Clack.
In front of eighty-three pairs of watching eyes, Guard Captain Gu Tie reached down to his waist, unhooked the black wooden Second Branch guard token that he had worn for ten years. Tossed it straight into the slush at the bottom of the marble steps.
“Second Elder Gu,” Captain Gu Tie said in a flat, resonant voice, standing straight with his iron spear in hand. “My fifty brothers and I signed contracts to guard the Frost-Pine Gu Clan, not to starve our mothers and children so you and your nephew-in-law can buy ten-thousand-silver chamber pots. From this breath on, Guard Captain Gu Tie resigns from the Second Branch!”
“Gu Tie! You dare desert your post?!” Second Elder Gu Ba shrieked from the top of the steps, waving his whip wildly.
“If you walk out that gate, you’ll never eat another bowl of Second Branch rice as long as you live!”
“Keep your sour millet gruel for yourself, Second Elder,” Captain Gu Tie replied without looking back.
He turned on his heel, marched straight out the wide-open main gates of the Gu Clan Mansion. Stopped in front of Gu Changsheng’s oak kitchen cart, dropping to one knee in the snow with his fists cupped high above his head!
“Former Mansion Guard Captain Gu Tie—Rank 1 Peak Martial, ten years on the northern wall—requests permission to join Patriarch Gu Changsheng’s Third Branch household!”
Gu Changsheng stepped around the cart, reached down with both hands, and pulled the burly guard captain up by the shoulders with a warm, respectful pat on the arm.
“A veteran who kept our clan walls safe for ten winters doesn’t kneel in the snow, Captain Gu Tie,” Gu Changsheng said clearly. “Welcome home. Grandpa Fu, Nian’er—settle Captain Gu Tie’s back pay and serve him two hot buns!”
“Right away, Young Master!”
Grandpa Fu clicked his black-iron abacus twice and handed Captain Gu Tie a thick red paper. Envelope containing ten shining silver taels—nine silver for his three months of unpaid autumn and winter wages. Plus one extra silver tael as a signing bonus!
Right beside Grandpa Fu, eight-year-old Gu Nian stood on a wooden footstool in his yellow bunny slippers, used a pair of bamboo tongs to lift two massive. Steaming-hot [Earth-Heart Braised Pork Buns] out of the top steamer tray. Handed them to the big guard captain in a clean oiled-paper wrapper.
“Here you go, Uncle Gu Tie,” Gu Nian said earnestly. “Be careful on the first bite, because Dad put real bone-marrow soup inside the meat and it’s super juicy!”
Holding the heavy ten-silver envelope in his left hand and the two hot, fragrant buns in his right hand, thirty-five-year-old Captain Gu Tie felt his rough nose sting with sudden emotion.
Inside the mansion gates behind him, fifty starving guards, thirty maids, and four blacksmiths craned their necks eagerly to watch.
Captain Gu Tie didn’t wait another second. He opened his mouth and took a huge, hearty bite out of the first steaming [Earth-Heart Braised Pork Bun]!
Crunch—slurp!
The fluffy white wheat skin gave way to a burst of rich, golden-red braised snow-boar pork belly and piping-hot Earth-Heart marrow broth!
Because those buns had been steamed over the nine-layered Earth-Fire of the [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] with 200% medicinal amplification and 100% flaw-free digestibility. The moment that mouthful of meat and broth slid down Captain Gu Tie’s throat, it exploded in his stomach like a miniature furnace of pure, liquid vitality!
For four long years, thirty-five-year-old Gu Tie had been stuck at the bottleneck of Rank 1 Peak Martial because he couldn’t afford the hundred-silver Bone-Forging Pills required to temper his skeleton into Iron-Bone.
Now, as he devoured the first bun in three bites and stuffed the second bun into his mouth. The flaw-free Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk essence coursed straight through his blood vessels into every bone in his body!
CRACK—HUMMMMM—BOOM!
Right in the middle of North Pine Avenue, a visible pillar of bronze-gold Blood Qi erupted from the crown of Captain Gu Tie’s head, melting the snow in a ten-foot circle around his boots!
Inside his burly frame, his two hundred and six bones rang out like a forge anvil struck by a master smith’s hammer—refining from mortal bone into genuine, indestructible Iron-Bone in five heartbeats flat!
