The rich medicinal warmth of the Seven-Leaf Ice Lotus broth coursed through Gu Changsheng’s limbs like liquid sunshine. A warm brick kang and a full pantry first, Gu Changsheng thought as he checked the stove latch.
Every tendon in his forearms and calves hummed with fresh, coiled strength. At Rank 1 Mid Martial, his base punching force had jumped from five hundred pounds to eight hundred pounds, and the lingering chill from three years of frost-poison was completely gone. Even better, passing Gu Nian’s first trust test had just deposited a crisp +30 DP Family Trust Milestone Bonus directly into his system balance!
“Grandpa Fu,” Gu Changsheng said, standing up from the table and wiping his hands on a clean dish towel. “Did you see that greasy brown smudge on the right gatepost when the carpenters were hanging the new oak doors?”
Grandpa Fu paused with a pork rib halfway to his mouth. His single eye narrowed sharply.
“I did, Third Young Master! It smelled like rancid grave-tallow mixed with chicken blood. I thought that bastard Scar-Face Liu wiped his dirty boots on our post, so I scraped the wood clean and splashed boiling lye water over it.”
“Good eye, Old Fu, and even better lye water,” Gu Changsheng praised with a grin. “Wait a moment—scrape that lye-soaked wood shaving off the ground later and throw it in the stove. Right now, keep the kitchen fire hot and leave two bowls of lotus broth warming in the clay pot.
Nian’er and I are going for an evening walk up the back mountain to walk off our dinner.”
Grandpa Fu blinked at the dark paper window, where dry winter snow was swirling past the eaves. “A walk up the back mountain at night, Young Master? That trail leads straight past the Old Ancestor Tomb!
It’s freezing up there!”
“A little mountain breeze is good for a growing boy’s lungs,” Gu Changsheng chuckled.
Stepping over to the corner cabinet, Gu Changsheng picked up a torn gray wool muffler, a ball of thick yellow yarn from the sewing basket, and a pair of warm rabbit-fur ear-flaps.
He casually slid his hand inside the cabinet door and dropped the three items into [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box]. The box hummed softly without costing a single point of DP, fusing the coarse wool into a soft, windproof [Fused Yellow Lambswool Scarf] with two little knitted ear-tassels!
Gu Changsheng walked back to the table and knelt on one knee in front of eight-year-old Gu Nian.
The boy had just licked the last drop of golden lotus gravy off his thumb. Seeing his father kneel in front of him holding a bright yellow wool scarf, Gu Nian stiffened on his stool and pulled his chin back half an inch.
“Hold still,” Gu Changsheng said, wrapping the thick, warm lambswool scarf twice around Gu Nian’s thin neck and tucking the ends neatly inside the boy’s patched jacket. “Your collar’s too loose. If you catch a wind-chill after drinking hot lotus soup, Grandpa Fu will nag both of us until New Year’s.”
Gu Nian looked down at the bright yellow wool under his chin.
It was softer than anything that had ever touched his skin. It smelled like warm sunshine and clean cotton, without a single prickly burr.
“It’s yellow,” Gu Nian muttered, his voice muffled behind the thick knit wool so only his big black-gold eyes showed above the rim. “Yellow is too bright. You can see it in the dark.”
“Good,” Gu Changsheng said, patting the top of the boy’s head and hoisting him effortlessly onto his broad left forearm like a sack of rice. “That way if you fall into a snowbank, Dad only needs two seconds to fish you out. Come on, Nian’er.
Let’s go teach a grave-robber why stealing from our family ancestors is bad manners.”
Gu Nian’s small hands automatically grabbed onto the front of Gu Changsheng’s thick coat.
Being carried on his father’s arm felt strange. For as long as Gu Nian could remember, he had walked behind everyone else in the snow, stepping in deeper footprints so the wind wouldn’t blow him over. Up here against Gu Changsheng’s chest, the heat radiating from his father’s Rank 1 Mid body was like leaning against a walking brick stove.
Gu Changsheng slipped out the back courtyard door and moved up the steep mountain path like a hunting leopard.
With eight hundred pounds of leg strength and clear meridians, his boots barely left a half-inch print in the snowdrifts. In the original script of Record of the Nine Heavens Sword God, Lin Fan had taken the main winding stone stairs up the mountain. He was too vain to risk tearing his spotless white silk robes on the brambles.
Gu Changsheng knew every shortcut on the Gu Clan’s back mountain from the original host’s childhood memories. Carrying Gu Nian securely against his shoulder, he vaulted over three mossy rock ledges and cut straight through the plum-tree gully. They reached the clearing behind the Old Ancestor Tomb a full thirty minutes ahead of Lin Fan!
