Bai Clan's Female Leader

In the Bai clan’s temporary camp, the clan leader is at rank four, with five to six clan elders and many rank two Gu Masters. After the banquet she calls Bai Mo Xing to a secret discussion, and when he worries that the Gu Yue remnants will snatch the territory and proposes striking first, the narration calls her Bai clan‘s female leader and has her laugh lightly. She tells him the situation has boon and bane. ^{ch. 216}

The clan’s spirit spring is running dry after years of use, and the Bai clan is searching Bai Gu Mountain for a new one under the cover of a hunting competition. She explains that the neighbouring Fang, Liao and Fan clans would take advantage if the drying of the spring got out, which is why the search has to be secret and costly. She wants information on the spring’s location from the Gu Yue clan and sees the two young guests as a godsend opportunity. When Bai Mo Xing doubts that the two will divulge anything, she says she has a plan, and he praises it as honey placed in front of a young bear. ^{ch. 216}

Three drum beats summon the clansmen to the hunting competition, which she announces will run seven days, with heavy rewards for good rankings. She asks Fang Yuan whether he wants to enter, and offers a green copper relic Gu as the reward for hunting an adult black bear. ^{ch. 216}

After the black bear battle she asks Bai Mo Xing for his view, and he judges that Fang Yuan’s charred thunder potato Gu is severely weakened on Bai Gu Mountain. She tells him that is not the point and asks what it says that Fang Yuan did everything himself; when Bai Mo Xing answers that Fang Yuan is an upright person, she says the best way to learn the spring’s location from the two is to proceed indirectly, using wits. When Fang Yuan places a torn bear skin in front of her, her face shows a trace of shock that turns into a smile. ^{ch. 217}

At the night banquet she introduces Bai Zhan Lie to the guests as the number one youth expert in the clan. The Bai clan leader easily notices Fang Yuan’s repeated glances at Bai Lian, a show he puts on to hand the clan a false weakness, and she tells Bai Mo Xing she will plan a bit more. On the second day she has Fang Yuan hunt an earth horn rhino and rewards him with a clearing heat Gu. ^{ch. 217}

She presents her son and daughter, Bai Sheng and Bai Hua, a pair of twins who stand up and toast Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 217}

On the third day she calls Fang Yuan again and gifts him many primeval stones in the name of hunting, and at the banquet she is inwardly very satisfied when he toasts her. She asks him whether the Gu Yue clan means to settle on Bai Gu Mountain, and from his flustered answer she grows more certain that Bai Gu Mountain is the Gu Yue clan’s objective. In the tent afterward she says they only have to raise the heat, and later she smiles smugly that the fish has taken the bait. ^{ch. 218} She gives up searching a map, gritting her teeth at how guarded the Gu Yue lad is. ^{ch. 219} She notes that time is not on her side, since the Gu Yue group showing up would give Fang Yuan a pillar of support, and the female clan leader subconsciously feels that the method Bai Mo Xing proposes is inappropriate, but with no better plan they can only try it. ^{ch. 219} At dusk in the central tent she watches an image in rainbow smoke of Fang Yuan’s hunting party, and snorts in anger at what one of them says about how peaceful the mountain is, because she had sent out a large number of Gu Masters, with no elder left behind, to pave the way in secret. ^{ch. 219} She says agitatedly that the place Fang Yuan reaches seems very close to the spirit spring, and grows confused when the image shows him entering a cave. ^{ch. 219}

Watching the cave in the smoke image, she is disappointed not to see the spring and says more time is needed. When an investigative Gu Master comes in with news of a Tie clan Gu Master he has captured, she frowns, since ten Bai clans together could not match the Tie clan, and in her heart she blames the subordinate for bringing the captive back instead of killing the man secretly in the woods. She interrogates Tie Dao Ku in the tent, accuses him of being a demonic Gu Master, and sneers that Tie clan Gu Masters below rank five would move in large numbers. His spat phlegm hits an invisible wall in midair and falls to the ground without reaching her. ^{ch. 220}

When she mentions the two Gu Yue guests, Tie Dao Ku’s once dead eyes start shining, and her heart sinks when he answers that his companions are dead and refuses to say more. She waves her sleeves and a colorful smoke forms an image of Fang Yuan gripping Bai Hua and Bai Sheng by the throats and threatening the clan, and she is dumbstruck. After a few breaths she flies into a rage and smashes the table in front of her to pieces. ^{ch. 220}

