By one o’clock in the afternoon, the grand stone courtyard of the main Gu Clan Mansion on North Pine Avenue was in complete chaos.
Because the old Clan Patriarch had gone into secluded illness two winters ago and left Second Elder Gu Ba. Acting Steward of the main estate, Gu Ba had treated the clan’s central treasury as his own private piggy bank.
Twenty minutes earlier, Loan-Shark Boss Shark and twenty burly Rank 1 Peak enforcers from the Black-Shark Loan House had marched straight. Through the main gates waving the red-stamped blood-contract that Second Elder Gu Ba and Lin Fan had signed the night before.
Not even the Clan Disciplinary Hall dared block a legally notarized ten-thousand-silver debt backed by an Iron-Bone martial artist!
In less than half an hour, Boss Shark’s men had emptied every single iron chest in the Second Branch and main estate vaults—carrying out six thousand silver taels in cash. Four thousand silver in timber and farmland deeds. Even the bronze candlesticks and fox-fur rugs from Second Elder Gu Ba’s private study to cover the two-thousand-silver overnight interest!
When Boss Shark’s wagons rolled away down the street, the main vault of the Gu Clan Second Branch was so bare that a field mouse would have walked out crying from hunger.
Standing on the marble steps of the main hall—still smelling faintly of hundred-day fermented skunk-cabbage despite having scrubbed himself with three buckets of well water—Second Elder Gu Ba clutched his aching chest. Glared down at the eighty-four people lined up in the snow of the front courtyard.
Those eighty-four people were the entire working backbone of the Gu Clan estate: fifty armored mansion guards led by. Guard Captain Gu Tie (a thirty-five-year-old Rank 1 Peak martial artist with a square jaw and an iron spear). Thirty laundry maids and kitchen servants, and four veteran clan blacksmiths.
“Second Elder,” Guard Captain Gu Tie stepped forward and cupped his calloused hands respectfully, though his voice was tight with worry. “Today is the third day of the twelfth winter month. Our fifty mansion guards, the thirty maids, and the four blacksmiths haven’t been paid our monthly silver wages since September.
Everyone has elderly parents and young children waiting at home to buy winter coal and grain. Since the auction is over, please issue our three months of back pay today.”
Behind Captain Gu Tie, the fifty guards and thirty maids nodded anxiously, stamping their frost-numbed boots in the snow.
For the past three months, Second Elder Gu Ba had delayed their three-silver-per-month wages with excuse after excuse while feeding the guards watered-down millet gruel and sour pickled turnips in the barracks canteen.
Hearing Captain Gu Tie ask for wages five minutes after Boss Shark had cleaned out his last copper coin, Second Elder Gu Ba lost his temper completely!
“Wages?! You have the nerve to stand in my courtyard and demand silver today?!”
Second Elder Gu Ba spat onto the marble steps, his swollen cheeks trembling with fury as he pointed a shaking finger at Captain Gu Tie and the eighty-four staff members.
“Didn’t you see those bandits from the Black-Shark Loan House rob our vault ten minutes ago?! Because that treacherous Third Branch brat Gu Changsheng rigged the auction against my nephew Lin Fan, the estate treasury is temporarily empty! By my order as Acting Steward, all three months of unpaid autumn and winter wages are hereby CANCELED as a mandatory clan loyalty contribution!”
WHAT?!
An outraged murmur rippled through the eighty-four guards, maids, and blacksmiths!
“Canceled?! Three full months of our sweat and blood—nine silver taels per guard—just wiped out. You and Lin Fan lost ten thousand silver buying a public latrine bucket at the auction?!”
one of the young gate guards shouted indignantly.
“Wait until spring for wages!” Second Elder Gu Ba snarled viciously, grabbing a whip from the rack beside the door. “Anyone who dares complain about wages again will get twenty lashes in the Disciplinary Hall!
And starting tonight, the barracks kitchen ration is cut to one bowl of thin millet gruel a day!
Back to your posts!”
In the center of the snowy courtyard, Guard Captain Gu Tie’s square jaw clenched so hard his teeth ground together.
