Fang Yuan against Bai Ning Bing, first battle

Bai Ning Bing restricted his cultivation to rank two so the fight would be fair, and Fang Yuan told him to come if he wanted to kill him. Fang Yuan never stood and fought: he walked away and steered the chase into other people’s battles, into the valley where a wolf pack already had a Gu Master group trapped, and into the Xiong Li group’s battlefield, whose wolves he had lured there as well. The ice blade storm Bai Ning Bing spun out of his blade tore that first pack into minced meat, and the bold lightning wolf commanding it ended with an ice blade through its heart. The claim Fang Yuan used to set the Xiong Li group on him was that he carried the Plunder Gu and meant to eliminate all witnesses. ^{ch. 134}

Bai Ning Bing holds the Northern Dark Ice Soul physique, one of the ten extreme physiques above A grade, each of which holds a full hundred percent of primeval essence in its aperture; that perfection strains the aperture toward collapse, almost all holders die untimely deaths, and Bai Ning Bing understands his situation and knows his death is certain, which narration gives as the making of his temperament. His suppression is treatment rather than contempt: he dilutes rank three silver primeval essence into rank two red steel primeval essence of his own accord and rarely uses rank three Gu, because a rank three Gu drains red steel primeval essence too fast to be worth the strength it buys. What the dilution cannot seal is the recovery rate, so narration puts his advantage as one that grows the longer a battle runs. Fang Yuan’s own reckoning, made while he watched, is that his battle strength is not enough to defeat Bai Ning Bing, and that not being able to defeat him does not mean he cannot kill him. Bai Ning Bing came into this already spent, his right arm punched by Xiong Li and seeming fractured, his ice blade shifted to his left hand and his icicles abandoned with it, his offensive power almost halved, and narration gives him the upper hand over four Gu Masters in that state. ^{ch. 135} His own account of that arm is that the injury was a pretense, that rank three ice muscle Gu had already given him the ultimate defence, and that the surprise was meant for Fang Yuan. ^{ch. 137}

The shape of it is one man’s attention divided: Bai Ning Bing has to hold off the Xiong Li group with one part of himself and guard against a stealthed Fang Yuan with the other, and narration credits that diversion alone with how long the Xiong Li group lasts. Fang Yuan’s reason for waiting is attrition, since an aperture emptied of primeval essence makes one moonblade enough whatever the physique, and both men know it. Bai Ning Bing broke the stalemate by walking off the field, which forced Fang Yuan to show himself; Fang Yuan saw the intention, and came out anyway. Narration’s account of what he added is that he struck seldom and that every strike had great implications, enough for the three Xiong clan Gu Masters left to suppress the man who had been suppressing all of them. The weakness he read off the Water Shield Gu is that it needs a ball shape and moving water to disperse a blow, so a Bai Ning Bing pressed against something loses most of its defence. Fang Yuan told the Xiong Li group that reinforcements were coming. Before Bai Ning Bing walks off the field he freezes a fifth Gu Master to death inside an ice block with the blue bird ice coffin Gu, leaving the man’s face still holding its fear. ^{ch. 136}

Bai Ning Bing’s admission, offered rather than denied, is that his primeval essence is running dry and that he left his right limb unused as a lure. Fang Yuan’s reading of what emptied it is the Frost Demon Gu, renowned among rank three Gu and harmful to its user when overused, complemented by the ice muscles and forced here on rank two primeval essence. The blow that told was not aimed at Bai Ning Bing at all: Fang Yuan’s moonblade took the head of Xiong Jiang, who had chained his own shadow to Bai Ning Bing’s with the Shadow Bond Gu, and a tenth of that death arrived through the shadow as blood out of Bai Ning Bing’s ears, nose and eyes, the most severe injury he had taken since the battle began and one the Water Shield Gu cannot block. Bai Ning Bing names the promised reinforcements a lie. What Fang Yuan names as making him the most troublesome kind of opponent is talent, no fear of death, and a great many Gu worms. ^{ch. 137}

Bai Ning Bing bought distance by throwing away the Plunder Gu he had taken from Xiong Zhan, and Fang Yuan refined it where he stood on the Spring Autumn Cicada’s aura, which shocked and dismayed a man who had worked at that same Gu for days without success. Time runs the other way in a chase: the Northern Dark Ice Soul recovery outpaces the injuries Fang Yuan’s moonblades keep opening, and Fang Yuan’s own judgment is that he may not be able to kill him this time, for want of a movement Gu. Neither man could force the ground, Bai Ning Bing holding a recon Gu that steered him clear of every wolf pack and Gu Master group on the route, and Qing Mao Mountain being large enough for him to escape in all directions. The unknown group of five ahead of them was the biggest uncertainty and would definitely affect the result for both, and Fang Yuan gambled on it, since two of the three clans would serve him and only one would finish him. ^{ch. 138}

The group was Gu Yue Qing Shu’s, and Fang Yuan called on it to stop Bai Ning Bing as the murderer of the Xiong Li group and of the Gu Yue Man Shi group. Caught between them, Bai Ning Bing poured all the hard-earned primeval essence he had recovered into the Frost Demon Gu in his right palm and self-detonated the whole right arm, and the frost off it turned a mountain path in the blistering summer into a world of ice. What it bought him is an ice crystal three metres high and two wide with him inside it like an insect in amber, which Gu Yue Qing Shu states will not freeze a man who has formed ice muscles to death and will instead act as his armour while he recovers, and against which Fang Yuan’s moonblade leaves a shallow scar the cold aura fills back in. Fang Yuan left rather than spend the time and primeval essence that crystal would cost, unwilling to reveal his true strength in front of Gu Yue Qing Shu and expecting Bai Ning Bing to come out of it at rank three with his ruthless temperament aimed at the man who cost him the arm. Narration names Fang Yuan the main cause of the loss of that right arm. ^{ch. 139}

By the time he is seen again, the right arm which was broken has been taken care of and wrapped with a white bandage. His eyes have returned to black, and his cultivation stands at rank three, no longer suppressed to rank two. ^{ch. 143}

Having chased Bai Ning Bing the entire way made Fang Yuan well-known and raised his popularity. To Xiong village he is also Xiong Jiang’s murderer, and Xiong clan Gu Masters who meet him wear a complicated expression for it. ^{ch. 147}