Chapter 116 Butterfly Effect

“Father, you’re being too cautious.” Wang Da snorted dismissively. “Even if that Gu Master stationed nearby discovered me, so what? He’s only Rank Two middle stage. At worst, I’ll just kill him.”

Old Man Wang’s expression immediately darkened. “You’re becoming more arrogant every time you return! You actually dare talk about killing a Gu Master sent by the village?” He sternly rebuked him. “This world belongs to Gu Masters. Even if fortune allowed you to become one, do you really think you can fight an entire mountain village filled with Gu Masters?”

Wang Da fell silent under his father’s reprimand. Although he had already reached Rank Two middle stage, he still did not openly contradict his father.

However, his earlier words were not merely empty arrogance. The Gu Master inheritance Wang Da had obtained was incomplete. Most of the Gu left behind had already starved to death by the time he discovered it, but several useful Gu had survived. Among them was a Rank Two Shadow Companion Gu.

Once activated, Shadow Follower Gu could transform Wang Da’s body into a dark shadow, allowing him to conceal himself and avoid ordinary physical attacks. Combined with Wang Da’s experience, it was an excellent Gu for infiltration and assassination. More importantly, Wang Da possessed another Rank Two Gu worm.

Love Separation Gu.

It was considered one of the most poisonous Gu among Rank Two. Refining it required several unusual materials, including Rank One Life-Giving Grass, a widow spider, a Red Needle Scorpion, and most importantly, the heart of someone who genuinely loved the refiner.

To obtain that final material, Wang Da had personally killed his own wife, a woman who had loved him deeply, and dug the heart from her chest.

Such a cruel price had given birth to equally terrifying poison. Once Love Separation Gu wounded someone and its poison entered their blood, even ordinary Rank Three healing Gu would have difficulty completely removing it.

With Shadow Companion Gu allowing him to approach his target unnoticed and Love Separation Gu providing a deadly killing method, Wang Da possessed genuine assassination ability. If he successfully launched a surprise attack, even a Rank Three Gu Master could lose his life.

Against a Rank Two middle stage Gu Master stationed near the village, Wang Da truly had the confidence to kill.

Seeing his father trembling with anger, Wang Er hurriedly stepped forward to ease the atmosphere. “Right, big brother, didn’t you say before that you could help me and little sister become Gu Masters as well? Have you made any progress?”

Wang Da naturally followed his lead and ended the argument. He pulled over a chair and sat down. “I’ve made some progress. I’ve managed to gather several Hope Gu, but this amount is nowhere near enough to awaken your apertures.”

“Hope Gu?”

Wang Xiaomei’s eyes widened beneath the candlelight. “Isn’t that the Gu mentioned in The Legends of Ren Zu? I thought only Gu Masters could possess them.”

She had heard stories about Gu Masters from her father and the village elders since childhood. Among them was the story of Ren Zu, the ancestor of humanity, who relied on Hope Gu to survive the desperate circumstances he encountered.

Wang Er nodded. “That’s right. Even though I’m not a Gu Master, I know Hope Gu only appears within the mountain villages, and only Gu Masters can capture and control them.”

“Those are all lies.”

Wang Da sneered. “Lies deliberately spread by those high and mighty Gu Masters to keep mortals ignorant. Wherever humans gather, hope can be born. Why would hope belong exclusively to Gu Masters?”

What Wang Da said was true. Hope Gu capable of awakening a person’s aperture could naturally appear wherever large numbers of humans gathered. They were never something that belonged exclusively to Gu Master clans.

However, the clans of the Southern Border deliberately controlled them. Gu Masters regularly searched the territories under their control and collected any Hope Gu that appeared, preventing ordinary mortals from accidentally obtaining them.

At the same time, they spread the claim that only descendants carrying Gu Master bloodlines could use Hope Gu. According to these stories, if ordinary mortals tried to awaken their apertures, they would suffer terrible consequences and might even be reduced to bones.

Wang Da had once believed these claims as well. Only after obtaining his inheritance and becoming a Gu Master himself did he discover the truth.

Seeing that his younger brother and sister still looked doubtful, Wang Da smiled coldly. He reached into his aperture, and several tiny points of light gradually appeared before them.

“These are Hope Gu.”

Outside the wooden house, Fang Yuan remained concealed beneath the moonlight. A Moonlight Trumpet Flower native to Qing Mao Mountain allowed him to clearly hear the conversation taking place inside.

Everything was beginning to make sense.

As I expected, Wang Er’s family isn’t ordinary. He actually has an elder brother who secretly became a Gu Master.

There were only a few ways for a mortal without a Gu Master background to step onto the path of cultivation. They could be taken in by a wandering or demonic Gu Master, accidentally encounter enough Hope Gu to awaken their aperture, or obtain the inheritance of a deceased Gu Master.

Judging from everything Fang Yuan had heard, Wang Da clearly belonged to the last category.

A faint light appeared in Fang Yuan’s eyes. Wang Da had started as an ordinary mortal, yet after obtaining an inheritance, he had reached Rank Two middle stage within only a few years. His cultivation speed alone showed that his aptitude was quite good.

More importantly, it revealed something about the inheritance itself. Fang Yuan had only reached Rank Two middle stage after more than fifty years in his previous life. Although Wang Da’s rapid cultivation did not necessarily mean his inheritance was superior to the Flower Wine Monk’s inheritance, something capable of supporting an unaffiliated Gu Master to this level could hardly be worthless.

Fortunately, I didn’t kill Wang Er and those hunters just to obtain their map.

If Fang Yuan had acted immediately, he would not only have missed the secret hidden behind the Wang family, but might also have unknowingly provoked a Rank Two middle stage Gu Master. Under his current circumstances, such an enemy could easily have become a fatal problem.

The hunting map had originally been his target. Now, compared with the Gu Master inheritance that had unexpectedly appeared before him, that map was almost insignificant.

Another Gu Master inheritance… Interesting. The corners of Fang Yuan’s mouth gradually rose.

Since such an opportunity has delivered itself to my doorstep, how could I possibly refuse it? Moving without making a sound, Fang Yuan approached the wooden house and carefully opened a small gap in the paper covering the window. Through it, he saw Old Man Wang and his three children gathered beneath the candlelight.

A sincere smile appeared on Fang Yuan’s face.