Second Elder Gu Ba didn’t bother knocking on the barred gate.
Channeling his Rank 1 Peak Martial qi into his heavy leather boot, the burly old man kicked the oak crossbeam straight down the middle.
Splinters and snow exploded inward across the courtyard flagstones as the two halves of the rotting gate crashed flat onto the ground.
Twenty Second Branch guards in black padded coats poured into the small yard with their hands on their saber hilts, forming two menacing rows along the snowbanks. Behind them, thirty curious neighbors from Willow-West Alley crowded around the open gateway, craning their necks to watch the excitement.
At the front of the crowd stood Widow Zhang, clutching a wicker basket of salted turnips against her plump waist. Her small eyes gleamed with greedy anticipation as she whispered to the cobbler beside her.
“Just watch, Old Zhao! This morning at the clan teahouse, I bet five whole silver taels of my winter savings that Gu Changsheng stole the clan’s treasure herb! Once Second Elder drags the proof out of his yard, I’ll double my money!”
Between the two rows of black-coated guards, Second Elder Gu Ba puffed out his barrel chest in his fur-trimmed brocade robe.
Walking half a step to his left was his eighteen-year-old nephew-in-law, Lin Fan [Protagonist Luck Halo: 100%].
Even in the muddy winter slush, Lin Fan’s white scholar robes looked spotless. He kept his hands tucked modestly inside his wide sleeves and let out a long, sorrowful sigh that carried clearly to every neighbor at the gate.
“Second Uncle, please temper your anger,” Lin Fan pleaded in a warm, righteous voice, bowing slightly toward Gu Changsheng on the porch. “Cousin Changsheng has been bedridden for three years. Even if he fell into momentary greed and stole the clan’s life-saving medicine, he is still flesh and blood of the Gu Clan.
If he kneels and returns the herb now, perhaps we can spare his life and merely expel him from the town...”
Several gullible peddlers in the lane nodded approvingly. “Listen to Young Master Lin! So forgiving and noble!”
Yet inside Lin Fan’s left sleeve, his thumb rubbed the antique black ring on his finger. He whispered under his breath.
*“Old man Yao, look at that eight-year-old brat standing behind the door. His bloodline is even denser than yesterday. Make sure Gu Ba breaks Gu Changsheng’s spine cleanly.
That way nobody will notice when I take the boy to my cellar.”*
Standing on the cottage porch, Gu Changsheng looked at Lin Fan’s saintly expression and felt a strong urge to laugh.
In the book, this hypocrite got three whole pages praising his ‘heart of a benevolent bodhisattva’ while he framed a dying man and boiled an eight-year-old’s marrow, Gu Changsheng thought dryly. Let’s see how benevolent your face looks in two minutes.
“Spare him? Bah! You’re too soft-hearted, Nephew Lin!”
Second Elder Gu Ba spat on the flagstones and jabbed a thick finger at Gu Changsheng’s nose.
“Gu Changsheng! Last night, a thief broke into the Clan Treasury and stole the Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus we bought to tribute to the Prefecture Alchemist Guild! Not only did you refuse to sign the debt transfer this morning, you even ambushed my servant Scar-Face Liu!
Today, before the whole neighborhood, I’ll tear off your shameless mask!”
Gu Ba waved his hand toward the rear of the guard formation. “Scar-Face Liu! Get over here and search the woodshed!”
With a dirty linen rag tied around his swollen, toothless jaw, Scar-Face Liu limped out from behind the guards. His eyes burned with pure venom as he glared at Gu Changsheng.
“Yef, Fecond Elder!” Liu lisped through the gap where his four front teeth used to be. “I faw him sneak into the woodfhed earlier!
It muft be hidden under the floorboardf!”
Grabbing an iron pry-bar from a guard, Scar-Face Liu trotted straight to the small woodshed beside the well.
He didn’t even pretend to search the firewood pile. He walked directly to the third loose floorboard at the back—the exact spot where he had buried the box an hour ago—and jammed the iron bar underneath.
As his sweaty fingers gripped the rosewood box and the brass latch, the invisible UV Glow-Pollen Gu Changsheng had dusted across the wood soaked deep into the pores of both of Liu’s palms.
“Found it!” Scar-Face Liu howled in triumph, running back to the center of the courtyard and holding the carved rosewood box high above his head. “Look at the Clan Treasury seal on the wood, everyone!
