For three heartbeats after nine-year-old Gu Nian tucked his [Fused Cast-Iron Pencil Case] neatly back onto his school belt, dead silence hung over the twenty-thousand-seat Grand Prefecture Martial Arena.
Then every single pair of eyes in the stadium locked onto the collapsed wreckage of Deputy Magistrate Zhou’s referee platform at the eastern edge of Stage #1!
Lying in the center of the splintered mahogany boards—pinned beneath the unconscious, rib-cracked body of eighteen-year-old Lin Fan—was rat-mustached Deputy Magistrate Zhou. Sitting right between their tangled legs in plain view of twenty thousand citizens was the glowing fifty-pound [Blood-Magnet Master. Stone] connected by copper wires to the twelve illegal [Dark-Iron Meridian-Draining Nails] sticking out of the broken stage tiles!
“Look under the referee table! A Blood-Magnet Master Stone wired to twelve Dark-Iron Meridian-Draining Nails!”
“Deputy Magistrate Zhou took a bribe from that Blood-Fiend cultist Lin Fan to rig the tournament stage against a nine-year-old child!”
“And earlier in Round One when Young Master Tie Ba stood on Stage One, he must have been hit by those same draining nails! No wonder Deputy Magistrate Zhou was stepping under the table skirt all morning!”
BOOOOOOOOM!
Up in that central VIP pavilion, fifty-two-year-old Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng , at Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster. Slammed his palm down onto the white marble balustrade with such volcanic fury that ten feet of solid stone railing pulverized into white powder!
Leaping straight down from the fifty-foot-high VIP stand like a descending golden hawk. Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng landed on the edge of Stage #1 with a thunderous boom, his golden Rank 3 Mid Internal Qi locking the entire referee platform in place. Two hundred silver-armored Prefecture Law-Enforcement Guards stormed the ring with heavy iron shackles!
“Zhou Wen! You shameless, corrupt dog!” Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng roared, his voice shaking the roof beams of the amphitheater.
Two guards hauled the bleeding, nail-skewered Deputy Magistrate Zhou out of the wreckage by his collar.
“I entrusted you with overseeing the triennial Junior Martial Tournament of our twelve counties—and you colluded with a practitioner. Of forbidden [Blood-Swallowing Devil Arts] to bury meridian-draining nails under the stage to cripple a nine-year-old boy from Frost-Pine Town?!”
“My Lord! Mercy, Prefecture Lord!” Deputy Magistrate Zhou wept in terror, pointing a trembling finger at the blood-soaked, eyebrowless Lin Fan lying on the broken planks beside him.
“It was all Lin Fan’s idea!
He gave me a Blood-Magnet Stone last night and swore that if I helped him cripple Gu Changsheng’s son on stage today, his master would give me a Rank 3 lifespan-extending pill! I was blinded by greed, my Lord!”
“His master?!” three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao’s voice boomed indignantly from inside seven-year-old Su Nuannuan’s arms as the chubby green [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] hopped up onto the ringside balustrade and adjusted its tiny gold spectacles! “Prefecture Lord Qin, don’t listen to that rat’s lies!
This old man—Rank 6 Pill Sovereign Yao Chen—was the only alchemy master Lin Fan ever had.
I moved into Patriarch Gu’s plush turtle two weeks ago because Lin Fan was a crooked, puppy-stealing scoundrel! That boy doesn’t even have a single clean sock left in his ring, let alone a Rank 3 lifespan-extending pill!”
Hearing the famous green plush turtle speak aloud with a resonant Golden Core soul-voice across the arena, Deputy Magistrate Zhou’s face turned as gray as cold fireplace ash:.
“W-what?! Lin Fan’s alchemy master already defected to the Gu Clan two weeks ago?! Then the handwritten pill pledge Lin Fan gave me last night—”
“Was written on scrap paper with watered-down ink!” sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu called out helpfully from the ringside bench, holding up his black-iron abacus. “Deputy Magistrate Zhou, you traded your official post, ten years of dungeon labor, and six holes in your backside for a piece of waste paper!”
“Strip Zhou Wen of his official robes, slap thirty-pound black-iron fetters onto his ankles. Lock him in the Prefecture Dungeon to await public trial and ten years of hard labor!” Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng commanded coldly.
Turning his blazing Grandmaster eyes down toward the groaning eighteen-year-old Lin Fan on the floorboards.
“And as for this Blood-Fiend cultist who dared use demonic blood-claws against a child in my arena—seize him immediately and cripple his dantian!”
“Yes, Prefecture Lord!”
