Fang Yuan studied the ink writing on the bowl wall, a slight grin forming on his face.
This Disaster-Attracting Gu was of an extremely high grade — Seventh Transformation, a full tier above his own Spring Autumn Cicada. Its effect was extraordinarily wondrous, actually involving earthly calamities and heavenly tribulations.
The middle section of the ink text explained in detail. The Disaster-Attracting Gu could attract disasters and tribulations on behalf of a Gu Immortal, diverting earthly calamities and heavenly tribulations away from their original target and connecting them to the user's own body.
Fang Yuan's expression became somewhat peculiar.
What manner of Immortal Gu was this, and who would dare use it?
Heavenly tribulations and earthly calamities were such troublesome forces of destruction, such terrifying might of heaven and earth. Living a perfectly good life, only to use the Disaster-Attracting Gu to draw these tribulations and calamities upon oneself — wasn't that simply seeking death?
Gu Immortal Mo Yao, the illustrious thirty-sixth fairy of Spirit Affinity Hall — why would she refine such an Immortal Gu?
The latter section of the ink text provided the answer.
It turned out she truly wanted to die!
Back then, she and Bo Qing had fallen in love and become a renowned couple of the Righteous Path, a legend watched by all five regions.
Sword Immortal Bo Qing was extraordinarily talented, defeating everyone under heaven with none who could rival him. He was known as "the Sword That Splits the Five Continents, the Near-Immortal Venerable — bound by love, blessed are all living beings."
Surveying the world and examining his life, the only goal before him was the supreme aspiration of charging into the Ninth Transformation.
However, charging into the Ninth Transformation was incomparably dangerous. Even a great Sword Immortal felt as though he were walking on thin ice, his chances at most fifteen percent.
Bo Qing had grand ambitions and was determined to charge into the Peak Stage of the Ninth Transformation. Mo Yao tried hard to dissuade him but failed, and could only assist through tearful preparation.
Bo Qing set up his inheritance and arranged his affairs. His first attempt at the Ninth Transformation failed, leaving him gravely injured for seventy years, bedridden and unable to move even slightly — all taken care of by Mo Yao.
After recovering, Bo Qing intended to attempt the Ninth Transformation once more.
Mo Yao knew how difficult this was, especially the final barrier of the Ninth Transformation, when boundless earthly calamities and heavenly tribulations would descend. Though Bo Qing's combat power was unparalleled under heaven, he lacked endurance.
To fully support her beloved, she secretly betrayed her sect and turned her attention to the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
The Eighty-Eight True Yang Building was the famous creation of an Immortal Venerable, the work of Long Hair Old Ancestor — the number one Immortal Gu House in the world. Mo Yao had begun researching it long ago, drawing insights from it to deepen her mastery of the Refining Path.
Though she was only a non-human without Great Sun bloodline, Spirit Affinity Hall had in the era of the Great Sun Immortal Venerable worshipped many outstanding women who became the Immortal Venerable's concubines. Among them were several female Gu Immortals who had won the Great Sun Immortal Venerable's favor.
Therefore, Spirit Affinity Hall preserved many of the Great Sun Immortal Venerable's secrets, including detailed knowledge of the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
From these materials, Mo Yao learned the secrets of the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
The Royal Court Blessed Land was located at the very center of the Northern Plains, its internal world vast with a division of black and white heavens. As the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, its fortune ran exceedingly deep, and so at regular intervals it would attract extremely violent earthly calamities and heavenly tribulations.
The Great Sun Immortal Venerable had considered this point. When constructing the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building, he placed inside it a "Difficulty-Dispersing Gu" as one of the building's critical cornerstones.
This Gu was at the Seventh Transformation, one of the essences of the Great Sun Immortal Venerable's Luck Path. It could disperse the heavenly tribulations and earthly calamities within the Royal Court Blessed Land to the outside world. In this way, it formed the ten-year blizzard disaster that spread across the entire Northern Plains.
Conversely, the Great Sun Immortal Venerable used the ten-year blizzard disaster to establish rules, forming the tradition of the Royal Court Competition.
Mo Yao had discovered what appeared to be a loophole that was not actually a loophole.
The Royal Court Blessed Land and the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building coexisted symbiotically. Every ten years, they attracted powerful and vast heavenly tribulations and earthly calamities. At this time, the Royal Court Blessed Land needed to open a slight fissure to cooperate with the Difficulty-Dispersing Gu, channeling the disasters outward.
