Spitting a mouthful of red slush and four broken molars into the snow, Second Elder Gu Ba pushed himself up on one trembling elbow.
The left side of his face had swollen to the size of a winter melon. A purple welt shaped like a brass belt buckle throbbed across his jaw.
“H-hack him to pieces!” Gu Ba shrieked through his bleeding gums, his voice cracking like an old gong. “What are you twenty idiots standing there for?!
Draw your sabers!
Chop this rebellious cripple and his little bastard into meat paste!”
Shaken out of their stupor, the twenty Second Branch guards in black padded coats cursed and reached for the steel sabers at their waists.
“Kill!”
“Avenge the Second Elder!”
At the courtyard gate, the thirty watching neighbors gasped and scrambled backward into Willow-West Alley to avoid the flashing steel. On the porch, Grandpa Fu raised his wooden broom with a fierce roar, ready to throw his old bones in front of the blades.
Gu Changsheng didn’t even reach for a weapon.
He gently placed a hand on Grandpa Fu’s shoulder to hold the old butler back, then stepped down off the porch into the snow, twirling the dark-brown [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] in his right hand.
Kill twenty clan guards in broad daylight and give Second Elder an excuse to call the Town Magistrate’s garrison? Gu Changsheng thought dryly. *Why make a bloody mess in front of my eight-year-old son?
A belt is meant for taking pants down anyway.*
With [Father’s Authority] still humming warmly through his Rank 1 Early Martial meridians, Gu Changsheng took one step forward and snapped his wrist.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The dark leather strap blurred into a dozen phantom shadows in the freezing air!
Twenty crisp snaps rang out in the space of three breaths—so fast they sounded like a string of New Year firecrackers exploding across the courtyard!
Not a single guard had managed to pull his saber more than three inches out of its scabbard when a cold breeze suddenly hit twenty pairs of hairy legs.
Snip, snip, snip!
Twenty brass-and-leather waist belts parted cleanly down the middle as if sliced by an invisible razor.
Before the twenty fierce Second Branch guards could take another step forward, their heavy winter trousers dropped straight down around their ankles. An icy gust of northern wind swept through the broken gate, whistling across twenty pairs of shivering knees and brightly patterned underpants.
“Agh!”
“My pants! Who cut my belt?!”
The vanguard guard captain had been mid-leap with his saber raised. He tangled both boots inside his own fallen trousers and crashed face-first into a snowdrift, his bare rear end sticking up toward the sky.
Behind him, nineteen burly guards dropped their saber hilts in a panic and grabbed frantically for their waistbands, hopping around in the snow like hobbled ducks.
The courtyard went dead quiet for two seconds.
Then a peddler at the gate pointed a shaking finger and howled with laughter.
“Look at Guard Captain Black-Bear! He struts around so tough collecting market fees every morning, and he’s wearing bright red silk underpants embroidered with Mandarin ducks!”
“Hahaha! Look at the third guy on the left! Those are his wife’s pink floral drawers with a patch on the seat!”
“Twenty grown martial artists stripped to their underwear in three seconds by a single leather belt! Did Gu Changsheng learn hidden-weapon arts from an immortal?!”
On the porch, eight-year-old Gu Nian blinked his wide black-gold eyes.
Those twenty terrifying Second Branch thugs used to chase him away from the clan well with sticks. Now they were hopping around in red duck underwear and tripping into snowbanks. The tight, frozen corners of the boy’s mouth twitched upward by a tiny fraction [Darkening: 45% -> 40%].
Gu Changsheng calmly looped his [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] back over his shoulder and turned toward the porch.
“Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng said politely. “Didn’t you say our household ledger was short on winter expenses? Bring out the abacus and settle the bill with Second Uncle before he catches a cold.”
On the porch steps, one-eyed Grandpa Fu snapped out of his daze.
Looking at his tall, calm Young Master standing in the snow, the old butler felt eight years of suffocating humiliation wash out of his chest in a hot rush!
His hunched back straightened an inch. Tossing his wooden broom aside, Grandpa Fu whipped a heavy, black-iron abacus out from under his patched coat and marched down the steps like an imperial tax collector.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
Grandpa Fu shook the iron abacus beads with a resounding rattle and planted his boot right beside Second Elder Gu Ba’s swollen face.
