For three heartbeats, the only sound inside the underground ice-cellar of Coffin Alley was the steady drip of autumn rainwater from the tip of Gu Changsheng’s black oiled-paper umbrella.
Then Chief Surgeon Cruel-Scalpel Mo sucked in a jagged breath through his yellowed teeth.
As the head of the Royal Blood-Surgeon Guild and a Rank 3 Peak Martial Grandmaster who had dissected hundreds of martial artists in the dark. Mo’s survival instincts screamed that the man in the gray cotton apron was the exact culprit who had ruined Second Prince Qian Ye’s plans for the past forty-eight hours!
“You—you’re that South Ward physician who hung Shadow-Captain Crow on the bulletin board!” Surgeon Mo backed up two steps toward the central granite pillar. His sunken face twisting from shock into a ferocious, cornered grin.
“Ha!
Bwahaha! Second Prince Qian Ye truly sees through the heavens! His Highness knew a meddling rat from the South Ward would come sniffing around Coffin Alley tonight!”
Before Gu Changsheng took another step, Surgeon Mo lunged sideways and yanked down a heavy, blood-rusted brass lever bolted into the central pillar!
“You think kicking down an iron door makes you invincible?!” Surgeon Mo shrieked, spittle flying from his lips as his Rank 3 Peak internal Qi surged into the floor runes. “His Highness personally gave me the royal treasury’s Rank 3 Peak Bone-Flaying Blade Array two hours ago!
Die in pieces!!”
KREEEEE—CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!!
The entire underground vault shuddered as hidden iron gears ground together behind the granite walls, ceiling, and floor.
Thirty narrow slots snapped open along the stone masonry. Out of those slots shot thirty three-foot spinning Blood-Saw Discs forged from cold meteoric steel. Coated in marrow-dissolving corpse poison,whirring along crisscrossed steel cables at blinding speed to turn the center of the cellar into a meat grinder!
At the exact same instant, six iron cages recessed into the dark alcoves behind the ice blocks dropped their gates with a deafening CLANG.
Out lurched twenty seven-foot-tall Blood-Puppet Guards—condemned death-row martial artists whose pain nerves had been severed and whose muscles were pumped full of alchemical mercury. Dressed in spiked black plate armor and swinging sixty-pound crescent halberds, the twenty mindless juggernauts roared in unison and charged straight at Gu Changsheng’s throat from all four directions!
Even a peak Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster trapped inside this narrow cellar with thirty armor-piercing blood-saws and twenty fearless mercury-puppets would be shaved down to white bone within ten breaths!
On the iron operating slab, ten-year-old Ye Xiao strained upward against his five meteoric-iron chains, the raw skin of his wrists tearing open as he yelled hoarsely across the cellar:.
“Run, mister!! Don’t come near the table—it’s a royal array trap! Those spinning saws cut right through internal Qi shields!
Leave me and run back up the stairs!!”
Through his burning, overloaded Innate Sword Eyes, Ye Xiao could see the deadly crimson Qi threads driving the thirty spinning saw-discs—each blade carried enough rotational force to shear through solid granite. All thirty convergence lines were aimed directly at the tall man in the gray apron!
Surgeon Mo bared his teeth in triumph behind the granite pillar. “Run? The stair tunnel is sealed by four thousand-pound portcullises the moment the lever drops!
Tonight, I’ll harvest the boy’s eyes AND present your head in a lime jar to His Highness—!”
Gu Changsheng didn’t even glance back at the stairs.
He didn’t drop his oiled-paper umbrella, nor did he raise an ordinary martial artist’s protective Qi shroud.
Instead, standing calmly in the path of thirty shrieking blood-saws and twenty charging halberds. Gu Changsheng looked at the ten-year-old boy bleeding on the iron slab, pointed the flat blade of his [Iron Wok Spatula] toward the operating table. Spoke a single, quiet command inside his mind:.
System. Add Ye Xiao to the Gu Family Household Register as my eldest son—and turn on Father’s Authority.
DING—HUMMMMMMM!!
Inside Gu Changsheng’s mind, the golden pages of the [Super Dad & Plot-Breaker System] flipped open with a sound like a cathedral bell ringing across the heavens:.
[Household Register Update Confirmed!]
[New Family Member Enrolled: Eldest Son — Gu Ye Xiao (Age 10 | Destined Blood-Shadow Sword Fiend)]
[Current Household Children Count: 3 (Gu Ye Xiao, Gu Nian, Su Nuannuan)]
[CORE SKILL ACTIVATED: <FATHER’S AUTHORITY>!]
