At seven o’clock the next morning—right as eight-year-old Gu Nian. Six-year-old Su Nuannuan sat down in the warm East Hall to take Teacher Li’s winter arithmetic test alongside the thirty West-End orphans—the ten-acre. Vacant lot on the sunny eastern side of Frost-Pine Street was transformed into the most spectacular construction site in the history of Azure-Cloud Prefecture!
Five hundred burly, scar-faced former raiders of the Blood-Wolf Mercenary Corps—every single man wearing a spotless. Bright pink [Rank 2 “Good Citizen” Bunny Chore Apron] over his winter tunic—were organized by sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu and Captain Gu Tie into ten specialized construction brigades!
Out in the stone quarry half a mile east. One hundred and fifty giant mountain war-wolves—whose coats were now glossy. Fluffy after drinking Su Nuannuan’s honey-spring water—happily pulled heavy sledges loaded with cut red granite blocks and kiln-fired red bricks down the road.
Wagging their bushy tails like oversized sled dogs whenever a townsman tossed them a roasted mutton bone!
Along the main thoroughfare of Frost-Pine Street, two hundred pink-aproned mercenaries worked on their knees with masonry trowels and spirit-lime mortar. Laying down flat, smooth bluestone paving slabs over the muddy ruts and installing underground clay heating-flues modeled after the Gu Mansion’s Dragon-Stove array!
And right in the center of the ten-acre eastern lot, forty-two-year-aged Commander One-Ear Scar , at Rank 2 Peak. Three hundred pink-aproned masonry brothers were hoisting massive pine roof-beams and laying the gleaming red-brick walls of the brand-new [Gu Family Elementary Martial & Reading School]!
During the first two hours of the morning shift, however, Commander One-Ear Scar’s pride was still stinging fiercely. Passing town grandmothers pointed at the smiling white cartoon bunny stitched on the chest of his pink apron and chuckled.
Carrying two eight-hundred-pound pine pillars on his broad shoulders at the same time, One-Ear Scar leaned over to thirty-eight-year-old Mercenary Vice-Captain Bull , at Rank 2 Mid. Whispered out of the corner of his mouth—carefully avoiding any swear words so his apron wouldn’t force him to do another hundred frog-jumps:.
“Bull, listen to me carefully. Even though Little Fairy Nuannuan saved our five hundred wolves yesterday, we are dignified warriors of the northern mountains! How can we spend the rest of our lives wearing pink bunny aprons and building a primary school for town brats?!
Tonight after midnight, once the town guards go to sleep, we’ll whistle for our wolves, climb over the low back wall of the stable, and ride back to our mountain stronghold!”
“B-Boss Scar,” Vice-Captain Bull whispered back, wiping the honest sweat off his forehead with the corner of his pink bunny apron. He laid three rows of red bricks in a straight line, “didn’t you notice that wearing these pink aprons makes our internal qi circulate thirty percent smoother while lifting heavy stones? My lower back hasn’t felt this loose in five winters!
Still, if you say we sneak out after supper tonight, the brothers will follow your lead...”
For the entire morning, One-Ear Scar and a hundred of his proudest veteran raiders kept their heads down. Gritting their teeth and counting the hours until midnight so they could escape the humiliation of the pink bunny aprons.
Then, at high noon—.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
The big bronze lunch bell hung outside the construction site’s temporary canteen pavilion rang three times across the snowy street!
“Tools down, Masonry Brigades One through Ten!” sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu announced briskly through a brass speaking-trumpet from the pavilion steps. “By order of Patriarch Gu and Doctor Qin Wan’er, our Gu Clan never lets anyone working on our children’s school build on an empty stomach!
Wash your hands at the warm water troughs and line up with your wooden bowls!”
Expecting to be served the same watery, sour brown-bran gruel and rock-hard salted turnips that county prison camps—and their former employer Lin Fan—had fed them in the mountains. Commander One-Ear Scar and his five hundred pink-aproned mercenaries sullenly washed the lime dust off their hands and shuffled up to the canteen tables.
Then twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin—assisted by ten smiling town widows. Gu Changsheng himself standing behind the giant [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok]—lifted the wooden lids off ten huge steaming iron cauldrons and twenty towering bamboo steamers!
