The moment Inspector Ma’s scarlet sedan chair and Second Elder Gu Ba’s entourage disappeared around the corner toward the Golden-Cup Tavern to celebrate their guaranteed victory, a heavy silence fell over the Hundred-Herb Clinic. Two streets away inside the tavern’s second-floor VIP room, Second Elder Gu Ba and his bruised nephew-in-law Lin Fan were already clinking porcelain wine cups with Inspector Ma. Smugly toasting the Peace Pharmacy’s guaranteed ruin without a single stalk of raw herbs.
Ditch weeds and maltose sugar in an upgrade box beat a corrupt guild monopoly any day, Gu Changsheng thought calmly. Wait until Inspector Ma tries to test gummy bears with a poison needle, he mused.
Outside the window, Blacksmith Zhao and Widow Zhang looked at each other with worried frowns.
“Patriarch Gu,” Blacksmith Zhao said anxiously, resting his big soot-stained hands on the window sill. “We all know you stood up to protect Doctor Qin’s pride just now, and we respect you for it! If it’s a matter of silver, the neighbors on Willow-West Street can pool our copper coins—and I have three stalks of dried blood-ginseng in my house from last autumn!
Take them!”
“I have half a bag of dried red dates and two bundles of mugwort at home too!” Widow Zhang called out, raising her hand. “Wait here, Doctor Qin, I’ll run home and fetch them right now!”
Within three minutes, over twenty grateful neighbors had run back to their houses and returned with small cloth bundles of household ginger, dried wolfberries. Leftover trauma plasters, piling them earnestly onto the clinic counter.
Looking at the patched cloth pouches placed on her counter by poor woodcutters and street vendors who barely earned twenty coppers a day, Qin Wan’er felt her throat tighten with emotion.
She bowed deeply to the neighbors at the window, gently pushing their copper pouches back into their hands.
“Thank you, Uncle Zhao, Aunt Zhang, everyone,” Qin Wan’er said softly, her eyes bright. “Please keep your winter savings. Even if we gathered every dried root in our neighborhood, five hundred doses of Grade-One Blood-Healing Medicine requires at least three hundred pounds of fresh Spirit-Blood Grass and Jade-Dew Stalks.
Household herbs can’t pass Inspector Ma’s alchemical testing needle.”
When the neighbors reluctantly dispersed at noon to tend their stalls, Qin Wan’er turned back to Gu Changsheng inside the quiet clinic and let out a long, helpless sigh.
“Brother Gu, you shouldn’t have signed that mutual wager,” Qin Wan’er said, looking down at the copy of the red-stamped contract on the walnut counter. “With my new Rank 2 cultivation, even if they revoked this shop’s license tomorrow, I could still refine pills in your Third Branch courtyard to pay you back.
Now, if we don’t produce five hundred Grade-One medicines by noon tomorrow, Second Elder Gu Ba will demand three thousand silver or haul us before the Prefecture Magistrate!”
“Who said we can’t produce five hundred Grade-One medicines by tomorrow noon?”
Gu Changsheng walked over to the clinic’s back storage room, picked up four large woven bamboo harvesting baskets and four small iron trowels. Handed one basket each to Qin Wan’er, Grandpa Fu, and eight-year-old Gu Nian.
Qin Wan’er blinked at the empty bamboo basket in her hands. “Brother Gu, every herb shop in town has closed its doors to us, and Second Elder Gu Ba posted bailiffs at the north mountain trailhead. Where are we going to dig three hundred pounds of medicinal herbs with these baskets?”
“Why climb the north mountain or pay overpriced herb wholesalers,” Gu Changsheng asked with a dry chuckle. Pointing out the back door toward the sunny southern drainage ditch and pine grove behind Willow-West Alley, “when the town ditch is full of free winter dandelions and pine needles?”
Qin Wan’er stared at him for three full seconds, wondering if the Third Branch head had bumped his head on the doorframe.
“W-winter ditch dandelions and ordinary pine needles?” Qin Wan’er stammered, her proud medical professionalism warring with her gratitude toward him. “Brother Gu, I am a Rank 2 Alchemist!
Winter dandelions growing in the town drainage ditch only have a tiny trace of heat-clearing bitter sap, and pine needles aren’t even a ranked spiritual herb!
If you boil them together, you get bitter ditch water for cattle—not Grade-One Blood-Healing Medicine!”
Beside them, however, eight-year-old Gu Nian had already slung his bamboo basket over his shoulder and adjusted the [Little Red Flower Sticker] on his yellow smock.
