At midnight, the temperature in Frost-Pine Town dropped well below freezing, and Willow-West Street was dark and silent.
Inside the warm inner bedroom of the Hundred-Herb Clinic—which Gu Changsheng had connected to the Third Branch’s [Ever-Warm Dragon-Stove] heating ducts before dinner—twenty-four-year-old Qin Wan’er was sleeping deeply under a soft quilt.
For three long years, the agonizing chill in her lungs had woken her up coughing every two hours. Tonight, with her Cold-Furnace injury completely healed and two thousand flawless [Jade-Dew Healing Gummies] sealed in crystal jars in the front room. She was enjoying the first peaceful, dreamless sleep she had known since her father passed away.
Gu Changsheng had made sure not to wake her.
Two hours earlier, while washing the dinner bowls in the kitchen. He had checked [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] and read the exact midnight script that Second Elder Gu Ba. Corrupt Inspector Ma had cooked up over their third jug of wine at the Golden-Cup Tavern:.
[ DAD’S PLOT-SPOILER NOTEBOOK — MIDNIGHT PLOT SPOILER! ]
* Plot Node : The Midnight Arson of the Hundred-Herb Clinic.
* Perpetrators: 12 Masked Thugs led by Scar-Lip Ma (Inspector Ma’s.
nephew & Guild Guard Captain, Rank 1 Peak) + Second.
Branch Enforcers!
* Motivation : At dusk, Apothecary Wang heard from Woodcutter Chen.
that Gu Changsheng and Qin Wan’er had somehow brewed.
miraculous golden healing candy! Panicking that they.
might actually lose the 3,000-silver Central Street.
Pill Hall tomorrow noon, Inspector Ma and Gu Ba sent.
12 masked men with lamp oil to burn the clinic and.
all 2,000 gummies to ash at midnight!
First they set an impossible audit, and when they hear we actually made the medicine, they send masked thugs with lamp oil at midnight, Gu Changsheng thought dryly. He stood in the shadowed alleyway between the Third Branch courtyard and the clinic wall. Truly pillar citizens of Azure-Cloud Prefecture.
Up on the snowy tiled roof of the Hundred-Herb Clinic, tucked snugly behind the warm brick chimney, crouched eight-year-old Gu Nian.
He was wearing his thick yellow lambswool scarf, his yellow home smock with the glowing [Little Red Flower Sticker] pinned over his heart, and his [Rank 1 Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers] on his feet.
In his small left hand, Gu Nian held a Y-shaped ironwood frame fitted with braided ox-sinew bands—a [Rank 1 Fused Heavy-Elastic Slingshot] that Gu Changsheng had let him assemble after dinner.
In his right hand, resting inside a small leather pouch at his waist, were twenty green clay pellets no bigger than garden peas: [Auntie Qin’s Ten-Times Itching- & Laughing-Powder Peas]. Brewed from prickly-ash oil, tickle-vine pollen, and sneeze-weed sap!
Down in the alley shadow below the eaves, Gu Changsheng looked up and gave two quiet taps against the brick wall with his knuckle.
Up behind the chimney, Gu Nian’s black-gold eyes gleamed in the dark like a little night-owl’s. He tapped the chimney brick once in reply.
Earlier after dinner, when Gu Changsheng had asked his son if he felt sleepy or wanted Grandpa Fu to take the rooftop watch instead, the eight-year-old boy had shaken his head firmly.
“Auntie Qin gave me frostbite salve when nobody else cared, and today she helped me dig dandelions all afternoon,” Gu Nian had said seriously while checking the ox-sinew bands of his new slingshot. “If bad guys come to burn her roof while she’s sleeping, I want to be the one who shoots them down.”
Sitting behind the warm brick chimney now, Gu Nian didn’t feel cold at all.
The [Fused Yellow Lambswool Scarf] wrapped around his neck blocked the mountain draft, the [Rank 1 Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers] kept his toes as warm as toasted chestnuts. The [Little Red Flower Sticker] on his chest hummed with a steady, gentle warmth that helped his Rank 1 Early Blood Qi circulate smoothly through his limbs.
He practiced drawing the slingshot pouch back to his cheek twice without a pebble, sighting down the moonlit ridge of the roof tiles the exact way his father had taught him in the courtyard:.
Left eye closed, wrist straight, breathe out slowly, and aim right where their collars open.
