Inside the warm study of the auction house residence, fifty-five-year-old Manager Qian Fugui was sitting on a cushioned couch with his left trouser leg rolled up above his knee.
Two servant boys were pressing hot salt bags against his swollen, purple-veined kneecap, while Manager Qian clenched his teeth and groaned softly every time a draft blew under the door.
“Careful, careful! Don’t press directly on the joint!” Manager Qian hissed, wiping cold sweat from his plump forehead with a silk handkerchief.
“Every December when the snow falls, this cursed twenty-year cold-damp rheumatism feels like somebody drove two rusty iron nails right into my kneecap!
Tomorrow I have to stand on the auction stage for four hours straight—how am I supposed to hold the gavel when I can barely bend my leg?!”
Just then, the study door opened, and Gu Changsheng walked in carrying the red-stoppered clay jar of [Fused Tiger-Bone Rheumatism Wine], with eight-year-old Gu Nian following politely behind him in his yellow bunny slippers.
“Patriarch Gu? And Little Master Nian?” Manager Qian tried to push himself up from the couch to bow.
Only for a sharp stab of pain in his left knee to make him gasp and sink back onto the cushion.
“Forgive this old man for not standing up! After walking back from Willow-West Street in the evening frost, my old knee locked up again.”
“Don’t get up, Manager Qian,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, setting the clay jar on the low tea table and waving the two servant boys back. “When you came to our gate during dinner to warn us about the Second Branch’s ten-thousand-silver loan, Sister Wan’er and I noticed your left knee was bothering you in the cold. You did our family a neighborly favor tonight, so we couldn’t let you suffer through tomorrow’s auction.”
Gu Changsheng popped the red cloth cork off the clay wine jar.
Glug, glug, glug.
A stream of glowing, ruby-amber medicinal liquor poured into a porcelain warming cup on the table.
The instant the liquor touched the cup, a rich, spicy fragrance of three-year glutinous rice wine, aged mountain fire-ginger, and flaw-free Tiger-Bone Marrow Grass filled the study!
Manager Qian Fugui was an experienced treasure appraiser who had smelled hundreds of high-grade medicinal wines from Azure-Cloud Prefecture City. Yet the moment he inhaled a single breath of this ruby liquor, his round eyes bulged in amazement.
“This aroma... there isn’t a trace of harsh alcohol burn or herb sediment!” Manager Qian cried.
“Just smelling the steam makes the cold ache in my hip loosen up!”
“Drink this cup while it’s warm, Manager Qian, and let me rub two drops onto your kneecap,” Gu Changsheng said, handing him the porcelain cup.
Manager Qian didn’t hesitate. He tilted his head back and drank the warm ruby wine down in one gulp. Gu Changsheng poured a spoonful of the liquor into his palm and pressed his warm Rank 1 Peak hand lightly against Manager Qian’s swollen left knee.
Hummm—Sizzle!
Guided by Gu Changsheng’s gentle Blood Qi, the 100% flaw-free [Fused Tiger-Bone Rheumatism Wine] penetrated straight through skin, muscle, and tendon into the deep joint capsule of Manager Qian’s knee!
For twenty winters, stubborn clots of cold-damp wind-moisture had calcified inside the cartilage of that joint, resisting acupuncture needles, hot plasters, and expensive pills alike.
Now, under the dual assault of the ruby wine surging from his stomach and the warm medicinal essence soaking through his kneecap, those twenty-year cold clots melted like frost under a blowtorch!
A visible wisp of clammy gray mist steamed right out of the pores around Manager Qian’s ankle and vanished into the air, while fresh, warm blood rushed through his previously blocked lower-leg meridians!
“Ooh! It’s hot! It’s tingling!”
Manager Qian’s round face flushed a healthy pink.
One minute passed. Two minutes. Three minutes.
The purple swelling around his kneecap receded completely until his left knee was the exact same size as his right.
Blinking in disbelief, Manager Qian tentatively bent his left leg, straightened it, and then jumped right off the couch onto the hardwood floor without touching his wooden cane!
Thump, thump!
He stomped his left foot twice on the floorboards, did three deep squats in a row without a single creak or twinge of pain. Stared down at his own legs as if he had grown a new pair!
“Gone! Twenty years of winter rheumatism—completely gone in three minutes!” Manager Qian’s voice trembled with overwhelming gratitude as his Warmth Index toward Gu Changsheng rocketed from 45/100 straight up to 82/100!
