Two days!
Forty-eight hours passed in the blink of an eye, and to Gu Fan's surprise, Xiao Mei never showed up at the shed again.
Whether the servant girl had fled in sheer terror, believing she had awakened a demon, or was simply hiding in her quarters nursing the bite on her ankle, Gu Fan didn't know. Nor did he care.
For the time being, her absence bought him precious time.
But more importantly, it highlighted a simple, pathetic truth. Nobody in this clan, nor even his father the Clan Patriarch cared about the bastard young master of the Gu Clan.
If he starved to death by himself in this shed, it would take a week for anyone to notice the smell.
Besides, the Gu Clan right now had no time for a bastard cripple. For the past forty-eight hours, the entire estate was vibrating with manic anticipation for something far more important.
Sitting in the shadows, Gu Fan could hear the distant sounds of firecrackers, the bustling of servants carrying premium Spirit meat, Foundation Establishment Pills, Spirit Gathering Grass, and what not along with the boisterous laughter of the Clan Elders.
The Second Miss, Gu Ling, the clan's other prodigious genius, at just the age of seventeen was going to enter a secluded meditation, preparing to break through to the Spirit Realm.
It was a momentous occasion, an event that would solidify the clan's wavering standing in the region. First, it was the protagonist, Gu Chen, with his Heavenly Eyes. And now it was Gu Ling, with her fabled Frost Veins.
Riding the coattails of these two heaven-defying youths, the Gu Clan Head, Gu Fan's biological father, Gu Yangtian desperately hoped to claw his way back to the apex of the region.
"Pathetic," Gu Fan muttered, leaning against the rotting wooden wall, casually tossing a pebble into the air.
He knew the truth behind Gu Yangtian's desperation. For the last hundred years, the Gu Clan had been on a miserable decline. No one in the main family had managed to cultivate further than the Origin Realm.
Even Gu Yangtian had been hard-stuck at the 8th Stage of the Origin Realm for two decades, and now even he knew that his potential was thoroughly exhausted.
Ever since the clan's only Nascent Soul cultivator, Gu Yangtian's father and the Clan Ancestor, Gu Yan, mysteriously disappeared in the forbidden zones sixty years ago, the Gu Clan had been a wounded beast surrounded by wolves.
And those wolves were steadily pushing them into a corner.
Gu Fan closed his eyes, his "Author's Brain" effortlessly pulling up the lore document he had meticulously typed out three years ago.
The Gu clan was a powerhouse in the Poison Valley Town.
Situated on the jagged borders of the Ten Thousand Poison Forest, the town was a chaotic hub of mercenaries, rogue cultivators, and opportunistic merchants. Survival here meant having absolute monopolies over the local resources.
The town was ruled by a fragile triad of three clans: The Gu Clan, The Bai Clan, and The Song Clan.
Historically, just a century ago the Gu Clan controlled the lifeblood of the town's economy. They owned the shops that sold detoxifying pills, healing potions, raw spirit herbs, and, ironically, the deadliest poisons used for assassinations and beast hunting. But with the decline in their martial strength, their business was bleeding out as well.
And while they were bleeding out, it was the Bai Clan that was holding the knife.
The Bai family was fighting for the exact same market of potions and poisons. But their methods were far more cutthroat.
They bribed the Gu Clan's Pill Refiners, sabotaged their herb shipments, and aggressively undercut their prices.
In the original story, the Bai Clan was the first major stepping stone for Gu Chen to crush. They were arrogant, wealthy, and currently squeezing the Gu Clan's finances by the throat.
Then there was the Song Clan.
The Song family didn't care about herbs or pills. They were the muscles of the town, controlling the town's iron mines, the armouries, and the artefact forging pavilions.
If a mercenary needed a sword that could pierce a Spirit Beast's hide, they went to the Song Clan.
Because they supplied the weapons, they held a neutral, highly lucrative position.
They watched the Gu and Bai clans tear each other apart over the medicine trade, happy to sell swords to both sides.
"Three clans," Gu Fan whispered to himself, "But they weren't the only predators in the town."
Poison Valley Town was the host to two major branches of continental guilds as well.
The first was the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion. A massive, opulent merchant guild with backing so profound even the local Clan Heads had to bow when entering their doors.
They held monthly auctions where they sold rare cultivation techniques, high-grade artefacts, exotic beasts, legendary herbs and whatever they placed their hands on.
They didn't care about local politics. The only thing that mattered to them was the Spirit Stones. If you had Spirit Stones, you will be treated like Heavenly Emperor in the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion.
And the second was the Blood Iron Mercenary Guild.
This was where the dregs of the society, rogue cultivators, exiled criminals, and desperate mortals gathered to take on quests and bounties.
They hunted beasts in the Poison Forest, escorted merchant caravans, and occasionally did dirty work that the noble clans didn't want traced back to them.
Gu Fan opened his eyes. The pebble fell perfectly into his palm.
He had created this entire world. Sure there were things here and there that might not be detailed in his world.
But he knew the things that mattered.
He knew the hidden stash of Spirit Stones beneath the Bai Clan's main herbal farm.
He knew that the Song Clan's Patriarch was secretly being poisoned by his own wife.
He knew that the Heavenly Treasure Pavilion's local manager, a seemingly aloof beauty, was actually a spy for a demonic sect.
Knowledge was power. And he held the ultimate cheat sheet.
"If I want to cultivate in this world and not end up dead meat, I need to leave this shed."
"I need to find new targets. This Xiao Mei won't do, and that poor girl will be dead in a few days as well." Gu Fan reasoned as he rubbed his ribs. Though he was healed, a flick from Gu Chen was enough to kill him.
But as he stared at the sliver of sunlight piercing through the cracks of the shed, a cold, unsettling thought crept into his mind.
In the original plot, Gu Fan's rotting corpse was supposed to be discovered by Gu Chen in a few days.
Finding the illegitimate cripple son of the Gu Clan head dead like a dog in the dirt was the spark that ignited Gu Chen's righteous fury. It was the catalyst that pushed the protagonist to rebel against the Clan Elders, ultimately leading to his ascension.
'I was supposed to die, but I didn't,' Gu Fan realized, his breath hitching slightly.
He had survived Xiao Mei's visit. There would be no corpse for Gu Chen to find. There would be no righteous fury. The predetermined plot of Divine Poison Sovereign had just derailed in its very first arc.
He clenched his fist, feeling the faint, golden pulse of the parasite seed still siphoning a tiny trickle of vitality from the distant, terrified Xiao Mei.
"I just changed the prologue."
"Will everything remain the same as I remembered it?"