For three whole seconds in the snow-lit back lane behind Peace Pharmacy, the only sound was the gentle arf-arf of Little Snowball licking eight-year-old Gu Nian’s chin.
Then everyone’s eyes turned toward the chubby, two-foot-tall emerald-green [Rank 3 Soul-Nourishing Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] resting in six-year-old Su Nuannuan’s arms!
Twitch... wiggle... pop!
First, the plush turtle’s two stubby green velvet flippers gave a little stretch.
Next, the plush turtle pushed up its tiny gold-rimmed reading spectacles on its stubby green nose with one fuzzy flipper, blinked its round embroidered black eyes. Stood upright on its two short plush hind legs in Su Nuannuan’s arms!
Patting its soft white velvet belly with both flippers and feeling the warm, flaw-free [Five-Hundred-Year Warm-Soul Nephrite Core] humming smoothly inside its stitched green shell. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Master Yao Chen let out a long, contented sigh that sounded like a kindly old grandfather settling into a rocking chair by the fireplace:.
“Ahhh... warm nephrite jade at my back, cloud-silk velvet around my meridians, not a single draft of winter wind, and zero smell of Lin Fan’s unwashed feet! Little girl Nuannuan, little boy Nian’er, and Patriarch Gu—this old man Yao Chen hasn’t felt this comfortable in three hundred years!”
“Whoa! The turtle stood up and talked! And he pushed up his little glasses!”
six-year-old Su Nuannuan gasped, her big dark eyes sparkling like stars as she gently rubbed the top of the plush turtle’s soft green head.
“Hello, Grandpa Yao! Do you like your new turtle clothes?”
“Haha, I like them ten thousand times better than that dark iron ring, little fairy!” Grandpa Yao chuckled warmly inside his two-foot-tall plush turtle body. Reaching into his phantom robe to transfer the stack of folded crayon drawings into the miniature embroidered pocket stitched onto the front of his plush white belly!
Then the chubby green plush turtle turned toward the steaming porcelain platter in Gu Changsheng’s left hand, bowed politely with both fuzzy flippers together. Accepted a crispy [Rank 3 Five-Spice Honey Roast Chicken] wing that Gu Changsheng held out on bamboo chopsticks!
Unlike when he was an intangible ghost who could only inhale the smoke, inside this [Rank 3 Perfection: Soul-Nourishing Jade-Turtle Plush Doll]. Grandpa Yao could open his stitched plush mouth and take a real, crunchy bite of the honey-glazed chicken wing—converting the physical meat directly into pure golden soul-essence inside his warm-jade core!
Crunch, munch, munch!
“Mmm! Crispy skin, tender meat, and the five-spice balance is absolute perfection!” the two-foot-tall plush turtle praised, giving Gu Changsheng a fuzzy green thumbs-up with his flipper.
Beside his little sister, eight-year-old Gu Nian held Little Snowball in one arm and pulled a miniature bamboo handkerchief out of his coat pocket with the other. Politely wiping a tiny speck of honey-roast glaze off the corner of the plush turtle’s stitched green mouth.
“Grandpa Yao, my dad also saved the chicken liver and the crispy skin from the back for you. Auntie Qin brewed a thermos of hot wolfberry tea so your throat won’t feel dry after talking,” eight-year-old Gu Nian said earnestly. His dark eyes shining with happiness now that the kind old grandpa from the alley finally had a real body they could hug.
“When we get back to our mansion, you don’t ever have to sleep on a cold windowsill again—Nuannuan. I already cleared the warmest spot right next to the Dragon-Stove in our kitchen for your bed!”
“And Nuannuan will share half of my strawberry milk drops with Grandpa Yao every single day!” six-year-old Su Nuannuan added, gently patting the plush turtle’s warm nephrite-patterned shell. If she were holding the most precious treasure in the world.
Inside the chubby green plush turtle body, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Master Yao Chen felt the five-hundred-year warm-soul nephrite core in his chest hum with such pure. Heartwarming joy that the last lingering scorch-marks from the Blood-Slave Shackles vanished without a trace!
Look at these two children, the old Pill Sovereign thought, his tiny gold-rimmed spectacles glinting warmly under the lantern light. One has the Innate Chaos Demon Bone of an ancient supreme ruler. The other has the Sweet Honey-Candy Empress Body transformed from the Ten-Thousand-Poison Physique—yet they are wiping chicken grease off an old turtle’s chin and offering me half their candy!