“Second Elder Gu Ba! Listen carefully to the Third Branch property damage bill!” Grandpa Fu’s gravelly voice boomed across the yard so every neighbor in Willow-West Alley could hear.
“Item One! One pair of one-hundred-year-old Iron-Oak Ancestral Courtyard Gates, hand-carved by the late Old Patriarch! Kicked into splinters by Scar-Face Liu and Second Elder Gu Ba without an elder’s warrant!
Replacement cost: two hundred and fifty silver taels!”
Lying in the snow, Second Elder Gu Ba choked on his own blood. “Two hundred and fifty silver?! Those rotten pine planks weren’t worth two hundred copper coins!”
CLACK!
Grandpa Fu slammed his iron abacus against his palm. “They were ancestral relics blessed by the First Branch! Item Two: one carved rosewood herb box contaminated with fermented horse dung by your servant Scar-Face Liu, plus courtyard air-purification costs—fifty silver taels!”
“Item Three!” Grandpa Fu pointed a gnarled finger toward eight-year-old Gu Nian standing on the porch. “Bringing twenty armed men to scream murder at noon, interrupting our Little Young Master’s digestion and causing severe childhood fright!
Emotional distress and nutrition compensation: two hundred silver taels, plus ten full sacks of smokeless winter charcoal!”
Grandpa Fu flipped the iron abacus toward Second Elder Gu Ba’s nose with a sharp SNAP.
“Grand total: five hundred silver taels in cash, and ten sacks of winter charcoal delivered before sundown! Pay up right now! Otherwise, Old Fu will beat the clan gong and drag you and these twenty bare-legged thugs straight to the Three Retired Clan Elders!”
“And if the Clan Elders aren’t enough,” Grandpa Fu added, puffing out his chest as he tapped the iron frame of the abacus, “we’ll march right down Central Street to the Town Magistrate’s yamen! Attempted murder, framing a clan branch head with horse dung, and public indecency in floral drawers—let’s see how many years in the county dungeon that buys you!”
Second Elder Gu Ba’s swollen face turned from purple to livid green.
“Five hundred silver?! Are you robbing me in broad daylight, you one-eyed old bastard?!” Gu Ba roared, struggling to sit up in the slush.
“I am the Second Elder of the Gu Clan!
Who dares make me pay five hundred silver for a broken door?!”
At the front of the crowd by the gate, Boss Qian, the owner of the Frost-Pine Clan Teahouse, quietly pulled a greasy leather credit ledger and a charcoal pencil out of his sleeve.
Watching the twenty Second Branch guards still hopping around in their floral underwear while Gu Changsheng tapped his heavy leather belt against his palm, Boss Qian didn’t hesitate for a second.
SCRITCH-SCRATCH!
Right in front of the crowd, Boss Qian drew two thick black X’s across Second Elder Gu Ba’s name in the teahouse ledger and shouted into the yard:.
“Second Elder Gu Ba! After seeing your men plant horse dung to frame a sick nephew and get whipped out of their pants in three breaths, our Frost-Pine Teahouse can no longer extend credit to the Second Branch! Please settle your thirty-silver tea tab in cash before tomorrow, or don’t step through my doors!”
“What?!” Gu Ba spun his head around, his eyes bulging in disbelief as three neighboring shopkeepers immediately nodded in agreement behind Boss Qian.
“Count my Butcher Shop out too!” Butcher Wang called out from the alley, folding his greasy arms. “The Second Branch owes me twelve silver for last month’s pork!
Pay in cash by tonight, or I’m sending my apprentices to collect!”
Cold sweat poured down Gu Ba’s forehead, stinging the red belt-welt on his jaw.
If this scandal went to the Three Retired Clan Elders in the back hall right now, thirty street witnesses would testify that Scar-Face Liu’s hands glowed green from planting the box. Gu Ba wouldn’t just lose five hundred silver—he would be stripped of his Second Elder seal before dinner!
Gu Changsheng strolled over, the leather strap of the [Seven-Wolves Disciplinary Belt] trailing lightly across the snow beside Gu Ba’s ear.
“Five hundred silver is the family discount, Second Uncle,” Gu Changsheng said warmly. “If my belt has to speak again, the price goes up by a hundred silver per tooth. And unless I miscounted, you have twenty-eight teeth left.”
