Ten minutes after the dust settled inside the Gu Clan Ancestral Hall, the first official decree issued by new Clan Patriarch Gu Changsheng echoed across the entire North Pine compound.
Instead of executing the crippled Second Elder Gu Ba or handing the three Rank 2 Early Shadow-Rat Assassins over to a painless prison cell. Gu Changsheng tapped open [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box] and spent 50 DP [10,210 -> 10,160 DP balance] to fuse four heavy-duty [Rank 2 Pink “Good Citizen” Labor Aprons].
Unlike the Rank 1 aprons worn by Scar-Lip Ma’s street-sweeping squad. These Rank 2 frilly pink aprons were reinforced with Tomb-Iron threads that sealed a Rank 2 cultivator’s dantian down to mortal work-strength. Gave their backside a sharp static shock whenever they stopped scrubbing for more than ten seconds!
Out behind the rear stables of the Gu Clan Mansion, fifty cheering guards and thirty laughing maids gathered along the wooden fence to watch the spectacle.
Standing knee-deep in the steaming mud of the clan’s twenty-pen winter pigsties were formerly high-and-mighty Second Elder Gu Ba. The three feared Rank 2 Shadow-Rat Assassins—all four of them wearing bright pink frilly aprons stitched with smiling yellow piglets across their chests and holding long-handled bamboo toilet brushes!
“Scrub harder in that left corner, Gu Ba!” sixty-two-year-old Butler Grandpa Fu called out from the dry stone walkway above, clicking his black-iron abacus with a crisp clack. “You embezzled ten thousand silver from the clan vault to buy Public Latrine Bucket #4, and these three rat-masked fools broke six ancestral floor tiles worth five hundred silver each!
At a wage credit of two copper coins per pigsty scrubbed clean, you four only have to scrub the pigsties every morning and afternoon for the next forty-two years to pay off your debt!”
“Owww! My back! Don’t zap my rear end again, I’m scrubbing, I’m scrubbing!”
Second Elder Gu Ba sobbed through his toothless gums as the pink apron gave him a motivational tingle.
Making him scrub the wooden pig trough twice as fast while the three former underworld assassins wept bitter tears beside him:.
“We are Rank 2 Iron-Bone Shadow-Rat killers! Why are we wearing pink piglet aprons and washing hogs in Frost-Pine Town?!”
“Stop crying and pass me the soap bucket, Rat-Two!” Squad Leader Rat-One sniffled, scrubbing aspotted sow’s back with gentle, rhythmic strokes so his pink apron wouldn’t zap his tailbone again. “At least Patriarch Gu’s canteen promised us two bowls of hot pork-bone soup at noon if we get all twenty pens sparkling clean!
That’s better than taking poison contracts from that lying rat Lin Fan!”
As for Second Elder Gu Ba’s prized nephew-in-law Lin Fan—.
Before Lin Fan could even sneak back to his guest room to pack his extra clothes, Captain Gu Tie and four Rank 1 Late guards threw his tattered bedroll, his broken teapot. Public Latrine Bucket #4 straight over the front compound wall into the street!
“By order of Patriarch Gu Changsheng,” Captain Gu Tie boomed from the gatehouse tower. A hundred townsfolk pointed and laughed at the disgraced Chosen One sitting in the slush, “the freeloader Lin Fan is permanently expelled from the Gu Clan estate! If you ever step within fifty yards of our clan walls again, Little Master Nian will feed you another turnip!”
Penniless, still smelling faintly of hundred-day fermented skunk-cabbage. Down to his last twenty silver taels hidden in his boot sole. Lin Fan had to pull his hood over his bruised face and slink away to rent a leaky two-copper woodshed room at the edge of the West Slums.
Meanwhile, the three retired Grand Elders—Gu Song, Gu Bai, and Gu He—officially handed over all keys, land registries. Ancestral seals of the main estate to Gu Changsheng. Returning happily to their rear-mountain courtyard with three jars of [Fused Tiger-Bone Rheumatism Wine] and fifty [Jade-Dew Healing Gummies] that Gu Changsheng gifted them for their winter health.
All three Grand Elders’ Warmth Indexes immediately climbed past 85/100, adding three more veteran pillars to the household!
Inside the grand main compound of the Gu Clan Mansion, meanwhile, a warm, joyous transformation was underway!
Rather than keeping the massive twenty-courtyard estate cold and gloomy the way Second Elder Gu Ba had run it, Gu Changsheng walked into the central ancestral courtyard and opened [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box].
