Inside the ruined underground ice-cellar of Coffin Alley, the air screamed with the sound of tearing silk and fracturing stone.
Sitting crouched at the far end of the heavy iron operating slab, ten-year-old Ye Xiao looked like a cornered, blood-soaked wolf cub pushed past the edge of madness.
His five meteoric-iron manacles lay unlocked around his bruised limbs, yet freedom only terrified him more. For ten years in the freezing back-alleys of Sky-Crown City, every adult who had ever smiled at him, offered him a warm bun, or promised him a dry roof had been lying. The temple monks had drugged his porridge for fifty silver taels; the guild hunters had kicked his dead beggar-grandfather’s clay urn into the mud.
And Chief Surgeon Mo had strapped him down to carve out his eyes while he was still awake.
[URGENT PSYCHOLOGICAL ALERT!]
[Target: Eldest Son — Gu Ye Xiao (Age 10)]
[Trauma Trigger: Post-Shackle Panic & Acute Optical Overload!]
[Darkening Meter Rebound: 86% -> 91% (Critical Threshold — Innate Sword Heart Going Berserk!)]
[Warning: If the child’s Innate Sword Heart detonates from despair, his optic nerves and heart meridians will permanently rupture within 30 seconds!]
SHING—SHING—CRACK!!
Surges of chaotic, jagged crimson Innate Sword Qi erupted uncontrolled from Ye Xiao’s chest and bleeding eyelids!
Even though the boy was only at the peak of Rank 1 in physical cultivation, his awakened Innate Sword Heart was a supreme sovereign-grade physique that even Upper-Realm Sword Immortals coveted. As his terror and hatred boiled over, razor-sharp crescents of red sword-wind whipped in a ten-foot tempest around the operating table—slicing two-inch-deep gashes into the solid black granite floor. Shaving curls of cold iron right off the edges of the operating slab!
Gripping the jagged, two-foot strip of rusted barrel-iron in his torn, bleeding fingers, the half-blind ten-year-old swung the makeshift blade wildly in front of his face.
“Don’t touch me!! Get back!!” Ye Xiao’s voice cracked into a raw, tearing sob as crimson blood-tears spilled down his hollow cheeks.
“I don’t want your help!
I don’t want anyone’s pity! Everyone who smiles nicely just wants to dig out my eyes! Come one step closer and I’ll stab my own eyes out first so none of you can have them!!”
With a frantic, trembling jerk of his wrist, the half-blind boy reversed the jagged tip of the rusted iron strip and aimed it straight at his own right eye!
Behind the mop bucket in the corner, seventeen-year-old Apprentice Liu—who had just woken up from Gu Changsheng’s knuckle-flick—let out a terrified squeak and buried his head under a wooden washbasin. A stray slash of crimson Sword Qi sliced the topknot clean off his head.
“He’s gone mad! His Innate Sword Heart is eating his own meridians!” Apprentice Liu whimpered into the floorboards, his teeth chattering so hard he bit his own lip.
“Last month Chief Surgeon Mo tried to extract the bone marrow of a half-awakened blade cultivator, and when the boy’s meridians went berserk, the rebound explosion blew three reinforced brick walls into gravel!
Even a Rank 3 Peak Grandmaster will get their fingers lopped off if they reach into that sword-storm without a heavy iron shield!”
Even unconscious Chief Surgeon Mo, still wedged like a human pretzel around the central granite pillar, twitched involuntarily as a stray ribbon of red Sword Qi shaved half an inch off his left eyebrow.
Gu Changsheng stood three paces from the operating table.
He did not raise a defensive Qi barrier—because a rigid martial shield would bounce the boy’s chaotic Sword Qi straight back into Ye Xiao’s own fragile chest and shred his internal organs.
He did not draw a weapon to knock the iron strip out of the boy’s hand. Knowing that disarming a terrified child by force would only prove to the boy that adults only ruled through violence.
And he certainly did not stand back and deliver a preachy, self-righteous speech about how “not all adults are bad.” To a starving ten-year-old child drowning in pain, frostbite. Terror, flowery speeches were just another kind of trap.