He turned and bowed deeply to Gu Changsheng, nearly bumping his forehead against his own knees.
“Patriarch Gu! For ten winters I spent hundreds of silver taels at Second Elder Gu Ba’s Pill Hall, and their medicines didn’t relieve one-tenth of my pain! One cup of your Tiger-Bone Wine gave me my legs back!
Leave this whole jar with me—whatever you need in my auction house tonight, just name it!”
“Since Manager Qian is so forthright, I won’t stand on ceremony,” Gu Changsheng said with a relaxed smile. Pulling two ten-tael silver ingots out of his sleeve and setting them on the table beside the wine jar. “Earlier tonight, you mentioned that Lin Fan was sneaking around your back warehouse asking about Lot #88—that bundle of unappraised scrap iron dug out of the mountain ruins.”
“That’s right!” Manager Qian frowned in disgust. “Lot #88 is just a rusted-out black iron pot and a cracked green foundation brick that a farmer dug up last month.
We only put a fifty-silver reserve on it as a clearance lot.
Under house rules, unappraised scrap iron in the back shed can be replaced with any equivalent weight of scrap metal before the morning catalog is sealed.”
“Sister Wan’er needs a heavy old iron pot to mash wild dandelions in the courtyard, and I never like letting Lin Fan get what he wants without a surprise,” Gu Changsheng chuckled dryly. “How about I pay twenty silver for that rusty pot. Cracked brick right now—and leave two identical pieces of scrap iron in their place on the Lot #88 shelf so your morning catalog stays complete?”
Manager Qian burst out laughing and slapped his thigh, refusing to take the twenty silver until Gu Changsheng pressed it into his hand.
“If taking an old rusty pot makes that two-faced brat Lin Fan cry tomorrow morning, Patriarch Gu is doing our whole town a public service!” Manager Qian said cheerfully. Tossing Gu Changsheng the brass key to the rear scrap-iron shed.
“Go right ahead, Patriarch Gu!
The night watchmen are all at the front hall—take whatever scrap iron you like!”
Five minutes later, Gu Changsheng and eight-year-old Gu Nian slipped into the dim, dusty rear warehouse of the auction house.
Right on the wooden shelf marked [Lot #88. Unappraised Ruin Scrap] sat a two-foot-wide black cauldron covered in flaky red rust, and a heavy, moss-stained green stone brick with a hairline crack across its middle.
Even through the thick rust and stone shell, Gu Changsheng could feel a faint, ancient thrum of pure Earth-Fire and liquid marrow-qi sleeping inside them.
“Into the sack they go, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng whispered. Sliding both the real [Rank 3 Earth-Fire Pill Furnace] and the real [Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk Brick] into his thick canvas sack, which completely muffled their spiritual aura.
“Dad, what do we put on the shelf so Uncle Lin still bids ten thousand silver tomorrow?” Gu Nian whispered back, his black-gold eyes dancing with mischief.
Gu Changsheng grinned and pointed toward the janitor’s corner behind the warehouse door.
Sitting beside the mop bucket was a dented, rusted iron bucket with a broken handle stamped with the words [Frost-Pine Town Public Latrine Bucket #4. Do Not Steal], along with a cracked clay paving brick and a half-barrel of [100-Day Fermented Skunk-Cabbage & Night-Soil Fertilizer] that the auction house gardener kept for the spring flowerbeds!
Gu Changsheng tapped open [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box] in his mind.
Into Slot 1, he placed [Frost-Pine Public Latrine Bucket #4 + Cracked Clay Brick].
Into Slot 2, he ladled [Two Gallons of 100-Day Fermented Skunk-Cabbage & Night-Soil Juice].
Into Slot 3, he added [A Pinch of Rust Scrapings from the Real Earth-Fire Cauldron] to create a surface layer of fake spiritual aura!
“System, fuse a pair of 100% convincing decoy replicas for Lot #88!” Gu Changsheng commanded silently. “Make the outside smell like a Rank 3 Earth-Fire treasure to a spiritual sense scan, and seal the fermented skunk-cabbage juice under high pressure inside the brick!
Cost: one hundred and fifty Dad Points!”
