The towering shadow outside the paper window did not bother knocking on the front door.
Crack-Bam!
A meaty, iron-gauntleted hand slapped straight against the wooden lattice of the bedroom window. The blow rattled the frame in its sockets and shook loose a clump of frost from the eaves.
“Gu Changsheng! Get your crippled carcass out here!”
A harsh, booming voice echoed across the Third Branch courtyard. Standing directly outside the bedroom window in a black raccoon-fur cloak was Deacon Gu Hu. He was Second Elder Gu Ba’s younger cousin and the chief enforcer of the Gu Clan Disciplinary Hall.
A burly Rank 1 Peak Martial bully with a pair of heavy iron shackles dangling from his belt.
Behind Deacon Gu Hu stood four Second Branch bailiffs holding wooden arrest staves.
Because Lin Fan had been dragged to the town magistrate’s shed in disgrace at midnight. Second Elder Gu Ba was still nursing his four missing molars in bed, the Second Branch had lost all face. Before dawn even broke, Gu Ba had dispatched Deacon Gu Hu with a brand-new trumped-up charge to get revenge on Gu Changsheng through his eight-year-old son.
“By order of the Clan Disciplinary Hall, we are here to arrest the little bastard Gu Nian!” Deacon Gu Hu sneered. He leaned his scarred, bulbous nose right up against the translucent window paper as he peered greedily into the warm room.
“Last night, someone dug up the sacred soil behind the Old Ancestor Tomb and stole graveyard firewood!
A witness saw an eight-year-old brat in a patched coat sneaking down the hill! Hand the boy over to be chained in the cold-water dungeon for thirty days, or I’ll smash through this window and drag him out by his hair!”
Inside the warm bedroom, the cozy morning atmosphere froze for a split second.
Sitting on the edge of the heated kang bed, eight-year-old Gu Nian stiffened as if struck by lightning.
For three long years, the words Disciplinary Hall and Second Branch Enforcer had been the stuff of his darkest nightmares. Every time those black-cloaked bailiffs came to the yard while his father lay sick in bed, they had kicked over the porridge pot, spat on his clothes. Threatened to lock him in an iron cage.
Instinctively, a flash of cold, violent black-gold light flickered in the depths of Gu Nian’s pupils. His small shoulders hunched, and his right hand twitched toward the crack behind the bedroom door where he used to hide his rusted kitchen cleaver.
Before that old, feral panic could take root in his chest, however, a broad, warm hand rested gently on top of his head and ruffled his hair.
“Hey, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng said in an unhurried, conversational voice. He sat calmly at the low table with his teacup in hand while Grandpa Fu stood tall and straight by the doorway without a trace of fear. “Did you hear what that loud uncle outside the window just said?”
Gu Nian blinked. The dark, murderous haze in his eyes receded at the touch of his father’s warm palm. He looked up at Gu Changsheng and shook his head.
“He said he wants to smash our newly heated window and drag my son to a cold dungeon on a fake firewood charge,” Gu Changsheng said. He pointed a bamboo chopstick toward the windowpane where Deacon Gu Hu’s ugly nose was pressed flat against the paper. “Tell me, Nian’er—whose house is this?”
“Ours,” Gu Nian whispered, his small fists clenching at his sides.
“And did you steal any firewood last night?”
“No!” Gu Nian said indignantly. “We buried the ancestor properly!”
“Right. And what did those eight [Blood-Jade Ginseng & Pork Soup Dumplings] you just ate do to your bones?”
Gu Nian looked down at his own small hands.
All night long, the Warm-Marrow Tomb Jade beneath the heated kang bed had nourished his meridians. Now, the eight Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng dumplings had just ignited in his belly like a miniature golden sun.
Hummm—Pop!
Deep inside the eight-year-old boy’s spine, his Innate Chaos Demon Bone let out a clear, resonant hum. Because it had been fed with warm paternal care and flaw-free medicinal broth instead of hatred and blood, it sounded not like a wailing ghost, but like a young golden dragon waking from slumber.