WHOOOOOOSH!
A blinding, snow-melting cloud of fragrant golden steam billowed across the construction site!
Inside the ten iron cauldrons bubbled rich, milky-gold [Fused Spirit-Ox Bone, Red-Date & Ten-Year Astragalus Stew] swimming with thick chunks of tender braised pork belly, winter radishes, and marrow bones!
And inside the twenty towering bamboo steamers sat mountains of fist-sized, snow-white refined wheat flour buns stuffed to bursting with juicy five-spice scallion pork!
“Two big ladles of marrow-and-pork stew and four white-flour meat buns per man—and if anyone is still hungry after four buns. Come back to the wok for free refills!” Gu Changsheng called out warmly.
Ladling a brimming basin of steaming golden meat stew and four huge white pork buns straight into Commander One-Ear Scar’s wooden tray.
Eight-year-old Gu Nian and six-year-old Su Nuannuan (who had just finished scoring 100% on their morning math test!) walked down the. Line of five hundred resting war-wolves with Poison-Hand Wu’s gardeners to feed every single wolf a warm bucket of cooked beef-bone broth!
Even more touchingly, as eight-year-old Gu Nian and six-year-old Su Nuannuan finished setting down the buckets of warm beef-bone broth for the wolves. The two children walked over to the canteen benches carrying a basket of warm, freshly baked sesame flatbreads and a kettle of hot ginger-honey tea.
“Big Pink-Apron Uncles, thank you for laying the bricks so straight for our new school!” six-year-old Su Nuannuan said in her sweet, clear voice. Bowing politely with her big brother before setting a stack of hot sesame flatbreads on Commander One-Ear Scar’s table.
“Teacher Li said that once you finish building the roof, all the kids from the West-End Orphanage will have a warm classroom where the snow can’t blow on their hands!
Here is some warm ginger tea so you don’t catch a cold!”
“And Grandpa Fu said that any brigade whose brick wall passes the plumb-line check at five. O’clock gets an extra dish of glazed sweet-and-sour ribs at dinner tonight,” eight-year-old Gu Nian added earnestly. Pouring a steaming mug of ginger-honey tea for Vice-Captain Bull with both hands.
Standing in front of the canteen table, forty-two-year-old Commander One-Ear Scar stared down at the brimming basin of glistening pork belly, spirit-ox marrow bones, and four snow-white meat buns in his hands.
His hands actually trembled.
Slowly, he lifted the wooden bowl to his mouth and drank a big mouthful of the piping-hot, flaw-free Earth-Fire broth.
Gulp—WARMTH!
In twenty years of fighting in freezing mountain passes. Commander One-Ear Scar had suffered twelve hidden dark-meridian blood clots in his chest that stabbed like icicles every winter and blocked him permanently from ever touching the Rank 3 Grandmaster threshold.
Yet the instant that single mouthful of Gu Changsheng’s [Fused Spirit-Ox Bone & Astragalus Stew] entered his stomach, a gentle. Surging wave of flaw-free Rank 3 culinary fire-essence washed through his chest—dissolving three of his twelve chronic dark-meridian blood clots on the spot. Filling his entire body with a warmth he hadn’t felt since his mother cooked for him as a boy!
Ten feet away at Table Three, thirty-eight-year-old Mercenary Vice-Captain Bull took one bite of a steaming. Juicy white-flour pork bun, looked over at his wolf Old Gray happily crunching beef bones from eight-year-old Gu Nian’s bucket. Suddenly burst into loud, uncontrollable sobs right into his soup bowl!
“Wuwaaaah! Brothers, look at this meat bun!” Vice-Captain Bull wept, holding up the half-eaten pork bun with tears streaming down his nose-ring.
“When that eyebrowless bastard Lin Fan hired us on the northern ridge, he fed us moldy cornmeal mixed with sawdust and fed our wolves heart-bursting poison pills!
Yesterday we came here to rob Patriarch Gu’s town, and today Patriarch Gu feeds five hundred prisoners real spirit-meat stew that heals our hidden injuries. His two children pour us hot ginger tea and feed our wolves warm beef broth by hand!”