[ DAD’S CARE-PACKAGE UPGRADE BOX — MASTERWORK DECOY SWAP! ]
* Input 1 : [Public Latrine Bucket #4 + Cracked Clay Paving Brick]
* Input 2 : [100-Day Fermented Skunk-Cabbage & Night-Soil Juice]
* Input 3 : [Real Earth-Fire Rust Scrapings (Surface Aura Mask)]
* Cost : 150 DP (Remaining Balance: 1,960 DP)
[ DING! 100% FLAW-FREE DECOY REPLICAS CREATED! ]
* Output : [Decoy Lot #88: Painted Latrine Bucket & Skunk-Juice.
Time-Bomb Brick]
* Effect : Perfectly mimics the external appearance and surface.
Earth-Fire aura of the real treasures, fooling even a.
sleepy Golden Core remnant soul from 30 feet away!
The instant the brick is struck with martial qi, it.
detonates a high-pressure geyser of 100-Day Skunk Juice!
Gu Changsheng set the painted latrine bucket and the pressurized skunk-juice brick neatly onto the Lot #88 wooden shelf, locked the warehouse door behind him, and returned the key to Manager Qian’s servant.
[ DING! CHOSEN ONE’S AUCTION TREASURES INTERCEPTED! ]
* Acquired : Real [Rank 3 Earth-Fire Cauldron] & Real.
[Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk Brick]!
* Immediate DP : +150 DP Treasure Heist Bonus (Balance: 2,110 DP)
* Daily Income : +2,400 DP/day -> +2,650 DP/day!
However, just as Gu Changsheng slung the canvas sack over his shoulder and stepped out the rear alley gate with Gu Nian, hasty footsteps crunched through the snow from the street corner!
Gu Changsheng calmly pulled Gu Nian behind the shadow of a stone horse-trough.
Ten feet away, a pale-faced Lin Fan came creeping along the outer brick wall of the auction house warehouse. Holding his black iron ring up toward the high window as a faint wisp of white smoke sniffed the [Fake Earth-Fire Aura] drifting from the decoy latrine bucket inside:.
“Good, good!” Master Yao Chen’s sleepy voice echoed inside Lin Fan’s head. “The Earth-Fire aura is still right there on the shelf! Tomorrow morning, make sure you get Lot #88 at any price!”
Lin Fan let out a long breath of relief, his shoulders slumping against the snowy brick wall as he wiped cold sweat from his forehead bandage.
“Master, are you hundred-percent certain that nobody in Frost-Pine Town can tell what’s inside that rusty cauldron and cracked green brick?” Lin Fan whispered nervously into his sleeve, glancing back toward the dark street. “To borrow that ten thousand silver tonight, I had to talk Second Elder Gu Ba into mortgaging every last acre of the Second Branch’s ancestral farmland to Loan-Shark Boss Shark!
If Lot #88 turns out to be a dud tomorrow, Boss Shark will chop off Gu Ba’s fingers and throw me into the frozen river!”
Inside the black iron ring, Master Yao Chen snorted with the lofty arrogance of a former Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign.
“A dud? Boy, do you dare question the nose of a Golden Core Pill Sovereign?” Yao Chen’s ghostly voice rasped indignantly inside Lin Fan’s skull. *“Even if my soul is resting right now and I only scanned the surface of that shelf for half a breath, how could anyone in this pathetic mortal backwater fake genuine ancient Earth-Fire rust?!
As for that slightly sour, earthy smell underneath the rust—all ancient mountain ruins buried near underground swamps smell like fermented mud! Stop being a coward and go home to sleep!”*
Hearing Master Yao Chen explain away the faint smell of the hundred-day fermented skunk-cabbage juice as “ancient underground swamp mud,” Lin Fan’s last shred of doubt vanished completely!
His pale face twisted into a grin of pure, malicious ecstasy.
“Ancient underground swamp mud! Of course!” Lin Fan chuckled under his breath, kissing the black iron ring on his thumb.
“Even if Gu Changsheng comes to the auction tomorrow with the three hundred silver he won from Inspector Ma, what can three hundred silver do against my ten-thousand-silver bank draft?!
Tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, I’ll smash that green brick right on the auction stage, drink the Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk in front of Gu Changsheng’s face, and watch him kneel!”
Hiding behind the stone horse-trough ten feet away. Gu Changsheng rested a warm hand on top of eight-year-old Gu Nian’s head and shook his head in silent sympathy for the old ghost inside that ring.
Ancient underground swamp mud, Gu Changsheng thought dryly, patting the canvas sack containing the real Rank 3 furnace and real Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk at his side. Wait until your host smashes that brick open with his mouth wide open tomorrow morning, old man. We’ll see how your Golden Core nose likes a hundred days of fermented skunk-cabbage.