Gu Yue Ye

He first appears at Fang Yuan’s door during the Qing Mao Mountain wolf tide, naming himself Gu Yue Ye and asking for vitality leaves with a claim on respect and reputation. The same scene places him in the Gu Yue clan as a somewhat famous retired Gu Master whom the clan has brought back to fight. ^{ch. 145} Jiang Ya is the rank one junior who was forced to lead him there. ^{ch. 146}

Appearance

He is an old Gu Master. ^{ch. 145} He has a grim, haggard face. ^{ch. 146}

Rank and recall

At that meeting his peak cultivation is rank three, injuries then drop him to rank two peak stage, and old age leaves him at rank two upper stage when he knocks. Fighting strength at that shared rank two upper stage still falls short of Fang Yuan’s. The clan is already recalling retired Gu Masters for the wolf tide, and the later bargain treats Ye as one of those recalled elders who must go out to fight. ^{ch. 145 ch. 146}

His own thoughts in that visit mark him as cooler and more calculating than in youth, and record that several of his children have already died. He needs the leaves because a vitality leaf can mean the difference between life and death on the battlefield. ^{ch. 145} No Gu worm he owns or uses is named in these chapters.

Vitality-leaf bargain

He will not leave empty-handed after Fang Yuan refuses him respect. ^{ch. 145} Outside the door he argues for human relationships and a lower price, then admits that clan-supplied vitality leaves sit under medicine hall elder Gu Yue Yao Ji’s control and that he cannot get them through that channel. Fang Yuan raises the ask from sixty-eight to seventy-two primeval stones per leaf as Ye keeps speaking; Ye still buys five leaves and pays Jiang Ya on the spot from long-saved bags of stones. ^{ch. 146}

Jiang Ya warns that Ye took revenge readily when young and will not forget the slight. Fang Yuan answers that recalled old Gu Masters rarely survive a wolf tide, and that even fifty leaves would not guarantee Ye’s life. ^{ch. 146} After that bargain the name Gu Yue Ye does not return in later Qing Mao chapters, so whether he dies in the wolf tide or survives past the mountain’s collapse is not stated.