Her face is extremely dark, and after seeing the image in the colorful smoke she understands what has happened. The narration says that in Fang Yuan’s previous life she was the one who led the Bai clan on the resettlement and set the foundation for the next generation’s prosperity. She is the birth mother of Bai Hua and Bai Sheng, and her worry far surpasses that of the others, but as someone in power she forces herself to calm down, and the narration stresses that besides being a mother she is also the clan leader. She first orders her subordinates to release Tie Dao Ku, and he admires her resolve. ^{ch. 221}

She arrives as the group blasts open the wall and reveals the secret tunnel, with Tie Dao Ku at her side, and gritting her teeth she realizes that the two thieves’ true destination was here. She recalls being duped by two youths, and when Bai Lian, Bai Sheng Jing and others kneel to ask for punishment she tells them to stand, because they only acted on her instructions. Tie Dao Ku has learned the general situation from her on the way, though the matter of the Bai clan‘s spirit spring has naturally not been revealed. As the mother of Bai Sheng and Bai Hua she hates not being with her children, yet as clan leader she has to stay calm on the surface as a role model for her clansmen. She orders an elder’s group to pave the way through the secret tunnel. ^{ch. 223}

When arm bone wings and a rib shield Gu are brought to her, she has her people stow them and feels no happiness, since she is more concerned for her children’s safety than for Gu worms. ^{ch. 223} Bai Ning Bing thinks of her as an able woman, an elite and a very wise person, who is miserable now after believing Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 224} When Tie Dao Ku exclaims that things are as he suspected, she asks what he means, and before he finishes explaining the inheritance’s branches she coldly shouts for everyone to go back. ^{ch. 224} Her face is gloomy as more than seven giant bone books pile up in front of her, and she orders another search. ^{ch. 225} In the flesh sac secret chamber she looks at the only secret tunnel, tells three people to remain behind and tells the rest to follow her. ^{ch. 225} Before the clan reaches the hall beyond, Fang Yuan catches the fleeing Bai Hua, who wails for her mother, and then throws both of the clan leader’s twins into the refining fire until they burn to death. ^{ch. 226} When the Bai clan Gu Masters find the children’s torn clothing on the high platform, an intensely bad feeling almost makes her black out, and she shouts for the chase, her eyes bloodshot, certain her children are with the two. ^{ch. 226}

She is ahead of all the Bai clan Gu Masters in the narrow tunnel, with the elders behind her. When Fang Yuan asks whether the Bai clan wants to know where its two young masters are, the Gu Masters stop their attacks, but she flies into a rage, cries out for her children to be returned, and points a finger to shoot out a frost fish Gu. Fang Yuan lets it hit him, and cold air envelops his body and drastically slows him. ^{ch. 227}

She catches up to Bai Ning Bing, her eyes dyed red like an agitated lioness, and her furious aura makes even Bai Ning Bing’s heart shudder, since the clan leader is a rank four Gu Master. Her punch shatters the canopy Gu’s white armor, and Bai Ning Bing throws up a mouthful of blood. The chainsaw golden centipede coils around her and is torn to pieces by brute strength, and she shouts that Bai Ning Bing cannot escape. Bai Ning Bing jumps off the cliff, and the clan leader, watching her fall, growls that she will see them if they are alive and their corpses if dead. ^{ch. 227}

At the cliff the Gu Masters report that the two are alive, and she grits her teeth and clenches her fists tightly enough that her bones seem about to burst out. When elder Bai Zhan Wen burns himself with the human torch Gu, her expression changes, and she is moved by his sacrifice and says the clan shall stand there and witness his contribution. Her cold expression shows some agitation as he flies at the footless bird, and he finally self-detonates because he cannot catch up. ^{ch. 227}

She watches with the clan until the footless bird vanishes into the sky, then vomits a mouthful of fresh blood, falls on her back, and faints, while the Gu Masters call for healing Gu Masters to save her. ^{ch. 227}

Bai Ning Bing reminds herself to learn from the mistake of that miserable Bai clan leader and be vigilant against Fang Yuan, lest she be sold while counting the money for him. ^{ch. 230} Bai Ning Bing reflects that she could watch the Bai clan siblings burn because that Bai clan was destined to be their enemy, and she counts the former Bai clan leader of her own clan among the people who helped her. ^{ch. 233} Arriving at Shang Clan City, Bai Feng says that if the group finds nothing inside, they will send a letter to the clan leader to see what orders she has for them. ^{ch. 293} Tie Dao Ku has heard from the Bai clan leader that Fang Yuan has the charred thunder potato mother Gu. ^{ch. 293}