The Royal Court Blessed Land had been arranged by the Great Sun Immortal Venerable to allow only mortals to enter and exit, barring Gu Immortals. But during the dispersal, when the Royal Court Blessed Land opened a hidden fissure to expel the flood of disasters, the Immortal Venerable's restriction on Gu Immortal passage would be rendered ineffective.
Mo Yao exploited this fissure, risking a one-in-a-ten-thousand chance of survival, to ride against the flow of disasters and enter the Royal Court Blessed Land.
She spent nearly ten years investigating within, and through her master-level expertise and tremendous effort, located the critical node — a small tower at Earth Mound.
Then, risking the awakening of Great Sun's will, she destroyed the small tower. Using the power that flowed back, she sensed the Difficulty-Dispersing Gu and created a cavern to brew the "Disaster-Attracting Gu."
After successfully refining the embryonic form of the Immortal Gu, she casually set up the Near Water Tower Immortal Gu House in this nameless valley.
Within it, Mo Yao nurtured the embryo to full maturity, then took the Disaster-Attracting Gu and, taking advantage of the Blessed Land's dispersal window, secretly snuck back to the outside world.
She did not destroy these arrangements, just in case. If Bo Qing failed his second attempt and the Disaster-Attracting Gu was also destroyed by the tribulations, she would return to the Blessed Land and refine the Disaster-Attracting Gu once more.
But after leaving that time, she never returned.
Sword Immortal Bo Qing's second charge into the Ninth Transformation ended in complete failure, his body turned to ash amid the vast heavenly tribulations. And Mo Yao perished alongside him.
"So that's how it is. Charging into the Ninth Transformation is fraught with a thousand dangers and ten thousand perils. Before that, Mo Yao secretly set up this inheritance. She didn't reveal the inheritance's true content because this act was itself a betrayal of her sect. But in the end, she still left the preliminary clues for the sect. Five hundred years later in my previous life, the Central Continent Gu Immortals plotted against the Royal Court Blessed Land and destroyed the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building — they relied on exactly these preliminary clues of hers." Fang Yuan recalled all of this now, and instantly felt as though the fog had cleared and everything made sense.
At the end of the ink text, there was a poem —
*The immortal's path is long and far; we met at the ends of the earth.* *The years have grown late; love and enmity have stretched on long.* *You gaze toward the end of immortality; I fret for your safety.* *Between life and death, all is vast and boundless — for you, I dream of home.*
Clearly, this was written by Mo Yao.
The path of a Gu Immortal is long and difficult, yet she was fortunate enough to meet him along it. Unknowingly, love and resentment became entangled, and she could not extricate herself.
His gaze was fixed on the end of the immortal path. Her gaze fell upon him.
Charging into the Ninth Transformation — nine parts death, one part life. She was unwilling to be separated by life and death, and so she wished to devote her entire life to helping him fulfill his dream!
To protect the beloved in her heart, to help Bo Qing ascend to the peak of Gu Immortalhood, Mo Yao willingly sacrificed herself, using the Disaster-Attracting Gu to draw the heavenly tribulations and earthly calamities upon her own body.
"Truly a remarkable woman..." Fang Yuan sighed.
Though he would never make such a sacrifice for love, it did not prevent him from understanding such a person.
His understanding, in fact, ran deeper than most.
People live in this world. They always have desires, always have goals, always have meaning.
Mo Yao's goal was for the beloved in her heart. Fang Yuan's goal lay in the pursuit of eternal life.
Different desires, different goals, different meanings — they forged the myriad peoples of the world and the singular heroes and villains who walked their own paths.
Fang Yuan turned his gaze back to the enormous vermillion bowl.
The silkworm cocoon had already split open. The Disaster-Attracting Gu had fully taken form. It was shaped like a silkworm cocoon, its entire body greyish-white, no larger than a little finger, bobbing up and down in the water.
The Disaster-Attracting Gu was a genuine self-sacrifice Gu — Mo Yao had used it to sacrifice herself for another.
For Fang Yuan, this Gu appeared useless, but in reality it still held enormous value.
First, it was an Immortal Gu. Even if he didn't use it himself, placing it in Treasure Yellow Heaven for sale would yield a massive fortune of Immortal Yuan Stones.
Second, it was a Luck Path Gu Insect that could attract heavenly tribulations and earthly calamities. Though the disasters were powerful, as long as one's own strength was sufficient to withstand them, using it against others would be extraordinarily effective.