The clearing was quiet and eerie under the pale crescent moon.
At the center stood a weathered stone burial mound belonging to a third-generation Gu Clan martial ancestor who had died a hundred years ago after practicing a flawed blood-flame technique. Behind the stone mound rose an ancient, lightning-split black pine tree with a hollow trunk wide enough for two men to stand inside.
“Stay right here by the roots for a second, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng whispered, setting the boy down on a dry patch of pine needles.
Gu Changsheng crouched before the hollow trunk of the ancient black pine and peered inside.
Sure enough, nestled deep beneath the rotting pine heartwood was a fist-sized cluster of translucent, ruby-red roots shaped like a curling dragon. Every few seconds, the root pulsed like a living heart, releasing a faint thread of sweet, metallic fragrance into the freezing air.
It was the Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng!
And directly beneath the pine tree’s tangled roots, half-exposed by a recent frost heave in the soil, lay the corner of a rusted black-iron coffin bound in finger-thick chains.
CLACK... CLACK...
Even now, the iron coffin lid was trembling faintly against its chains! A cracked yellow paper talisman pasted across the coffin seal was peeling up at the edges, reacting to the Foreknowledge Decay that had woken the Rank 1 Peak Blood-Corpse inside four days early!
“So that’s how Lin Fan planned to play it,” Gu Changsheng murmured, his eyes turning cold.
In the original story, Lin Fan had harvested the Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng to boost his own cultivation. Then he had ripped off that yellow sealing talisman and used a trail of Corpse-Luring Blood to guide the starving Blood-Corpse straight down into the Third Branch courtyard. Even if Gu Changsheng had miraculously survived the noon beating, the Blood-Corpse would have torn him, Grandpa Fu, and Gu Nian to pieces before dawn!
“Dad,” Gu Nian whispered, crouching beside Gu Changsheng’s knee and pointing a small finger at the glowing red root inside the tree hollow. “That red turnip smells really strong. And the iron box under the dirt is shaking.”
“That’s not a turnip, Nian’er. That’s a Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng that grew from our Third Branch ancestor’s grave soil,” Gu Changsheng whispered back, pulling a small wooden trowel from his belt.
With practiced, delicate movements, Gu Changsheng loosened the frozen loam around the root hairs without snapping a single whisker. He lifted the glowing Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng out of the hollow, wrapped it in a square of oiled silk to lock in its spiritual aura, and tucked it safely into his inner coat pocket.
“Tomorrow morning,” Gu Changsheng promised softly, “Dad will chop this up with fresh pork belly and make you a steamer full of Blood-Jade Ginseng Dumplings.”
Gu Nian blinked over the rim of his yellow scarf. “We aren’t selling it for silver?”
“Silver can’t grow bones on my son,” Gu Changsheng said, patting the pocket. “Besides, if we just leave an empty hole here, our righteous Cousin-in-Law Lin Fan will know someone beat him to the prize and run away before the fun starts. A good host always leaves a gift in the box.”
Gu Changsheng reached into his kitchen satchel and pulled out a fat, frost-bitten white turnip he had grabbed from the root cellar. Alongside it, he took out a small paper packet of fiery red chili oil sediment and a handful of dried black Croton Laxative Beans that Grandpa Fu used to deworm stubborn mules.
Wait—what about the scent for the Blood-Corpse?
Gu Changsheng grinned and pulled out a pair of bamboo tongs holding a corner of white silk stained with sweat and Corpse-Luring Blood. Lin Fan had accidentally caught that scrap on a splinter of the Third Branch gatepost that afternoon when flicking blood onto their door!
Opening [Dad’s Care-Package Upgrade Box] in his mind, Gu Changsheng spent 30 DP in one go!
[ DAD’S CARE-PACKAGE UPGRADE BOX — ACTIVATED ]
[INPUT SLOT 1 : [One Frost-Bitten White Turnip]]
[INPUT SLOT 2 : [Red Chili Oil Sediment & Ginseng Soil Crumb]]
[INPUT SLOT 3 : [Ten-Fold Concentrated Croton Laxative Beans]]
[COST : 30 Dad Points (Remaining Balance: 0 DP)]
[>>> FUSION COMPLETE!]
[OUTPUT : [Fake Blood-Jade Ginseng (10x Explosive Diarrhea Ed.)]]
[EFFECT : Looks, glows, and smells 100% identical to a real]
[300-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng on the outside! Once]
[swallowed, the outer sugar-chili glaze dissolves in]
[3 seconds, triggering a 10x pressurized croton-bean]
[gastrointestinal eruption that no Rank 1 sphincter]
[can ever hold back!]
