Half an hour later, back inside the warm, brightly lit main kitchen of the Gu Mansion, a scene of pure family coziness unfolded beside the glowing [Rank 2 Nine-Yang Dragon-Stove].
On a low cedar shelf right next to the warm brick chimney—where the aroma of simmering wolfberry tea and roasted pine nuts drifted through the air—eight-year-old Gu Nian. Six-year-old Su Nuannuan had set up a handmade miniature four-poster wooden bed that Gu Nian had carpentered during his afternoon woodworking lesson.
Spread across the miniature bed was a triple-thick mattress of red cloud-velvet and goose-down cotton stitched by twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin. Complete with a tiny silk pillow embroidered with golden gourds and a miniature porcelain tea-set sitting on a bedside coaster!
Sitting propped up against the silk pillow in his chubby two-foot-tall [Rank 3 Soul-Nourishing Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] body. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Pill Sovereign Yao Chen held a miniature porcelain teacup of hot wolfberry-and-honey tea between his two fuzzy green flippers. Eight-year-old Gu Nian carefully tucked a warm lambskin quilt over his plush legs and six-year-old Su Nuannuan placed two strawberry milk drops on his saucer.
“Grandpa Yao, is your bed soft enough?” eight-year-old Gu Nian asked earnestly, checking the corner of the miniature quilt just like his father always checked his. “If the stove side gets too warm at midnight, I made a little wooden sliding screen right here so you can adjust the breeze with your flipper!”
“And Nuannuan put Little Snowball’s spare wool cushion at the foot of your bed so your turtle toes stay cozy!” six-year-old Su Nuannuan beamed, resting her chin on her small hands beside the shelf.
“Good night, Grandpa Yao! Welcome to our family!” both children said in cheerful unison, bowing politely to the chubby green plush turtle.
Holding the warm miniature teacup in his fuzzy green flippers. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Master Yao Chen—the legendary Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign who had spent three centuries in cold darkness and six months being cursed, starved. Dunked in dirty dishwater by an ungrateful sociopath—looked at the handmade wooden bed, the silk pillow, the two smiling children, Auntie Qin, Grandpa Fu.
Gu Changsheng standing warmly by the kitchen table.
For three seconds, the old Pill Sovereign’s tiny gold spectacles fogged up completely.
Then he raised one fuzzy green flipper to wipe a shining tear from the corner of his embroidered turtle eye as his Warmth Index climbed from 90/100 to 96/100!
“Good... good! In my old age, Yao Chen has finally found a true home and two such filial grandchildren!”
Grandpa Yao’s voice choked with emotion.
He cleared his throat, hopped briskly out of his velvet bed onto the kitchen table. Picked up a miniature charcoal brush with his right flipper. “Patriarch Gu, Little Girl Qin!
Do not treat this old turtle like an idle guest! Since I am now the resident Grandpa of the Gu Mansion, let me put my first housewarming gift on the table!”
With his fuzzy green flipper moving across a stack of clean white paper at lightning speed, Grandpa Yao wrote out ten complete. Flaw-free [Rank 2 Perfection & Half-Step Rank 3 Charity Pill Formulas]—including the [Hundred-Grass Bone-Warming Salve] for elderly farmers with winter rheumatism, the [Sweet-Dew Toddler Fever Lozenge]. The [Iron-Skin Guard Conditioning Pill]—all using common frontier herbs that Poison-Hand Wu’s eighty-one pink-aproned gardeners were already growing in the back fields!
Even more generously, Grandpa Yao pointed his flipper at the forty-two boxes of rare herbs and eighteen jade slips confiscated from Lin Fan’s ring:.
“Every single stalk of fifty-year ginseng in those forty-two boxes goes straight into Little Girl Qin’s Peace Pharmacy vault. Every morning starting at eight o’clock, this old turtle will sit on the pharmacy counter in my reading glasses to check the town’s difficult pulse cases for free!”
Standing beside the kitchen table, sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu bowed respectfully to the two-foot-tall plush turtle and clicked his black-iron abacus with a beaming smile:.
“Welcome home, Elder Yao! This old butler has already entered your name into the Gu Mansion’s household register right beside mine. Senior Resident Alchemy Grandpa—with a daily allowance of two roasted spirit-chickens, one pot of first-flush wolfberry tea.
Three sticks of top-grade sandalwood incense every evening!”
“Haha! Old Brother Fu, you and I are going to get along splendidly!” Grandpa Yao laughed heartily.
