The Imperial Highway north of Azure-Cloud Prefecture was paved with jagged gray granite and deep military ruts. Every time the front iron wheel dropped into a pothole, the heavy frame of the [Rank 3 Armored Spirit-Ox Family RV] groaned like an old carpenter’s bench.
Outside in the biting autumn wind, captured Half-Step Rank 4 Envoy Zhao let out a wet, whistling sniffle. Eight of his front teeth were missing from yesterday’s spatula slap, so every breath hissed through the gap. He wore a frilly Pink Chore Apron tied snug over his torn capital brocade robes, with a stitched yellow duck smiling across his chest pocket.
A thick iron tow-chain ran from the padded harness on Envoy Zhao’s shoulders to the trailing two-wheel luggage cart. The cart was stacked high with thirty jars of pickled cabbage, ten sacks of five-grain rice, spare iron woks, and firewood.
“Pick up your heels, Envoy Zhao,” Grandpa Fu called from the driver’s bench, clicking his [Jade-Abacus Cane] against the footboard. “Sky-Crown City is eight hundred miles north. If we don’t average eighty miles a day, we won’t reach the Royal Capital inside ten days.”
Envoy Zhao wiped a frozen tear off his bruised cheek with the hem of his pink apron. “I am a Half-Step Rank 4 royal emissary of Second Prince Qian Ye! In the capital, county magistrates kneel to wipe my boots!”
“And out here, you’re the backup mule for the cabbage cart,” Gu Changsheng said from the open sliding window behind the bench. He held a long wooden ladle in one hand, stirring a clay pot of white radish and pork-bone broth over the Earth-Fire stove. “Stop crying on the turnips, Zhao.
They’re salty enough already.”
“You can’t treat an Immortal seed like cattle!” Envoy Zhao whimpered, his bare heels skidding on frozen mud. “When we reach Sky-Crown City, Second Prince Qian Ye will skin your clan alive!”
Gu Changsheng skimmed gray foam off the boiling broth and flicked it into the weeds.
Skin my clan alive? In the original book, Qian Ye couldn’t even stop his brothers from poisoning his soup before he regressed, Gu Changsheng thought dryly. Now I have his script on the spice rack, and ten days left to reach Coffin Alley before he touches my third kid, Ye Xiao.
Inside the cedar cabin of the [Rank 3 Armored Spirit-Ox Family RV], the air smelled of star anise and marrow bones. Nine-year-old Gu Nian sat by the table in his yellow bunny apron, holding Gu Changsheng’s porcelain teacup an inch above the wood. Every time the wheels hit gravel, his elbows bent like little springs to keep the tea level.
“Zero spills so far, Dad,” Gu Nian said seriously. “When we find Big Brother Ye Xiao, can I give him my spare bunny apron?”
“He’s ten,” Gu Changsheng grinned. “He might want a scholar’s robe first. Though nobody escapes the apron in this house.”
Across the cabin, Auntie Qin sorted dried wolfberries into apothecary drawers, bracing her hip as the wagon lurched. “Changsheng, whoever built this highway ought to be strapped to a millstone. They taxed Azure-Cloud three hundred thousand silvers for road repairs, and these craters could swallow an ox.”
“Qian Ye’s faction pocketed the silver for blood-pills,” Grandpa Fu said, clicking his abacus. “Only four coppers per tael went to gravel.”
Up on the spice rack, Grandpa Yao’s [Rank 3 Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] wiggled its green cotton legs and sniffed loudly. “Forget the gravel! Add two more ginger slices to that marrow pot, Brother Gu!
Even if this cotton mouth can’t chew meat yet, the steam keeps my soul fat!”
“Quiet, old man,” Gu Changsheng whispered, tapping the plush turtle nose with his spoon. “Nuannuan is napping.”
On the lower bunk, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan lay curled under a goose-down quilt, hugging her [Pink Healing Watering Can] as tiny honey-scented bubbles popped at her nose.
Then the road narrowed between two granite hills where iron-ore carts had torn knee-deep ruts into the mud.
CRUNCH-THUD!
The right front wheel dropped into a two-foot trench. The iron chassis slammed sideways, rattling the pots and jolting the cedar bedframe.
Su Nuannuan whimpered in her sleep, her fingers twitching on her watering can. “Papa... dark cage...”
Gu Changsheng’s smile vanished. He patted Nuannuan’s back gently through the quilt, humming a quiet kitchen tune until her brow smoothed out again.
Those auction slavers jolted her cage over rocky roads for three days straight, Gu Changsheng thought, his eyes turning cool. My daughter finally sleeps through the afternoon without nightmares. A lousy royal highway thinks it can ruin her nap?
