Back at the heated main compound of the Frost-Pine Gu Clan Mansion, the lamps burned bright and warm against the winter night.
While Grandpa Fu, Captain Gu Tie, and the thirty kindly mansion maids led by Aunt Liu settled the forty. Rescued orphan children into the heated eastern guest courtyard—giving each child a hot bath, a clean padded cotton robe. A big bowl of ginger-pork noodle soup before sending messengers to find their families—twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin took personal charge of little Su Nuannuan.
Inside the warm cedar bathhouse behind the main family hall, Auntie Qin filled a big wooden tub with warm spring water infused with soothing rose-petals and sweet-grass.
For a full half hour, Auntie Qin gently washed a year of coal dust and mud out of six-year-old Su Nuannuan’s soft black hair. Combed out every tangle with a horn comb, tied her hair into two adorable little round buns secured with pink silk ribbons. Dressed her in a brand-new, fluffy pink lambswool rabbit dress with matching soft pink indoor slippers!
When Auntie Qin carried little Nuannuan out into the warm dining hall and set her down on a cushioned wooden stool beside eight-year-old Gu Nian, everyone around the table smiled at once.
With the terrifying purple poison veins completely gone and her cheeks rosy and plump from the Thousand-Year Earth-Heart Milk. The six-year-old girl in the pink rabbit dress looked like a little porcelain doll painted for the New Year festival!
Every time she blinked her big, wet black-grape eyes or moved her tiny hands, a gentle, comforting fragrance of toasted caramel and wildflower honey drifted across the table.
“Come sit right here between Big Brother Nian and Dad, Nuannuan,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, setting a late-night supper spread of steaming white flour buns, golden-crusted honey biscuits, braised pork ribs. Two delicate porcelain bowls of [Rank 2 Perfection: Earth-Fire Chaos-Bone Egg Custard] in the center of the table.
However, even though her body was warm and clean and her innate poison curse had been turned into sweet honey-candy aroma, six years of starvation, village beatings. Being locked in an iron cage did not vanish from a six-year-old child’s heart in a single hour.
Sitting on the very front edge of her cushioned wooden stool—less than two inches of her pink rabbit dress actually touching the seat—six-year-old Su Nuannuan kept her small shoulders hunched tight. Her bare ankles crossed nervously underneath the chair.
When Grandpa Fu set a porcelain soup spoon down on the table with a soft clink, Nuannuan’s whole tiny body flinched as if she expected a whip to fall!
She immediately pulled her head down between her shoulders and whispered reflexively through her missing front tooth:.
“Nuannuan didn’t break the bowl! Nuannuan eats very little!”
At the table, Auntie Qin’s eyes turned red with heartache, and Grandpa Fu had to turn his head to wipe his single eye with his sleeve.
Gu Changsheng didn’t scold her or make a loud fuss that would startle her further. Instead, he kept his voice quiet and steady, placing a plate of warm, golden-baked honey biscuits and small steamed flour buns right in front of her hands.
“Nobody is ever going to hit you in this house, Nuannuan,” Gu Changsheng said gently. “Everything on this plate is yours. Eat as slowly or as fast as you like.”
Nuannuan looked at the plate of warm white buns and golden honey biscuits, and then glanced up timidly at the grown-ups.
Seeing that nobody was raising a stick, she picked up one small biscuit with trembling fingers and took a tiny, mouse-like bite.
Then—thinking nobody was looking at her hands under the edge of the tablecloth—the six-year-old girl quickly grabbed four dry white steamed buns off the plate. Stuffed them one after another deep inside the wide, fluffy cuffs of her pink rabbit sleeves. Patting her bulging little forearms with a worried, protective look!
In her six-year-old mind, even if this nice uncle and auntie let her eat a warm meal tonight, what if they changed their minds tomorrow morning and threw her back out into the snow? If she hid four dry buns inside her sleeves tonight, she wouldn’t starve in the woods for four whole days!
Sitting right next to her on the left, eight-year-old Gu Nian saw every single movement as Nuannuan stuffed the four buns into her tiny pink sleeves.
Gu Nian didn’t laugh at her, and he didn’t call out to embarrass her.