Gu Nian watched with wide, fascinated eyes as a glowing, ruby-red “ginseng root” materialized in his father’s palm.
Even from two feet away, it gave off a rich, fake medicinal fragrance that smelled exactly like the real treasure!
“Dad,” Gu Nian whispered, his small shoulders shaking slightly under his yellow scarf. “Where did that come from? And why did you put mule-poop beans inside it?”
“Family magic,” Gu Changsheng whispered with a straight face, burying the [Fake Blood-Jade Ginseng (10x Explosive Diarrhea Edition)] halfway into the loose dirt inside the hollow pine so its red top peeked out tantalizingly. “When a greedy dog steals food off someone else’s plate, he never chews before swallowing. Those mule beans will help him clean out his wicked heart.”
Next, Gu Changsheng used the bamboo tongs to rub Lin Fan’s sweat-and-blood-stained silk scrap all over the peeling yellow talisman on the Rank 1 Peak Blood-Corpse’s iron coffin! He also tucked the rest of the silk scrap neatly under the edge of the turnip. The moment Lin Fan pulled the turnip out, the cord would yank the talisman half an inch loose and coat Lin Fan’s fingers in pure Corpse-Luring scent!
“All set,” Gu Changsheng breathed, brushing the snow smooth with a pine bough to erase their footprints.
Just then, the crunch of hurried boots on frozen gravel echoed from the lower stone steps fifty yards down the slope.
“Up we go, Nian’er.”
Carrying his son under one arm, Gu Changsheng leaped lightly onto a thick, snow-laden bough of the ancient black pine twenty feet above the clearing. He settled Gu Nian securely in the fork of the trunk where dense pine needles hid them completely from below, while leaving a clear gap to watch the show.
Sitting high up in the pine tree, wrapped in his warm yellow scarf and pressed against his father’s solid chest, eight-year-old Gu Nian didn’t feel cold or scared at all.
Instead, he looked down at the glowing red turnip sitting in the dirt hole below. A tiny, mischievous spark—something that belonged to an ordinary eight-year-old boy rather than a future world-destroying demon—lit up in his black-gold eyes.
Down on the trail, a figure in a snow-dusted white brocade cloak came tiptoeing into the moonlit clearing.
It was Lin Fan!
Gone was the gentle, righteous scholarly air he had put on in front of the Willow-West Alley neighbors that afternoon. Lin Fan’s face was twisted with spite as he glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody had followed him up the mountain, then rubbed his frost-reddened hands together greedily.
“Old man,” Lin Fan hissed under his breath, tapping the black iron ring on his right hand. “Are you sure the Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Jade Ginseng is inside this hollow pine? That bastard Gu Changsheng made Second Uncle lose five hundred silver today, so the stingy old goat refused to give me a single coin for cultivation pills!
If I don’t eat this ginseng tonight and break into Rank 1 Peak, I’ll go crazy!”
Inside the black iron ring, only a faint. Sleepy snore answered him—the ancient remnant soul Master Yao Chen had burned too much spirit energy scanning the mountain earlier and was currently dozing in deep meditation.
“Hmph, useless old ghost, sleeping right when I have to dig,” Lin Fan muttered disdainfully.
He crept up to the hollow trunk of the ancient black pine and shone a small shuttered fire-tube inside.
The moment the dim orange light hit the glowing ruby-red [Fake Blood-Jade Ginseng] nestled in the dark soil, Lin Fan’s breath hitched in his throat!
“It’s here! Haha, it’s really here!” Lin Fan whispered ecstatically, his eyes turning bloodshot with greed as he smelled the fake medicinal glaze.
“Look at the size of this root!
Heaven truly favors me, the destined ruler of Frost-Pine Town!”
Up on the pine branch twenty feet overhead, Gu Nian clapped both small hands tightly over his mouth behind his yellow wool scarf. His eyes curved into bright little crescents as he stifled a giggle against his father’s coat!
[ DING! SHARED FATHER-SON PRANK ANTICIPATION! ]
* Gu Nian Warmth Index : 74/100 -> 78/100.
* Gu Nian Darkening Meter : 32% -> 28% (-4% DROP!)
* Current Daily DP Income : +60 DP/day -> +80 DP/day!
Down below, Lin Fan dropped to his knees in the snow and plunged both hands into the hollow tree to snatch up the laxative turnip. Above him, Gu Changsheng silently pulled two roasted chestnuts from his warm pocket, handed one to Gu Nian, and waited for the Chosen One to open wide.