It was tonight that the white moon climbed up the black curtain. Fang Yuan disappeared from his home in an instant, avoiding everyone's sight and arriving at a mountain stream on the edge of the clan's territory. This place was not far from the village. The continuous wall could be seen from afar, with a torch erected every few meters on the beacon tower. To avoid being discovered, Fang Yuan moved as close to the back of the mountain as possible.
There was a bamboo forest meandering into the hinterland, with lush grass, wildflowers, and straight green bamboos. Fang Yuan walked along the path by the stream, and found a huge rock under the moon, where he lay on his back.
At this moment, everything was silent.
Fang Yuan formed a seal, and a circle of smoke exploded from his ninja tool bag. He held two jars of wine in his hands. After opening the mud seal, the fragrant aroma of wine spread out immediately.
"I haven't had a drink in a long time," Fang Yuan sighed. The path he chose was difficult; he was more like a gambler who put everything into it than an ordinary person.
He needed to stay awake at all times. If he failed to make the right decision, what awaited him would be a bottomless abyss. He vaguely remembered that the last time he was drunk was five hundred years ago, in a thatched hut at the foot of Qingmao Mountain. That night, he buried an uncle who had cared for him for a long time, and after choosing a day, he began a dark and wandering life.
In the blink of an eye, five hundred years had passed. Fang Yuan became a demon despised by everyone, led the Central Continent Boundless Blood Cult, and became one in a million Gu Immortals. But what did it matter?
He died again, experienced rebirth again, and came to the ninja world, like a duckweed with no place to stay, with no safe harbor to settle down. Life was too fragile and too short. Fang Yuan had never been so tired before. He wanted to stop and rest, but the torrent of fate still pushed him forward.
At this point, Fang Yuan could only persist, keep moving forward unswervingly, reach the end, and strive for eternal life, seeking final salvation.
"Wine is a thing that makes you forget your worries, but people are always thinking about their worries." Fang Yuan raised his head, picked up the wine jar, and swallowed the wine in big gulps. He drank too fast, and the wine dribbled down his chin, soaking his shirt.
The wine splashed onto the green boulders, the stream gurgled, frogs croaked in the wild, and crickets chirped...
The six-year-old boy had a look of old age in his eyes. He had witnessed many changes in the world. He stood up and drank jar after jar of wine, spreading his arms as if embracing the moon and laughing heartily.
It seemed that a faint group of fireflies in the stream heard the child's laughter and came over curiously. Its chubby white body looked like a fat silkworm, but if you underestimated it, you would be too narrow-minded.
The fat silkworm was seen circling around Fang Yuan at supersonic speed. The moment Fang Yuan saw the figure of the fat silkworm, the corner of his mouth finally lifted slightly, and the Sharingan in his left eye began to move without him noticing.
At a certain moment, Fang Yuan spat a mouthful of wine forward, and the wine hit the fat silkworm's body. The fat silkworm started to spin in excitement, licking the wine in the air at an incredible speed, and before it landed on the ground, it had drunk all of it.
"Little guy, you're so tolerant! Hahaha!" Fang Yuan laughed.
The next moment, the wine bug, which had just finished drinking, trembled violently. Its two small eyes suddenly turned blood red, and the three black magatama began to rotate.
It turned out that Fang Yuan had planted an illusion in the wine. The drunkard, addicted to alcohol, was immediately fooled by Fang Yuan.
Fang Yuan stretched out his hand, grabbed the wine bug, and refined it in an instant. Not long after, Fang Yuan opened his eyes again. His orifices were not yet open, so he could not use the Gu. He could only refine the wine bug in his dantian and wait for the opportunity to open.
This trip to the jungle made Fang Yuan overjoyed. The wine bug was the first Gu worm he had seen in this world, which meant that Gu worms existed here! They were just rare and not easy to find.
"But this is enough. With the Gu worm, I can embark on the path of Gu Master training. This is another promotion route for Quebie and Ninja. It can bring me one step closer to that goal." Fang Yuan decided that he must go to more remote places to look for poisonous insects in the future.
In this world, mountains and deep forests have been developed on a large scale. The number of these heavenly and earthly true spirits is far less than that in the Gu world, so Fang Yuan still has a long way to go in the road of refining Gu.
Now, it's not that his skills are not good enough, but he even lacks raw materials. However, just buying a few jars of inferior wine attracted the alcohol bug, which was indeed a good sign for Fang Yuan.
"The wine bug is already prepared, and we just need to find the Hope Gu or Moonlight Gu to activate it." Although Fang Yuan knew of more than these two kinds of awakening Gu worms, these two were among the easiest to find.
Hope Gu usually parasitizes in deep mountain caves. Wherever there are fluorescent spots on stalactites, pools of water, or thick vine stems, they are basically the places where they live.
As for the Moonlight Gu, it was a Gu insect that grew on the Moonlight Flower, which was exclusively cultivated by their Ancient Moon Clan. This type of flower with a large base and small leaves fits the terrain of the Fire Country, which has many mountains and hills. Fang Yuan had also seen similar flowers many times when he left the village. So he was confident that he could find a moonflower in this foreign land.
"I'm going back first. I drank too much today. I need to change my clothes." After Fang Yuan cleaned up, he left the stream. He left a mark here, hoping to explore deeper in the future to see if he could find traces of other poisonous insects.
The next day.
This time Fang Yuan slept in for a rare time, and he didn't wake up until it was almost noon outside. Before he finished washing up, there were a few soft knocks on the door.
Boom boom boom
The knock on the door was very light; it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was gentle. Fang Yuan didn't even need to guess who was coming.
When Fang Yuan put on his clothes and opened the door, he saw a little girl standing at the door.
"Good morning! Fang Yuan-san." Uchiha Izumi had long, shiny black hair hanging down and looked at Fang Yuan with light in her eyes.
"Here! I brought you breakfast!" Uchiha Izumi pulled her hand back from behind and proudly handed a lunch box to Fang Yuan. She said with a smile:
"I knew you wouldn't take good care of yourself, so I got up early today to make breakfast for you."
"Thanks." Fang Yuan's hand sank, and he thanked her silently. He did not raise his head to look at Uchiha Izumi's sparkling eyes.
"Hey, eat quickly. When you're done, we'll go to the clan leader's house to gather. The gathering bell rang this morning. Mom came back from the meeting and said that the day of the clan competition has been moved up, and all children six years old and under must go to participate."
Quan said to Fang Yuan with a smile.
Fang Yuan paused with his chopsticks in his hand, a little surprised: "Clan competition? Competition of what?"
A group of kids under six years old fighting each other? That would be a little funny, right?
"I don't know. I guess it's about testing the chakra properties. This is what my mother told me. We were not even born during the last clan competition."
Quan sat down at the table, her chin resting on her head, staring at Fang Yuan without blinking. The corners of her mouth were raised, and she was in a very relaxed and happy mood, like a little kitten.
Uchiha Quan didn't understand why he didn't have as much fun playing with other friends as he did with Fang Yuan during the short time he was with him. Just like now, being able to quietly look at Fang Yuan, Uchiha Quan felt very satisfied. She felt that everything was so quiet and harmonious.
I hope time could stop at this moment, watching the sunlight shine on the boy's hair and seeing him slowly eat the food she had carefully prepared. Uchiha Izumi's heart was unconsciously rising and falling...