Grandpa Fu dragged a heavy oak beam across the snow and wedged it tight against the broken brackets of the courtyard gate. The one-eyed old butler’s hunched back shook in the freezing wind, and a drop of blood from the cut above his brow froze on his wrinkled cheek.
“Third Young Master,” Grandpa Fu wheezed, bracing both hands against the timber. “Scar-Face Liu ran straight toward the Second Branch Hall. Second Elder Gu Ba won’t let this go.
We should bar the bedroom shutters too!”
Gu Changsheng didn’t look back from the kitchen doorway.
“Shutters won’t stop twenty guards, Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng said, his voice calm and flat. “And nobody in this house fights on an empty stomach. Watch the gate for twenty minutes.
I’m making breakfast.”
He pushed open the cracked wooden door of the small kitchen and stepped inside.
Eight-year-old Gu Nian had followed him as far as the threshold, staying three paces back in the shadows. The boy’s bruised fingers still clutched the rusted kitchen cleaver behind his spine. His black-gold eyes darted from the cold clay stove to the empty water barrel, then fixed on Gu Changsheng’s hands with silent, taut suspicion.
Gu Changsheng didn’t turn around to pat his head or offer a single comforting word.
Try telling a starving, beaten eight-year-old at eighty-nine percent Darkening that “Dad loves you now”? The kid would think he had lost his mind—or worse, that he was trying to soften him up before handing him over to the Second Branch coal mines.
If you wanted a cornered wolf pup to put down his knife, you didn’t lecture him. You fed him.
Gu Changsheng walked up to the cold clay stove and lifted the cracked wooden lid off the iron wok.
The kitchen was bleaker than a robbed tomb. The rice jar was so clean a mouse would walk out crying. On the bottom pantry shelf sat only three miserable things.
There was a gnawed, dried-out pork bone from last month, half a bowl of gray coarse flour mixed with bran. A handful of bitter frost-grass Grandpa Fu had dug out of the snowy ditch.
“Thirty Dad Points on the clock,” Gu Changsheng muttered under his breath. “Let’s see what this kitchen can do.”
He tapped the glowing icon in his mind.
A warm, bronze-trimmed wooden trunk interface unfolded in the air above the chopping block. Only Gu Changsheng could see its soft golden light.
[ DAD’S CARE-PACKAGE UPGRADE BOX ]
[CURRENT DP BALANCE : 30 DP (Daily Income: +10 DP/day)]
[ACTIVE INPUT SLOTS : 3 Slots (Stage 1 Limit)]
Gu Changsheng picked up the dry pork bone, the half-bowl of coarse flour, and the bitter frost-grass, setting all three inside the invisible outline of the box.
[INPUT SLOT 1 : [ A Dry Pork Bone ]]
[INPUT SLOT 2 : [ Half a Bowl of Coarse Flour ]]
[INPUT SLOT 3 : [ Bitter Frost-Grass ]]
[FUSION OPTIONS :]
[* Option A (10 DP) : [ Warm Pork-Broth Gruel (Mortal Grade) ]]
[* Option B (20 DP) : [ Rank 1 Full-Belly Chaos-Bone Noodles ]]
[(Yields 2 Large Bowls — Purges Black Frost-Poison, Restores]
[Crippled Dantian, and Soothes Innate Chaos Demon Bone!)]
Twenty Dad Points for two bowls of Rank 1 medicinal noodles that cure my lungs and soothe Gu Nian’s Demon Bone at the same time, Gu Changsheng thought. And I’ll still have ten points left over to rig a surprise for Second Elder Gu Ba’s woodshed stunt.
“Select Option B,” Gu Changsheng thought. “Spend twenty DP. Fuse.”
HUMMM!
A wave of golden warmth rippled silently across the stove. Inside the iron wok, a splash of snow-water boiled without firewood. The dry, yellowed pork bone dissolved into a rich, milky-white marrow stock.
The gray coarse flour spun itself into long, springy silver-white noodles, while the bitter frost-grass melted into emerald droplets of pure medicinal oil floating on top of the broth.
Three breaths later, the golden glow faded, leaving two huge, steaming ceramic bowls of [Rank 1 Full-Belly Chaos-Bone Noodles] sitting on the scarred kitchen table.
Each bowl was piled high with chewy hand-pulled noodles, tender chunks of marrow meat that had materialized around the bone, and bright green scallions.
The moment the steam hit the freezing kitchen air, a rich, savory meat aroma exploded through the room and drifted straight out the window cracks.