Rank 2 Early Martial—Iron-Bone Stage!
Silence dropped over the street and the mansion courtyard like a thunderclap.
Captain Gu Tie froze with the last bite of pork bun still in his cheek. He looked down at his own right hand, clenched his fist, and lightly tapped the two-inch-thick iron shaft of his guard spear—leaving five deep finger-dents in the solid pig-iron!
“I... I broke through?!” Captain Gu Tie’s eyes went wide with disbelief before he dropped to both knees in front of Gu Changsheng’s cart, his Warmth Index rocketing from 55/100 straight to 94/100!
“Four years stuck at Rank 1 Peak—and eating two of Patriarch Gu’s braised pork buns pushed me straight into Rank 2 Iron-Bone?!”
Inside the mansion courtyard, the fifty guards, thirty maids, and four blacksmiths stared at the five finger-dents in Captain Gu Tie’s iron spear—and then lost their minds completely!
“HE BROKE INTO RANK 2 FROM EATING ONE PORK BUN?!”
“Nine silver taels in cash, doubled monthly pay, AND immortal pork buns that break cultivation bottlenecks?! What are we still standing in this stingy old miser’s yard for?!”
“Wait for me, Captain Gu Tie! I’m switching branches too!”
Clatter-clack-clack!
Fifty wooden guard tokens, thirty maid aprons, and four blacksmith hammers rained down onto the snow at the foot of Second Elder Gu Ba’s steps like hail!
Like a herd of starving warhorses breaking out of a corral, all forty-nine remaining mansion guards, all thirty laundry and kitchen maids. All four veteran clan blacksmiths stampeded out the front gates of the Gu Clan Mansion in a single roaring wave!
“Stop! Come back here! I order you to come back!”
Second Elder Gu Ba ran down the marble steps waving his whip so frantically that he slipped on the pile of discarded wooden tokens, tumbled headfirst down the last six stairs. Knocked out his fifth molar on a stone lion’s paw!
Outside in the street, nobody even looked back at him.
In less than one hour, Grandpa Fu clicked his black-iron abacus eighty-four times, paying out every single copper of back wages in cash while Gu Changsheng, Auntie Qin. Little Gu Nian handed out one hundred and sixty-eight steaming [Earth-Heart Braised Pork Buns]!
Every single guard, maid, and blacksmith who bit into those hot, juicy buns experienced a moment they would remember for the rest of their lives.
Nineteen-year-old gate guard Xiao Wu ate his two buns in four big bites—and the warm Earth-Heart marrow broth instantly cleared a three-year blockage in his leg meridians. Pushing him from Rank 1 Early straight into Rank 1 Mid Martial!
Head Maid Aunt Liu drank the warm golden gravy from her bun—and the painful winter chilblains on her ten fingers vanished in ten breaths, leaving her hands warm, supple. Painless after all of fifteen winters!
The four veteran clan blacksmiths—led by Master Smith Gu Chui—felt their tired shoulders fill with surging bull-strength. All four broke into Rank 1 Late Martial on the spot, immediately kneeling to swear that they would forge every gate, lock. Tool for the Third Branch without ever slacking for a single breath!
Twelve veteran Rank 1 Mid guards broke straight into Rank 1 Late on the spot; thirty-seven Early guards advanced to Rank 1 Mid. And all eighty-four staff members saw their personal Warmth Index toward Gu Changsheng soar past 80/100!
Watching the eighty-four guards and maids laughing, wiping away happy tears. Bowing to Gu Changsheng while eight-year-old Gu Nian handed out jars of golden healing gummies with a serious little nod, Auntie Qin smiled warmly beside the steamer cart.
“Brother Gu,” Auntie Qin said softly as she helped Gu Nian wipe a smudge of flour off his nose, “other clan heads spend ten years trying to buy loyalty with harsh rules and punishments. You wheeled out one pot of pork buns and turned the entire Gu Clan staff into family in forty-five minutes.”
“People aren’t complicated, Sister Wan’er,” Gu Changsheng said, scraping the last bit of frost off the steamer lid with his dark-gold spatula. “Pay them on time, treat their parents when they’re sick, and put real meat in their buns. Do those three things, and nobody can ever pry a clan apart.”