Gu Changsheng stole the Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus and hid it under his woodshed!”
At the gate, Widow Zhang clapped her hands in glee. “Aha! Caught red-handed!
My five silver taels at the teahouse are safe!”
Second Elder Gu Ba stroked his beard with a vicious smirk. “Well, Gu Changsheng? The stolen treasure box is right here in broad daylight!
What else do you have to say for yourself?! Scar-Face Liu, open the box and show the neighbors the Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus!”
On the porch, Gu Changsheng calmly took half a step backward, pulling eight-year-old Gu Nian behind his cloak and covering the boy’s nose with a clean sleeve.
“Go ahead,” Gu Changsheng said mildly. “Open it wide. Don’t miss a single whiff.”
Down in the center of the yard, Scar-Face Liu grinned his gap-toothed grin. He held the rosewood box six inches in front of his own face so the crowd could see, and flipped the brass latch open.
CLICK—KABOOM!!
Inside the box, the pressurized [Fused Stink-Bug & Horse-Manure Brick] detonated on contact with the winter air!
A thick, roaring geyser of one-hundred-day fermented horse manure and crushed stink-bug oil blasted straight out of the box like a cannon shot!
Scar-Face Liu was leaning right over the lid with his mouth wide open to gloat. Ninety percent of the brown, steaming sludge shot straight down his throat and plastered his entire face from forehead to chin!
“BLURGH—!!”
The stench hit the courtyard like a physical wall. It smelled as if ten thousand dead skunks had been boiled in an outhouse under the summer sun.
Scar-Face Liu dropped the box, fell to his knees in the snow, and gagged so violently his eyes bulged out of their sockets. The twenty Second Branch guards standing downwind turned green and stumbled backward into the snowbanks, retching into their helmets.
“What the hell is that smell?!” Second Elder Gu Ba choked, pinching his nose and leaping ten feet back as drops of brown muck splattered the hem of his brocade robe. “Where is the Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus?!
Why is the clan box full of horse dung?!”
“Because I didn’t put a lotus in it,” Gu Changsheng’s clear, calm voice rang out from the porch.
Gu Changsheng pointed a finger toward the noon sun breaking through the thin white clouds overhead, then pointed down at Scar-Face Liu’s hands.
“Neighbors, before you call someone a thief, take a look at Scar-Face Liu’s palms.”
Every head at the courtyard gate craned forward.
As the bright noon sunlight hit Scar-Face Liu’s outstretched hands, the invisible Glow-Pollen reacted with the grease and sweat on his skin—and flared into a blinding, fluorescent emerald green!
Wait—not just his palms! Right on the knees of Scar-Face Liu’s trousers sat two older patches of frozen red clay from under the woodshed. Meanwhile, Gu Changsheng’s clean cloth shoes on the porch didn’t have a speck of woodshed dirt or green glow on them!
“Wait a minute!” Old Zhao the cobbler pointed a crooked finger from the gate. “Why are Scar-Face Liu’s hands glowing bright green?!
And look at the mud on his knees—that’s the red clay from under the woodshed!
Gu Changsheng has been coughing in bed all morning with clean shoes, while Scar-Face Liu went straight to the third floorboard without even looking!”
“He planted it himself!” a butcher in the crowd shouted. “The Second Branch buried an empty box under a sick man’s shed to steal his house deed!”
At the front of the gate, Widow Zhang’s face drained of all color.
THUD.
Her wicker basket of salted turnips slipped from her numb fingers and hit the snow, rolling turnips all over the lane.
“My five silver taels!” Widow Zhang wailed, slapping her own thigh as tears spurted from her eyes. “There’s no stolen lotus!
Scar-Face Liu planted the box!
I just lost a whole winter’s savings at the teahouse betting on Second Elder’s lies!”
Beside Second Elder Gu Ba, Lin Fan’s warm, saintly smile froze stiff on his cheeks.
Inside his white sleeve, Lin Fan’s fingers twitched as he stared at the empty manure-covered box. *How? Scar-Face Liu buried the real Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus at nine-thirty this morning—I watched him do it with Master Yao’s spiritual sense!
When did this bedridden cripple dig it up and swap in horse manure without anyone noticing?!*
“Shut up! All of you shut your mouths!”
Humiliated in front of thirty neighbors and watching his carefully staged frame-up collapse into a pile of literal horse manure, Second Elder Gu Ba lost his temper completely.