In a single breath, eight-year-old Gu Nian skipped straight past the beginner threshold. He broke cleanly into Rank 1 Early Martial, carrying five hundred pounds of base martial force plus three hundred pounds of innate Chaos-Bone might.
“You’re a Rank 1 martial artist now, Nian’er, and you’re wearing the [Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers] Dad made for you,” Gu Changsheng said with an encouraging nod toward the rattling window. “You don’t need to hide behind doors with a rusty knife anymore. When a bad guy comes to our window to bully us, kick him square in the nose.
Whatever happens, Dad is right behind you.”
Whatever happens, Dad is right behind you.
Those seven simple words struck the final, lingering shell of fear around Gu Nian’s eight-year-old heart and shattered it into dust.
He wasn’t an unwanted monster fighting alone in the dark anymore. He had a full belly, warm bunny slippers on his feet, a tall Grandpa Fu at the door, and a dad who would whip the Emperor himself for looking at him crooked.
“Okay, Dad!”
Gu Nian’s black-gold eyes lit up like twin morning stars.
There was no dark madness or sinister cruelty in his face—only the bright, righteous anger of an eight-year-old boy defending his warm home. Gu Nian hopped down from the brick bed and took a three-step running start across the heated slate floor.
Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!
The floppy yellow ears on his [Rank 1 Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers] bounced wildly as he leaped three feet into the air. Channeling all eight hundred pounds of his newly awakened Chaos-Bone strength and the slipper’s Tomb-Iron sole into his right heel, he kicked the wooden window shutters wide open.
Outside the window, Deacon Gu Hu was just raising his iron shackles with a cruel grin. “Gu Changsheng, are you deaf? I said—”
“Get off my dad’s window, you big ugly liar!”
A clear, childish voice rang out as the wooden shutters flew open. Before Deacon Gu Hu’s brain could register why a fluffy yellow cotton rabbit with pink button eyes was hurtling straight toward his face. The Tomb-Iron sole of Gu Nian’s right slipper stamped squarely onto the bridge of his nose.
Crack—Boom!
With five hundred pounds of Rank 1 Early strength plus the slipper’s three-hundred-pound stamping bonus, that single kick carried the full eight-hundred-pound force of a galloping warhorse.
“Aargh—!”
Deacon Gu Hu didn’t even get to swing his iron shackles.
His bulbous nose flattened with a loud crunch of cartilage, and two front teeth shot out of his mouth like white pebbles. A heartbeat later, his two-hundred-pound body was launched fifteen feet backward across the courtyard.
Crash!
Deacon Gu Hu plowed headfirst through three snowdrifts and slammed into the four Second Branch bailiffs behind him. All five grown men bowled over into a tangled, groaning pile at the courtyard gate, with two fuzzy yellow bunny-paw footprints stamped deep into the purple flesh of Deacon Gu Hu’s cheeks.
“M-my nose! Who hit me with an iron hammer?!” Deacon Gu Hu howled.
He rolled in the snow with blood gushing between his fingers as he stared in sheer terror at the bedroom window.
Standing on the warm windowsill inside, framed by rising dumpling steam, was eight-year-old Gu Nian in his yellow lambswool bunny slippers. His small hands were planted on his hips, and his chin was held high.
Right behind the boy, Gu Changsheng leaned casually against the window frame with his teacup. At the same time, newly straightened Rank 1 Mid Grandpa Fu stepped out the front door, swinging his heavy iron abacus with a cold, booming voice:.
“Deacon Gu Hu! Breaking one cedar window latch: fifty silver! Tracking dirty snow onto the Third Branch porch: fifty silver!
Attempting to kidnap the Young Master’s son without a Clan Patriarch warrant: three hundred silver! Pay up in ten breaths, or I’ll have the Young Master take off his belt!”
Hearing the dreaded words take off his belt—and remembering how Second Elder Gu Ba had lost four molars and five hundred silver the day before—the four Second Branch bailiffs turned white as sheets.