“Nian’er, watch your sister,” Gu Changsheng said quietly. “Dad is going to fix the road.”
He pulled the broken pieces of Envoy Zhao’s flying artifact—a cracked bronze wind-array plate and four coils of cloud-cotton spring metal—from under the spice rack and opened his system interface.
[SUPER DAD & PLOT-BREAKER SYSTEM]
[Patriarch: Gu Changsheng — Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmaster]
[Protected Citizens: 50,000 | Daily Income: +500,000 DP/day | Balance: 420,000 DP]
[Input 1: Rank 3 Armored Spirit-Ox Family RV]
[Input 2: Envoy Zhao’s Broken Rank 4 Wind-Disk & Cloud-Cotton Springs]
[Input 3: Ever-Simmering Broth Stove]
[Cost: 100,000 DP -> Output: Rank 3 Spring-Shock Luxury Caravan!]
“Confirm fusion,” Gu Changsheng thought.
A warm golden ripple spread silently through the cedar walls and down into the axles. Beneath the chassis, the four iron wheels transformed into eight-spoked bronze disks wrapped in white cloud-cotton. Pale green Rank 4 wind-runes lit up around the hubs, lifting the ten-ton carriage six inches into the air on a cushion of compressed wind qi.
Inside, the shaking stopped completely as the [Ever-Simmering Broth Stove] linked into a sub-floor heating array. Su Nuannuan sighed happily in her sleep and kicked off half her blanket.
Gu Nian set the teacup flat on the table just as the caravan glided over a three-foot boulder outside. The amber tea didn’t even ripple.
“Whoa,” Gu Nian whispered, touching the tabletop. “Dad, the floor stopped jumping. And my socks are warm.”
Grandpa Fu stamped his boot lightly on the driver’s bench. “Merciful heavens, Third Young Master, my old back hasn’t felt this light since I was twenty!”
“Hovering six inches off the ruts,” Gu Changsheng said, handing Gu Nian a small bowl of marrow broth. “Flying high burns too much qi, but six inches saves the oxen’s knees and keeps Nuannuan asleep.”
Gu Nian took a careful sip of the hot radish broth, his eyes narrowing into happy crescents as warm energy spread from his stomach to his fingertips. “It tastes like roasted chestnuts too, Dad. Did the upgrade box flavor the soup?”
“The stove is running on pure Earth-Fire harmonized with Wind-Runes now,” Gu Changsheng explained, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Every bubble in the clay pot gets stirred evenly from the bottom up. Drink the whole bowl.
If we’re going to Sky-Crown City to bring your Big Brother Ye Xiao home, you need your Rank 3 Early foundation solid enough to crack royal flagstones.”
“I’ll finish two bowls,” Gu Nian promised solemnly, holding up two fingers before gulping down a cube of tender white radish. “And if anyone in the capital bullies Big Brother Ye Xiao before we get there, I’ll hit them with my homework ruler.”
Auntie Qin touched the warm copper pipe along her herb drawers, her eyes bright. “You routed the stove heat through the medicine cabinets too! Now my frost-lotus pills won’t clump in the northern damp.
Honestly, Changsheng, back in Frost-Pine Town I thought your kitchen tricks were just clever carpentry. Turning a shattered flying disk into a self-heated apothecary carriage without even lighting a forge is going to give the Royal Artificer Guild heart palpitations.”
“Let them palpitate,” Gu Changsheng said, leaning back against the counter and checking the flame level under the stove. “If they want the blueprint, they can trade us three streets of prime storefront in Sky-Crown City.”
In the original novel, Second Prince Qian Ye monopolized the Royal Artificer Guild by feeding them stolen ancient diagrams from his past life, Gu Changsheng thought with a dry smirk. Wait until he sees our family rolling down the Imperial Avenue in a soup wagon that rides smoother than the Emperor’s dragon palanquin.
On the spice rack, Grandpa Yao’s [Rank 3 Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] flopped onto its cloth belly, waving its stubby front flippers at the ceiling. “Sect Masters fight wars over Cloud-Cotton Spring-Iron for battle armor, and you melted a Rank 4 Wind-Disk into shock absorbers for a soup wagon! Magnificently prodigal!
Brother Gu, tilt the lid of that marrow pot three degrees to the left—the steam is missing my left nostril!”
Gu Changsheng flicked a tiny drop of warm broth onto the plush turtle’s nose, making Grandpa Yao slurp the air like a starving hound.
Outside behind the wagon, captured Envoy Zhao was having a religious crisis.