Ten feet away in the slushy snow, kneeling beside his single dirty sock and the three broken pieces of his black-iron ring, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan watched his formerly aloof. Untouchable Rank 6 Golden Core “Ring-Grandpa” stand inside a two-foot-tall green plush toy in a six-year-old girl’s arms, wear tiny gold spectacles, and happily munch on a honey-roasted chicken wing!
That surreal, brain-shattering sight snapped the very last thread of sanity in Lin Fan’s head!
“MY RING! MY HERBS! MY SILVER!
MY GOLDEN CORE GRANDPA!”
Lin Fan let out a guttural, foam-flecked shriek that woke half the street!
Ignoring his fractured right wrist and bruised shin. The eyebrowless Lin Fan burned every last drop of the stolen Rank 1 Peak soul-qi still lingering in his dantian. Lunged straight across the snow toward six-year-old Su Nuannuan with his left claw outstretched like a mad ghoul:.
“Give me back my Ring-Grandpa and my forty-two boxes of herbs, you little brat—or I’ll strangle you right here!”
Gu Changsheng didn’t even need to raise his kitchen spatula.
Right in Su Nuannuan’s arms, the chubby two-foot-tall emerald-green plush turtle narrowed his embroidered eyes behind his tiny gold spectacles:.
“You dare reach your filthy claws toward this old man’s granddaughter right in front of me?! Watch how Grandpa Yao disciplines an unfilial rat!”
BOING—WHOOSH!
Kicking off six-year-old Nuannuan’s forearm on his two stubby plush legs like a little green cannonball. Grandpa Yao leaped three feet into the air—tucking his unfinished chicken wing neatly under his left flipper. Channeling his full vessel-capped Rank 3 Peak Alchemy Pill-Fire & Spiritual Force straight into his chubby right plush flipper!
In midair, that soft, fuzzy green velvet flipper glowed like a red-hot Rank 3 golden furnace hammer!
“Eat this Pill Sovereign’s [Hundred-Herb Mortar-Pounding Flipper Slap], you scoundrel!”
PAAAP—KRA-BOOOOOOM!
A two-foot-tall green plush turtle with tiny gold spectacles smacked its fuzzy right flipper squarely across the left side of eighteen-year-old Lin Fan’s jaw!
Despite being made of soft spirit-silk velvet and goose-down cotton, that flipper carried the full 10,000-pound spiritual impact of a Rank 3 Peak Grandmaster vessel—plus the purifying alchemical fire of Master Yao Chen!
The impact simultaneously shattered four of Lin Fan’s left molars. Purged every last drop of the stolen 20% Golden Core soul-qi out of Lin Fan’s dantian so. His cultivation crashed straight back down from Rank 1 Peak to a bruised, leaking Rank 1 Early.
Launched the hundred-and-fifty-pound “Chosen One” spinning sideways through the air like a swatted horsefly!
WHOOSH—SPLAAAAT-CRASH!
Flying forty feet down the back lane, Lin Fan crashed headfirst through the wooden lid of a night-soil collector’s donkey cart parked at the. Mouth of the alley—sinking up to his waist in a barrel of fermenting winter night-soil with his two boots kicking wildly in the air!
Up on the second-floor balcony of the tavern next door, the night-soil collector and the tavern innkeeper—who had stepped out with lanterns after hearing Lin Fan’s shriek—froze in dead. Petrified silence, rubbed their eyes five times, and crossed themselves in terror:.
“M-Mother of Mercy... did you just see a two-foot-tall green stuffed turtle jump out of little Miss Nuannuan’s arms, adjust its reading glasses. Slap that thief Lin Fan forty feet into my manure barrel with one fuzzy flipper?!”
“I’m never drinking cheap sorghum wine at night again! Even the children’s plush toys in the Gu Clan are Martial Grandmasters!”
“Hey! That eyebrowless thief just ruined my whole barrel of winter fertilizer—and he’s the same scoundrel who didn’t. Pay his room rent in Mud-Ditch Alley after blowing up his stove this afternoon!”
the tavern innkeeper shouted.
Picking up a wooden washbasin of icy snow-water from the balcony railing and dumping it straight down onto the manure cart below!
Landing back in six-year-old Su Nuannuan’s arms with a graceful midair backflip, Grandpa Yao dusted off his fuzzy green flippers, pushed his tiny gold spectacles back up his nose. Took another calm bite of his honey roast chicken wing.