His seventy-year-old mother was lying sick in bed at home waiting for firewood money. His fifty brothers in the guard squad hadn’t eaten a single slice of meat since October—yet Second Elder. Gu Ba had just gambled away ten thousand silver on a chamber pot and canceled their winter survival wages!
Just as Captain Gu Tie’s hand tightened around the shaft of his iron spear and the eighty-four staff members stood on the verge of open mutiny—.
Rumble... roll... DING-ALING-ALING!
The heavy wooden front gates of the Gu Clan Mansion were still standing wide open where Boss Shark’s wagons had driven out.
Right across the wide cobblestone avenue outside the main gates, a large, four-wheeled oak kitchen cart draped in clean red banners came rolling smoothly over the snow!
Pushing the cart effortlessly with one hand was sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu—standing six feet tall in his [Dragon-Turtle Meridian Back Brace], radiating the unmistakable aura of a Rank 2 Early Iron-Bone martial artist. Ringing a bright brass handbell with his other hand!
Beside the cart walked twenty-four-year-old Rank 2 Alchemist Qin Wan’er carrying a tray of crystal jars filled with golden [Jade-Dew Healing Gummies]. Eight-year-old Gu Nian in his yellow bunny smock, holding a neat stack of red wage-envelopes!
And standing right behind the center of the oak cart—wearing a clean white chef’s apron over his dark coat—was Third Branch Head Gu Changsheng!
Resting over the cart’s built-in charcoal brazier was the eighteen-inch dark-gold [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok], topped by a towering, five-tiered bamboo steamer as tall as a grown man!
“What is that Third Branch cripple doing outside our main gate with a noodle cart?!” Second Elder Gu Ba squinted down the steps in fury. “Gu Tie!
Take your guards out there and smash his cart!”
Not a single guard moved an inch.
Because at that exact second, Gu Changsheng smiled across the open gate at the eighty-four cold, hungry guards and servants, reached up with both hands. Lifted the top bamboo lid off the giant steamer!
WHOOOOOOSH!
A towering cloud of warm, golden-white culinary steam billowed out into the freezing December air—propelled straight across the street and through the open mansion gates by a gentle wave of Gu Changsheng’s palm!
Inside the five tiers of that giant bamboo steamer sat three hundred plump, snow-white steamed buns the size of a man’s fist:.
[Rank 2 Perfection: Earth-Heart Braised Pork & Hundred-Herb Soup Buns]—made from white winter wheat flour kneaded with warm spring water, stuffed to bursting with diced snow-boar pork belly, mountain mushrooms. A trace of 200% amplified Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk gravy cooked inside the [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok]!
The moment that rich, savory, mouth-watering aroma of caramelized braised pork belly, ginger, star anise, and warm wheat dough rolled into the mansion courtyard, all eighty-four guards, maids, and blacksmiths froze in their tracks!
Gurgle... GURGLE!
Fifty-four burly martial artists’ stomachs growled in simultaneous, thunderous harmony across the quiet courtyard!
For three months they had chewed watery millet gruel that tasted like wet sand. Now, the heavenly, flaw-free meat aroma drifting from Gu Changsheng’s steamer didn’t just make their mouths water—it made every single meridian and blood vessel in their cold bodies hum with desperate, instinctive longing!
Even Guard Captain Gu Tie, a hardened Rank 1 Peak veteran who had taken three bandit arrows without blinking, swallowed a huge mouthful of saliva. His eyes locked onto the glistening white buns stacked high in the bamboo steamer.
Outside the gate, Grandpa Fu gave his brass handbell three crisp rings—DING-ALING!—and slapped a heavy wooden chest open on the side of the cart, revealing neat, shining rows of ten-tael silver ingots!
Then Grandpa Fu raised his booming Rank 2 voice so that every guard, maid, and elder in the entire Gu Clan compound could hear him clearly:.
“Hear ye, all guards, servants, and artisans of the Frost-Pine Gu Clan!”
Grandpa Fu pointed at the open chest of silver with his black-iron abacus:.
“Young Master Gu Changsheng of the Third Branch—candidate for Tomorrow’s Clan Patriarch Vote. Senior Partner of the Gu Family Peace Pharmacy—has heard that Second Elder Gu Ba just gambled away the estate vault on a latrine bucket and canceled your three months of winter wages!”