Five breaths ago, Envoy Zhao had been bracing his bruised shoulders against the leather tow-straps, dreading the next rocky incline on the mountain road. His knees had been raw, his missing teeth had been aching in the cold wind, and his pride as a Half-Step Rank 4 royal emissary had been bleeding into the mud.
Then the golden light rippled down the iron tow-chain.
The two-thousand-pound luggage cart had just lifted six inches above the mud on its own wind-cushion, while warm radish-scented exhaust blew over his bare feet and melted his frostbite. Envoy Zhao stumbled forward, staring down at the floating bronze wheels.
“My Rank 4 Wind-Step Bronze Disk?” Envoy Zhao stammered through his missing teeth, his pink apron strings trembling. “I broke it into seven pieces yesterday!
He re-wove Rank 4 wind runes into a mortal axle without even opening an artifact furnace?!”
He reached out a shaking hand and tapped the iron rim of the cabbage cart. The metal didn’t feel cold anymore. It hummed with a flawless, self-circulating wind-and-earth formation that turned the forward pull of the spirit-oxen into gentle forward momentum.
Instead of Envoy Zhao dragging the cart, the cart’s warm slipstream was practically carrying him along the highway like a brisk autumn tailwind.
“Impossible...” Envoy Zhao whispered, before catching himself and shivering as he remembered how Gu Changsheng’s golden spatula had shattered three Rank 4 shields in one swing yesterday. “No, nothing is impossible for that demon in the kitchen apron.”
He was stirring pork bones with one hand and casually slapped a spirit treasure into a carriage wheel! Envoy Zhao thought, cold sweat soaking his neck. His empty stomach rumbled at the smell of marrow broth.
*Even Second Prince Qian Ye doesn’t have a Rank 5 Artifact Grandmaster hiding in his kitchen!
If His Highness tries to ambush this family like common provincial martial artists, the Eastern Palace is going to get flattened into a pancake!*
“Hey, Pink Apron!” Grandpa Fu called out from the front bench, flicking an abacus bead with a sharp clack. “Stop gawking at the axle and keep your hands on the tow-bar!
Since the cart floats now, I’m deducting thirty percent of your daily mileage credit unless you jog at double pace!”
“Yes, Steward Fu! Right away, Steward Fu!” Envoy Zhao yelped, tucking his head down and jogging smoothly inside the warm exhaust draft without a single complaint.
[System Notification: Captive ‘Envoy Zhao’ is awestruck by your artifact mastery!]
[Envoy Zhao Warmth: 25/100 -> 48/100]
[Household Comfort Bonus: Daily Income +500,000 -> +520,000 DP/day!]
Gu Changsheng glanced at the floating prompt and chuckled under his breath.
Forty-eight Warmth already? Keep pulling those cabbages, Zhao. By the time we reach the capital, you’ll be fighting Grandpa Fu for the broom.
He poured a second bowl of marrow broth for Auntie Qin and a third for Grandpa Fu out on the bench. Just as he reached for his own teacup on the cedar table, a sharp, metallic hum vibrated through the spice rack.
SNAP-FLAP!
Sitting beside the salt jar, [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] flew open by itself. Its thick pages flipped forward in a blur of golden wind until they slammed flat on the first page of the Great Qian Royal Capital section.
Lines of original black text—which had originally described Envoy Zhao returning triumphantly to the capital with the Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin—dissolved into gray smoke. In their place, jagged lines of burning crimson ink etched themselves across the parchment:.
[WARNING! FOREKNOWLEDGE DECAY & SCRIPT PUSHBACK DETECTED!]
[Location Ahead: Red-Maple Pass (3 Miles North — Border of Sky-Crown Prefecture)]
[Original Script: Envoy Zhao passes unchallenged.]
[Updated Script Threat: Because Envoy Zhao failed to report in last night, Second Prince Qian Ye’s border hound — Captain Hu (Rank 3 Mid) and 200 armored Black-Wind Noble Guards. Have locked the canyon gate with Corpse-Poison Iron Chains! They have orders to impale every spirit-ox bearing an Azure-Cloud license plate and strip all travelers to the bone!]
Outside the front windshield, the gray forest gave way to two towering cliffs of blood-red maple trees. Across the narrow canyon throat, heavy iron chains as thick as a man’s waist glinted darkly in the noon sun. Two hundred black-armored guards stood with crossbows and long spears aimed straight down the road.
Gu Changsheng looked at the burning red warning in the notebook, then glanced down at the sleeping seven-year-old girl on the bunk and the pot of honey-maltose syrup cooling beside the stove.
“Nobody wakes my daughter up,” Gu Changsheng said softly, picking up a handful of round spirit-sugar beads. “And nobody pokes my oxen.”