Clinking his miniature porcelain teacup against Grandpa Fu’s big earthenware mug before turning to inspect eight-year-old Gu Nian’s wrist and six-year-old Su Nuannuan’s pulse with his two fuzzy flippers.
After checking both children’s meridians for three breaths, the three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Pill Sovereign nodded in deep admiration:.
“Patriarch Gu, the way you used warm Earth-Fire cuisine and family joy to nourish little Nian’er’s Innate Chaos Demon Bone. Transform little Nuannuan’s poison physique into a Sweet Honey-Candy Empress Body is a stroke of genius that even the Immortal Sects of the Central Plains could never dream of! Look at little Nian’er’s bone marrow—he is only half a step away from breaking cleanly into Rank 2 Early Martial (Iron-Bone Stage) at age eight!
Tomorrow morning, let this old turtle write out a seasoning chart for a pot of [Golden-Marrow Dragon-Rib Soup], and our little Nian’er will step into Rank 2 without a single ripple of murderous qi!”
Over the next three winter days, the addition of a genuine Golden Core Pill Sovereign in a. Chubby green plush turtle body turned the [Gu Family Peace Pharmacy] into a miracle across the entire region!
At first, visiting villagers from neighboring townships rubbed their eyes in shock when they walked into Peace Pharmacy. Saw a two-foot-tall emerald-green stuffed turtle wearing tiny gold spectacles sitting on a velvet cushion beside Doctor Qin Wan’er. Placing one fuzzy green flipper on a patient’s wrist and barking in an authoritative old scholar’s voice:.
“Hmph! Old Brother Zhang, stop sneaking cold turnip wine behind your wife’s back—your spleen meridian is damp! Take two of Little Girl Qin’s ten-copper Ginger-Dew Gummies after breakfast and soak your feet in mugwort water for three nights, next patient!”
And whenever a crying village toddler was scared of taking medicine, six-year-old Su Nuannuan would walk out from behind the counter holding her wooden toy rabbit. Grandpa Yao did a little wiggling dance on his two stubby plush turtle legs and pulled a honey-orange gummy out of his front belly pocket!
Even Rank 2 Mid Poison-Hand Wu and his eighty-one pink-aproned herb gardeners came to the pharmacy window every afternoon after tilling. The fields to take notes from Grandpa Yao on how to ferment winter spirit-compost at the exact temperature needed for hundred-year blood-ginseng.
Within seventy-two hours, every patient diagnosed by “Doctor Turtle Grandpa” and treated with Auntie Qin’s newly upgraded Rank 2 Perfection remedies recovered at miraculous speed!
Three thousand five hundred grateful townsfolk, miners, and neighboring villagers flocked to Frost-Pine Street to hang red silk banners outside the Gu Mansion and Peace Pharmacy. Pushing the Gu Clan’s reputation and daily system income from +41,000 DP/day straight to +45,000 DP/day [and bringing Gu Changsheng’s accumulated Dad Points balance past 195,000 DP]!
By the third evening, the front courtyard of Peace Pharmacy had become the liveliest, happiest gathering spot in all of Frost-Pine Town.
Old blacksmiths whose elbows had ached for twenty winters flexed their newly healed arms and insisted on forging free iron horseshoes and hinges for the Gu Clan’s stables. Elderly grandmothers from West-End Street brought baskets of freshly steamed red-bean buns and knitted miniature woolen hats in five different colors for Grandpa Yao’s plush turtle head.
And every child in town who came for a ten-copper winter-cough gummy lined up politely to bow to “Doctor Turtle Grandpa” and shake his fuzzy green flipper!
Back at the Gu Mansion after clinic hours, Grandpa Yao’s evening routine was even grander.
While Gu Changsheng fired up the [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] to cook dinner, the two-foot-tall plush turtle would waddle briskly along the clean wooden counter on his stubby hind legs. Peering into the soup pots through his tiny gold spectacles and debating seasoning ratios with Gu Changsheng like two master chefs at an imperial banquet:.
“Patriarch Gu, add half a slice of dried tangerine peel to that ten-year spirit-chicken broth at the second boil—it opens the lung meridians for little Nuannuan’s honey-aroma physique!”
“Already tucked inside the spice pouch at the bottom of the pot, Grandpa Yao—and I roasted three extra chestnuts in the embers for your tea saucer,” Gu Changsheng laughed. Tossing a golden chestnut through the air for the plush turtle to catch neatly between both flippers!