Instead, Gu Changsheng hooked his black oiled-paper umbrella over the iron lamp-bracket on the wall, slipped his [Iron Wok Spatula] back into his apron loop. Walked straight into the howling storm of crimson Innate Sword Qi with bare, open hands!
ZZZT—SPARK—SHING!
Dozens of erratic, razor-sharp crimson sword-threads lashed across Gu Changsheng’s broad chest, forearms, and shoulders as he stepped up to the table.
Where the wild blades struck his coarse gray kitchen apron, the system-reinforced fabric hummed and scattered the deadly force into harmless golden sparks. Where two stray threads of Sword Qi nicked the back of his left wrist and the collar of his winter coat. Small cuts opened on his skin and three fluffy white duck-feathers puffed out into the cellar air.
Gu Changsheng didn’t even blink.
Before Ye Xiao’s trembling hand could drive the rusted iron strip toward his own face, Gu Changsheng’s large, warm, calloused right hand closed gently—yet immovably—around the boy’s bleeding fist. Stopping the jagged metal three inches from Ye Xiao’s eyelashes.
“Let go!! Let go of me!!” Ye Xiao thrashed like a drowning kitten.
Kicking his bare, frostbitten feet against Gu Changsheng’s shins and biting down hard on the back of Gu Changsheng’s thumb until he tasted salt.
“Kill me if you’re going to kill me! Stop playing tricks!!”
Gu Changsheng didn’t pull his thumb back. He didn’t even flinch as the boy’s teeth left a row of small red marks on his knuckle.
He simply dropped to one knee beside the iron slab so that his eyes were level with the ten-year-old’s bloodied face, unbuttoned his thick, quilted [Father’s Down-Feather Coat]. Pulled the shivering, spiky, blood-soaked boy straight off the freezing iron table and into his chest!
Wrapping both strong arms AND the heavy, warm wings of the duck-down coat tightly around Ye Xiao’s bony shoulders. Gu Changsheng tucked the boy’s freezing bare feet up onto his own warm knees so they wouldn’t touch the cold stone floor.
“Hey. Watch where you’re pointing that leaky Sword Qi, brat,” Gu Changsheng grumbled in a flat, dry, utterly ordinary dad voice right above the boy’s ear. “Look at my left collar—you just sliced a two-inch hole in the cotton lining and let three duck feathers escape.
Do you have any idea how hard your Auntie Qin worked on this coat? She stayed up three nights in a row by the oil lamp sewing clean white duck feathers into the quilting so I wouldn’t catch a chill at the morning congee stall. If she sees you cut the stitching on my new winter coat, you’re scrubbing soup bowls and peeling garlic for a whole month to pay for the thread.”
Inside the dark, warm cocoon of the down-feather coat, ten-year-old Ye Xiao went completely rigid.
His ragged, frantic gasps hitched in his throat.
He had braced himself for a bone-crushing palm strike. He had braced himself for greedy fingers prying open his eyelids.
He had never in his ten years of life braced himself to be wrapped inside a coat that smelled like warm sunshine, dried ginger. Roasted chestnuts—while a grown man complained about duck feathers and dishwashing chores!
“W-What...?” Ye Xiao’s voice was a tiny, hoarse whisper against Gu Changsheng’s collarbone. “You...
you’re mad about...
your coat?”
“Of course I’m mad about my coat. Good duck down costs forty coppers a pound,” Gu Changsheng said deadpan.
With his free hand, Gu Changsheng reached into his inner shirt pocket—right over his heart. His body heat kept it warm—pulled out a small square of waxed rice-paper, untwisted the corners with one thumb. Popped a warm, golden [Honey-Milk Candy] straight between Ye Xiao’s parted, trembling lips.
“Close your mouth and let it melt on your tongue,” Gu Changsheng murmured. Resting his broad, heavy palm gently against the back of Ye Xiao’s blood-matted head to shield the boy’s eyes from the harsh green lamp-light. “Don’t bite down too fast or you’ll pull a filling.
Your seven-year-old little sister Nuannuan made this batch with South Ward wildflower honey and fresh goat’s milk this afternoon. She made me promise to bring one to her new Big Brother so the bad medicine taste would go away.”