By two o’clock in the afternoon, when the new recruits marched cheerfully down the street carrying their luggage toward the Third Branch compound and the Central Street Pill Hall. The massive Gu Clan Mansion behind them was completely empty save for a toothless Second Elder Gu Ba groaning in the snow and a foul-smelling Lin Fan hiding in the woodshed!
Even the gatehouse dog—a big yellow mastiff that Second Elder Gu Ba had kicked the day before—trotted happily. Out the front gate behind eight-year-old Gu Nian after the boy tossed it half a braised pork bun!
Back inside the deserted mansion courtyard, Lin Fan crept out of the woodshed clutching his aching stomach and staring in disbelief at the empty guard barracks and silent kitchens.
“Gone... all eighty-four of them walked out in one hour?!” Lin Fan’s fingernails dug into the wooden pillar until they bled.
“And tomorrow at dawn, the three retired Grand Elders are coming down from the rear mountain to hold an emergency Clan Patriarch Vote!
If Gu Changsheng takes the Patriarch Seal tomorrow morning, I won’t even have a roof over my head in Frost-Pine Town!”
Inside the black iron ring on his thumb, Master Yao Chen didn’t utter a sound—the old Pill Sovereign was still sealing his nose behind three layers of spiritual barriers after the morning’s latrine-bucket disaster.
Without his Ring-Grandpa’s advice, and with Foreknowledge Decay pressing down on his shrinking fortune like a millstone, Lin Fan’s eyes turned dark and feral.
“If Gu Changsheng dies tonight or before the seal touches his hand at dawn,” Lin Fan whispered through clenched teeth. “The Grand Elders will have no choice but to keep my uncle Gu Ba in charge!”
[ DING! MASS RECRUITMENT SWEEP — 84 LOYAL CLAN STAFF GAINED! ]
* New Allies : Guard Captain Gu Tie (Rank 2 Early | Warmth: 94)
+ 49 Guards, 30 Maids & 4 Blacksmiths (Warmth 80+)
* Immediate DP : +300 DP Mutiny Sweep Bonus (Balance: 4,360 DP)
* Daily Income : +4,800 DP/day -> +5,400 DP/day!
However, as darkness fell over Frost-Pine Town that evening—just twelve hours. Tomorrow morning’s emergency Clan Patriarch Vote at the Ancestral Hall—a desperate, foul-smelling figure in a hooded black cloak crept into a dead-end alley behind the abandoned north slaughterhouse.
It was Lin Fan!
With the Second Branch vault empty, his uncle Gu Ba crippled in bed. Gu Changsheng poised to be voted in as formal Patriarch of the entire Gu Clan at dawn tomorrow, Lin Fan’s bloodshot eyes glowed with cornered madness [Luck Halo: 58%].
Facing three gaunt men in iron rat-masks crouching in the shadows of the slaughterhouse roof—three notorious Rank 2 Early Shadow-Rat Assassins passing through Frost-Pine County—Lin Fan pulled a dagger. Sliced a deep cut across his own left wrist. Letting his remaining martial essence-blood drip into a jade bowl!
“I don’t have silver, but you Shadow-Rat killers cultivate the Blood-Swallowing Manual!” Lin Fan hissed like a venomous snake. Shoving the bowl of his own essence-blood and the deed to his mother’s final dowry ring into the lead assassin’s hands.
“Tomorrow at dawn inside the Gu Clan Ancestral Hall, hide beneath the altar floor tiles!
Before the three retired Clan Elders hand the Patriarch Seal to Gu Changsheng, put your poisoned daggers through Gu Changsheng’s and his old butler’s hearts!”
The lead assassin, Rat-One, picked up the warm bowl of martial essence-blood and sniffed it through his iron rat-mask, his narrow eyes gleaming coldly in the dark.
“Three months of refined Rank 1 Mid essence-blood plus a fifty-silver dowry ring,” Rat-One rasped, licking his cracked lips as he gestured to Rat-Two and Rat-Three behind him. “For three Rank 2 Early Shadow-Rat killers to ambush a Rank 1 Peak clan head and an old one-eyed butler at five paces, this price is just enough.
Unlock the rear underground drain of the Ancestral Hall for us before midnight—at dawn tomorrow, Gu Changsheng’s head will roll before his fingers touch that bronze seal!”