The first was the Poison Vow Gu. There was no known way to get out of the effects of Poison Vow Gu. Bai Ning Bing knew this. She had been searching for a way herself secretly to no avail.
As she thought about it, however, that didn't necessarily mean that Fang Yuan might not have one.
Fang Yuan had a massive number of tricks up his sleeve, many of which she simply could not explain. He seemed to know things that he shouldn't have known. He seemed to skyrocket past the ranks even faster than she could; someone with one of the Ten Extreme Physiques. He had knowledge of the world of Immortals to a small degree. He also possessed several strange gu worms that she wasn't sure where he had gotten from nor had seen anywhere else.
She only knew a small fraction of what he could do. And yet, that only made him more mysterious and oppressive in her eyes; knowing that he hadn't played all of his cards yet. In her mind he took on the appearance of a looming, shadowy figure that she couldn't see the full details of.
If Bai Ning Bing had been like Shang Xin Ci or the other Gu Yue Clansmen who thought that Fang Yuan was a righteous cultivator, she wouldn't have been nearly as afraid. However, she had picked up on his true nature immediately.
And yet, despite being a cruel and vicious demon at heart, Fang Yuan masqueraded under a pretense of righteousness, oftentimes when there was no real reason to do so.
She could understand that had he been weak, he might have gone along with his clan's rules and regulations for the time being. However, Fang Yuan, on the contrary, was strong. He was Rank 5 by this point. He did not truly need Gu Yue Village, and slaughtering them all and taking the resources would even be of some benefit to him.
Yet he had not done so multiple times. Along his journey he had made decisions which were completely baffling to Bai Ning Bing, and yet things seemed to always end up in his favor despite this incoherent planning on his part.
The only real exception to this was his fight with Liu Nan and its aftermath. Bai Ning Bing to this point still did not know who Liu Nan was or why he had a bone to pick with Fang Yuan, but that was the only real defeat that Fang Yuan had ever tasted.
The second problem was that even if he did have a way out of the Poison Vow Gu's effects, Bai Ning Bing still had his Scouting Hive Gu as collateral. It was a Rank 5 Gu and hardly super essential to someone like Fang Yuan, but also important enough that anyone would not readily lose it unless the gains were far higher than this.
Bai Ning Bing had no doubt that Fang Yuan would abandon everything and run if the benefits were high enough. The problem was that Fang Yuan really wasn't in that deep of a hole right now. He could definitely have found several ways to pay off his debts given enough time. He could easily get favorable repayment options being a Purple Thorn Token holder and a Rank 5 Gu Master to boot. If he worked with Shang Yan Fei getting his debts cleared wasn't that big of a deal. And the benefits of leaving would not have been anywhere near worth the stigma of severing ties with her or the Shang Clan - there was still that Gu House he was so interest in, after all.
"All right, I'll go and try and look for him myself," Bai Ning Bing said, reassuring Shang Xin Ci. "But I need to know a few things first. Are you sure that the guards saw nothing? They saw no trace of him leaving the city?"
"No. The guards never saw someone like Fang Yuan leave," Shang Xin Ci said. It was nearly impossible that they would not recognize Fang Yuan given how famous he was within the city, especially after his recent fight with Liu Nan. As for leaving under the cover of some disguise, while possible, the Shang Clan Supreme Elders had their methods for tracking such deception.
"What about leaving through the sky?" Bai Ning Bing asked. The first day she had come to the city, she had seen a massive flying whale approach and skip the line entirely.
"The skies are also watched by our Shang Clan," Shang Xin Ci said. "One cannot fly in and out over the city walls without express permission first. I have also asked about that. He was not among anyone who had flown out of the city."
"That means that he must be within Shang Clan City, then," Bai Ning Bing said.
This, of course, posed its own problems. She didn't know of any way for Fang Yuan to hide his Rank 5 aura. Even if he could, his face was simply famous enough that walking around would cause a commotion wherever he went. Moreover, there was no reason to do so.
"Do you think that someone could have gotten to him?" Shang Xin Ci repeated her same worries from before. "That man Liu Nan... he was very nasty. Who knows if he had associates within the city who were looking to get at Fang Yuan?"
"Seems unlikely," Bai Ning Bing said, frowning and folding her arms across her chest. "Again, Fang Yuan isn't that easy to kill. He has powerful healing and defensive methods. And we haven't heard of any other Rank 5 Gu Masters coming into the city, have we?"
Shang Xin Ci shook her head.
"Then that means the chances of him dying are low. On the other hand, the chances of him hiding somewhere, perhaps in seclusion cultivation..." Bai Ning Bing said, trailing off. "I suppose I have no choice. I'll see if I can perhaps find him."
"Ah, Lady Ling Ding Ching, I have one question-"
"It's sir," Bai Ning Bing said, snapping.
"Ah, right, of course," Shang Xin Ci said. "My apologies. But do you happen to have a way of knowing whether or not he is still alive?"
She had heard of certain gu worms like that.
"No, I have nothing of the sort," Bai Ning Bing. She certainly hoped that he wasn't dead - not out of any sense of comradery, mind you, but because it would cause a number of problems for her.
For one, the loss of the Yang Rotation Gu. Secondly, it would mean that parts of the Poison Vow Gu could not easily be resolved. Even if Fang Yuan died, the dao marks made by the Poison Vow Gu still lingered on Bai Ning Bing. And there was no clause in their agreement about terminating it if the other party died. Simply put, they had assumed that if the other died there was no need for further discussion. It was also a way to dissuade each other from killing one another through some loophole. Though now that Bai Ning Bing thought of it, it may have been prudent to do so at the time.
The reason this was an issue was that the Poison Vow Gu did state that they were to help each other if the other was in danger within certain reasonable considerations. The wording did allow for some leeway; however, it could not be said to be 'normal' that Fang Yuan was gone for two weeks meaning that there was a reasonable chance he was in mortal peril. And once Bai Ning Bing acknowledged that, it meant that she had to act upon it.
Bai Ning Bing let out a sigh, vowing to give Fang Yuan an earful when she happened to find him.
Of course, the moment that she happened to leave the the hotel they were in - the question naturally arose as to where she should start.