The early summer night stretched over the valley, clear and sharp, with stars that glimmered like distant sparks scattered across a dark canvas.
Not a single cloud dulled their shine, and their steady glow gave the world a strangely vivid clarity, as if every detail had been quietly placed under a spotlight.
Sandalwood crickets began their chorus after the dragonpill crickets fell silent, their calls rising from the grass, the creeks, and the branches with a rhythm that felt almost deliberate, as though the landscape itself was shifting into a new act.
Gu Yue Village glimmered under the starlight, the bamboo houses catching the glow in a way that made their dark green walls look faintly alive.
The night wind drifted through them, stirring leaves and shadows, and for a moment the village felt suspended in a calm that bordered on fragile.
Inside one of those houses, Fang Yuan sat on his bed with four wine jars arranged in front of him.
Each held a different flavor—sweet golden honey wine, the sharp burn of white grains liquor, the sour bite of redberry wine, and the deep bitterness of bitter shell brew.
The assortment looked almost casual, but nothing in the room truly was.
Sitting cross-legged, he allowed his mind to settle before giving the silent command.
The two Liquor worms responded instantly, leaving his aperture like small streaks cutting through the dim light, before slipping into the redberry wine jar without a sound.
The fusion began at once.
The wine shifted, and from within the jar a swelling white glow formed, growing brighter as the fusion process intensified.
Fang Yuan dropped primeval stones into the wine jar in a steady rhythm.
One piece.
Ten pieces.
Twenty pieces.
Fifty pieces.
The sound was almost lost beneath the low hum of the fusion, but each stone pushed the process forward with a pressure he could feel at the back of his mind.
By the time the hundredth stone sank into the liquid, the sphere of light inside the jar tightened into a fist-sized core, hovering just above the bottom.
Meanwhile, the redberry wine had been drained completely in the process, leaving only the dim, pulsing glow.
Without wasting a breath, Fang Yuan reached for the jar of golden honey wine and poured it in.
The moment the honey-colored liquid touched the light, the sphere swelled outward again, expanding with a suddenness that sent ripples across the surface.
Sweat slicked down Fang Yuan's forehead.
Keeping two Liquor worms tethered together required absolute precision, and the constant mental strain clawed at his focus.
Even so, his hands stayed steady as he continued feeding primeval stones into the jar, each one tightening the light a little more, drawing it back down to that same hard, fist-sized core.
Once the honey wine was consumed, he didn't pause.
He poured in the bitter shell brew, then the white grains liquor, following the exact sequence he had mapped out long before he began.
Each transition pushed the fusion further, tightening its structure, sharpening its response.
When the final drop of wine vanished and the last fragment of energy merged into the sphere, the light inside the jar flared without warning.
It filled the room in a single, blinding pulse—
And then... it was gone, extinguished so abruptly that the sudden darkness felt heavier than before, as the jar sat motionless before him.
"Success."
Fang Yuan didn't need to check the jar to confirm it; the shift in the fusion's rhythm was enough.
His will moved first, and a moment later a small figure rose unsteadily from the mouth of the wine jar.
The Four Flavours Liquor Worm hovered in the air, trembling slightly.
At a glance, it didn't look dramatically different from an ordinary Liquor Worm—still shaped like a pale little silkworm with glossy black eyes—but its body told the real story.
Instead of a simple white sheen, its surface pulsed with four shifting colors: red for heat, blue for bitterness, green for sourness, and yellow for sweetness.
A quiet, layered glow ran beneath its skin like it was cycling through four different heartbeats at once.
Fang Yuan released a long breath, letting tension drain from his shoulders.
Three weeks had passed since the caravan departed Gu Yue Village, and every day since then had been spent refining, fusing all the Gu he possessed.
Tonight's success was one more piece in a sequence of carefully planned fusions, each built on the last.
He guided the new Gu into his aperture, feeling it slip into position among the others.
A brief glance inside his aperture showed the stone membrane walls—solid proof of his current standing as a Rank 2 upper stage Gu Master.
Within his aperture's primeval essence swam, the newly refined Rank 2 Four Flavours Liquor Worm, Rank 1 Liquor Worm, Rank 2 Moonglow Gu, Rank 2 Black Cow Longhorn Beetle Gu, Rank 2 Mudskin Toad, Rank 2 Plunder Gu, Rank 2 Bear Enslavement Gu, Rank 1 Wolf Enslavement Gu, two Cleansing Water Gu, White Boar Gu, Jade Skin Gu, and two Little Light Gu.
Fang Yuan exhaled softly and muttered to himself, "Alas! I couldn't find Relic Gu this year."
He rose from the bed, stretching out the stiffness in his shoulders before walking toward the window.
The night outside was steady and clear.
He watched it for a moment, his voice barely above a whisper as he asked, "Did you notice?"
A faint smile crossed his face, more thoughtful than amused.
He knew exactly what he had done.
The recipe for the Four Flavours Liquor Gu shouldn't exist for another century, not in any book, not in any memory, not in any surviving record.
Yet he had just refined one.
So, Heaven's Will would inevitably take note of something like that.
He stepped back from the window and spoke under his breath, "Still, it's only a mortal Gu."
"It's not enough to bring down any serious reaction by itself."
His hand moved inside his robe until his fingers found the familiar shape of the stone bag Gu tucked against his chest.
He held it quietly, feeling the slight weight of the two White Silver Relic Gu inside.
The tension in his expression softened for a moment, replaced by a quiet resignation as he let out another measured sigh.
He stood there in the dim room, considering the situation with the same calm, methodical mindset he used for everything.
The world always reacted to deviations, whether subtle or loud, and he knew he had just created one.
But reactions could be managed, redirected, or even used.
What mattered most wasn't what the world noticed—it was what he chose to do as a result.
And in a place where people moved through life thinking everything followed a predictable pattern, he understood more clearly than anyone that the moment you stepped outside that pattern, the landscape changed.
Sometimes in your favor, sometimes not, but always in a way that demanded a sharper kind of awareness.
Eventually, he released the stone bag and let his hand fall.
The night continued outside the window, calm and indifferent, but Fang Yuan knew that calm never lasted for long.
"In the end," Fang Yuan murmured, almost as if he were explaining it to someone standing beside him, "the attention itself doesn't matter."
"What really matters is how far I'm willing to go once I have it."