With 10,160 DP sitting in his account, Gu Changsheng spent a full 1,000 DP [9,160 DP remaining] to fuse [One Hundred Cartloads of North-Peak Coal-Stone], [Two Drops of Diluted Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk]. [The Main Mansion Foundation Array] into a compound-wide [Rank 2 Perfection: Ever-Warm Spring-Breeze Mansion Heating & Meridian-Nourishing Array]!
HUMMMMM—WHOOSH!
A wave of golden-orange Earth-Fire warmth rippled outward from beneath Gu Changsheng’s boots, spreading through every courtyard, guard barracks, servants’ quarters, kitchen, and study hall across the entire ten-acre Gu Clan estate!
Within ten breaths, the bitter December ice coating the mansion roofs melted into crystal water that drained neatly down the gutters. The stone floors of the fifty guards’ and thirty maids’ bedrooms warmed to a cozy seventy-two degrees. A gentle trace of spiritual warmth began rising through the floorboards to ease every worker’s winter fatigue!
“Heavens above! Even the servants’ quarters and the guard barracks have heated floors now?!”
“In twenty years working for the Gu Clan. My fingers used to crack and bleed every winter washing sheets in ice water—now the laundry courtyard has warm spring water coming right out of the stone dragon-spouts!”
The thirty maids wept with gratitude as they hung up warm linens. The fifty guards led by Captain Gu Tie swore on their lives to guard the Gu Clan gates until their hair turned white!
Even better, that afternoon Gu Changsheng and Auntie Qin expanded the front plaza of the Central Street Pill Hall into the [Gu Family Peace Pharmacy & Warm-Belly Community Canteen].
Using three large cauldrons heated by sub-arrays linked to Gu Changsheng’s [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok]. The canteen served bowls of five-copper ginger-pork bone soup and ten-copper [Jade-Dew Healing Gummies] from noon until dusk.
By sunset, over fifteen hundred grateful citizens of Frost-Pine Town—nearly a third of the entire town’s working population—had eaten hot soup or bought flaw-free medicine from the Gu Clan. Pushing their personal Warmth Index past the 60/100 threshold!
That evening, inside the newly renovated, spacious main family hall of the Gu Clan Mansion, a celebratory hot-pot dinner was bubbling merrily on the center table.
Gu Changsheng, Auntie Qin, Grandpa Fu, and Captain Gu Tie raised their cups of warm hawthorn juice and rice wine. Eight-year-old Gu Nian stood proudly beside a freshly polished cedar honor board mounted on the parlor wall.
Because Gu Nian had helped intercept Lot #88, exposed Lin Fan at the auction. Tripped all three Rank 2 Shadow-Rat Assassins with his loach-oil marbles at dawn to protect Grandpa Fu. Gu Changsheng had just awarded his son his third, fourth, and fifth [Little Red Flower Merit Stickers]!
Standing on a stool in his yellow bunny slippers. Gu Nian carefully pinned three stickers onto the honor board and kept two on his smock pocket—bringing his total to five Little Red Flowers and a passive +25% All-Around Cultivation Speed Bonus!
“Look, Dad! Auntie Qin! Grandpa Fu!”
Gu Nian beamed, turning around with his hands on his hips and his black-gold eyes shining brighter than the lanterns.
“Five Little Red Flowers! And my Darkening—I mean, my bad temper hasn’t come back once all week! Am I the best big boy in Frost-Pine Town now?”
“The absolute best,” Auntie Qin laughed warmly, placing a slice of tender boiled lamb into Gu Nian’s bowl. “At this rate, our Nian’er is going to reach Rank 2 Iron-Bone before he turns nine!”
[ DING! STAGE 3 GRAND SETTLEMENT — THE WARMEST CLAN IN TOWN! ]
* Host Status : Gu Changsheng (Patriarch | Rank 1 Peak Martial)
* Child #1 Status : Gu Nian (Rank 1 Peak | Warmth: 99/100 |.
Darkening: 12% | 5x Little Red Flowers: +25%!)
* Core Allies : Qin Wan’er (Rank 2 Early | Warmth: 95/100)
Grandpa Fu [Rank 2 Early | Warmth: 100/100]
Captain Gu Tie [Rank 2 Early | Warmth: 96/100]
* Grateful Citizens (60+ Warmth): 1,540 Townsfolk & Clan Staff!
* Current Balance : 9,160 DP.