“My frostbitten left knee hasn’t stopped aching for seven winters. One bowl of Patriarch Gu’s stew just melted the ice-clot right out of my joint!” another scarred veteran mercenary sobbed at Table Five.
Wiping his eyes with the hem of his pink bunny apron before gulping down two meat buns in three bites.
“In the mountains, we lived like wild dogs waiting to freeze to death in a ditch! Here in Frost-Pine Town, even wearing a pink apron, we are treated like human beings!”
Across the ten-acre construction site, over three hundred scarred mountain mercenaries wiped their eyes with their pink bunny aprons, buried their faces in their steaming bowls. Saw their Warmth Indexes skyrocket from 25 straight past 68/100 before sunset!
When Vice-Captain Bull quietly sidled up to Commander One-Ear Scar after lunch and whispered, “Boss Scar... are we still sneaking out over the stable wall at midnight tonight?”, Commander One-Ear Scar glared at him and smacked the back of his helmet with a masonry trowel:.
“Sneak out?! Are you out of your mind, Bull?! Patriarch Gu promised braised mutton noodles for tomorrow’s lunch if we finish the school roof, and Little Master Nian promised us sweet-and-sour ribs if our brick wall passes the plumb-line check at five o’clock!
Whoever dares talk about running away—or lays a single crooked brick in the children’s classroom—answers to my trowel!”
“Yes, Boss Scar! Wait for me—I’ll go mix three more barrels of spirit-lime mortar right now!” thirty-eight-year-old Vice-Captain Bull wiped his tear-streaked face on his sleeve, gulped down the last drop of his marrow broth.
Sprinted back to the brickyard with twice the energy he had shown in the morning!
By two o’clock that afternoon, when sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu walked out to the construction site expecting to remind the prisoners to return to work after their noon rest. The old butler nearly dropped his black-iron abacus in astonishment:.
Not a single one of the five hundred pink-aproned mercenaries was napping under the trees!
Instead, Commander One-Ear Scar had tied a taut hemp plumb-line across the entire three-hundred-foot length of the school’s main classroom building. Was marching up and down the scaffolding with an iron carpenter’s square in his hand. Inspecting every single brick laid by his men with the fanatical strictness of an imperial palace architect!
“Squad Four! That window sill on Classroom Three is one-tenth of an inch too low on the left!” Commander One-Ear Scar bellowed, his bright pink bunny apron fluttering in the winter breeze.
He pointed his trowel at three burly mercenaries.
“Do you want the cold north wind to blow through a crack onto Little Fairy Nuannuan’s desk when she’s practicing her handwriting?! Lift that stone sill up right now and pack an extra layer of pine-pitch mortar underneath!”
“Right away, Boss Scar! We’ll polish the stone sill with river sand until it’s smoother than a mirror!” the three scarred mercenaries shouted back enthusiastically.
Down in the courtyard, fifty giant mountain war-wolves trotted back.
Forth pulling carts of roof tiles without needing a single whip-crack—because six-year-old Su Nuannuan had promised to brush their winter fur after five o’clock!
Standing beside the canteen pavilion watching the five hundred former outlaws compete over who could build the warmest. Sturdiest classroom for the town’s children, twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin turned to Gu Changsheng with a soft, admiring smile:.
“Brother Changsheng, yesterday at noon Magistrate Liu thought five hundred mountain wolves were going to tear Frost-Pine Town down—and twenty-four hours later. You’ve turned all five hundred of them into pink-aproned master builders who won’t even tolerate a crooked window sill in our children’s school!”
“Most men who end up as mountain bandits on the frontier were just starving farmers whom the county officials taxed out of their land,” Gu Changsheng said warmly. Stirring a fresh pot of sweet red-bean soup for the afternoon tea break. “Give a man a clean apron, an honest job building something for children, and a hot bowl of meat stew that heals his old wounds.
You’ll find he works ten times harder to protect a town than he ever did to rob one.”
[ DING! 350 BLOOD-WOLF MERCENARIES CONVERTED BY ONE LUNCH! ]
* One-Ear Scar : Warmth 18 -> 72/100! (Dark Injuries Healing!)
* Converted Crew: 350+ Mercenaries at 65+ Warmth!
* Daily Income : +70,000 DP/day -> +76,000 DP/day!