Further in, they found the skeletal remains of a person with a book next to him.
"The book of the Flesh Bone Lord," Fang Yuan said, picking it up. He rifled through it. The person who had written it did not leave behind their name, but that didn't mean that he could not forge something of the sort later on.
It described how the Flesh Bone Lord, or Gray Bone Scholar as he was also called, had often struggled with cultivation due to a lack of aptitude. He had thought of how to fix this problem but had not reached a conclusion even as he died.
"It says here that we should kowtow and take the Gu worm within his skull," Fang Yuan said.
Fang Yuan withdrew a few paces and then kowtowed. It was a proper kowtow with his forehead knocking on the ground three times.
Bai Ning Bing was quite surprised by this. However, for Gu Yue Fang Yuan, kowtowing like this was nothing. Even if a Rank 9 Venerable were to kowtow towards him, he would not feel anything. And even if he were told to kowtow towards a mortal, he no longer felt anything either.
"He was a Rank 4 Gu Master," Bai Ning Bing noted, flipping through the pages herself. She chuckled. "It looks like this inheritance wasn't worth your while, Fang Yuan."
That meant that the odds of there being a Rank 5 Gu worm were very low, and so it was likely from his point of view that this was a massive waste of time. After Fang Yuan kowtowed, and the three slams on the floor echoed through the cave, another passageway opened.
Bai Ning Bing's eyes widened. "Oh, so that's why you did it. Well, then there should be a valuable gu worm in his skull."
Fang Yuan stopped her. "Wait," he said. There were two tests here, much like there had been a test with the prior area. There, the test had been to test one's self-control. One was only supposed to take one of the gu worms and not get greedy. Here, the test was to see if one would give the proper reverence towards this old senior who had created this inheritance. If one smashed the skull, it would mean that they had disrespected that person's corpse.
He remembered this from the details of his prior life.
Five minutes passed and Bai Ning Bing began to get antsy. But Fang Yuan still told her to stay put. It was only then that another passageway opened.
"That is the true passageway," Fang Yuan said. He then went over and smashed the man's skull in question. "Bone Spike Gu," he said, chuckling to himself. It was a Rank 3 gu worm, by this point, meaningless to him.
"You refined this one instantly as well?" Bai Ning Bing noted with some shock.
They went down this third passageway, upon which there was they entered and saw that the walls, roof, and floor were all made of a strange kind of wobbly substance that felt like flesh. It was unsteady to walk upon, as if they were trying to walk on jelly.
Lining the walls of the cave were a bunch of smiling mouths, much like the Xiong clan's signature Rank 5 Gu. These could also be used for storage.
"We have to knock their teeth out and see what we can find," Fang Yuan said. The mouths each had 10 teeth, five above and five below. One had to knock out five of them in order to get what was within.
It was not a difficult process, but it was tedious as Fang Yuan could not use his full strength without destroying whatever was inside. And there were numerous mouths, so it would take quite a bit of time for them to look through all of them.
That said, it wasn't as if they were going anywhere. And even if the Bei clan had understood what was going on, they would without a doubt still take time to get here.
Bai Ning Bing was the first person to get something. "Look at this! Bone-Flesh Gu," she said, smiling. Bone-Flesh Gu was a very powerful healing type Gu.
"Hmm, that's good. Let's keep looking," Fang Yuan said. He was the next one to get something. It was the Footless Bird. 'What a wonderful kind of movement type Gu,' he thought to himself. 'With a flying White Form Immortal Snake and Hundred Li Earthwolf Spider, its usefulness is somewhat limited to me, however.'
Given the fact that it was just a single-use gu worm, it could take the user 10,000 li, which was beyond the scope of either of the other Gu worms in question, but they could be used over and over again.
They continued smashing the teeth. "Jade Bone Gu," Fang Yuan said, happening upon it. Bai Ning Bing stared at it. She wanted it because it could make one's bones extremely strong, combined with her ice muscles. It would greatly increase her own fighting power.
"You can exchange it for ownership of the Dollhouse," Fang Yuan said with a wry smile on his face.
"Gu Yue Fang Yuan," Bai Ning Bing said, stopping in her tracks. "When do you intend to give me the Yang Rotation Gu?"
Fang Yuan had earlier said that he would give it to her as long as she helped him, but she knew Fang Yuan's true nature. He would take back his words as easily as eating or drinking, and the chances that he would willingly hand over the Yang Rotation Gu were next to nothing.
At the same time, he was not someone she could trifle with. Although she could not fight Fang Yuan in a head-on fight, that didn't mean that she couldn't severely injure him, especially once her Northern Dark Ice Soul physique returned.
"Now, now, Bai Ning Bing," Fang Yuan said. "Didn't you hear what they said at the Dollhouse? There's another inheritance waiting for us, a possible immortal inheritance, don't you want that? Do you really want to turn into a man if it will disqualify you from getting that?"
Bai Ning Bing paused. The White Form Immortal Snake had taken her to the Bai clan's true inheritance, where she had learned how it might be possible for her to survive, even with the Northern Dark Ice Soul physique. Even if she got the Yang Rotation Gu right now, and turned back into a man, eventually she would end up just going back to square one when her Extreme Physique going out of control. In order to survive, she had to ascend to become immortal and get an immortal gu worm of either the Snow or the Ice path.
Where would she get it? Although she had half the recipe for an Immortal Gu, that was still only half. Where would she get the ingredients and all? The only person who could potentially help her was an Immortal. An Immortal, such as the one who had created the Dollhouse.
"For now, we've agreed to split custody of the dollhouse 50/50, haven't we?" Fang Yuan said, waving his hand. Bai Ning Bing snorted. Fang Yuan had refined all the gu worms in the dollhouse after tricking her initially and could detonate them all at will, even if the house spirit would not completely follow him. If he wished to, he could turn the Dollhouse into nothing in the worst case scenario and both of them would end up with nothing.
Bai Ning Bing doubted that he would, given the fact that there were thousands of gu worms in there. However, if he were pushed to it, there was nothing that she felt that this crazy demon couldn't possibly do.
'I need to find Poison Vow Gu,' she thought to herself, 'and then get him into a binding contract.' Even if she didn't want to use the Yang Rotation Gu right now, as long as she had it, that would always leave the pathway open for the future.
They continued smashing in the teeth until what felt like dawn. And it was then that Fang Yuan happened upon it. After he had smashed half the teeth in this mouth, a passageway opened up for them. He smiled. "It looks like we've found our way into the true inheritance!"