* New Daily Income: +6,000 DP/day -> +6,500 DP/day!
Nine thousand one hundred and sixty Dad Points in reserve, and six thousand five hundred DP rolling in every single day!
However, at nine o’clock that night, just after Auntie Qin and Grandpa Fu went to check the evening pharmacy ledgers. Gu Nian sat down at the low table to practice writing his name with a brush—.
HISS... SIZZLE!
Inside Gu Changsheng’s coat pocket, [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] suddenly grew freezing cold, and a wisp of dark purple, corrosive poison-mist began bleeding out from the edges of its leather cover!
Gu Changsheng’s smile vanished instantly.
He pulled the notebook open on the table, and a page written in urgent, pulsing violet ink materialized before his eyes:.
[ DAD’S PLOT-SPOILER NOTEBOOK — CRITICAL CHILD #2 RED ALERT! ]
* Target Child #2 : Su Nuannuan (Age 6 | Female Orphan)
* Innate Physique : [Innate Ten-Thousand-Poison Empress Body]
* Future Destiny : Destined Final Boss #2 (The Ten-Thousand-Poison.
Empress who dissolved three continents in grief!)
* Current Location: Underground Black-Sand Slave Market (3 miles.
west of Frost-Pine Town, inside Old Salt Mine)
* Current Metrics : Darkening Meter: 82% | Life in Immediate Danger!
* FOREKNOWLEDGE DECAY EMERGENCY (HAPPENING IN 15 MINUTES!) :.
In the original script, Chosen One Lin Fan bought 6-year-old Su.
Nuannuan for 20 silver next month and sealed her alive inside a.
clay jar full of venomous centipedes for ten years to refine.
poison blood-pills!
Because Lin Fan lost the auction cauldron and was expelled from.
the Gu Clan today, he is rushing to the Black-Sand Slave Market.
RIGHT NOW with his last 20 silver and a centipede jar to boil her.
blood tonight!
Reading those lines—six years old, sealed alive inside a jar of venomous centipedes to refine blood-pills—Gu Changsheng’s fingers. Clenched so hard around the edge of the pine table that the two-inch-thick wood cracked down the middle!
Beside him, eight-year-old Gu Nian looked up from his calligraphy paper, sensing the sudden, terrifying chill in his father’s eyes.
“Dad?” Gu Nian asked, standing up at once. “What happened?
Did that bad guy Lin Fan do something again?”
Gu Changsheng stood up, strapped the [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] around his waist, and checked the [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] in his sleeve.
“Lin Fan is going to the underground slave market at the old salt mine to lock a six-year-old little girl inside a jar of poison bugs,” Gu Changsheng said. His voice quiet and cold enough to freeze iron. “And Dad is going to go bring your new little sister home.”
Hearing the words six-year-old little girl and jar of poison bugs, eight-year-old Gu Nian’s small face turned completely serious.
He didn’t hesitate for a single breath. Hopping off his chair in his [Rank 1 Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers], Gu Nian ran to the coat rack, grabbed his thick wool outdoor cloak. Strapped his [Fused Heavy-Elastic Slingshot] and marble pouch tightly around his waist.
“Dad, I’m coming with you!” Gu Nian said firmly, standing straight in front of the door with his black-gold eyes blazing with protective determination. “That little girl is only six years old—she’s two years younger than me!
When I was locked in the dark room for three winters, I wished every night that someone would come open the door.
Now I’m a Rank 1 Peak martial artist and I’m going to be her Big Brother! I have to be there when we open her cage so she isn’t scared of the grown-ups!”
Gu Changsheng looked down at his eight-year-old son—who only three days ago had been a silent. Traumatized boy hiding a rusted kitchen cleaver behind the door—and felt a deep, fierce pride swell in his chest.
“All right, Big Brother Nian,” Gu Changsheng said. Kneeling for a second to tie his son’s yellow lambswool scarf snug around his chin. Picking up a warm, extra fox-fur cloak from the wardrobe to wrap around the little girl once they rescued her.
“Guard Captain Gu Tie!”
Outside in the heated courtyard, Rank 2 Early Captain Gu Tie immediately sprinted up to the porch with twenty elite guards carrying pine torches and iron spears: “Present, Patriarch!”
“Assemble twenty fast riders at the west gate right now,” Gu Changsheng ordered crisply. “In fifteen minutes, we are tearing the underground Black-Sand Slave Market at the old salt mine down to the bedrock!”