Hearing First Grand Elder Gu Song’s report that a furious Golden Core soul fluctuation had just leaked from Lin Fan’s rundown inn in the West Slums, Gu Changsheng didn’t look alarmed in the slightest.
Instead, a slow, knowing smile curved across his lips.
“A Golden Core soul fluctuation arguing inside a leaky woodshed?” Gu Changsheng chuckled, ruffling Gu Nian’s and Su Nuannuan’s hair as they stepped into the warm front courtyard. “Looks like the poor old ghost trapped inside our nephew-in-law’s black ring has finally reached his breaking point after watching Lin Fan poison an orphanage well.”
“Patriarch, should Captain Gu Tie and I lead fifty guards over to surround the inn tonight?” First Grand Elder Gu Song asked anxiously. “Even if it’s only a remnant soul without a body, anything connected to the Golden Core realm is dangerous!”
“Surround an old alchemist ghost with spears? That’s no way to recruit a senior schoolteacher for our kids,” Gu Changsheng said with a grin. “Let Lin Fan and his Ring-Grandpa argue in the cold for another two hours to build up an appetite.
Tonight, our Gu Clan has a much more important event first—Nuannuan’s official Clan Adoption Banquet!”
At six o’clock that evening, every lantern across the twenty courtyards of the Frost-Pine Gu Clan Mansion was lit with festive red silk covers.
Inside the grand, heated Ancestral Hall and the adjoining main banquet plaza, over two hundred people had gathered for the feast: the three retired Grand Elders in their formal ceremonial robes. Rank 2 Alchemist Auntie Qin, Butler Grandpa Fu, Guard Captain Gu Tie with his fifty mansion guards, the thirty maids, the four blacksmiths. Even Poison-Hand Wu with his eighty pink-aproned herb-field gardeners sitting on neat benches in the outer courtyard!
In the center of the Ancestral Hall, six-year-old Su Nuannuan stood beside Gu Changsheng and eight-year-old Gu Nian in front of the glowing jade ancestral tablet of the Frost-Pine Gu Clan.
Auntie Qin had brushed Nuannuan’s soft black hair until it shone like satin, tied her two round hair-buns with brand-new crimson-and-gold silk ribbons. Dressed her in a custom-tailored winter celebration dress of warm pink velvet trimmed with snowy white rabbit fur.
In front of all three Grand Elders and the assembled clan, Gu Changsheng picked up a brush dipped in pure gold ink and inscribed four clear. Permanent characters onto the main lineage jade tablet—right beneath Gu Changsheng’s own name and right alongside eight-year-old Gu Nian’s:.
[ Daughter of Patriarch Gu Changsheng: Gu Nuannuan (Su Nuannuan) ]
Then Gu Changsheng set down the golden brush, turned around, and dropped to one knee in front of the six-year-old girl.
“Nuannuan,” Gu Changsheng said warmly, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet, candle-lit hall. “Whether you call yourself Su Nuannuan in memory of your grandma or Gu Nuannuan of the Frost-Pine Gu Clan. From this night on your name is carved in gold on our family’s ancestral stone.
As long as Dad and Big Brother Nian are here, this house is your home forever.”
Six-year-old Su Nuannuan looked up at the tall jade ancestral tablet glowing under the red silk lanterns, where her name now sat right beside Big Brother Gu Nian’s in shining gold ink.
Even though she was only six years old and had just started learning her letters from Auntie Qin two days ago. She recognized the character for Nuan—warm—that Gu Changsheng had taught her to trace at breakfast.
In Red-Clay Village, the village head had crossed her name out of the clan book with black charcoal because he was afraid her poison body would bring bad luck to the village ancestors.
Here in the biggest, warmest house in Frost-Pine Town, however, Dad had written her name in pure gold right in the middle of the Ancestral Hall. Two hundred uncles, aunties, and grandpas were smiling and clapping for her!
Gu Changsheng reached into the Upgrade Box’s reward slot and opened his palm.
Resting in his hand was a glowing, sunrise-red cloth flower identical to the ones on Gu Nian’s chest—a [Little Red Flower Merit Sticker (+5% All-Around Cultivation Speed)]!