[Rule 1: Whenever a registered child of the Gu Household is in mortal danger, the Patriarch temporarily stacks the full cultivation realms of all registered children onto his own base realm!]
[Cultivation Stack Calculation: Base Realm (Rank 3 Peak) + Gu Nian (Rank 3 Mid) + Su Nuannuan (Rank. 3 Mid) + Gu Ye Xiao (Rank 1 Peak + Unawakened Innate Sword Heart) = QUASI-RANK 4 IMMORTAL SUPPRESSION!]
[Rule 2: While holding a Household Kitchen or Disciplinary Tool, all strikes deal 100% True Disciplinary Damage — ignoring all Plot Traps, Blood Arrays, and Mortal Armor!]
BOOOOOOOM!!
A invisible, suffocating tide of warm golden hearth-light erupted from Gu Changsheng’s broad shoulders.
The freezing air inside the Coffin Alley ice-cellar instantly rose thirty degrees. Every block of saltpeter ice stacked along the walls cracked down the middle with a sound like rifle fire. The black granite flagstones beneath Gu Changsheng’s boots sank two inches into the earth in a ten-foot circle!
In Gu Changsheng’s right hand, the humble, black-oiled [Iron Wok Spatula] blazed like a miniature morning sun, transforming into [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline].
Across the cellar, Chief Surgeon Mo’s triumph froze on his lips as the air inside the underground vault suddenly grew so heavy he could barely draw breath into his lungs. The green tallow lamps along the walls bowed downward as if pressed by an unseen mountain, their eerie flames turning warm, clear gold.
“What... what kind of martial aura is this?!” Surgeon Mo choked out, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks as he felt the overwhelming pressure radiating from the man in the kitchen apron.
“At the South Ward congee stall this morning, our scouts reported you were only at Rank 3 Peak!
How did your internal Qi suddenly triple in density?!”
Even the twenty mindless Blood-Puppet Guards—whose pain nerves had been severed by alchemical mercury—faltered mid-stride. Their heavy iron boots sank half an inch into the cracked granite floor, their animalistic instincts screaming in terror before the presence of an apex predator protecting his young.
“Noisy,” Gu Changsheng said flatly, not even bothering to glance at the trembling Chief Surgeon. “A clinic should be quiet when a kid is resting. And whoever designed this dark, damp basement clearly never raised children—there’s zero ventilation, the floor is slippery, and you left sharp iron toys lying all over the walls.”
SHING-SHING-SHING!
The first twelve spinning Rank 3 Peak Blood-Saw Discs shrieked through the air and bit straight toward Gu Changsheng’s neck, chest, and knees!
Gu Changsheng didn’t dodge half an inch.
He lifted his right hand and swung the flat of the glowing golden spatula in a single. Lazy horizontal backhand—exactly like a short-order cook swatting a swarm of flies away from a pot of soup!
CLANG—SHATTERRRRRR!!
A golden shockwave shaped like a giant cast-iron frying pan swept across the entire cellar!
The moment that golden spatula-wave touched the thirty high-speed meteoric-iron blood-saws, the “unbreakable” royal array blades didn’t even bounce.
Under 100% True Disciplinary Damage, all thirty spinning blood-saws—along with their greased steel cables, hidden wall gears. Rank 3 array cores—disintegrated in midair into a harmless shower of fine gray iron filings that rained softly onto the wet floor like pepper from a shaker!
At the exact same instant, the twenty seven-foot Blood-Puppet Guards lunging forward with their sixty-pound halberds hit the edge of the golden spatula wind.
WHAM-WHAM-WHAM-WHAM!!
All twenty armored juggernauts were lifted clean off their boots!
Their crescent halberds snapped like dry toothpicks, their spiked black breastplates folded inward like crumpled tin cans. All twenty Blood-Puppets were plastered ten feet up into the left and right stone walls like a row of giant iron wall-decorations!
The entire Bone-Flaying Blade Array—which Second Prince Qian Ye had boasted could mince a Rank 4 spirit beast—had lasted less than half a breath against one backhand of a kitchen spatula!
Behind the central granite pillar, Chief Surgeon Cruel-Scalpel Mo’s jaw dropped so low it nearly unhinged.