Finally, its formation had been aided by one of the cornerstones of the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building — the Difficulty-Dispersing Gu. The two were like two sides of the same coin: one attracted disasters, the other dispersed them. By virtue of this relationship alone, it would be of tremendous help to Fang Yuan's upcoming journey to the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building.
However, despite this inner connection, there was still an obstacle to fully subduing this Gu.
In the ink text on the bowl wall, Mo Yao had given detailed instructions.
To subdue the Disaster-Attracting Gu, certain conditions were required. Though it made no distinction between mortal and Immortal status, it required the destined person to possess a heart willing to sacrifice themselves.
Without such a heart, forcing subjugation would at minimum cause the Immortal Gu to backlash, and at worst cause it to self-destruct, endangering the person's very life.
Inside the Near Water Tower, Fang Yuan stood before the enormous bowl, his face expressionless.
Did he have a heart willing to sacrifice himself?
……
"Cough, cough, cough." Tang Miao Ming pressed a handkerchief to her cherry lips, her elegant brows tightly furrowed in pain.
"Sister!" Tang Fang, the third young master of the Tang family, called out, his face filled with anguish.
Tang Miao Ming lay half-reclined on the bed, waving her hand to signal Tang Fang not to worry.
Tang Fang looked at the blood on his sister's handkerchief and let out a deep sigh. "Sister, why must you push yourself so hard? What good does passing this level do? Father and the others are already gone — you're my only family left. If anything were to happen to you, what would I do?"
Tang Miao Ming reached out and gently stroked Tang Fang's hair. "Third Brother, you are now the patriarch of our Tang family. Don't be so lacking in resolve. This time's Royal Court Competition has cost our Tang family dearly — we were nearly swallowed by other clans. Now is a once-in-a-thousand-year opportunity. We must use the Eighty-Eight True Yang Building to restore our clan's strength."
Tang Fang pursed his lips dismissively. "But Sister, you forced your way through the level and suffered serious injuries. The cost outweighs the gain. Watching this, Third Brother's heart aches — I haven't had the spirit to manage even the clan's affairs these past few days."
"What?" Upon hearing this, Tang Miao Ming's expression turned stern, her piercing gaze locking onto Tang Fang.
Without hesitation, she scolded: "Patriarch Tang Fang, you bear heavy responsibilities — how can you be so sentimental? Revitalizing the clan is your duty, the very meaning of being a patriarch. I don't want to hear such complaints again. Do you understand?"
"Si-Sister, I was wrong." Tang Fang hurriedly stood from the bedside, his face full of shame, head lowered in admission. Ever since childhood, his sister had treated him best of all.
Tang Miao Ming's gaze gradually softened, and she let out a quiet sigh. "Third Brother, I know you have a free spirit and prefer a life of wandering the world without constraint. But as the last man in our family, you should have the courage to bear responsibility. From now on, the meaning of your life lies in revitalizing the clan. Do you understand?"
"Sister's words are wise. Little Brother understands. Don't be angry — you already have injuries to contend with."
Tang Miao Ming remained stern. "After you return, copy the third chapter, first section of the *Record of Human Ancestor* ten times through by tonight."
Tang Fang's heart was suddenly filled with warmth.
Ever since childhood, his sister's punishment had been to make him copy books.
"Sister, rest now. I'll go copy it at once."
*Record of Human Ancestor*, Chapter Three, Section One records —
Human Ancestor's second daughter, Gu Yue Yin Huang, to rescue her father from the Gate of Life and Death, ascended the Mountain of Success and Failure in search of the Success Gu.
But at the final moment, she failed. She lost herself and became a hideous yet powerful monster.
Without his daughter's rescue, his eldest son Tai Ri Yang Mang fell into despair and indulgence. Human Ancestor remained trapped in the Valley of Lost Ruin, unable to return to life.
The Valley of Lost Ruin was like a great labyrinth, winding and twisting. At times it would spread vast expanses of Bewildering Mist, capable of loosening the soul. At times it would whip up Cutting Winds as sharp as blades, specifically designed to slice apart the soul.
Human Ancestor was a soul body. In the Bewildering Mist, he could not find the way out, and the Cutting Wind carved at his soul, making him increasingly weak and his situation ever more perilous.
The soul fragments sliced off by the Cutting Wind gradually coalesced into a young boy.
Thus, Human Ancestor's third child was born.
He was Northern Dark Ice Soul.