The curtain rises

Gu Guangzhi was waiting in a large room along with several other gu masters with varying levels of cultivation. They seemed to have different backgrounds and did not seem to be a part of Jia clan. He identified some of them as the gu masters whom he had made acquaintances with as he travelled in the caravan.

The Jia clan's caravans didn't solely consist of Jia clan merchants. Every year, several neighboring clan merchants would join the caravan to sell their goods along the way. The Jia clan would charge them an appropriate fee for this. These merchants would often bring some gu masters from their own clans or hire lone gu masters found within Jia city to protect their goods during the travel. Thus there were always a good number of unaffiliated gu masters present in Jia city looking to make a living.

Jia Fu entered the large room after a while and greeted the gu masters present. After making a few pleasantries, one of the gu masters present asked, "Bother Jia Fu, what is going on? Did the Jia clan leader decide to punish your brother for his crimes? Tell us, we will always stay by your side." The murder of Jia Jin Sheng had already become common knowledge and like any organization, people took sides on the matter. Many of the gu masters present here were either his direct subordinates or subordinates of gu merchants that sided with Jia Fu. They had much to lose and gain from this conflict.

"Sigh. No brother Meng Lei. Even though the evidence is right in front of his eyes, he refuses to punish Jia Gui as of now. Furthermore, he has forbidden direct confrontations. The only comfort I have is that he has sent a request to the divine investigator Tie Xue Leng to look into my late brother's death. I guess we have to take the justice into our own hands to deal him a crippling blow!", said Jia Fu with a determined look on his face.

"But… brother Jia Fu… didn't you say that your father has forbidden direct confrontation? We definitely can't offend him after he explicitly forbade it.", said Meng Lei as he weaseled out.

'Tch. This is the kind of people I'm stuck with. Spineless and fickle. If I had better friends and subordinates, I would've been named successor long ago. I guess father's plan behind the gu fighting competition is to gather better forces for myself.', thought Jia Fu. He spoke up, "Of course, we wouldn't disobey father. The thing is, father has decided to host a gu fighting competition from this year onwards in the memory of my late brother, Jia Jin Sheng. The competition will last for a month and be held in the new arena that is being constructed. This is a good opportunity for us to target my brother's subordinates who will be participating in the competition to cripple his forces."

"Ohh…", said a few gu masters. The reaction was not as enthusiastic as he expected.

Jia Fu continued, "He wants to make this gu fighting competition as great as the Shang city's battle stage. So he has decided to contribute several gu resources from the clan worth up to one million primeval stones into the prize pool."

All of the gu masters ears perked up when they heard that extravagant prize pool. To gu masters like them, they've never had a million primeval stones on them at any point in their lives. They felt that their chance to shine had come in their lives. Some of the more experienced gu masters who participated in similar competitions before knew that the winner of the competition wouldn't get a million primeval stones but all the prizes combined would be worth one million primeval stones instead. Though the Jia clan was a large clan, a million primeval stones was not a small amount even for them. Nevertheless, they were interested in the competition.

Gu Guangzhi was also interested in the competition. He felt that this was a good opportunity for him to test and get accustomed to the new transformation gu insects he wanted to refine. So he decided to join to improve himself. Yu Wen Zi had recovered a lot but didn't want to participate in the competition. He had many precious gu insects on him and it was a common practice in these fights to take one gu insect from a defeated opponent after the match. He didn't want any of his secrets exposed so he decided to stay away from the competition.

Jia Fu was happy with the enthusiasm from the gu masters present. So he concluded the meeting saying that he would reward the gu masters who would take care of the gu masters who sided with Jia Gui in addition to the rewards from the competition. In another part of city, Jia Gui was holding a similar meeting with gu masters he knew to take care of the forces under his brother Jia Fu. As the two brothers were making plans to take care of each others forces, the news of the gu fighting competition made rounds quickly in several clans nearby.

The news even reached some super clans like Fei clan and Yao clan. They chuckled to themselves as they thought that Jia clan might've tried to take a bite off more than they can chew. It was not easy to replicate the success of Shang city's battle stage. Both Fei clan and Yao clan had tried to replicate the battle stage but they didn't have much success. The costs were too high and not many gu masters entered these competitions. They wanted to laugh at Jia clan's misery once they failed. But something miraculous happened.

Several gu masters knew about Jia clan's predicament. They knew that the clan elder was very old and his sons were fighting over the assets. So when they heard of the prizes worth a million primeval stones, they thought that this competition was a good chance to squeeze all the benefits they can out of the dying Jia clan. The Jia city was beautiful in the autumn season and since this competition wasn't a year round competition like the one in Shang city, many gu masters made their way to witness the competition and enjoy themselves in autumn. Tens of thousands of visitors to Jia city brought new business and Jia family wasn't blind to it. They were busy building temporary accommodations, hotels and other facilities to make more profits.

As all this was going on, Gu Guangzhi successfully refined several transformation path gu insects that he needed and started to get used to them. Within just a month's time, the Jia city was bustling with people as the grand curtain of gu fighting competition rises.