“I-Impossible!!” Surgeon Mo’s voice cracked into a high-pitched scream as his knees turned to water. “That was a Rank 3 Peak royal killing array forged by the Ministry of War!
How can a mortal martial artist shatter meteoric steel into powder with a cooking spatula?!
You’re a monster—a Rank 4 Qi-Gathering Immortal in disguise!!”
Without waiting another instant, Surgeon Mo spun on his heel and bolted toward a secret escape chute behind the pillar!
“Leaving before you pay the medical malpractice bill?”
Gu Changsheng’s figure blurred.
With three children’s cultivation stacked onto his Rank 3 Peak frame, Gu Changsheng crossed the thirty-foot cellar in a single silent stride. Appearing right beside Surgeon Mo’s left ear before the old butcher’s foot even touched the escape chute!
Gu Changsheng didn’t use the sharp edge of the spatula. He simply rotated his wrist and brought the broad, flat belly of [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline] down across Chief Surgeon Mo’s heavily powdered right cheek.
SMACK—CRACK!!
The crisp, resounding slap echoed off the underground stone vault like a thunderclap!
Three yellowed back molars—along with a cloud of white face powder and a mouthful of blood—flew out of Surgeon Mo’s mouth in a graceful parabola. The Rank 3 Peak Chief Surgeon spun four times in midair like a wooden top, slammed pelvis-first into the central granite pillar with a sickening crunch. Folded backward around the stone column like a giant white pretzel before his eyes rolled back and he went completely limp!
Beside the operating table, seventeen-year-old Apprentice Liu stared at his unconscious master wrapped around the pillar, then looked at the tall man walking calmly toward him with the golden spatula.
“WAAAAAHHH!! DON’T SLAP ME WITH THE SPATULA, IMMORTAL GRANDPA!!”
Apprentice Liu dropped to his knees in the puddle of melted ice water so hard his kneecaps bounced. Frantically fishing a heavy brass ring of keys out of his belt and holding it above his head with both trembling hands.
“I’m just the floor-sweeper! I never cut anyone!” Apprentice Liu bawled, banging his forehead against Gu Changsheng’s muddy boot.
“Here!
The third brass key with the square teeth opens the meteoric-iron chains on the operating table! And the small silver key opens the cupboard where Surgeon Mo put the boy’s grandfather’s clay urn! I’ll scrub the floors!
I’ll wash dishes for free! Just don’t turn me into a pretzel!!”
Gu Changsheng plucked the brass keyring from Apprentice Liu’s shaking fingers. Flicked the boy on the forehead with one knuckle to knock him out cold beside the mop bucket, and stepped up to the iron operating slab.
*Click. Click. Click.
Click. Click.*
With five quick turns of the square-toothed brass key, the heavy meteoric-iron manacles pinning ten-year-old Ye Xiao’s wrists, ankles, and collarbones sprang open and fell away.
[System Notification: Chief Surgeon Mo & 20 Blood-Puppet Guards Defeated!]
[Target ‘Ye Xiao’ Darkening Meter: 91% -> 86%!]
[Daily Income Surge: +1,650,000 -> +1,800,000 DP/day!]
“Alright, Ye Xiao,” Gu Changsheng said gently, setting the brass keys on the corner of the table. “The chains are off. Let’s get you out of this damp cellar—”
SHING—CRACKLE!!
Before Gu Changsheng’s hand could touch the boy’s shoulder, the freed ten-year-old suddenly convulsed on the iron table!
Having his chains unlocked did not register as safety to a child who had spent ten years starving in alleys and three days being drugged by smiling fake philanthropists. Instead, the sudden release of physical restraint caused ten years of suppressed terror, blood-loss, and agonizing optical overload to snap the last rational cord in Ye Xiao’s mind!
BOOM!
A pillar of jagged, blood-red Innate Sword Qi erupted uncontrollably from Ye Xiao’s chest and bleeding eyes—his Innate Sword Heart going catastrophically berserk as his Darkening Meter spiked violently from 86% back toward 91%!
Scrambling backward to the far edge of the iron table like a wounded stray cat. The half-blind ten-year-old pulled the jagged, rusted iron strip from his torn sleeve, swung it wildly through the air. Razor-sharp crimson sword-gales carved two-inch grooves across the stone floor, and shrieked in a raw, terrified voice:.
“DON’T TOUCH ME!! STAY AWAY FROM ME! EVERYONE WHO PRETENDS TO BE NICE JUST WANTS TO DIG OUT MY EYES!!”