“Auntie Qin, don’t question Dad’s cooking,” Gu Nian said with the solemn wisdom of an eight-year-old veteran who had watched a white turnip destroy a Chosen One. Eight pork dumplings unlock his own martial bones. “Yesterday Dad put an old brick and charcoal in his box and turned our whole floor into a summer stove.
While Second Elder Gu Ba and Lin Fan are drinking wine at the tavern thinking we’re finished, Dad’s ditch weeds are going to slap their faces swollen again!”
“Little Master Nian is right, Miss Wan’er!” Grandpa Fu chimed in cheerfully, standing six feet tall with his basket under one arm and his iron abacus under the other. “If Young Master tells this old servant to dig snowballs, you can be sure those snowballs will turn into silver ingots by dinner time!”
Outnumbered three to one by the father, son, and butler, Qin Wan’er could only shake her head with a wry, helpless smile and follow them out into the afternoon sunshine.
For the next two hours, the four of them walked along the sunny south-facing embankment behind Willow-West Alley where the underground warm spring kept the soil soft even in December.
Because Gu Nian had eight hundred pounds of Rank 1 Early strength in his small arms and legs. The eight-year-old boy moved down the ditch bank like a tiny yellow whirlwind in his bunny apron. With every scoop of his small iron trowel, he dug up whole clusters of plump, frost-sweetened [Wild Winter Dandelions] roots and leaves without breaking a single stem.
Filling basket after basket while humming a happy little tune.
Up on the bank, Grandpa Fu reached effortlessly into the lower branches of the red pines to gather twenty baskets of fresh, resin-fragrant [Green Pine Needles]. Qin Wan’er—still baffled out of her mind—used her Rank 2 alchemical sense to pick out the healthiest dandelion crowns and ten pounds of [Wild Red Hawthorn Berries] growing along the stone wall.
By three o’clock in the afternoon, thirty brimming bamboo baskets of washed ditch dandelions, green pine needles. Red hawthorn berries were stacked neatly inside the Third Branch kitchen. Right beside ten big clay jars of cheap [Kitchen Maltose Sugar] and [Wildflower Honey] that Grandpa Fu had bought from the candy peddler on East Street for two silver taels.
Qin Wan’er stood by the kitchen door, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead as she looked at the mountain of weeds and candy jars.
“Brother Gu,” she said honestly, “if we boil all this maltose sugar with hawthorns and dandelions, we’ll have enough cough-drop syrup for every child in town. Which is wonderful—but Inspector Ma’s testing needle checks specifically for Grade-One Blood-Healing vitality!”
“Take a seat in the parlor with Grandpa Fu and Nian’er, Sister Wan’er. Write down a clean copy of your father’s Jade-Dew Pill Formula on this sheet of paper,” Gu Changsheng said. Handing her a slip of rice paper and closing the kitchen sliding door behind him.
“The secret step of our Gu family alchemy requires absolute quiet around the stove.”
Once the kitchen door was latched, Gu Changsheng looked at the thirty baskets of washed herbs, the ten jars of golden maltose sugar. The freshly written [Jade-Dew Pill Formula] that Qin Wan’er had slid under the door.
He tapped the silver icon in his mind and opened the three-slot interface of [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box].
Right now, his balance stood at 760 DP. For an ordinary alchemist, turning common ditch weeds into Rank 1 Perfection healing medicine was impossible because mortal fire left ninety percent bitter slag and couldn’t awaken the trace earth-qi sleeping inside wild plants.
For [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box], however, 100% Flaw-Free Culinary & Alchemical Fusion was its baseline function!
Into Slot 1, Gu Changsheng loaded [30 Baskets of Wild Frost-Dandelions & Green Pine Needles], plus [One Tiny Shaving of Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng Bark] as a vitality primer.
Into Slot 2, he placed [10 Jars of Kitchen Maltose Sugar, Wildflower Honey & Red Hawthorn Juice].
Into Slot 3, he placed [Qin Wan’er’s Ancestral Jade-Dew Pill Formula] and [Two Wooden Pastry Molds Carved Like Little Chubby Bears].
“System, execute a bulk pharmaceutical-confectionery upgrade!” Gu Changsheng commanded with a grin. “Turn bitter medicine into children’s favorite healing candy!
Cost: two hundred Dad Points!”
[ DAD’S CARE-PACKAGE UPGRADE BOX — MASS PHARMACY FUSION! ]
* Input 1 : [30 Baskets of Frost-Dandelions, Pine Needles & Ginseng]
* Input 2 : [10 Jars of Maltose Sugar, Honey & Red Hawthorn Juice]
* Input 3 : [Jade-Dew Pill Formula + Chubby Bear Candy Molds]
* Cost : 200 DP (Remaining Balance: 560 DP)
[ DING! 100% FLAW-FREE MASS UPGRADE COMPLETE! ]
* Output : 2,000x [Rank 1 Perfection: Jade-Dew Healing Gummies]
* Appearance: Translucent golden-amber fruit gummies shaped like.
chubby little bears! Smells like honey-orange!