Carefully, gently, Gu Changsheng pinned the glowing red cloth flower right onto the front collar of six-year-old Nuannuan’s pink rabbit-fur dress.
“For eating twenty drums of bad guys’ poison smoke at midnight, melting eighty steel knives with one sneeze, curing eighty-one uncles’ sore fingers. Saving thirty children at the West-End Orphanage today,” Gu Changsheng smiled, kissing her forehead, “here is Nuannuan’s very first Little Red Flower!”
Right beside him, eight-year-old Gu Nian stepped forward in his yellow bunny slippers, reached behind his back. Pulled out a palm-sized, smoothly sanded [Wooden Toy Rabbit] that he had spent the past three nights secretly carving out of fragrant spirit-pine wood with his pocketknife!
Even though the wooden rabbit’s left ear was a tiny bit thicker than its right ear, its surface had been polished until it was as smooth as jade. Gu Nian had painted two pink berry-juice eyes on its face.
“Here, Nuannuan,” eight-year-old Gu Nian said, his ears turning bright red as he pressed the wooden toy rabbit into his little sister’s hands. “I carved this rabbit for you myself so it matches your dress and my slippers. Now we’re the Bunny Brother and Sister!”
Then twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin stepped forward with a warm smile and hung a delicate silver-and-jade candy pouch around Nuannuan’s waist—filled to the brim with honey-orange gummies, strawberry milk drops. Sour-plum lollipops—while sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu presented her with a miniature gold-plated abacus rattle that chimed like silver bells whenever she shook it!
Even the three white-bearded Grand Elders—Gu Song, Gu Bai, and Gu He—stepped down from the dais together, each placing a warm longevity jade lock into the little girl’s basket and declaring in unison:.
“Whoever dares look sideways at our Gu Clan’s Little Princess Nuannuan will answer to every sword and spear of the Frost-Pine Gu Clan!”
Out in the front courtyard, not to be outdone, forty-five-year-old Rank 2 Mid Poison-Hand Wu blew a sharp note on his whistle:.
“Brothers of the Herb-Field Choir! Perform the ribbon dance we practiced all afternoon for Little Fairy Boss’s adoption banquet! One, two, three—hop!”
In front of the open hall doors, eighty-one burly, scarred former poison-cultivators wearing spotless [Pink Honeybee Gardening Aprons] and waving long pink silk ribbons leaped into the air in a deadly serious. Synchronized bunny-hop dance while singing at the top of their lungs:.
“Little Fairy Boss is six years old! Her hands are warm and her heart is gold! Whoever bullies our Little Fairy Boss gets buried in the turnip mold!”
Pffft—hahahaha!
Holding her wooden toy rabbit in one hand and touching the glowing [Little Red Flower Sticker] on her dress with the other. Six-year-old Su Nuannuan burst into the brightest, happiest, most carefree laughter of her entire life!
She threw her arms around Gu Changsheng’s neck and eight-year-old Gu Nian’s shoulders at the same time, her chubby rosy cheeks dimpling as every last shadow of fear, loneliness. Self-hatred from her past six years vanished into the warm banquet light!
“Nuannuan has a Dad, a Big Brother Nian, an Auntie Qin, a Grandpa Fu. Eighty-one dancing pink uncles!” the six-year-old girl cheered, kissing Gu Changsheng’s cheek with a loud mwah that smelled like sweet strawberries and honey!
At that exact instant, a magnificent cascade of double-golden light exploded across Gu Changsheng’s vision as the system’s grand milestone fanfare chimed inside his mind:.
[ DING! STAGE 4 GRAND MILESTONE — CHILD #2 REDEEMED BELOW 20%! ]
* Child #2 : Su Nuannuan / Gu Nuannuan (Age 6 | Rank 1 Mid)
* Innate Physique: [Rank 2 Sweet Honey-Candy & Healing Aroma Body]
* Merit Stickers : 1x Little Red Flower (+5% Cultivation Speed!)
* Warmth/Happiness: 97/100 -> 99/100 (Complete Family Belonging!)
* Darkening Meter: 16% -> 15% (OFFICIALLY LOCKED BELOW 20%!)
