Fueled by three hot Earth-Fire meals a day and the +50% masonry stamina boost of their [Rank 2 Pink “Good Citizen” Bunny Chore Aprons]. Commander One-Ear Scar and his five hundred reformed Blood-Wolf Mercenaries worked with the passion of men building their own ancestral temple!
In just six days flat—by the twenty-fourth morning of the twelfth winter month, right. The New Year—the ten-acre [Gu Family Elementary Martial & Reading School] stood gleaming under the winter sun on the eastern avenue of Frost-Pine Town!
Built of kiln-fired red bricks and massive northern pine beams, the school campus featured:.
- Twelve bright, spacious classrooms heated from beneath the floorboards by interconnected [Nine-Yang Dragon-Stove Flues] so the children could write without their fingers getting cold;.
- A two-acre indoor-and-outdoor martial arts training ground paved with shock-absorbing spirit-sand and equipped with wooden training dummies;.
- A massive Free School Canteen where Auntie Qin and ten town mothers simmered bone-strengthening lunch soup every day;.
- And a colorful playground with wooden seesaws, swings, and a warm heated kennel row where all five hundred tamed giant mountain war-wolves napped peacefully as the school’s official “Husky Guard Mounts”!
On the night before the school’s grand opening day, inside the Gu Mansion kitchen. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao paced back and forth across the dining table in his two-foot-tall [Rank 3 Soul-Nourishing Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] body. Adjusting his tiny gold spectacles with a look of serious academic concern:.
“Patriarch Gu, tomorrow morning six hundred children from Frost-Pine Town and the surrounding villages are reporting for the first day of class! As the Chief Professor of Alchemy & Nature Science. This old turtle must stand on the lecture podium for four hours in the morning—yet at noon I also need to.
Be right here above your Earth-Fire Wok to supervise the herbal spice ratios for six hundred bowls of school lunch soup! Walking back and forth on my two stubby plush legs will take fifteen minutes each way!”
“Already thought of that, Grandpa Yao,” twenty-eight-year-old Gu Changsheng smiled. Opening [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box] and placing [A Hundred-Year Purple-Gold Calabash Gourd] (from the forty-two herb boxes emptied out of Lin Fan’s ring) alongside [A Piece of Warm-Soul Nephrite Jade]. [A Kitchen Spice-Rack Hook] into the fusion slot!
“System, spend 3,000 Dad Points! Fuse a secondary portable Rank 3 Soul-Vessel for Grandpa Yao that links directly to his Jade-Turtle Plush Doll!”
HUMMM—FLASH!
[ DING! 3,000 DAD POINTS DEDUCTED — SECONDARY VESSEL FUSION! ]
* Remaining DP : 445,190 DP.
* Output Item : [Rank 3 Perfection: Grandpa Yao’s Spice-Rack.
Spirit-Gourd (Dual-Linked Commuter Vessel)]!
* Item Effect :.
1. A palm-sized, warm purple-gold calabash gourd etched with.
smiling turtle clouds!
2. Instant Commute: Grandpa Yao can project half his spiritual.
consciousness into the Spirit-Gourd hanging on the kitchen.
spice rack while his main soul teaches class in the [Jade-.
Turtle Plush Doll]—or clip the gourd onto his turtle shell.
to store 100 gallons of herbal soup and Tickle-Pepper!
“Haha! A dual-linked Rank 3 Spirit-Gourd that lets this old man supervise the kitchen soup pot and lecture at the school podium at the exact same time?!” Grandpa Yao cheered.
Clipping the gleaming purple-gold gourd onto the belt of his green plush turtle shell with both flippers as his Warmth Index hit 99/100!
“Patriarch Gu, even the Immortal Sect Academies don’t have teaching equipment this convenient!”
At eight o’clock the next morning, under festive red silk ribbons and the ringing of the bronze school bell, six hundred scrubbed. Rosy-cheeked children—ranging from six-year-old village toddlers and the thirty West-End orphans to twelve-year-old town youths—marched happily through. The gates of the [Gu Family Elementary Martial & Reading School] wearing matching blue cotton school uniforms.
Warm winter coats provided completely free of charge by the Gu Clan!