Instead, the eight-year-old boy looked at her bulging pink cuffs and remembered himself only four days ago—how he used to hide a cold half-cake under his pillow. Keep a rusted kitchen cleaver wedged behind the bedroom door every single night. He was terrified the world would come take everything away.
Quietly, solemnly, eight-year-old Gu Nian slid off his chair in his [Rank 1 Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers].
He walked over to the warm sideboard where he kept his personal snack box, picked up his absolute favorite treat—a foot-long stick of glistening. Ruby-red [Fused Candied Mountain Hawthorns]—along with the warmest bowl of golden [Earth-Fire Chaos-Bone Egg Custard], and walked right back to Nuannuan’s side.
Using both hands, Gu Nian set the silky golden egg custard down in front of her and held out the sparkling candied hawthorn stick right to her small hands.
“Nuannuan,” eight-year-old Gu Nian said in a quiet, super-serious Big Brother voice, looking straight into her nervous black eyes. “When you hide steamed buns inside your sleeves, the crumbs get cold and scratch your arms. I know, because I used to hide cold flatbread under my bed every winter.”
Nuannuan froze with her tiny hands still clutching her bulging pink cuffs, staring up at the eight-year-old boy in the yellow bunny smock.
“You don’t need to hide cold buns in your sleeves anymore,” Gu Nian said firmly, tapping the five glowing [Little Red Flower Stickers] on his chest and the wall behind him. “Look—our dad cooks three hot meals every single day with his giant black-gold wok. Even if a hundred bad guys come to the door, Dad whips them into the snow, and I’m a Rank 1 Peak martial artist now!
I’m your Big Brother Gu Nian—from tonight on, I’ll guard your snacks every day so nobody ever takes your food away!”
Gu Nian gently pulled the four squashed steamed buns out of Nuannuan’s pink sleeves, set them on a warming tray. Pressed the warm, sweet candied hawthorn stick and a porcelain spoon into her tiny hands.
“Eat the hot egg custard and the sugar hawthorn first,” Gu Nian added, his ears turning slightly pink as he tried to sound just like his dad. “If you’re still hungry at midnight, I’ll wake Dad up to make you more.”
Six-year-old Su Nuannuan looked down at the glittering red candied hawthorn stick in her left hand and the warm porcelain spoon in her right hand.
Slowly, she leaned forward and bit off the top candied hawthorn berry.
Crunch!
The thin, glassy shell of caramelized maltose sugar cracked on her teeth, releasing a burst of sweet-and-tangy mountain hawthorn juice that filled her whole mouth with warmth!
For three seconds, the tiny six-year-old chewed in silence.
Then her lower lip wobbled, big warm tears spilled down her chubby rosy cheeks. She burst into soft, hiccuping sobs as she leaned sideways and rested her two little pink hair-buns right against eight-year-old Gu Nian’s shoulder!
“Hic... Big Brother Nian...” Nuannuan cried softly, holding onto his yellow sleeve with one sticky little hand while eating her candied hawthorn with the other.
“The red berry is so sweet...
Nuannuan won’t hide buns in her sleeve anymore... Big Brother Nian will guard Nuannuan’s snacks...”
“Yeah! I’ll guard them every day!” Gu Nian said proudly.
Sitting as straight as a little general so his six-year-old sister could lean on his shoulder while he carefully wiped her tears with a warm napkin.
Across the table, Auntie Qin smiled through her own misty eyes and reached over to place two tender, deboned braised pork ribs onto Nuannuan’s small porcelain plate. Grandpa Fu poured the little girl a tiny cup of warm honey-milk.
“Eat slowly, Little Miss Nuannuan,” sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu said in the gentlest voice he owned, his single eye crinkling warmly as he clicked two beads on his abacus. “This old butler has already added your name to the main household pantry ledger: every morning, noon. Night, Little Miss Nuannuan is allocated one plate of honey biscuits, one stick of candied hawthorns, one bowl of golden egg custard, and as many steamed buns as she wants!
Even if the sky falls down, our Gu Clan pantry will never run out of snacks for our little miss!”
