BANG, BANG, BANG!
Heavy iron spikes rang out in the twilight as Grandpa Fu nailed a three-inch-thick new oak gate onto the courtyard frame.
With five hundred silver taels jingling in the household sack and ten fat bags of smokeless red-pine charcoal stacked neatly under the porch eaves, the old butler worked like a man twenty years younger. He had hired the neighborhood carpenter and two apprentices for three silver coins to hang the solid iron-oak doors before dark, complete with a wrist-thick iron crossbar that could stop a battering ram.
“Lower the left hinge by half a thumb, Master Carpenter!” Grandpa Fu called out, holding up an oil lantern in the falling snow as he clicked his iron abacus. “And plane the bottom edge tight!
Not a single draft of Second Branch wind is getting into my Young Master’s yard tonight!”
Inside the small kitchen, a bright orange fire crackled merrily inside the clay stove.
After all of three winters, the room wasn’t freezing. Two lumps of the Second Branch’s smokeless red-pine charcoal burned steady and hot beneath the big iron cauldron. Filling the kitchen with a cozy, dry heat that melted the frost right off the window paper.
Gu Changsheng stood before the chopping block with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
In front of him lay fifty catties of prime, cured winter pork ribs and smoked pork belly that Grandpa Fu had bought from Butcher Wang’s shop that afternoon.
In his former life, Gu Changsheng had worked twelve-hour shifts as a head chef before running his own restaurant. Holding a newly sharpened bone cleaver, his hands moved with a rhythm so smooth and fast the blade turned into a silver blur.
CHOP, CHOP, CHOP!
Each strike split the cured pork ribs into uniform, three-inch chunks without leaving a single bone splinter behind. He blanched the ribs in boiling snow-water with crushed ginger and wild scallions, skimmed off the gray foam, and transferred the meat into a deep clay stew pot.
Then Gu Changsheng reached into his inner robe pocket and pulled out the crystal-blue Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus he had dug up from under the woodshed before noon.
In the original book, Lin Fan had “confiscated” this Rank 1 Peak treasure herb during the noon raid and swallowed its petals raw. Doing that wasted half of its medicinal essence, since the lotus’s extreme Yin-cold qi clashed violently with human blood.
Swallowing an Ice Lotus raw is what an illiterate brute does, Gu Changsheng thought, shaking his head over the steaming pot. You balance a hundred-year Yin herb with cured Yang pork marrow, old ginger, and slow charcoal heat. That way the cold poison turns into pure bone-nourishing broth.
Plucking the seven crystal-blue petals off the stem one by one, Gu Changsheng dropped them into the bubbling pork stock. Then he clapped the heavy clay lid shut.
Within ten minutes, the icy blue petals melted into the rich pork fat. A golden-white steam began to puff out of the lid’s vent hole, carrying an aroma so sweet, savory, and thick that it made the very rafters smell like a royal banquet hall.
Over in the corner by the stove, eight-year-old Gu Nian sat on a low wooden footstool.
The boy had been sitting there for a full hour without making a sound.
He had tucked his small, frostbitten hands inside the sleeves of his patched gray jacket, resting his chin on his knees as the warm glow of the charcoal fire danced across his pale cheeks.
Unlike this morning, Gu Nian no longer had the rusted kitchen cleaver hidden behind his back.
Yet his big black-gold eyes hadn’t left Gu Changsheng’s hands once.
He watched his father chop the fifty catties of cured ribs. He watched his father skim the broth. He watched his father feed fresh red-pine charcoal into the stove without coughing up a single drop of blood or reaching for the cheap wine jug under the sink.
In the quiet kitchen, only the glug-glug of the boiling clay pot and the distant tap of Grandpa Fu’s hammer outside broke the silence.
Gu Changsheng lifted the clay lid with a thick cloth rag and inhaled deeply.