Standing at the school gate alongside their weeping parents and grandparents, many of the poorer tenant-farming families from the outer mountain villages could hardly believe their eyes. Their children were handed brand-new slate writing boards, charcoal pencils, and warm fleece-lined indoor slippers at the door.
“Look, Old Man,” a sixty-year-old village grandmother whispered. Wiping her tears with her sleeve as her seven-year-old grandson bowed to Teacher Li and ran into the warm, dragon-stove-heated First Grade classroom. “In our family’s eight generations of tilling the mountain soil, not a single person knew how to read his own name on a tax receipt!
Today Patriarch Gu not only lets our grandson learn reading and Iron-Bone martial arts for free, he even gives every child two meat buns and a bowl of spirit-herb soup at noon!”
In the grand opening assembly hall:.
- Thirty-two-year-old Gu Changsheng served as Principal & Head Martial Instructor;.
- Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao (standing proudly on a velvet cushion atop the podium in his chubby green plush turtle body with tiny gold spectacles!) taught Introductory Herbology & Nature Science;.
- Twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin taught First-Aid Medicine & Hygiene;.
- Sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu and Teacher Li taught Reading, Arithmetic & Abacus Accounting;.
- And by unanimous vote of all six hundred students, Gu Nian (who was turning nine after the New Year) was elected School-Wide Class President. Su Nuannuan (turning seven) was elected Chief Little Red Flower & Candy Monitor!
During the very first morning class in Room One. When Grandpa Yao tapped his tiny bamboo pointer on the herb chart and asked the sixty first-graders which winter root could cure a frostbitten ear without leaving a scar. Six-year-old Su Nuannuan raised her hand high in the front row, answered “Warm-Ginger and Honey-Dew Grass!”.
Then walked down the aisle handing out a sweet honey-orange gummy to every classmate who repeated the herb’s name correctly!
And out on the martial training ground during second period, eight-year-old Class President Gu Nian stood at the front of the formation in his yellow bunny apron over his blue school uniform. Patiently correcting the horse-stance posture of the younger orphans one by one just as his father had taught him:.
“Keep your knees bent over your toes and imagine your feet are warm pine roots growing into the ground! Once everyone holds a steady horse-stance for ten breaths without wobbling, Dad’s kitchen cart is bringing out freshly baked red-bean pancakes for morning break!”
All morning long, the sound of six hundred children reciting poetry, practicing basic Iron-Bone breathing stances in the courtyard. Laughing over bowls of hot dragon-marrow noodle soup filled Frost-Pine Town with such vibrant, pure happiness that Gu Changsheng’s daily income surged to +82,000 DP/day!
At noon inside the school’s spacious red-brick canteen—where all six hundred students sat at long. Polished pine tables eating steaming bowls of dragon-marrow chicken noodles. Soft white steamed buns—the dual-vessel link between Grandpa Yao’s [Rank 3 Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] and his [Spice-Rack Spirit-Gourd] proved to be an absolute marvel!
While Grandpa Yao’s main soul sat on a high wooden stool at the head of the. First Grade table in his chubby green plush turtle body—happily sipping wolfberry tea through a bamboo straw. Answering questions from sixty wide-eyed seven-year-olds about why winter earthworms sleep deep under the frost—the [Rank 3.
Spice-Rack Spirit-Gourd] hanging above Gu Changsheng’s Earth-Fire Wok in the kitchen glowed with a soft purple-gold light. Spoke in Grandpa Yao’s voice at the exact same time:.
“Patriarch Gu, the second cauldron of afternoon bone-strengthening broth needs half a ladle more cold spring water on the. Left side—and tell Little Girl Qin that the thirty West-End orphans at Table Four all finished their first bowls. Send out two extra trays of honey-glazed sweet potatoes!”
“Coming right up, Professor Yao!” Gu Changsheng laughed from behind the stove. Flipping a giant iron skillet of golden, caramelized sweet potatoes with one hand and sliding them onto two serving carts pushed by Vice-Captain Bull and three beaming pink-aproned mercenaries!
When the sixty first-graders and thirty West-End orphans saw the towering platters of sizzling, honey-glazed sweet potatoes rolled out to their tables, the entire school canteen erupted into cheers of “Thank you, Principal Gu! Thank you, Grandpa Yao! Thank you, Pink-Apron Uncles!”
