"Hmm?" Mo Yan frowned, fury appearing on her horse-like face. At last, she realized Fang Yuan had played her for a fool.
"Heh, what colossal nerve! You even dared deceive your auntie!" As she spoke, she stretched out her right hand, about to enter and seize Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan did not retreat a single step. Throwing back his head, he laughed loudly. "Mo Yan, you'd better think this through!"
Mo Yan's movements came to an abrupt halt. She remained standing outside the door, her outstretched right hand suspended in the air. Yet a hint of hesitation and indignation flashed across her face.
The Lineage had explicit rules concerning this. Students were protected within the academy; no one was permitted to barge into the dormitories and arrest students without authorization. Mo Yan had only wanted to teach Fang Yuan a small lesson today, to let him taste some suffering. She had absolutely no desire to risk violating the clan rules.
It would be one thing if I alone violated the clan rules. What if I implicated my family and dragged Grandfather into this? At that thought, Mo Yan resentfully withdrew her hand.
She looked towards Fang Yuan inside the room, her eyes widened. If the fury in her gaze could turn into flames, it would burn Fang Yuan to ashes in an instant.
"I never deceived you. I said I would bring you to Fang Yuan, and now you have found him. It seems you have something to say to me." Fang Yuan stood with his hands behind his back, a faint smile on his face. Completely unafraid of a rank 2 Gu Master's imposing presence, he met Mo Yan's furious gaze without flinching.
Only a single step separated him from Mo Yan. One was inside the room, the other outside.
Yet that distance had become as remote as a heavenly chasm.
"Heh heh heh, Fang Yuan, Fang Yuan. You certainly have a thorough understanding of the clan rules." Mo Yan suppressed her anger, her full face covered in a cold, sinister smile. "Unfortunately, relying on the rules can only delay things for the time being. You cannot stay in your dormitory forever. I want to see exactly how long you can hide!"
Fang Yuan gave a bright laugh and looked at Mo Yan with disdain. "Then I want to see how long you can block me. Ah, it is already night. You have a bed to sleep in, but what about you? If I am absent from class tomorrow, when the Academy Elder investigates, what do you think I will say?"
"You!" Mo Yan flew into a rage, pointing at Fang Yuan, eager to act. "Do you truly think I do not dare come in and seize you?"
Creak.
Fang Yuan threw the dormitory door fully open. A hint of a smile curved his lips, his eyes deep and still as pools. His tone carried the certainty of someone holding the entire situation in his palm as he said to Mo Yan, half in provocation and half in frankness, "Then act."
"Heh heh heh..." Mo Yan instead calmed down. Narrowing her eyes, she looked towards Fang Yuan. "You think I will fall for your taunt?"
Fang Yuan shrugged. He had long since seen through Mo Yan's temperament.
If he had shut the door or left it half-open, Mo Yan would have had at least a fifty-percent chance of forcing her way in. But when he deliberately threw the door completely open, it instead made Mo Yan calm down and become even more wary. The possibility of her barging in had become infinitesimal.
Five hundred years of experience had long allowed him to see clearly into the weaknesses of human nature.
He turned around openly and completely exposed his back to Mo Yan. If she seized him now, she would be overwhelmingly likely to succeed in a single strike. Yet Mo Yan remained motionless outside the door, as though an invisible mountain stood before her, blocking her path.
Even after Fang Yuan sat cross-legged on the bed, Mo Yan continued glaring at him resentfully, gritting her teeth, never making a move.
"This is the sorrow of humanity." Sitting cross-legged, Fang Yuan looked at Mo Yan standing stupidly outside the door and sighed inwardly. "Sometimes, what stops people from acting is not material difficulties, but the shackles of the heart."
In terms of cultivation, Fang Yuan was no match for Mo Yan at present. Yet though she possessed Rank 2 cultivation, she could only watch Fang Yuan helplessly and did not dare act.
She was merely a few steps away from Fang Yuan. The door stood wide open, with nothing obstructing her. What truly bound her hands and feet was herself.
"People go to every possible length to learn, to understand the world and know its rules, so that they can make use of those rules. If one is instead bound by the rules, left hamstrung by one's own learning, that is the true tragedy." Fang Yuan gave Mo Yan one final look, then slowly closed his eyes and immersed his mind in his primeval sea.
"This Fang Yuan is actually cultivating right in front of me! He simply does not take me seriously at all!!" Seeing this, Mo Yan was so vexed that her chest churned, and she nearly spat blood.
She wished she could rush in and immediately give Fang Yuan a few punches!
But she knew she could not.
Mo Yan suddenly felt a trace of regret. Standing outside the door, she was caught astride a tiger, unable to get down.
She was unwilling to let the matter rest, yet she truly could not justify it in terms of face. She had made such a grand show of mobilizing people to teach Fang Yuan a lesson, only to end up disgraced and covered in dust herself.