[ 2ND PERMANENT 10X REDEEMED KID BONUS UNLOCKED! ]
* Child #1 (Gu Nian, Rank 1 Peak) : +100 DP/day (10x Bonus)
* Child #2 (Su Nuannuan, Rank 1 Mid) : +100 DP/day (10x Bonus)
* Double-Redeemed-Kid Jackpot Award : +2,000 DP Instant Bonus!
* Current DP Balance : 73,210 + 2,000 = 75,210 DP!
* New Total Daily DP Income : +17,000 -> +18,000 DP/day!
Two future world-destroying Final Bosses—the eight-year-old Chaos Demon Sovereign and the six-year-old Ten-Thousand-Poison Empress—were now sitting side by side at his banquet table in fluffy rabbit clothes. Comparing their Little Red Flowers and sharing a plate of sweet honey-braised ribs!
Throughout the four-course feast that followed, Gu Changsheng personally served bowls of [Earth-Fire Eight-Treasure Duck Soup]. [Honey-Glazed Lotus Root] from his [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] to every table in the hall and courtyard.
At the main family table, eight-year-old Gu Nian carefully used his ivory serving chopsticks to pick the tenderest piece of lotus root out of the porcelain tureen. Placed it into six-year-old Su Nuannuan’s small bunny-painted bowl.
“Eat two pieces of lotus root first, Nuannuan,” Gu Nian instructed seriously. Sounding exactly like a miniature version of his father as he wiped a dot of sweet honey glaze off the corner of his little sister’s cheek with a warm cloth napkin. “Dad says lotus root clears winter dryness from your lungs so you don’t sneeze by accident when you’re laughing.
And after dinner, I’ll show you where we keep our toothbrushes and your new pink ceramic mug in the washroom.”
“Okay, Big Brother Nian!” six-year-old Su Nuannuan nodded happily, her short legs swinging under the bench. She took a big, crunchy bite of the sweet lotus root and then used her own clean spoon to scoop a plump winter mushroom into Gu Nian’s bowl.
Another into Auntie Qin’s bowl, another into Grandpa Fu’s bowl.
The biggest mushroom of all into Gu Changsheng’s bowl! “Dad gets the biggest mushroom because Dad cooks the best soup in the whole world!”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Gu Changsheng laughed, eating the mushroom in one bite and giving her a thumbs-up that made the little girl beam from ear to ear.
Around the courtyard tables, the atmosphere was warmer than midsummer: Town Magistrate Liu raised a cup of warm plum wine with Grand Elder Gu Song. Matron Chen and the thirty rosy-cheeked children from the West-End Orphanage sang a thank-you song for Doctor Qin and Little Sister Nuannuan. And Poison-Hand Wu’s eighty-one pink-aproned herb gardeners politely passed baskets of steamed buns to Captain Gu Tie’s mansion guards as if they had been sworn brothers for twenty years.
Even Second Elder Gu Ba—who had been granted a two-hour holiday from the back pigsties after scrubbing himself three times with pine soap—sat at the corner table sniffing back tears of remorse. He ate a bowl of hot duck soup and promised Grandpa Fu that his sows would produce the fattest piglets in the county by spring.
When the joyous banquet finally wound down at ten o’clock that night and the two sleepy children were tucked snugly into their warm Dragon-Stove kang bed—with Nuannuan hugging her wooden toy rabbit. Gu Nian keeping watch on the inside edge of the quilt like a dutiful big brother—Gu Changsheng walked back into the quiet kitchen.
He set his [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] onto a low cart, checked his spice jars, and opened [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] to the next page:.
[ DAD’S PLOT-SPOILER NOTEBOOK — POACHING THE RING-GRANDPA! ]
* Target Elder : Master Yao Chen (Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign.
Remnant Soul, currently trapped in Lin Fan’s ring)
* Current State : Furious & disgusted with Lin Fan after the.
orphanage well poisoning! Soul starving & cracked!
* Poaching Tip : At 11:00 PM tonight in the leaky West-Slum Inn,.
Lin Fan will threaten to throw Yao Chen’s ring.
into a manure pit unless Yao Chen brews a child-.
killing poison!
Gu Changsheng closed the notebook, picked up a plump five-pound farm chicken from the kitchen larder, and smiled warmly:.
“How do you poach a starving, three-hundred-year-old Pill Sovereign ghost who hates his host? With midnight roast chicken under his window.”