The first spoonful of warm, golden [Fused Honey-Ginger Detox Soup] touched Qin Wan’er’s frost-numbed tongue.
Before she even swallowed, her dark eyes flew wide open in utter shock.
She had expected the sharp, throat-burning bite of ordinary kitchen ginger boiled with brown sugar. Instead, the moment the amber broth crossed her lips, it tasted like liquid spring sunshine wrapped in sweet wildflower honey—and right beneath that gentle sweetness surged a majestic. Flaw-free torrent of Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng Yang vitality!
Hummm—Whoosh!
As that single spoonful slid down her throat, it didn’t drop into her stomach like ordinary water.
Guided by the 100% flaw-free culinary fusion of [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box], the golden medicinal essence transformed instantly into twelve warm. Silky streams of pure Yang fire-qi that flowed straight into her frozen twelve lung meridians!
“Drink the rest while it’s hot, Doctor Qin,” Gu Changsheng said gently, tilting the porcelain bowl so she could drink directly from the rim. “Don’t try to suppress the heat with your martial qi. Let the ginger broth follow the frost tracks all the way to their root.”
Too stunned to speak, Qin Wan’er held the warm porcelain bowl with both trembling hands and drank the entire serving down in five gulps.
Crack... crackle... sizzle!
Inside Qin Wan’er’s chest, the three-year-old knot of Cold-Furnace Yin-Frost—which had tortured her every single winter night and resisted a hundred bitter decoctions—met its natural nemesis.
Under the gentle, all-pervading wash of the Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng and aged fire-ginger essence, the stubborn ice clots clogging her lung and heart meridians didn’t shatter violently or tear her vessels. Instead, they melted like April snow under a warm southern sun, dissolving into pure, nourishing spiritual moisture!
Even the trace of Seven-Step Heart-Rot dust she had inhaled minutes ago was incinerated into nothingness on contact!
“Ah—!”
Qin Wan’er let out a long, trembling breath.
In front of Blacksmith Zhao, Widow Zhang, Grandpa Fu, and fifty wide-eyed townsfolk watching from the doorway—and right in front of Apothecary Wang’s bulging, bespectacled eyes—a miraculous sight unfolded inside the Hundred-Herb Clinic.
A cloud of fragrant white steam rose from the crown of Qin Wan’er’s head and the tips of her shoulders.
Within three heartbeats, the terrifying violet-blue frost coating her eyebrows and eyelashes evaporated completely. Warm, healthy crimson color rushed back into her pale cheeks, and the dark rings of exhaustion beneath her eyes faded away as if washed by clear spring water!
More than that—.
For three long years, twenty-four-year-old Qin Wan’er had been stuck at the absolute ceiling of Rank 1 Peak Martial. Half of her cultivation qi had been locked down day and night just to keep the Cold-Furnace frost from freezing her heart.
Now, with the three-year frost scar completely dissolved and the remaining potency of the Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng surging through her newly cleared meridians. Thirty-six months of compressed martial and alchemical accumulation erupted all at once!
BOOM!
A crisp, resonant shockwave of warm cyan-and-gold spiritual qi burst outward from Qin Wan’er’s slender frame. Rustling the paper labels on every herb drawer in the clinic and blowing the loose snow three feet back from the front doorstep!
Inside her limbs, her bones rang with a clear, metallic chime as they refined from mortal bone into genuine Iron-Bone density. The alchemist’s innate fire-seed in her dantian blazed three times brighter than before!
Rank 2 Early Martial—Iron-Bone Alchemist!
Silence hung over the Hundred-Herb Clinic for five full seconds.
Qin Wan’er slowly lowered the empty porcelain bowl. She looked down at her own slender hands—which were warm, steady. Glowing with a faint jade luster after all of three winters—and took a deep, effortless breath that filled her lungs to the bottom without a single needle of pain.
“My lungs...” Qin Wan’er whispered, her voice clear and musical as tears welled up in her bright eyes. “The Cold-Furnace frost...
it’s completely gone!
And my dantian... I broke through to Rank 2?!”