His Rank 1 Peak Martial blood-qi erupted with a dull boom, melting the snow around his boots. His face twisted into a savage snarl as he abandoned all pretense of clan law.
“So what if there’s no lotus?!” Gu Ba roared, kicking a wooden stool into splinters. “You dared humiliate this Elder in public and assault my servant!
Today I’ll crush your throat and drag your little bastard to the mines anyway!”
Moving like a charging bear, Second Elder Gu Ba lunged straight up the porch steps!
His thick right hand curled into an Iron-Claw Strike capable of cracking a millstone—aimed directly at Gu Changsheng’s neck and eight-year-old Gu Nian standing right behind him!
Gu Nian’s breath hitched. Facing the terrifying pressure of a Rank 1 Peak Martial warrior, the eight-year-old’s small body couldn’t even move, and his hand instinctively reached toward his sleeve where he had tucked the rusted cleaver.
He didn’t need to pull it out.
A broad, steady figure stepped squarely in front of him, blocking the wind and the murderous aura completely.
[ DING! HOST’S CHILD DIRECTLY THREATENED BY RANK 1 PEAK ENEMY! ]
[ PASSIVE SKILL TRIGGERED: FATHER’S AUTHORITY (100% TRUE DAMAGE)! ]
[ DISCIPLINARY WEAPON ACTIVATED: THE SEVEN-WOLVES LEATHER BELT! ]
ZING—SNAP!
With a single fluid motion of his right hand, Gu Changsheng unbuckled the dark-brown [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] from his waist and folded the heavy leather strap in half.
A surge of golden paternal power flooded his Rank 1 Early Martial muscles, stacking Gu Nian’s latent Chaos bloodline strength right onto his arm.
“Want to touch my son?” Gu Changsheng’s eyes turned ice-cold. “Did you ask my belt first?”
Before Second Elder Gu Ba’s iron claw could come within two feet of the porch, Gu Changsheng stepped forward and whipped the [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] horizontally across the air!
CRACK—BOOM!!
The sound of the leather belt breaking the sound barrier echoed down the entire street like a thunderclap!
True Disciplinary Damage bypassed 100% of Second Elder Gu Ba’s Rank 1 Peak defensive qi-guard as if it were wet paper. The heavy brass belt buckle whipped squarely across the left side of Gu Ba’s jaw!
CRUNCH!
Four blood-stained molars shot out of Second Elder Gu Ba’s mouth like white pebbles.
The two-hundred-pound Rank 1 Peak Elder spun through the air like a whipped wooden top and crashed face-first into the snowy courtyard flagstones right beside Scar-Face Liu!
Dead silence fell over the yard.
Not a single guard breathed.
At the gate, Widow Zhang stopped crying over her turnips. Her jaw hung open as she stared at Second Elder Gu Ba twitching in the snow with a bright red belt-welt branded across his swollen cheek.
Beside the gatepost, Lin Fan’s saintly smile vanished completely. Inside his white sleeves, his fingers trembled slightly as his mind raced in cold alarm. He was furiously recalculating how a “poisoned Rank 0 cripple” had just one-shotted a Rank 1 Peak Martial elder with an ordinary leather belt!
And on the porch right behind Gu Changsheng’s heels, eight-year-old Gu Nian stared at his father’s broad back. His dad had just whipped the terror of the Gu Clan into the snow to protect him.
Slowly, without making a sound, Gu Nian pulled the rusted kitchen cleaver out of his sleeve and slid it quietly behind the stacked firewood on the porch [Darkening: 65% -> 45%].
Suddenly, inside Gu Changsheng’s inner pocket, [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] grew scorching hot!
Gu Changsheng glanced down in his mind’s eye—and saw the ink on page three char black and rewrite itself in real time!
[ WARNING! FOREKNOWLEDGE DECAY & WORLD PUSHBACK ACTIVE! ]
[CAUSE : Host survived the scripted Noon Execution in Section 3]
[and humiliated Second Elder Gu Ba & Chosen One Lin Fan!]
[ SCRIPT CORRECTION ALERT ]
[Because the Third Branch did not fall at noon, the world’s]
[corrective force has accelerated the Back-Mountain Tragedy!]
[Deep inside the Gu Clan Ancestor Tomb, the sealed [Rank 1 Peak]
[Blood-Corpse] has awakened inside its iron coffin twelve hours]
[early—and is thirsting for fresh Gu Clan blood tonight!]