Second Elder Gu Ba flinched so hard his tailbone cracked against the flagstones.
Looking up at Gu Changsheng’s cold, smiling eyes, a chill crept straight up Gu Ba’s spine. This wasn’t the depressed, wine-soaked weakling who had coughed blood for three years. This man would actually beat all twenty-eight of his remaining teeth out in front of the whole street!
“I... I’ll pay!” Gu Ba hissed through his bleeding gums, his fat hands shaking violently as he untied the heavy brocade money pouch from his waist.
He dumped out five gleaming fifty-tael silver ingots and a stack of two hundred and fifty silver bank notes onto the snow. Then pointed a trembling finger at a guard hopping in red duck underwear. “Go to the Second Branch coal shed and bring ten sacks of red-pine charcoal right now!
Hurry up!”
Grandpa Fu beamed from ear to ear. Dropping to one knee, the old butler bit the edge of a silver ingot to test its purity, swept all five hundred silver taels into his cloth sack, and bowed politely.
“Thank you for your generous patronage, Second Elder! Come again anytime you feel like replacing our roof tiles!”
Second Elder Gu Ba nearly coughed up another mouthful of blood.
Only now did Lin Fan step forward from beside the gatepost.
Smoothing his spotless white scholar robes, Lin Fan hurried into the yard with an expression of deep, filial concern and helped the trembling Gu Ba to his feet.
“Second Uncle, lean on me,” Lin Fan said softly, bowing apologetically to Gu Changsheng and the watching crowd. “Today was truly a terrible misunderstanding caused by that wicked servant Liu. I shall take Second Uncle back to apply medicine and discipline our men strictly.”
To the neighbors at the gate, Lin Fan still looked like a polite, sensible young gentleman trying to salvage his uncle’s dignity.
Yet as Lin Fan turned around to support Second Elder Gu Ba through the shattered gateway, his left hand brushed lightly against the splintered oak gatepost in the shadow of his wide white sleeve.
From underneath Lin Fan’s fingernail, a single drop of thick, foul-smelling Corpse-Luring Blood splattered silently into a dark crack at the base of Gu Changsheng’s gatepost. The lingering stench of the horse manure in the yard masked the graveyard rot completely.
As Lin Fan walked down Willow-West Alley supporting the limping Gu Ba, his lips barely moved. A vicious, icy whisper passed into the black ring on his finger.
*“Old man Yao, did you sense that blood-qi fluctuation from the back mountain just now? The Rank 1 Peak Blood-Corpse in the Gu Clan Ancestor Tomb has woken up early! Tonight at midnight, I’ll break its coffin seal.
That drop of Corpse-Luring Blood on the gatepost will guide it straight into Gu Changsheng’s bedroom.”*
Inside the ring, an old, weary sigh echoed back, though Lin Fan didn’t bother listening. In Lin Fan’s eyes, everyone in Frost-Pine Town—including his own uncle-in-law and the eight-year-old boy on the porch—was nothing more than firewood for his rise to immortality.
Back inside the courtyard, the ten sacks of smokeless winter charcoal arrived on two handcarts pushed by shivering, red-eared Second Branch servants. Grandpa Fu counted every single lump of charcoal with his iron abacus before stacking them neatly under the eaves.
Gu Changsheng stood by the broken gatepost, watching Lin Fan’s white-robed back disappear down the snowy lane.
[ DING! SECOND BRANCH HUMILIATED & 500-SILVER BILL COLLECTED! ]
* Household Treasury : +500 Silver Taels, +10 Bags Winter Charcoal.
* Gu Nian Darkening : 45% -> 40% (-5% Drop!)
* Territory Warmth : +50 DP/day (Willow-West Alley Neighbors!)
Gu Changsheng didn’t celebrate.
Walking over to the broken gatepost where Lin Fan’s sleeve had brushed the wood, Gu Changsheng crouched down and sniffed the tiny, blackish-red droplet soaking into the pine grain.
His eyes narrowed coldly.
Corpse-Luring Blood, Gu Changsheng thought. So the ‘righteous’ Chosen One wants to use the awakened Ancestor Tomb Blood-Corpse to murder my son in his sleep tonight?