The moment the warm [Honey-Milk Candy] touched Ye Xiao’s parched, bleeding tongue, it melted into a rich, velvety stream of sweet milk and warm golden hearth-qi.
That gentle warmth didn’t just coat his raw throat—it flowed straight up into the scorching, needle-pierced optic nerves behind his eyes and down into his freezing. Cramping stomach, extinguishing the berserk fire of his Innate Sword Heart like spring rain falling on scorched earth.
For three long seconds, the underground cellar was so quiet that only the patter of autumn rain at the top of the stairs could be heard.
Then—.
Clang.
The rusted two-foot strip of barrel-iron slipped from Ye Xiao’s numb, bleeding fingers and clattered onto the flagstones.
The jagged, murderous crimson Sword Qi around the boy’s body flickered once, twice, and dissolved into a soft, harmless mist.
Inside the warm embrace of the duck-down coat, ten-year-old Ye Xiao’s small hands slowly came up and clutched the coarse gray cotton of Gu Changsheng’s kitchen apron with everything he had left.
All the fierce, desperate armor that the ten-year-old orphan had built to survive a cruel world crumbled to dust in a single breath.
Pressing his bruised, tear-streaked face deep into Gu Changsheng’s warm shoulder, Ye Xiao let out a low. Broken wail—the first real cry he had cried since his grandfather died in the snow three years ago—and sobbed his heart out. The front of Gu Changsheng’s shirt was completely soaked through.
“T-They kicked Grandpa’s jar...” Ye Xiao choked out between racking sobs, his small shoulders shaking uncontrollably inside the big coat. “I tried to guard it...
I swung the iron strip as hard as I could...
b-but there were too many of them, and my eyes hurt so much I couldn’t see...”
“I know, son. You guarded him real well,” Gu Changsheng said softly, patting the boy’s narrow back with slow, rhythmic thumps. “Look over there on the corner of the table.
Before I unlocked your chains, I already picked up your grandpa’s clay urn, swept every pinch of his ashes back inside, and wrapped it in a clean red silk cloth. Nobody’s kicking your grandpa ever again. You’re off duty now—Dad’s got the watch.”
In Gu Changsheng’s mind, a warm cascade of golden notifications chimed softly:.
[System Notification: Emotional Anchor Established Through Action & Warmth!]
[Eldest Son ‘Gu Ye Xiao’ Berserk Innate Sword Heart Stabilized!]
[Target ‘Ye Xiao’ Darkening Meter: 91% -> 62% (-29% Massive Drop!)]
[Eldest Son ‘Ye Xiao’ Warmth/Trust Toward Gu Changsheng: 0/100 -> 78/100!]
[Daily Income Surge: +1,800,000 -> +2,000,000 DP/day!]
Just as Ye Xiao’s exhausted sobs began to slow into hiccups against Gu Changsheng’s shoulder. The heavy splashing of iron-shod boots and the clatter of drawn steel echoed suddenly from the rainy alley at the top of the cellar stairs!
“Surround the coffin shop!! Don’t let a single rat out of the cellar!” a harsh, scar-faced voice barked from the street above as thirty flickering amber spirit-torches lit up the mouth of the staircase.
“Sub-Captain Lu’s thirty Blood-Surgeon Executioners are here!
Beside the stove, Gu Changsheng wiped his hands on his clean white apron and checked the simmering broth with a steady nod.
Whoever broke Chief Surgeon Mo’s door—leave the Sword-Eye brat at the bottom of the steps or we’ll fill this hole with poison-fire arrows!!”
Feeling Ye Xiao stiffen slightly inside his coat at the sound of the thirty executioners above. Gu Changsheng calmly buttoned the outer flap of his down coat over the boy’s head to keep the rain off, picked up his umbrella and grandpa’s red-wrapped urn in his left hand. Drew his [Iron Wok Spatula] with his right.
“Don’t peek out of the coat, Xiao’er,” Gu Changsheng murmured dryly as he turned toward the stairs. “Keep eating your milk candy. Dad’s just going to sweep thirty piles of street garbage out of our way so we can go home for late-night noodles.”