Outside by the front gate, Grandpa Fu froze mid-hammer as he was driving a nail into the crossbeam.
His single good eye went wide. His nose twitched once, twice, and his jaw nearly dropped onto his chest.
“Marrow broth?!” Grandpa Fu whispered, his old stomach rumbling so loudly it scared a sparrow off the plum tree. “Where on earth did Third Young Master get top-grade spirit pork?
We haven’t smelled meat in this yard since before the Young Madam vanished!”
Inside the kitchen, eight-year-old Gu Nian’s throat bobbed in a hard, dry swallow.
The boy hadn’t eaten anything except cold weeds and watery bran for four days. His stomach cramped so hard he had to press his left elbow against his ribs to stop from doubling over.
Yet he still didn’t move toward the table.
Instead, Gu Nian’s black-gold eyes narrowed into sharp, wary slits. He stared at the milky-white broth, then up at Gu Changsheng’s face.
Last winter, the Second Branch had caught the blacksmith’s runaway apprentice. They gave the boy a big bowl of meat noodles laced with Three-Step Sleeping Powder before breaking his legs and throwing him into the iron mines.
Gu Changsheng read that look in half a second.
Without saying a word about how the food was safe, Gu Changsheng pulled out a three-legged stool, sat down at the table. Picked up the first bowl of [Rank 1 Full-Belly Chaos-Bone Noodles] himself.
“I’m starving,” Gu Changsheng said casually, grabbing a pair of bamboo chopsticks. “If you don’t want yours, leave it. I’ll eat both.”
He lifted a huge mouthful of steaming noodles and slurped them straight down, followed by three big gulps of the hot marrow broth.
GULP.
The instant the milky broth hit Gu Changsheng’s stomach, it felt as if someone had lit a miniature furnace inside his chest.
A torrent of flaw-free, scorching Yang blood-qi roared out of his stomach and slammed straight into his shriveled, frost-blackened dantian!
CRACK-HISS!
The three-year-old layer of black frost-poison coating his lung meridians and dantian walls melted like thin ice under boiling oil. Foul, pitch-black mist hissed out of the pores of his collarbones and evaporated into the air. His pale, sunken cheeks flushed with healthy red blood, and the tearing pain in his chest vanished completely.
[ DING! HOST CONSUMED: RANK 1 FULL-BELLY CHAOS-BONE NOODLES! ]
* Three-Year Black Frost-Poison : 100% PURGED!
* Crippled Dantian & Lungs : FULLY RESTORED!
* Cultivation Breakthrough : Rank 0 -> RANK 1 EARLY MARTIAL!
(Skin & Muscle Tempered — Base Strength: 500 lbs!)
Gu Changsheng set his empty bowl down with a crisp clink and rolled his shoulders. His muscles felt tight and warm, buzzing with five hundred pounds of clean Rank 1 Early Martial strength.
Only then did he push the second steaming bowl across the wooden table toward the doorway.
“Your turn,” Gu Changsheng said, leaning back and wiping his mouth. “Or stand there until it freezes. Up to you.”
By the stove, Gu Nian stared at his father’s flushed, healthy face.
His father hadn’t coughed blood once after drinking the soup. In fact, the rattle in Gu Changsheng’s chest had completely stopped. And his father had eaten the exact same broth from the exact same pot first.
Slowly, one small step at a time, Gu Nian walked over to the table.
His right hand still held the rusted cleaver hidden behind his hip. Leaning over the bowl, the eight-year-old lowered his nose an inch above the rising steam and sniffed carefully.
No bitter almond scent of sleeping powder. No metallic tang of bone-rot drug. Just pure, rich pork marrow and wheat.
Gu Nian’s left hand trembled as he picked up the chopsticks. He pinched a single strand of noodle, stuffed it into his mouth, and bit down.
For one full second, the boy froze.
A wave of gentle, golden warmth spread from his tongue down into his freezing belly. In the original novel, Gu Nian’s unawakened Innate Chaos Demon Bone constantly sucked away his body heat, leaving him feeling like he was being scraped with ice needles day and night.
Now, after all of his eight years of life, the bone-deep freezing pain stopped.
Gu Nian’s eyes widened. He dropped the chopsticks and grabbed the warm ceramic rim of the bowl with both hands. Burying his face in the soup, he slurped the noodles, meat, and broth in desperate, starving gulps until not a drop was left.
When he finally lowered the empty bowl, a smudge of white broth sat on the tip of his nose. His stomach was round and warm, and the terrifying, hollow blackness in his eyes had receded into a dazed, sleepy warmth.