Hearing the tall, one-eyed grandpa promise that her name was written right in the kitchen book, six-year-old Su Nuannuan sniffled softly, rubbed her nose. Took a big spoonful of the warm, silky [Earth-Fire Chaos-Bone Egg Custard].
The golden custard melted on her tongue like a warm cloud, sending a gentle stream of nourishing Earth-Fire vitality into her stomach that washed away the last lingering chill of the underground slave cave.
After all of her six years of life, Nuannuan didn’t have to curl up in dry straw listening to iron chains rattle in the dark.
She was sitting on a soft cushion in a warm room that smelled like pine and delicious food. Wearing a fluffy pink rabbit dress, with a kind Auntie Qin wiping her chin, a loyal Grandpa Fu writing her snacks in a book. A brave eight-year-old Big Brother Nian peeling roasted chestnuts for her.
A tall, smiling Dad who had hugged her barehanded when the whole world called her a monster.
Looking up at Gu Changsheng with her big, shining black-grape eyes, six-year-old Su Nuannuan mustered all her courage and spoke in a tiny, sweet voice:.
“Dad... after Nuannuan finishes the egg custard, can Nuannuan help Big Brother Nian sweep the floor tomorrow so Nuannuan can get a Little Red Flower on her rabbit dress too?”
Gu Changsheng’s heart melted into a puddle. He reached out and gently stroked one of her soft pink hair-buns.
“You don’t even have to wait until tomorrow to start earning your first Little Red Flower, Nuannuan,” Gu Changsheng said with a warm, knowing smile as he glanced toward the front courtyard. “Because it looks like some very impolite night-guests just arrived outside our wall to bring you a midnight snack.”
At the table, eight-year-old Gu Nian immediately perked up his ears and wiped his mouth with his napkin, his hand dropping toward his slingshot pouch.
“Night-guests, Dad?” Gu Nian asked eagerly, his yellow bunny slippers tapping together under his chair. “Is it that purple-headed Uncle Lin again?
Did he bring more bad guys to our gate?”
“He brought eighty men from the Five-Venom Scorpion Gang. They’re carrying twenty big leather bellows of green poison smoke,” Gu Changsheng said mildly, pouring himself another half-cup of warm jasmine tea as if discussing the morning weather report. “In the old days, twenty bellows of Corpse-Rot Poison Smoke would have been a big headache for Frost-Pine Town.
Tonight, however, they happened to deliver it right to the doorstep of a six-year-old Honey-Candy Empress.”
Auntie Qin’s eyes lit up with sudden comprehension as she looked at little Su Nuannuan sitting beside her.
“Wait—Brother Gu, you mean Nuannuan’s newly transformed [Sweet Honey-Candy & Healing Aroma] physique can actually absorb external poison miasma as nourishment?!” Auntie Qin asked in amazement.
“Not just absorb it,” Gu Changsheng chuckled, ruffling Nuannuan’s soft hair between her two pink ribbon-buns. “To our Nuannuan, twenty drums of their three-year Corpse-Rot Smoke is basically twenty cones of green-apple cotton candy.”
[ DING! SIBLING BOND ESTABLISHED — WARMTH & TRUST SURGE! ]
* Milestone : Child #1 (Gu Nian) healed Child #2’s (Su Nuannuan)
food-hoarding trauma through shared empathy!
* Gu Nian Stats : Warmth Index: 99 -> 100/100!
Darkening Meter: 12% -> 10% (-2% DROP!)
* Nuannuan Stats: Warmth/Happiness: 78 -> 88/100!
Darkening Meter : 38% -> 26% (-12% MASSIVE DROP!)
* Daily Income : +9,500 DP/day -> +11,000 DP/day!
Just as the town clock struck twelve midnight—depositing +11,000 DP into Gu Changsheng’s account [6,310 + 11,000 = 17,310 DP balance]—[Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] flashed in Gu Changsheng’s pocket with a sudden midnight warning:.
Foreknowledge Decay Alert! Guided by the hornet-swollen Lin Fan, Poison-Hand Wu (Rank 2 Mid). Eighty killers of the Five-Venom Scorpion Gang have just surrounded the outer wall of the Gu Clan Mansion with twenty giant leather bellows of lethal green Corpse-Rot Poison Smoke!