“How was that flipper form, Patriarch Gu?” the chubby green plush turtle asked proudly, puffing out his soft white velvet chest as eight-year-old Gu Nian and six-year-old Su Nuannuan clapped and cheered for him. “Even at a Rank 3 Peak vessel cap, this old man’s Mortar-Pounding Slap didn’t spill a single drop of honey glaze off my chicken wing!”
“Ten out of ten for form, Grandpa Yao—and another ten out of ten for aiming him straight. Into the manure barrel he threatened to throw your ring into six nights ago,” Gu Changsheng laughed. Giving the two-foot-tall plush turtle a warm fist-to-flipper bump in the falling snow.
Along both ends of the back lane, Captain Gu Tie and the ten steel-speared mansion guards burst into a roar of applause. Banging the butts of their spears against the snowy flagstones in salute to the chubby green plush turtle!
“Bravo, Elder Yao! That [Hundred-Herb Mortar-Pounding Flipper Slap] was the cleanest strike this subordinate has ever seen in Frost-Pine Town!” thirty-five-year-old Captain Gu Tie cheered.
Grinning from ear to ear as he watched the two-foot-tall plush turtle adjust its tiny gold spectacles.
Take another polite bite of its roast chicken wing without a single smudge on its green velvet fur. “Six nights ago that rat threatened to throw Elder Yao’s ring into a manure pit, and tonight Elder Yao slapped him forty feet headfirst into a manure cart! Heaven’s justice truly never misses a beat!”
“Hehe, Grandpa Yao’s flipper went boing-smack just like Dad’s pancake spatula!” six-year-old Su Nuannuan giggled happily. Hugging the warm green plush turtle in her arms.
Pulling a clean pink silk handkerchief from her coat pocket to wipe the tip of Grandpa Yao’s right flipper—even though.
His pure Rank 3 Peak pill-fire had kept the velvet fabric completely spotless when he slapped Lin Fan’s soot-stained jaw. “Did your flipper hurt when you hit that bad man’s hard head, Grandpa Yao?”
“Hurt? Haha, little fairy, with the five-hundred-year warm-soul nephrite core your father fused into my shell and the triple-layered spirit-silk stitches Auntie Qin sewed into my flippers. This old turtle could slap an iron boulder into gravel without wrinkling a single thread!”
Grandpa Yao laughed warmly.
Patting Nuannuan’s small hand with his left flipper. Eight-year-old Gu Nian held up the thermos of hot wolfberry tea so the old Pill Sovereign could take a refreshing sip through a bamboo straw.
Even twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin couldn’t help smiling as she bowed respectfully to the two-foot-tall plush turtle resting in Nuannuan’s arms:.
“Senior Yao, thank you for all the red-chalk corrections you left on my pharmacy chalkboard over the past five nights, and thank you for protecting Nian’er and Nuannuan just now. Whenever your plush shell needs brushing or your reading spectacles need polishing, Wan’er will take care of them every morning.”
“No need to call me ‘Senior Yao’ like an outsider, Little Girl Qin!” the chubby green plush turtle waved his flipper generously. His round embroidered eyes crinkling with grandfatherly warmth behind his tiny gold glasses.
“Since little Nian’er and Nuannuan call you Auntie Qin and call me Grandpa Yao, from tonight on you are my own granddaughter in the alchemy arts!
Wait until we get back to the warm kitchen—this old turtle has three hundred years of Central Plains pill formulas stored in my head that were collecting cobwebs. I refused to teach a single high-grade recipe to that unfilial rat!”
Down at the mouth of the alley, coughing up blood and foul night-soil. He scrambled out of the shattered barrel and limped frantically toward the dark northern mountain forest like a beaten stray dog. Eighteen-year-old Lin Fan didn’t even dare look back—while above his head, the crimson ring of his [Protagonist Luck Halo] let out a loud CRACK-SHATTER!.
Losing his Golden Core Ring-Grandpa and all his ring treasures cleaved his remaining luck in half from 46% straight down to 22%!
[ DING! CHOSEN ONE’S CORE GOLDEN FINGER POACHED & SHATTERED! ]
* Protagonist : Lin Fan (Cultivation crashed back to Rank 1 Early!
Knocked into a night-soil cart by a plush turtle!)
* Luck Halo Drop: 46% -> 22% (-24% HALO CRASH! Dangerously Close.
to the <20% Desperation / Decay Threshold!)
* Daily Income : +38,000 DP/day -> +41,000 DP/day!