Especially with a household servant watching her.
"Damn it! That brat Fang Yuan is far too uncooperative, far too cunning!" Mo Yan thought resentfully for a moment, then began shouting and cursing outside the door, attempting to provoke Fang Yuan into coming out.
"Fang Yuan, you little bastard! If you have any guts, come out!"
"Fang Yuan, as a man, you should dare to act and dare to bear the consequences. Yet now you have become a turtle hiding its head in its shell. How contemptible!"
"Stop putting on an act for your auntie. If you know what is good for you, get out here!"
"You cowardly, pathetic piece of trash!!"
Fang Yuan turned a deaf ear, offering not the slightest response.
Mo Yan cursed for a while, but instead of feeling the usual refreshing satisfaction of berating someone, she only grew increasingly stifled.
She increasingly felt like a clown, or a shrew. Her conduct in blocking the doorway was truly beneath her dignity.
"Ahhh, this is infuriating!" Mo Yan went frantic and finally gave up on her taunting tactic.
"Fang Yuan, you can hide from the first day, but you cannot hide from the fifteenth." She stomped her foot resentfully and left unwillingly. Before leaving, she threw out another order. "Gao Wan, stand here and watch him closely! I refuse to believe he will not come out."
"This servant obeys!" Gao Wan, the strong man and household servant, hurriedly agreed, watching Mo Yan depart with respectful eyes. Yet inwardly, he groaned in misery. The mountain nights were damp and cold, while he had to stand guard all night. One careless moment, and he could catch a chill. This was truly a miserable assignment.
Splash, splash, splash...
Within the primeval sea, tides rose and fell, waves appearing and vanishing.
Bronze True Essence gathered like water, forming wave after wave. Under Fang Yuan's mental control, they surged without end toward the surrounding aperture walls.
The aperture walls of a Rank 1 initial-stage Gu Master were all white light membranes. Under the impact of Bronze True Essence, they displayed dazzling, mottled lights and shadows, giving rise to an indescribable, wondrous charm.
Time trickled away bit by bit, while the surface of the Bronze Primeval Sea slowly descended.
From its original forty-four percent, it fell to twelve percent.
"To raise one's realm, a Gu Master must continuously expend true essence to nurture the aperture. An initial-stage Gu Master's aperture wall is a light membrane; a middle-stage Gu Master's is a water membrane; and an upper-stage Gu Master's is a stone membrane. If I wish to be promoted from the initial stage to the middle stage, I must wash and nurture the light membrane aperture wall into a water membrane aperture wall."
The memories of his previous life's five hundred years had given Fang Yuan a grasp of cultivation in this period as clear as seeing fire, every detail plain before his eyes.
He slowly opened his eyes.
It was already deep into the night.
A crescent moon hung high in the night sky, pouring down moonlight as white and pure as water.
The doorway stood open, moonlight streaming inside. It reminded Fang Yuan of a famous poem from Earth—before my bed, bright moonlight; I suspect frost upon the ground.
The night wind stirred gently, bringing with it a chill.
Fang Yuan had no Gu worm with warming capabilities. With only the body of a fifteen-year-old boy, he could not help shuddering.
Nights in the mountains were still quite cold.
"Brat, you finally opened your eyes. How long are you going to cultivate?! Hurry and come out. Whether you stretch your neck for the blade or shrink your neck for the blade, it is still one slash. You beat our Young Master Mo Bei; it is only a matter of time before our young lady teaches you a lesson." Seeing Fang Yuan finally move, Gao Wan, the arrogant household servant who had been standing at the door, immediately perked up.
Fang Yuan narrowed his eyes. From the looks of it, that rank 2 female Gu Master had already left?
"Brat, did you hear me? Get your ass out here! You have a room to stay in and a bed to sleep on, while I have to stand in this courtyard. If you still refuse to come out, do you believe I will barge in?!" Seeing Fang Yuan's lack of response, Gao Wan threatened.
Fang Yuan still remained unmoved.
"You bastard, get out here and surrender without resistance. You have offended our Mo Family Branch; you will not have good days ahead. Hurry and kowtow to the young lady to admit your mistake. Perhaps there will still be a chance she forgives you." Gao Wan continued to berate him.
Fang Yuan turned a deaf ear. Unhurriedly, he took out a Primeval Stone from his money pouch and held it in his palm. Then he slowly closed his eyes again.
Seeing Fang Yuan was about to continue cultivating, Gao Wan immediately grew anxious and burst into curses. "With your mere C-grade talent, at most you will only become a rank 2 Gu Master. What is there to cultivate for? How can you alone contend against our entire Mo Family Branch? Brat, are your ears deaf? Did you hear this lord speaking?!"
Before you continue