Grandpa Fu held up a stack of red envelopes stuffed with silver coins:.
“Right here, right now, Young Master Gu Changsheng is paying all three months of unpaid back wages in full silver cash out of his own pocket to any guard. Maid, or blacksmith who transfers from the Second Branch to our Third Branch household today! Plus, future monthly wages are doubled to six silver taels a month, free medical care at the Peace Pharmacy for your whole family, AND two piping-hot [Earth-Heart Braised Pork Buns] on the spot!”
[ DING! CULINARY & PAYROLL RECRUITMENT OFFENSIVE! ]
* Bait Deployed : 100% Back Wages in Cash + Doubled Salary +.
[Rank 2 Earth-Heart Braised Pork Buns]!
* Target Group : 84 Starving & Unpaid Gu Clan Mansion Staff!
* Daily Income : +4,300 DP/day -> +4,800 DP/day!
Up on the marble steps, Second Elder Gu Ba turned purple with terror: “Nobody move! Whoever steps out that gate is a traitor to my Second Branch!”
In the front rank of the guards, Guard Captain Gu Tie looked once at Second Elder Gu Ba’s empty. Greedy hands—and then looked across the street at the steaming mountain of golden-juiced pork buns and eight-year-old Gu Nian holding out a pair of bamboo tongs with a polite smile.
Beside Captain Gu Tie, a nineteen-year-old gate guard named Xiao Wu swallowed hard, his eyes red as he whispered:.
“Captain... my little sister had a winter fever two days ago. When I went to Second Elder Gu Ba’s steward to beg for just one silver tael of my own back wages to buy medicine, the steward kicked me down the stairs!
Then I went to Patriarch Gu’s Peace Pharmacy on Willow-West Street—and Doctor Qin gave my sister two golden healing gummies and a bowl of hot ginger soup for ten copper coins! Look at Second Elder Gu Ba up there on the steps: he spent ten thousand silver on a chamber pot, and he won’t even give us our three months of sweat-money!”
Over by the laundry baskets, Head Maid Aunt Liu—who had washed the clan’s winter sheets for fifteen. Years with frostbitten hands—wiped her rough palms on her apron and spoke up in a trembling, resolute voice:.
“Xiao Wu is right! For three years while Young Master Changsheng was sick in the Third Branch, Second Elder Gu Ba threatened to whip any maid who brought a basket of coal to Little Master Nian! Yet today Young Master Changsheng brought a whole cart of silver and steaming meat buns right to our gate to pay the wages that Gu Ba stole from us!”
Across the street beside the oak kitchen cart, twenty-four-year-old Rank 2 Alchemist Qin Wan’er also stepped forward, lifting the crystal lid off a big jar of golden [Jade-Dew Healing Fruit Gummies].
“All guards, maids, and blacksmiths who have old training bruises, winter frostbite. Or sick elders at home,” Auntie Qin called out in a clear, warm voice that carried across the snowy courtyard, “as soon. You collect your back wages from Butler Fu and your hot pork buns from Patriarch Gu.
Every person also receives a complimentary jar of five [Jade-Dew Healing Gummies] to take home to your families!”
Five golden healing gummies—worth thirty silver taels at the old Pill Hall prices—given out for free on top of full back pay, doubled monthly wages, and steaming braised pork buns!
Up on the marble steps, Second Elder Gu Ba saw the eighty-four guards, maids, and blacksmiths shifting their feet toward the gate and panicked completely.
“Don’t listen to them!” Second Elder Gu Ba screamed, his voice cracking through his swollen, toothless gums. “I am still the Acting Steward of the main mansion!
Those buns are probably stuffed with cheap turnip scraps!
Guard Captain Gu Tie, bar the front gates right now or I’ll have the Clan Elders strip your rank!”
Captain Gu Tie didn’t bar the gates.
Instead, the thirty-five-year-old veteran guard captain took a deep breath of the rich, mouth-watering braised pork aroma filling the winter street, and looked Second Elder Gu Ba straight in the eye.