“Done,” Gu Changsheng said, reaching for two big ceramic bowls on the shelf. “Three hours of slow simmering compressed into thirty minutes by the lotus qi. The meat’s falling right off the bone.”
He ladled a generous scoop of milky-gold lotus broth and four thick pork ribs into the first bowl, set it on the small square table, and waved a hand toward the footstool.
“Wash your hands in the warm basin by the stove and sit down, Nian’er.”
Gu Nian didn’t move right away.
Slowly, the eight-year-old stood up from the low stool. He dipped his small, bruised fingers into the basin of warm water Gu Changsheng had heated on the side of the stove. After wiping them dry on his hem, he climbed onto the bench across from his father.
He looked down at the steaming bowl of pork ribs and golden broth sitting in front of him.
The smell made his mouth water so hard his jaw ached. At noon, that bowl of noodles had chased away the worst of his starvation. However, eight years of malnutrition and the constant drain of his unawakened Innate Chaos Demon Bone left his small body craving meat and marrow like dry earth craving rain.
Still, Gu Nian didn’t pick up his bamboo chopsticks.
His small hands stayed flat on his knees under the table. He raised his eyes, staring straight across the rising steam at Gu Changsheng’s face.
“Why did you put the lotus in the pot?” Gu Nian asked suddenly.
His voice was quiet, flat, and far too guarded for an eight-year-old child.
“Because you can’t eat a raw flower on an empty stomach,” Gu Changsheng replied simply, sitting down across from him and picking up his own chopsticks. “And stewed with cured ribs, it takes the winter chill out of your bones.”
Gu Nian’s dark eyelashes didn’t flutter. His small jaw tightened as he forced out the question that had been festering in his chest all afternoon.
“That flower is worth three hundred silver taels at the market,” the boy said in that same flat, deadpan voice. “And today you bought fifty catties of pork.”
He paused for half a breath, his black-gold eyes locking onto Gu Changsheng’s pupils to catch even the slightest flinch.
“Last month, Second Uncle Gu Ba came to the window while you were drinking. He offered you ten silver taels for my bone marrow so he could brew blood-pills for his grandson. You didn’t say no.”
Gu Nian’s small fingers curled into tight fists on his knees.
“Are you feeding me three-hundred-silver lotus soup and fifty catties of meat today... because you’re fattening me up to get fifty silver?”
The words hung in the warm kitchen air.
There wasn’t a single tear in the boy’s eyes. He asked it the way a stray dog checks whether the meat in a stranger’s hand is tied to a snare. If Gu Changsheng hesitated, or lied, or started shouting in guilty anger, Gu Nian already knew which window he would dive through into the snow.
Across the table, Gu Changsheng stopped his chopsticks mid-air.
He looked at his eight-year-old son—really looked at the thin, bruised wrists sticking out of the short sleeves and the stubborn, terrified brace of the boy’s shoulders.
Gu Changsheng didn’t sigh. He didn’t kneel down to hug him, and he certainly didn’t launch into some tearful soap-opera speech about how he was a changed man who would make up for the past three years.
Kids who had been lied to hated speeches.
Instead, Gu Changsheng reached across the narrow wooden table and flicked Gu Nian lightly on the center of his forehead with one warm knuckle.
Thwip.
“Ow,” Gu Nian blinked, rubbing his forehead in surprise.
Before the boy could pull back, Gu Changsheng used his chopsticks to pick up the biggest, juiciest center-cut pork rib from the clay pot. The meaty rib was nearly as big as Gu Nian’s own fist, and Gu Changsheng dropped it straight on top of the boy’s bowl with a splash of golden gravy.
“Ten silver? Fifty silver?” Gu Changsheng said deadpan, leaning one elbow on the table and looking his son right in the eye.
“Second Elder Gu Ba doesn’t have enough silver in his vault to buy a single fingernail off my kid.”
Gu Changsheng tapped the rim of Gu Nian’s bowl with his chopsticks.
