At 7:00 AM sharp, the air inside the kitchen of Willow-Breeze Courtyard hummed like a taut bowstring as golden steam billowed from the copper cauldron.
Standing in a neat semicircle by the pantry door, ten-year-old Gu Ye Xiao, nine-year-old Gu Nian, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan, Grandpa Fu, Auntie Qin. Grandpa Yao’s [Rank 3 Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] held their breaths, watching Gu Changsheng stand before the roaring stove in his gray cotton kitchen apron.
In his left hand, Gu Changsheng held a simple blue-and-white porcelain bowl filled to the brim with bubbling [Five-Grain Golden Hearth Porridge].
Every grain of yellow millet, red bean, and glutinous rice in the bowl glowed like liquid amber. Swirling naturally into a miniature taiji pattern that radiated the mouth-watering warmth of slow-simmered bone broth and fresh autumn sunlight.
In his right hand, Gu Changsheng rested his [Iron Wok Spatula] against the rim of the cauldron.
“Changsheng, be careful when you open the Immortal Gate!” Grandpa Yao’s plush turtle called out nervously from the spice rack. “Before you awakened the system in Frost-Pine Town, your original body suffered years of chronic cold-lung poison and meridian damage!
In orthodox cultivation, when a Rank 3 Peak Grandmaster assaults the Rank 4 Qi-Gathering barrier, any hidden meridian scars will flare up as a Heart-Demon Backlash!