Outside on the snowy street, Apothecary Wang’s jaw dropped so low his chin nearly hit his greasy vest.
“R-Rank 2 Iron-Bone Alchemist?!”
Apothecary Wang scrambled backward on his hands and knees so violently that he tumbled headfirst into a deeper snowbank, sending his round brass spectacles flying into the slush!
In a border county like Frost-Pine Town, an ordinary Rank 1 physician could still be bullied by wealthy clan elders like Gu Ba.
But a twenty-four-year-old Rank 2 Alchemist who could ignite innate pill-fire in her meridians was an honored VIP across the entire Azure-Cloud Prefecture! Even the Town Magistrate had to greet a Rank 2 Alchemist with a polite bow, and the Prefecture Alchemist Guild granted automatic immunity from local clan taxes!
“Impossible! How could a bowl of ginger soup melt a three-year Cold-Furnace Backlash and push her straight into Rank 2?!” Apothecary Wang shrieked in terror.
Snatching his crooked spectacles out of the snow and bolting down Willow-West Street without even stopping to pick up his lost cloth shoe.
“I have to tell Second Elder Gu Ba right now!”
Outside the window, Blacksmith Zhao and the fifty neighbors erupted into thunderous applause.
“Haha! Look at Apothecary Wang run with one shoe missing!”
“Three cheers for Doctor Qin and Patriarch Gu! One bowl of Patriarch Gu’s ginger soup beat the Second Branch’s thousand-silver extortion!”
Inside the clinic, Qin Wan’er didn’t even glance at the fleeing Apothecary Wang.
She stood up slowly behind the walnut counter and looked at Gu Changsheng—the calm. Broad-shouldered neighbor who had walked over with a basket of priceless three-hundred-year ginseng broth. Given it to her without asking for a single copper coin or a single word of her father’s pill recipe.
Then she looked down at eight-year-old Gu Nian.
Having seen that Big Sister Qin wasn’t coughing anymore. The quiet little boy in the yellow bunny slippers had already picked up the small bamboo hand-broom from the corner. Was diligently sweeping the broken porcelain teacup shards into a dustpan so nobody would step on them.
Looking from the steady, protective father to the polite, earnest eight-year-old boy in his fluffy bunny slippers. The icy wall of loneliness and suspicion that Qin Wan’er had built around her heart since her father’s death melted away in a single breath.
[ DING! NEW KEY HOUSEHOLD ALLY RECRUITED! ]
* Protected Ally : Qin Wan’er (Age 24 | Rank 2 Early Alchemist)
* Status : Three-Year Cold-Furnace Backlash Cured!
* Warmth Index : 40/100 -> 88/100 (Deep Gratitude & Trust!)
* Daily DP Bonus : +100 DP/day (Rank 2 Ally @ 60+ Warmth!)
* Immediate DP : +100 DP Breakthrough Bonus (Balance: 660 DP)
* New Daily Income: +600 DP/day -> +750 DP/day!
At the exact same moment, a warm stream of shared spiritual feedback from Qin Wan’er’s Rank 2 breakthrough flowed back through the system link into Gu Changsheng’s own meridians!
Hummm!
Without making a flashy commotion, the Blood Qi coursing through Gu Changsheng’s muscles thickened by another thirty percent. Pushing his cultivation base smoothly from Rank 1 Mid into Rank 1 Late Martial—giving him a full one thousand pounds of base physical strength!
Qin Wan’er walked out from behind the counter, knelt down in front of eight-year-old Gu Nian, and gently took the small bamboo broom from his hands.
With a warm, genuine smile that made the whole clinic seem brighter, she reached out and pinched Gu Nian’s rosy cheek.
“Thank you for sweeping the floor and bringing the soup, Little Nian,” Qin Wan’er said softly, her eyes shining. “And thank you for shouting at the door to save my life today. Don’t call me Big Sister Qin like a stranger anymore—from today on, call me Auntie Qin!”
Gu Nian blinked his black-gold eyes. His ears turned pink under his yellow wool scarf, and he gave a small, serious nod.