[ DING! CHILD #1 (GU NIAN) FED A FULL-BELLY WARM MEAL! ]
* Innate Chaos Demon Bone Cold-Pain : TEMPORARILY SOOTHED!
* Gu Nian Warmth Index : 25/100 -> 48/100.
* Gu Nian Villain Darkening Meter : 89% -> 65% (-24% DROP!)
* Territory & Household Bonus : Daily Income -> +30 DP/day!
Gu Nian set the bowl down on the table. He didn’t say thank you—he didn’t know how—but he quietly licked the drop of broth off his upper lip and took half a step closer to Gu Changsheng’s stool.
Gu Changsheng glanced at the blood-red countdown in the corner of his vision.
It was 11:45 AM, leaving fifteen minutes until Second Elder Gu Ba and Lin Fan kicked down the gate.
“Stay in the kitchen where it’s warm, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng said. He stood up and grabbed a short iron fire-shovel by the stove. “Dad has to go take out the trash.”
Stepping out the back kitchen door into the snow, Gu Changsheng walked straight to the old woodshed beside the well.
Sure enough, right beneath the third loose floorboard at the back of the shed, the dirt had been freshly turned. Gu Changsheng slid the iron shovel under the frozen clod and pried upward.
Out popped a carved rosewood herb box stamped with the seal of the Gu Clan Treasury.
Gu Changsheng flipped the brass latch open. Resting on red silk inside was a crystal-blue lotus with seven translucent petals radiating cold spiritual qi—the Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus, a peak Rank 1 medicinal treasure worth three hundred silver taels.
“Generous of Second Elder Gu Ba to deliver my dinner ingredients right to my woodshed,” Gu Changsheng chuckled, slipping the real Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus straight into his inner robe pocket.
Now he looked at the empty rosewood box—and at his remaining 10 DP.
Within five seconds, Gu Changsheng scraped a clump of frozen horse manure off the alley wall and caught three hibernating stink-bugs under a rotten log. He tossed them into [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box] with a pinch of glowing night-moss for 10 DP [DP Balance: 30 -> 0 DP].
[OUTPUT 1 : [ Fused Stink-Bug & Horse-Manure Brick (Pressurized)]]
[(Explodes on opening — 10x Fermented Stench!)]
[OUTPUT 2 : [ Invisible UV Glow-Pollen ]]
[(Reacts with Scar-Face Liu’s sweat to glow green!)]
Moving quickly, Gu Changsheng sealed the pressurized [Fused Stink-Bug & Horse-Manure Brick] inside the rosewood box. He dusted the brass latch with the invisible Glow-Pollen and buried the box right back under the woodshed floorboard.
He had just stepped out of the woodshed and brushed the snow off his hands when a sudden commotion echoed down Willow-West Alley outside the front gate.
Clink, clink.
Several copper coins clattered onto the frozen flagstones of the lane, followed by a warm, gentle voice that sounded like a saint stepping down from a temple mural.
“Take these coppers and buy some hot buns, Old Uncle,” a young man’s voice sighed outside the wall, loud enough for every neighbor along the street to hear. “The winter wind is cruel today. Alas, my heart aches that I must accompany Second Uncle to investigate such a shameful clan theft, but righteousness permits no favoritism...”
Gu Changsheng walked to the front courtyard and peered through the crack in the gate planks.
Twenty armed Second Branch guards in black padded armor were marching up the lane behind a burly, square-jawed old man in brocade robes—Second Elder Gu Ba , at Rank 1 Peak Martial.
And walking half a step beside Gu Ba was a handsome eighteen-year-old youth in spotless white scholar robes. Above the youth’s head floated a blinding golden system tag only Gu Changsheng could see: [Lin Fan — Plunder-Type Chosen One | Protagonist Luck Halo: 100%].
In public, Lin Fan wore a sorrowful, compassionate smile as he patted a beggar’s shoulder.
Yet as Lin Fan turned his sleeve toward the gate, Gu Changsheng’s Rank 1 Early Martial hearing caught the venomous whisper Lin Fan hissed into the black ring on his finger.
“Old man Yao, get your soul-furnace ready. Once Gu Ba beats this sickly waste Gu Changsheng to death, I’ll claim his eight-year-old son as a servant. Tonight, we’ll boil that brat’s Demon Bone bloodline into my Foundation Pill!”
Inside the courtyard, Gu Changsheng’s smile vanished.
His hand dropped calmly to the heavy leather belt around his waist.