And so the stalemate continued.
Two weeks passed. She was constantly enveloped by a group of Gu Masters, at least two Rank 4s and multiple Rank 3s, ready to strike her if she tried to break out.
It wasn't that she couldn't necessarily break out. Although the lay of the land was not favorable to her, her overwhelming strength could compensate for it. The problem was that she would run out of essence long before she could get away, and by that point, the two villages with greater resources would be able to catch up to her.
She could try breaking through to Rank 4 Peak Stage even now, but with her limited supply of primeval essence, that would take time. Since she couldn't exhaust herself in case they tried to attack her, it could take months, if not years, to reach that stage.
She could only curse her bad luck for having been in this situation in the first place. She had set out to find Fang Yuan and had become trapped herself.
Speaking of which, her only real hope of getting out of the situation was Fang Yuan. Their Poison Vow Gu agreement did dictate that they were supposed to rescue each other, not to mention Fang Yuan had a vested interest in keeping her alive simply because of the Dollhouse.
However, Fang Yuan would need to know where she was first, and without an easy way to communicate between the two of them, even if he did show up at Shang Clan City at some point, how was he going to find her in time? Bai Ning Bing hadn't told anyone where she was going, and there was no reason for Fang Yuan to search for her here.
The cliffs to her back were home to various wild animals. She was not afraid of most of them, but her movement would be impaired, and there were likely some thousand or even myriad beast kings there.
With that said, Bai Ning Bing was not nervous. Her worms had been fed recently, so she could continue in this state for a while. The Gu Masters surrounding her would continue to be supplied by their villages, but she could last for quite some time as well.
For one, she knew that the villages could not continue with this 'siege' for too long. It must have been draining their resources to a vast amount to have so many of their upper brass stationed here. Sooner or later, they would either mess up, or an opening would show itself for her to break through.
And if that didn't happen, she could always make one on her own.
Thinking of Fang Yuan made her think as to what he would have done in this situation, and she couldn't imagine him sitting here just waiting for the right time to pass. Perhaps that is part of what he would do, but he would definitely have a backup plan.
She didn't need to defeat all the Gu Masters who were outside. She only needed to sow enough discord to get them to turn on each other.
Xiang Xie was going to be hard to convince. She didn't have anything on her at the moment that could pay off the mercenary, and as far as she knew, although he was a man who had a reputation for being willing to take any kind of job so long as the pay was right, he also had a reputation for being loyal to his clients. That was certainly necessary while working as a mercenary; otherwise, one would not find another job in the future.
Granted, that was only if the reward wasn't big enough. She was sure that if a carrot large enough was dangled in front of him, he would forget about his reputation as a mercenary and gobble it right up.
Unfortunately, she had nothing like that on her, especially when compared to the wealth that could be within the Thought Ruler Demon Lord's inheritance.
With Xiang Zhu not a viable target, she only needed to turn towards the two clan heads. It was here that her chances of succeeding were far higher. After all, the clan heads, although they might have been working together right now, must have had a history of deep animosity between the two of them.
"Zhu clan members, surely you must be wary of what the Jun Clan will do if they happen to find this inheritance. Do you think that they'll really continue supporting you once it is over? The two of you will be at each other's throats once this is all over. Understanding that, can you truly trust them to have your back when you try to delve into this inheritance? bInheritance grounds are filled with pitfalls and dangers. It would be childishly easy for them to dig out a trap and make it seem that you had fallen into it naturally, and avoid all the blame, appearing righteous while they leave you to die."
She said the same thing to the Jun Clan as well.
She liked to think that her words were having some sort of effect, however if they did, the Gu Masters surrounding her did not show it.
As time dragged on by, she began wondering just what it was within the Thought Ruler Demon Lord's inheritance that was so valuable. A simple Rank 5 inheritance - certainly someone like her would kill for it (it should be noted that this was not a high bar to clear) - but this seemed to be going overboard.
Since they hadn't uncovered it yet, it must have meant that it was quite difficult.
Her hunch was proven correct when she noticed that for a gap of five days, there was only the Jun Clan leader and Xiang Xie guarding her, not the Zhu Clan leader. The Jun Clan leader naturally wouldn't have left his village unattended and allowed the Zhu Clan leader to go back home for such an extended period of time, so why wasn't the Zhu Clan leader there, even though it must have exhausted the two of them to continue keeping an eye on her?
It was simple. It was because the Zhu Clan head had been injured while trying to explore the inheritance.
Bai Ning Bing even tried to appeal to the Jun Clan head at this point, saying that the Zhu Clan head might have been faking his injuries and scheming against them once again.
If there was any response, they certainly didn't show it, but she did think that her words were having an unsettling effect upon them.
All she had to do was wait for an opportunity...