After supper, while Auntie Qin practiced her new Rank 2 Perfection pill hand-seals by the fireplace and Grandpa Fu taught the children their evening arithmetic and calligraphy. Grandpa Yao would sit on the corner of the study desk in his tiny reading glasses. Telling eight-year-old Gu Nian and six-year-old Su Nuannuan fascinating stories about the strange spirit herbs, flying cranes.
Ancient alchemy tournaments of the Central Plains—always ending each story with the stern grandfatherly moral:.
“Remember, Nian’er, Nuannuan: an alchemist’s fire and a martial artist’s fist exist to keep the soup pot warm and protect the honest folks under the roof! Anyone who uses his strength to bully puppies or cheat widows will end up headfirst in a manure cart just like that eyebrowless rat!”
“We remember, Grandpa Yao!” both children chimed happily, before carrying the chubby green plush turtle back to his miniature four-poster velvet bed beside the warm kitchen stove for the night.
Yet on the fourth morning, just as eight-year-aged Gu Nian and six-year-old Su Nuannuan were eating their breakfast porridge. Arithmetic class, the porcelain bowls on the dining table suddenly began to vibrate with a low, ominous thrum-thrum-thrum!
Up on the northern mountain ridge five miles outside Frost-Pine Town, the heavy, thunderous beat of war-drums and the bloodcurdling howls of five hundred giant war-wolves echoed across the snowy sky!
Inside the dining room, Little Snowball perked up his fluffy white ears under the table and let out a low, protective growl toward the north gate. Grandpa Yao hopped off his velvet tea-cushion onto the edge of the table, his tiny gold spectacles glinting sharply as he sensed the chaotic, blood-maddened beast-qi rolling down from the northern ridge.
“Hmph! Five hundred iron-clad riders mounted on mountain war-wolves that have been force-fed forbidden [Berserk Blood-Boil Pills]?” Grandpa Yao snorted, tapping his fuzzy green flipper on the table.
“That eyebrowless rat Lin Fan has truly lost the last shred of his mind—feeding Blood-Boil Pills to war-wolves overloads their heart-meridians and turns them into rampaging beasts that trample everything in their path!”
At the exact same instant, [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] flipped open on Gu Changsheng’s lap with a flashing crimson alert:.
[ WARNING! FOREKNOWLEDGE DECAY — THE MERCENARY STAMPEDE! ]
* Plot Mutation : In the original plot, Lin Fan hired 50 scouts.
to raid a caravan. Now, crippled to Rank 1 Early.
and desperate at 22% Luck Halo, Lin Fan has.
signed a blood-debt with [Commander One-Ear Scar.
, at Rank 2 Peak,] and the [500 Blood-Wolf Mercenary.
Riders]!
* Current Threat: Lin Fan fed all 500 armored War-Wolves forbidden.
[Berserk Blood-Boil Pills]! They are charging.
straight toward Frost-Pine Town’s North Gate to.
trample the West-End Orphanage and Peace Pharmacy!
* Daily Income : +41,000 DP/day -> +45,000 DP/day!
Outside the courtyard gate, Town Magistrate Liu came running up the steps with his official hat askew, his face as white as paper:.
“Patriarch Gu! Five hundred Blood-Wolf Mercenary Riders on berserk war-wolves are three miles from the north gate! We have to evacuate the town right now!”
Following closely behind Magistrate Liu were the three white-bearded Grand Elders of the Gu Clan—Gu Song, Gu Bai. Gu He—along with Captain Gu Tie in full winter armor and Rank 2 Mid Poison-Hand Wu carrying a heavy iron hoe from the herb fields.
“Patriarch!” thirty-five-year-old Captain Gu Tie reported urgently, his hand resting on the hilt of his steel saber as the distant war-drums rattled the frost off the courtyard pine trees. “Our watchtower scouts on the northern ridge just sent up three red smoke signals!
Commander One-Ear Scar of the Blood-Wolf Mercenary Corps has brought every single rider from his mountain stronghold—five hundred hardened cutthroats mounted.
On red-eyed mountain war-wolves—and that fugitive Lin Fan is riding right behind One-Ear Scar’s banner pointing his finger at our north gate!”
“Little Fairy Boss, Patriarch Gu, don’t worry!” Rank 2 Mid Poison-Hand Wu thumped his chest in his pink honeybee gardening apron, his newly healed fingers gripping his iron hoe like a battle-halberd. “All eighty-one brothers of our Herb-Field Squad have already grabbed our hoes and compost shovels!
Even if those five hundred wolves breathe fire, we won’t let a single one step on Little Fairy Boss’s dandelion beds!”