insists on leaving, and the snow drifts calmly onto his head and shoulders as the distant Gu Yue village watches from the mountain waist under the setting sun. ch. 92