Even eight-year-old Class President Gu Nian and six-year-old Flower-Monitor Su Nuannuan were kept busy walking between the tables with a small bamboo basket of clean cloth napkins:.
“Remember the canteen rule, everyone!” eight-year-old Gu Nian announced in his clear, steady voice as he helped a five-year-old orphan boy wipe a smudge of noodle soup off his chin. “Everyone who finishes all the vegetables in their bowl without leaving a single piece of carrot on the.
Table gets a stamp in their hygiene book—and five stamps equals one Little Red Flower on Friday afternoon!”
“And if anyone’s hands are still cold from playing in the snow before lunch, come hold Nuannuan’s sleeve for three breaths so you warm right up!” six-year-old Su Nuannuan chirped happily. Letting four little village girls warm their fingers against her fragrant pink rabbit dress.
Standing by the canteen window watching six hundred children eat. Their bellies were round and warm, Town Magistrate Liu wiped a tear of pride from the corner of his eye and murmured to Grandpa Fu:.
“Butler Fu, I have served as a magistrate in Great Qian for twenty-two years. I have never seen a county seat—let alone a frontier town—where not a single child goes hungry in the twelfth winter month and every orphan learns both letters and martial arts!”
However, at half past two that afternoon during outdoor recess—while Gu Nian. Su Nuannuan were leading sixty first-grade orphans in a game of eagle-and-chicks on the sunny playground—three hooded, shifty-eyed men dressed. Traveling peddlers from neighboring Black-Iron County crept silently along the outer brick wall behind the school’s southern willow trees!
They were Scar-Face Zhao and two professional child-traffickers from the notorious Black-Iron Shadow Broker Guild. Who had heard rumors in the county tavern that Frost-Pine Town’s wealthy Patriarch Gu had adopted a six-year-old girl with a miraculous healing-aroma physique. Gathered six hundred healthy children in one building!
Unseen by Scar-Face Zhao, those rumors had originally been spread in a Black-Iron County wine-house two nights earlier by a certain eyebrowless fugitive with charcoal lines. Drawn on his forehead—who had hoped that luring child-traffickers to Frost-Pine Town would create chaos at Gu Changsheng’s new school while he fled to Prefecture City!
Even more foolishly, because Scar-Face Zhao and his two accomplices had taken the old logging trail through the southern pine woods instead of walking through Frost-Pine Town’s main north gate. They hadn’t seen the five hundred six-hundred-pound mountain war-wolves napping outside the school kennels or the five hundred pink-aproned Rank 1. Rank 2 veterans of the Blood-Wolf Mercenary Corps patrolling every street corner!
“Hehe, look at how quiet this side lane is—there isn’t even a single armored soldier standing outside the willow trees,” Scar-Face Zhao chuckled under his breath. Completely ignoring the burly man in the bright pink bunny apron standing twenty yards down the sidewalk holding a yellow wooden sign. Whom Scar-Face Zhao assumed was merely a harmless town baker drying flour sacks in the sun.
“Once our smoke-bombs go over the fence, grabbing those kids will be easier than picking mushrooms after rain!”
“Look through the iron fence bars, brothers,” Scar-Face Zhao whispered greedily. Pulling a bundle of three dark-purple [Rank 1 Sweet-Slumber Kidnapping Smoke-Bombs] and three burlap sacks out of his peddler’s basket as he pointed at six-year-old Su Nuannuan giggling by the seesaw. “That little girl in the pink rabbit dress is the one whose water droplets cure poison!
Once we light these three Slumber Smoke-Bombs and toss them over the fence. All the kids on the playground will pass out in three breaths—we’ll stuff that pink-dressed girl and five pretty kids into our sacks, jump onto our horses in the woods. Sell them in Black-Iron County for five thousand silver taels before the town guards even reach the street!”
Grinning viciously, the three Black-Iron County child-traffickers struck a flint-stone behind the willow tree and raised the three smoking purple bombs to throw them over the school fence—.
TWEEEEEEET!
Before the flint spark could even touch the fuse of the first smoke-bomb, an ear-splitting blast from a heavy brass crosswalk whistle echoed right behind the three traffickers’ necks!