Liu Nan was sitting in his room, meditating and examining his set of gu worms to ensure they were ready for when he would finally go and confront Fang Yuan.
Suddenly, a messenger burst into his room. Liu Nan turned toward him angrily.
"What is it?"
"Uh, forgive me, Lord Gu Master, but you asked me to inform you the moment we got to know that Fang Yuan was back in the city."
"Oh, right," Liu Nan said, suddenly getting up.
He had initially wanted to stay within the same inn as Fang Yuan and his group simply so that he could surveil them easily, but there had been no rooms available. If he had truly wanted one, he was pretty sure he could influence a shop owner to kick someone out for him. However, he did not want to attract too much attention to himself- not yet that is. This was not his home turf; it was Shang Clan City. Any favor like that would likely come with strings attached.
Not to mention, he did not need to be that close to Fang Yuan for his purpose.
He then shoved the messenger aside as he ran out to go confront Fang Yuan, running as fast as his feet would carry him. Liu Nan had spent most of his time within his room recently. While he had initially gone around to check on sites across the city, the more he saw Shang Clan City, the more he began to detest it, and the fact that he had to be here.
"Excuse me, waitress, my boyfriend specifically asked for breast milk in his tea!"
Liu Nan heard the complaint from a tea shop he knew to avoid now as someone plopped themselves in front of him with a toothy grin.
"Sir, would you be interested in buying some feet pictures of some jade beauties? I have several Audio-Visual Gu that have the most delectable and delicate feet on them..."
"I'm not interested!" Liu Nan told the man before he heard a shout from behind him.
"Boy, have you been shaving your feet and making them look like a woman's to sell them on some Audio-Visual Gu again?"
Liu Nan continued walking down the street.
"The latest chapter of I Can Use Girl's Bathwater To Make SSSSS+ Ranked Alchemical Potions has just dropped! Get it fresh off the press!" a hawker yelled out, before he was quickly surrounded by buyers.
Liu Nan shook his head as he continued, thinking inwardly, 'This entire city must be purged.'
"I'm here to see Fang Yuan," he said to the person greeting him. It was the same receptionist as last time.
The receptionist stammered nervously, "Sir, I'm sorry, but-"
"Sorry? But what? I know he's here! Don't try lying to me!" Liu Nan said, pointing a finger right at him.
"No, no, Fang Yuan is indeed staying here. However, he left just an hour ago."
"Left? Where did he go?"
"He went to a rock gambling den..."
Once Liu Nan got the details, he rushed toward the place in question ignoring the receptionist's offer to let him stay and wait for Fang Yuan. He didn't want to potentially miss him again.
Fang Yuan, for his part, was giving Shang Xin Ci another lesson when he had taken her to the rock gambling house. She found this to be a bit odd, but Fang Yuan said that it was an important aspect of Gu Master cultivation.
"You may even end up running gambling rocks as a business in the future, Shang Xin Ci. It's a good part of the Shang Clan business, and it might not be a bad idea to see how things are," Fang Yuan said. As it was, Shang Xin Ci was not one to doubt Fang Yuan or any of his words, so she went along with this.
"Teacher, what kind of rock should I get?" Shang Xin Ci asked, watching the people around them.
"Since this is your first time and we just want you to practice, you can just get something cheap. We're just here to show you the ropes, after all," Fang Yuan said, dismissing the man who had offered to show them around the establishment and was peddling only the most expensive stones.
Shang Xin Ci walked around the shop with Fang Yuan, admiring the wares, until he ended up bumping into a table.
"Teacher, watch out!" Shang Xin Ci said.
"Oh, I just happened to bump into it because it was a bit uneven. Why is it like this?" Fang Yuan said, noting that a rock had been used to prop up the table as it was slightly uneven. He took the rock in question out. "This seems to be rather low quality. I bet we could get this for cheap, Shang Xin Ci. Since this is your first time trying one of these, why don't we use this? Chances of there actually being something are negligible. And I'll show you the right way to open it."
"All right, Teacher," Shang Xin Ci said.
"Yes, excuse me! How much for this rock?" Fang Yuan said, turning towards one of the shop members.
"Oh customer, that's not really for sale, but if you want it, we can give it to you for one primeval stone. However, honestly, the odds of you getting something useful in that are rather low. We have far higher quality stones. If you'd come with me-"
"Maybe we'll see them later," Fang Yuan said, waving his hand.
Obviously, the people within the gambling den had turned their eyes toward him when they noticed his Rank Five Middle Stage cultivation. They assumed he had deep pockets and were trying to upsell him. Not only that, he was known to have a Purple Thorn Token, and on top of which, he was escorting one of the daughters of the clan leader. None of them wanted to offend him which is why they were only offering the best of their goods, but Fang Yuan ignored most of what they were saying.
"You can use gu worms in order to open up such kinds of fossils, Shang Xin Ci," Fang Yuan said. "You have the Bone Spear Gu, right? But that's not very useful for opening up rocks- you may end up breaking them. You can try the Gu I gave you instead."
Fang Yuan had given her a Moonlight Gu, which she had already seen while in the new Gu Yue Village, so it was not a big deal to give her the Rank One version. As it was, any of the advanced versions were with the Gu Yue Clan entirely, and Fang Yuan needed her to have some way to open the rock for his plan to work.
"All right, let me try," Shang Xin Ci said. She tried putting energy into the Moonlight Gu so that it could start dissecting the rock in a slow way, only putting in the barest minimum of effort. She soon began to realize why it was that Fang Yuan wanted to show her this - it required far more control and finesse than she would've expected.
"If you're a bit unsure, I can do this one for you, and you can try with another one," Fang Yuan offered.
"Oh, well, all right then," Shang Xin Ci said after she was about one-fourth done with it but felt like she was going to lose control.
"Let me do it, then," Fang Yuan said, declining a shopkeeper's offer to have someone else open it for him free of charge. "The young lady is training in this way. Please do not disturb us."
"Ah, forgive me, forgive me."
Fang Yuan showed Shang Xin Ci how to do it gently, slowly eroding the rock away until he was able to open it and showed... nothing!?
"Well, you were right. There really is nothing here Teacher," Shang Xin Ci said. "But thank you for showing me this. If I have a few other rocks, I can try to open them on my own."