“Don’t take off the belt! We’re paying! We’re paying right now!”
The bailiffs didn’t dare wait a single second. They emptied Deacon Gu Hu’s heavy leather purse of eighty silver taels onto the gate stone, hoisted the groaning, bunny-stamped deacon onto their shoulders, and bolted down Willow-West Alley faster than stray dogs.
Inside the warm bedroom, Gu Nian hopped down from the windowsill onto the heated slate floor.
His chest rose and fell rapidly from the excitement of his very first real martial strike. He looked up at Gu Changsheng half-nervously, wondering if he had kicked too hard or ruined the new bunny slippers.
Instead of scolding him, Gu Changsheng set down his teacup, knelt on one knee in front of his son, and reached into the Upgrade Box’s reward slot.
When Gu Changsheng opened his palm, a small, glowing cloth flower the color of morning sunrise rested in his hand. It was the system’s special [Little Red Flower of Good Citizenship (+5% All-Around Cultivation Speed)].
Carefully, gently, Gu Changsheng pinned the glowing [Little Red Flower Sticker] right onto the front pocket of Gu Nian’s yellow home smock, smoothing the soft red petals flat against the boy’s chest.
“Strong kick, clean form, and you didn’t let your temper control your head,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, looking straight into his son’s black-gold eyes. “Good job protecting our house today, Nian’er. Here is your very first Little Red Flower.”
Gu Nian froze completely.
He looked down at the bright red cloth flower glowing warmly over his heart.
In his short eight years of life, people in Frost-Pine Town had called him a jinx, a wolf-cub, a broom-star who killed his own mother, and a crippled branch’s trash. Nobody had ever praised him. Nobody had ever given him a Little Red Flower for being a good boy.
Gu Nian’s small fingers came up and touched the soft red petals. His lower lip quivered once, twice—and then the stubborn eight-year-old boy threw both arms around Gu Changsheng’s neck, buried his face in his father’s warm shoulder, and held on as tight as he could.
“Dad...” Gu Nian whispered, his voice muffled against Gu Changsheng’s collar. “I’ll get a hundred Little Red Flowers.
I’ll protect our house every day.”
“I know you will, son,” Gu Changsheng said softly, patting the boy’s small back.
At that exact instant, a cascade of brilliant golden light exploded across Gu Changsheng’s vision as the system’s grand milestone fanfare chimed inside his mind:.
[ DING! STAGE 1 GRAND MILESTONE — CHILD #1 REDEEMED BELOW 20%! ]
* Child #1 : Gu Nian (Age 8 | Innate Chaos Demon Bone)
* Cultivation : Rank 1 Early Martial (+5% Red Flower Speed!)
* Warmth Index : 91/100 -> 96/100 (Deep Father-Son Trust!)
* Darkening Meter: 20% -> 18% (CROSSED BELOW THE 20% THRESHOLD!)
[ PERMANENT 10X REDEEMED KID BONUS UNLOCKED! ]
* Standard Rank 1 Daily Payout : +10 DP/day.
* 10x Redeemed Final-Boss Kid : +100 DP/day (Scales 10x per Rank!)
* Instant Threshold Jackpot : +300 DP Bonus Awarded!
* Current DP Balance : 90 + 120 (Midnight) + 300 = 510 DP.
* New Total Daily DP Income : +450 DP/day!
Five hundred and ten Dad Points sat in his account, and four hundred and fifty DP would roll in every single day.
Just as Gu Changsheng picked Gu Nian up in one arm to serve the rest of the hot breakfast dumplings, however, a sudden racket shattered the morning calm.
Crash—Smash!
A loud sound of shattering porcelain medicine jars and splintering wood echoed from right over the eastern courtyard wall. Right after the crash came a young woman’s furious, desperate shout from the Hundred-Herb Clinic next door:.
“Get out of my clinic! Even if I die here today, I will never sell my late father’s Jade-Dew Pill Recipe to the Gu Clan Second Branch!”