“Okay, Auntie Qin,” Gu Nian said, patting the woven basket. “There’s still half a jar of ginger soup left in the basket. Dad says you have to finish the whole pot so your cough never comes back.”
“I’ll drink every drop,” Auntie Qin laughed, wiping a happy tear from her eyelashes before rising to bow deeply to Gu Changsheng. “Brother Gu, I know that soup was brewed with genuine Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng. You saved both my life and my father’s clinic today.
My Hundred-Herb Clinic doesn’t have gold or silver, but from now on, whatever pills or medical care your Third Branch needs, my furnace is yours!”
“Neighbors ought to look out for each other, Sister Wan’er,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, gesturing for her to rise. “Besides, with an eight-year-old boy learning martial arts at home, having a Rank 2 Alchemist right next door saves me a lot of worry.”
Out at the clinic window, Blacksmith Zhao cupped his rough hands around his mouth and called out:.
“Congratulations on reaching Rank 2, Doctor Qin! Last month when I burned my forearm at the anvil, Apothecary Wang at the Second Branch Pill Hall demanded four silver taels just to look at it! You treated my burn for ten copper coins and gave me three packs of salve on credit!
Now that you’re an Iron-Bone Alchemist, none of us on Willow-West Street will ever set foot in the Second Branch’s shop again!”
“That’s right!” Widow Zhang chimed in loudly, waving her cabbage basket. “My old sister’s winter cough only ever gets better with Doctor Qin’s lozenges!
Let the Second Branch keep their overpriced sawdust pills!”
Hearing the warm cheers of the street vendors and neighbors who had stood by her clinic through the hardest winter mornings, Qin Wan’er’s cheeks glowed rosy pink.
She turned back to her walnut counter, picked up the brass mortar that her father had left her, and set it upright in the center of the table with newfound confidence.
“With my lung frost gone and my innate pill-fire awakened at Rank 2,” Qin Wan’er said brightly, her dark eyes sparkling. She looked at Gu Changsheng and Grandpa Fu, “I can refine three times as many Jade-Dew Healing Pills every day at half the charcoal cost! Even if Second Elder Gu Ba tries to undercut our prices on Central Street, our clinic will never fall behind again!”
Grandpa Fu stroked his beard and clicked his abacus with a beaming smile. “Wait until the Town Magistrate hears that Willow-West Street has produced a twenty-four-year-old Rank 2 Alchemist! The Second Branch’s monopoly is finished!”
Gu Changsheng, however, glanced out the window toward the northern end of the street, his expression calm and knowing.
Having read the full script of Frost-Pine Town’s power structure in [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook], he knew Second Elder Gu Ba wouldn’t compete fairly on pill quality or price. When shameless bullies lost at medicine, they went straight for the supply chain.
Sure enough, just as the morning sunlight streamed through the clinic window and the neighbors outside smiled at the heartwarming scene—.
BONG! BONG! BONG!
A harsh, deafening brass gong echoed from the intersection at the head of Willow-West Street!
The cheerful chatter outside stopped at once as eight black-uniformed town heralds employed by the Gu Clan Second Branch marched into the lane. At their head strode Steward Gu Quan, unrolling a long yellow silk notice stamped with the red seals of all four major wholesale herb houses in Frost-Pine Town!
Behind Steward Gu Quan walked Apothecary Wang—who had put on a mismatched wooden clog to replace his lost cloth shoe—pointing a spiteful finger straight at the Hundred-Herb Clinic’s sign.
“Hear ye, all pharmacies, peddlers, and mountain gatherers of Frost-Pine Town!” Steward Gu Quan shouted at the top of his lungs. Two bailiffs nailed the notice onto the wooden post directly across from the Hundred-Herb Clinic.
“By joint decree of the Gu Clan Second Branch Pill Hall and the Four Wholesale Herb Guilds, an immediate Town-Wide Herb Embargo is hereby placed upon the Hundred-Herb Clinic! Any merchant, hunter, or herb-digger caught selling so much as a single blade of medicinal grass to Qin Wan’er will be fined one hundred silver taels and banned from Frost-Pine Market for life!”