* Effect : 100% Zero-Toxin Rapid Tissue & Blood Regeneration!
Stops bleeding in 3 seconds, closes flesh wounds in 10.
seconds with zero scarring, and restores +20% Blood Qi!
(Potency: 500% of standard Grade-1 Blood-Healing Powder!)
WHOOSH—CLATTER-CLINK!
A brilliant cascade of warm golden light poured out of the Upgrade Box directly into twenty wide-mouthed crystal apothecary jars lined up across the kitchen table!
Each crystal jar filled to the brim with one hundred thumb-sized, translucent golden gummies shaped like chubby little sitting bears with tiny round ears. They sparkled like topaz jewels in the afternoon light and gave off a mouth-watering aroma of sweet honey-orange and fresh mountain pine!
When Gu Changsheng slid the kitchen door open and carried two crystal jars out into the parlor, eight-year-old Gu Nian’s eyes lit up like lanterns. Qin Wan’er froze with her teacup halfway to her mouth.
“What... what are these golden little bears?” Qin Wan’er stood up and leaned close to the open crystal jar, her Rank 2 Alchemist spiritual sense trembling.
She felt the dense, flaw-free life-qi radiating from each tiny gummy.
“Wait—this medicinal structure is my father’s Jade-Dew Formula, but there is zero pill-slag and five times the blood-healing vitality! How did ditch dandelions turn into flawless golden crystal candy in fifteen minutes?!”
Just then, urgent footsteps stumbled up the steps of the Hundred-Herb Clinic next door.
“Doctor Qin! Are you in?! Help!
Old Chen slipped on the ice by the timber yard and split his forearm open on his wood-axe!”
Gu Changsheng picked up a single golden gummy bear between two fingers and walked out the side gate with Qin Wan’er and Gu Nian.
On the clinic porch stood sixty-year-old Woodcutter Chen, pale as paper as blood soaked through the towel wrapped around a four-inch gash on his left forearm.
“Uncle Chen, don’t panic,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, holding out the sparkling golden bear. “Open your mouth and chew this sweet gummy.”
Old Chen blinked in confusion, chewed the honey-orange gummy bear twice, and swallowed.
In front of Qin Wan’er’s wide, unblinking eyes, a warm golden glow spread from Old Chen’s chest down to his injured left arm. Within three seconds, the heavy bleeding stopped completely; within ten seconds, the four-inch axe gash knitted itself shut into smooth, healthy pink skin without leaving so much as a hairline scar!
“Heavens above!” Old Chen flexed his healed fingers in shock, opening and closing his fist five times without a twinge of pain. “It didn’t even sting, and it tasted like honey candy!
Doctor Qin, Patriarch Gu, how much do I owe you for this divine medicine?!”
“Ten copper coins per gummy starting tomorrow noon, Uncle Chen,” Gu Changsheng said with a warm smile, waving away the old woodcutter’s coin pouch. “Today’s bear is on the house for being our first tester. Go home and show the neighbors on East Street that your arm is fine.”
“Ten copper coins?! I’ll tell every woodcutter at the timber yard tonight!” Old Chen bowed three times and hurried down the lane, rolling up his sleeve to show every passerby his unscarred forearm.
Behind the clinic counter, Qin Wan’er looked at the twenty crystal jars of golden gummy bears and then at Gu Changsheng, her eyes shining with undisguised awe.
“Ten copper coins a dose, zero bitter taste, and five times the healing speed of the Second Branch’s six-silver powder,” Auntie Qin murmured, shaking her head with a dazzling smile. “Brother Gu, tomorrow at noon, Second Elder Gu Ba and Inspector Ma aren’t just going to lose their wager—they’re going to wish they had never set foot on Willow-West Street.”
[ DING! DIVINE HEALING GUMMY TESTED! ]
* Result : 5x Stronger than Second Branch’s 6-Silver Powder!
* Gu Nian Stats : Darkening Meter 16% -> 15% (-1% DROP!)
* Immediate DP : +100 DP Innovation Bonus (Balance: 660 DP)
* Daily Income : +850 DP/day -> +1,050 DP/day!
Yet that night at midnight, as the moon vanished behind winter clouds. Twelve black-masked figures carrying jars of lamp oil and pine torches crept silently up a bamboo ladder onto the roof of the Hundred-Herb Clinic!