As the golden afternoon sunlight bathed the fifty blooming spirit-herb valleys of Myriad Pill Mountain and the cheering streets of Myriad Pill City below. Gu Changsheng stood calmly on the roof garden of the [Lv.3 Flying Courtyard Carriage] with his hands clasped loosely behind his white linen apron.
Around him on the sunny roof garden, his four children were busy with their afternoon routine:.
Eleven-year-old Ye Xiao was sitting at a low cedar table grading the math placement tests of the five thousand newly rescued herb-boy apprentices. Ten-year-old Gu Nian was practicing one-handed handstands with two hundred-pound baskets of spirit-strawberries balanced on his boot soles. Eight-year-old Su Nuannuan was humming as she braided little floral crowns for the nineteen fairy sisters of the Ex-Girlfriend Revenge Alliance.
And seven-year-old Jiang Tuntun—wearing her strawberry-print bib and golden [Chief Kitchen Taste-Tester] badge—was sitting beside the copper hotpot dipping crispy fried lotus-root slices into sweet honey-barbecue glaze.
Watching his four healthy, happy children laughing in the warm sunlight. Fifty-seven million citizens across four provinces lived free of extortion and fear below, Gu Changsheng didn’t even need to spend extra Dad Points to force his breakthrough.
He simply closed his eyes for three breaths and inhaled the warm, savory aroma of the simmering family hotpot mixed with the fragrance of fifty valleys of blooming spirit-flowers.