Down in the alley shadow, Grandpa Fu stood beside Gu Changsheng holding two thick bundles of hemp rope and a muffled iron lantern.
“Young Master,” Grandpa Fu whispered softly, his single eye scanning the dark lane behind the clinic, “do you think Inspector Ma would really dare send his own guild guards to commit arson? He’s an official of the Prefecture Alchemist Guild!”
“A dog that takes five hundred silver in the morning will bite whoever its master points at by midnight, Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng replied quietly, leaning his shoulder against the brick wall. “Besides, Inspector Ma staked three hundred silver of his own money on tomorrow’s audit. When Apothecary Wang ran back to the Golden-Cup Tavern at dusk screaming that Woodcutter Chen’s axe wound healed in ten seconds from a golden gummy bear, Inspector Ma panicked.”
Gu Changsheng glanced up at the dark treeline at the end of the back lane.
“And when a corrupt bureaucrat panics, he always tries to burn the ledger before the auditors arrive. Quiet now—here they come.”
Creak... scrape...
Ten seconds later, a muffled metallic clink sounded from the rear courtyard wall of the clinic.
A padded bamboo scaling ladder hooked silently over the back eaves. One after another, twelve men dressed head to toe in black night-suits and black cloth face-masks climbed onto the low tiled roof of the Hundred-Herb Clinic.
Six of them carried five-pound clay jugs of pine-turpentine lamp oil, and the other six held unlit flint-torches wrapped in oiled hemp.
At the front of the squad crouched a stocky, broad-shouldered Rank 1 Peak fighter with a jagged scar visible even through his thin face-mask—Scar-Lip Ma. Inspector Ma’s own nephew and the captain of the ten guild guards who had escorted Inspector Ma’s sedan chair that morning!
“Move quietly and don’t step on any loose tiles,” Scar-Lip Ma whispered in a low, raspy voice. Pointing toward the clinic’s front skylight right above the counter where the twenty crystal jars of golden gummies were stored. “My uncle Inspector Ma and Second Elder Gu Ba gave strict orders: pour all six jugs.
Of turpentine oil straight down through the front skylight onto the medicine counter, drop two torches inside. Retreat down the back lane before the night-watch hears a sound!”
“Hehe, Captain Ma, once the clinic and their medicine burn to charcoal tonight,” a second masked thug snickered under his breath. He uncorked a jug of lamp oil, “tomorrow at noon your uncle can still revoke Qin Wan’er’s license for failing to present five hundred bottles, AND collect the three-thousand-silver wager!”
“Less talking, more pouring!” Scar-Lip Ma hissed, pulling a brass flint-striker from his belt. “Uncork the jugs on three.
One...
two—”
Behind the brick chimney ten feet away, eight-year-old Gu Nian drew back the braided ox-sinew band of his [Fused Heavy-Elastic Slingshot] until it hummed with three hundred pounds of taut elastic tension.
He loaded three green [Ten-Times Itching- & Laughing-Powder Peas] into the leather pocket at once, aimed squarely at the gaps in the masked thugs’ collars and mouths, and whispered under his breath:.
“Try to burn Auntie Qin’s roof while she’s sleeping? Eat itchy peas, bad guys!”
THWIP—THWIP—THWIP—THWIP!
Gu Nian’s small fingers moved in a blur, firing four triple-volleys in less than two seconds!
Twelve green clay pellets streaked across the snowy rooftop faster than crossbow bolts, carrying pinpoint accuracy and zero wind noise.
*Pop! Pop! Pop!
Pop!*
Six pellets struck the six oil-jug carriers squarely in the hollow of their throats, bursting open on impact and showering clouds of superfine Ten-Times Itching- & Laughing-Powder straight down inside their sweaty black collars!
The other six pellets hit Scar-Lip Ma and the five torch-bearers right across the thin cloth masks over their open mouths. Forcing them to inhale a full lungful of concentrated tickle-vine pollen and prickly-ash mist!
“Eh? What hit my neck—”
Scar-Lip Ma barely got four words out of his mouth before his chest and throat felt as if ten thousand red fire-ants were dancing the polka with feather dusters inside his skin and lungs!
“Pfft—hahaha! Ooh, it itches! Why am I laughing—AHAHAHAHA!”