“Listen carefully, Gu Nian, because Dad only says things once. Even if the Emperor of Great Qian carried his golden throne into this yard tonight to trade it for you, he’d get my leather belt across his face. Nobody looks at my son crooked.
Now pick up your chopsticks and eat before your soup gets cold.”
Gu Nian froze completely.
For three full seconds, the eight-year-old boy didn’t breathe.
He stared at the giant pork rib steaming in his bowl, then up at his father’s calm, matter-of-fact eyes. There was no fake smile on Gu Changsheng’s face—none of that oily, theatrical warmth that Lin Fan put on in front of crowds. Just rock-solid certainty, as natural as the roof over their heads.
Even if the Emperor offered me his throne, he’d get my belt across his face.
Slowly, a wave of bright crimson heat crept up from Gu Nian’s collar and turned the tips of both of his small ears bright red.
Snatching up his bamboo chopsticks so fast they clicked together, Gu Nian ducked his head low and buried his whole face inside the big ceramic bowl. He bit straight into the giant pork rib so his father wouldn’t see his eyes turning wet!
[ DING! CHILD #1 (GU NIAN) PASSED TRUST TEST #1! ]
* Father’s Action Verified : “Even the Emperor gets the belt!”
* Gu Nian Warmth Index : 62/100 -> 74/100 (Warm Family Trust!)
* Gu Nian Darkening Meter : 40% -> 32% (-8% DROP!)
* Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus Buff: Innate Chaos Bone Nourished (+20%!)
Gu Changsheng smiled faintly and drank a big mouthful of the golden Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus & Cured Pork Broth himself.
The moment the rich, balanced medicinal essence of the Rank 1 Peak Ice Lotus and fifty catties of marrow hit his stomach, a warm, surging tide of blood-qi roared through his twelve main meridians!
His skin tightened like cured bullhide, and the muscles along his arms and back corded with fresh explosive power as he broke cleanly through the first minor bottleneck of the Martial path!
[ DING! HOST ABSORBED SEVEN-LEAF ICE LOTUS MARROW BROTH! ]
* Cultivation Breakthrough : Rank 1 Early -> RANK 1 MID MARTIAL!
(Muscle & Sinew Refined — Base Strength: 800 lbs!)
* Current Daily DP Income : +50 DP/day -> +60 DP/day!
Outside the door, Grandpa Fu walked in stamping the snow off his boots, his single eye lighting up as Gu Changsheng handed him a steaming bowl piled high with ribs. “Ah! Thank you, Third Young Master!
The new oak gate is bolted tight—not even a wild boar could ram through it tonight!”
Just as Grandpa Fu sat down by the stove, [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] inside Gu Changsheng’s mind suddenly chimed and flipped open to a glowing red page!
[ DAD’S PLOT-SPOILER NOTEBOOK — NIGHT RAID ALERT! ]
[TARGET DETECTED : Chosen One Lin Fan (Currently on Back Mountain)]
[ LIVE SCRIPT SPOILER ]
[Humiliated at noon and desperate to break into Rank 2 before the]
[Clan Elders punish Second Elder Gu Ba, Lin Fan is sneaking up]
[the snowy back mountain trail right now (30 minutes behind the]
[Old Ancestor Tomb)!]
[His Goal:]
[1. Dig up the hidden [Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng]]
[growing inside the hollow pine behind the Ancestor Tomb!]
[2. Rip the sealing talisman off the [Rank 1 Peak Blood-Corpse]’s]
[iron coffin and lure the monster down the mountain to tear]
[apart the Third Branch courtyard while you sleep!]
Gu Changsheng set his empty soup bowl down on the table, a wicked, shameless grin spreading across his face.
Dig up my family ancestor’s Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng AND let a Blood-Corpse loose on my house? Gu Changsheng thought. *Not on my watch, Young Master Lin.
Let’s see how you like eating a ten-times explosive laxative turnip in the middle of a graveyard.*