Scar-Lip Ma dropped his brass flint-striker before a single spark could be struck. He clapped both hands to his armpits and neck, tearing his own black shirt open in the freezing wind while laughing so hard tears squirted out of his eyes!
All around him on the roof, the other eleven masked thugs collapsed at the exact same instant.
“Hahaha! Stop tickling me! My back is on fire—scratch my back, brother, AHAHAHA!”
“I can’t stop laughing! My ribs are cramping! Heee-hee-hahaha!”
Not a single drop of lamp oil made it to the skylight, and not a single torch was lit.
Within three seconds, all twelve black-masked arsonists let go of their jugs and rolled uncontrollably down the frosted slope of the clinic roof like twelve cackling black dumplings. Clawing at their chests and tumbling right off the eaves into the alley snowdrift below!
THUD! CRASH! BAM!
Down in the alley, Gu Changsheng didn’t even have to take a step.
All night long, the spiritual feedback from Qin Wan’er’s breakthrough and the two thousand flaw-free gummies had been simmering quietly inside his meridians. As he stepped forward to greet the twelve falling arsonists, the final barrier in his first martial realm dissolved like paper!
HUMMM!
Warm, surging Blood Qi roared from Gu Changsheng’s dantian through every inch of his skin and muscles. Pushing him cleanly from Rank 1 Late into the absolute pinnacle of Rank 1 Peak Martial—carrying a full twelve hundred pounds of pure base force!
With a flick of his wrist, Gu Changsheng unbuckled the [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] and lashed out twelve times in the dark!
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
CRACK!*
Boosted by +100% True Disciplinary Damage against midnight home-invaders, the leather belt cracked like summer lightning across the backsides of all twelve laughing. Scratching thugs, knocking the wind clean out of their lungs and stacking them into a neat, groaning human pyramid in the center of the alley snowbank!
Up on the roof edge, Gu Nian peered down with his slingshot in hand, his yellow bunny ears flopping forward as he gave a quiet thumbs-up.
“Twelve out of twelve, Dad! Nobody dropped any fire on Auntie Qin’s roof!”
“Ten out of ten for aim, son,” Gu Changsheng whispered back with an approving grin. Reaching down and ripping the black cloth mask off the groaning squad leader at the top of the pile.
At the same time, Grandpa Fu stepped out of the Third Branch side gate holding a shuttered lantern and a coil of hemp rope. Binding all twelve thugs’ wrists and ankles in thirty seconds flat.
When Gu Changsheng shook Scar-Lip Ma by the collar, a heavy, rectangular piece of green nephrite jade tumbled out of the captain’s inner breast pocket and landed on the snow.
Carved clearly across the face of the jade token in official Prefecture seal script were the words:.
Azure-Cloud Prefecture Alchemist Guild — Inspector Ma De, Personal Authority Token.
[ DING! MIDNIGHT ARSON FOIL & REALM BREAKTHROUGH! ]
* Host Realm : Rank 1 Late -> Rank 1 Peak Martial (1,200 lbs!)
* Evidence Found: [Inspector Ma’s Personal Guild Jade Token] on the.
lead arsonist!
* Immediate DP : +150 DP Night-Watch Bonus (Balance: 810 DP)
* Daily Income : +1,050 DP/day -> +1,350 DP/day!
Gu Changsheng weighed Inspector Ma’s personal jade token in his palm and smiled brightly in the lantern light.
Down at the bottom of the groaning pyramid, Scar-Lip Ma was still hiccuping with leftover giggles while scratching his neck with tied hands.
“Mercy, Patriarch Gu!” Scar-Lip Ma whimpered between hiccups. “Make the itching and laughing stop!
I’ll confess everything at noon tomorrow—my uncle Inspector Ma and Second Elder Gu Ba promised us fifty silver taels to burn the skylight!
Just give us the antidote!”
“Behave yourselves in the woodshed tonight and practice your confession speech for tomorrow noon,” Gu Changsheng said mildly, tucking the jade token into his coat pocket. “If every word you say at noon is the honest truth, Doctor Qin will give you each a cup of detox water after the crowd goes home.”
“Look at that, Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng added softly as eight-year-old Gu Nian climbed neatly down the bamboo ladder in his yellow bunny slippers. “Inspector Ma was so worried we wouldn’t have enough evidence to take Second Elder Gu Ba’s Pill Hall tomorrow at noon that he sent his own nephew to hand-deliver his official Guild Token tonight.”