Six silver-armored Prefecture Guards stepped forward with heavy iron chains to clamp them around Lin Fan’s wrists.
Across the twenty-thousand-seat amphitheater, all the clan patriarchs, teenage contestants, and ordinary citizens roared in righteous fury as the truth came to light:.
“Chain them both up! That corrupt rat Zhou Wen took a bribe to rig the brackets against a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old!”
“And look at Young Master Tie Ba in the front row—if Tie Ba hadn’t been knocked out of the ring in one second by Little Brother Nian in Round One. Zhou Wen’s draining nails would have crippled Tie Ba’s legs too!”
Standing beside his father in the front row of the stands, eighteen-year-old Young Master Tie Ba clenched his fists and shouted at the top of his lungs:.
“Prefecture Lord! Make Zhou Wen scrub the city sewers for twenty years! Today Little Brother Nian and Doctor Qin saved my ribs at lunch while Zhou Wen and that Blood-Fiend rat tried to ruin the honor of our twelve counties!”
Even sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu stepped calmly up to the edge of the collapsed referee platform, clicked his black-iron abacus three times. Handed an itemized parchment bill to the captain of the Prefecture Law-Enforcement Guards:.
“Captain, please attach this two-hundred-and-fifty-silver claim to Prisoner Zhou Wen’s confiscation file: fifty silver for moral damages to our Frost-Pine Elementary School delegation. One hundred silver for attempting to puncture Young Master Nian’s yellow bunny slippers. One hundred silver for the stain-removal soap Doctor Qin used on Young Master Nian’s apron!”
“Rest assured, Steward Fu!” the Guard Captain saluted respectfully, tucking the bill into his breastplate. “Every copper coin will be deducted from Zhou Wen’s seized estate before nightfall!”
Lying in the splintered wood with six broken ribs and three missing teeth, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan watched the iron chains descend toward his neck. The crimson ring of his [Protagonist Luck Halo] let out another violent. Agonizing CRACK!—plummeting from 16% straight down to 10%!
Ten percent?! Lin Fan coughed up a mouthful of dark blood in sheer terror as he felt the invisible favor of the heavens draining out of his bones like water down a sinkhole. *No!
If the Prefecture Lord locks me in iron fetters today, I’ll never reach the Flame-Scar Canyon ruin tomorrow!*
Just as the iron manacles were two inches from Lin Fan’s wrists, however—.
WHOOSH—BANG!
From the shadowed eaves of the arena’s high western watchtower, a gaunt. Black-robed figure wearing the silver cloud-and-skull badge of the rogue [Black-Blood Hall of the Azure-Cloud Martial Sect] , at Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster, swooped down like a giant bat!
Hurling a forbidden [Rank 3 Crimson Blood-Smoke Escape Talisman] straight onto the referee platform, the black-robed messenger detonated a blinding. Fifty-foot cloud of foul-smelling crimson smoke that momentarily blocked the Prefecture Guards’ vision, hooked his claw into the back of Lin Fan’s torn collar. Kicked off the stage roof toward the southern mountain ridges while barking in a raspy voice:.
“Hmph! This little bloodhound still knows the location of the Flame-Scar Canyon Secret Realm that our Hall Master needs tomorrow! Once we open the canyon ruin, we’ll settle accounts with the Gu Clan!”
“You dare snatch a fugitive from my Prefecture Arena?!” Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng roared, punching a twenty-foot golden Rank 3 Mid Internal Qi fist-wave straight into the fleeing crimson smoke cloud!
BOOM—RIP!
Although the Rank 3 escape talisman carried the black-robed envoy and the half-dead Lin Fan over the outer arena wall. The guards could surround them, Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng’s golden fist-wave ripped away half of Lin Fan’s inner robe pocket in midair!
Fluttering down out of the dissipating red smoke like a scorched autumn leaf, a half-burned, ancient beast-skin map landed squarely on the flagstones of Stage #1 right in front of twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng’s boots!
Down at the ringside bench, three-hundred-alongside-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao poked his green plush turtle head out of seven-year-old Su Nuannuan’s arms. Sniffed the lingering red smoke in the air, and snorted through his tiny gold spectacles:.
“Patriarch Gu, did you see how conveniently that half-burned map fluttered out of Lin Fan’s pocket while that Black-Blood Hall array-master shouted the name ‘Flame-Scar Canyon’ loud enough for the whole stadium to hear? This old man has lived for three hundred and eighty years—when a fleeing rat drops a treasure map right at your boots. Yells his address over his shoulder, it’s a hundred percent a baited trap!”
“Of course it’s a baited trap, Grandpa Yao,” Gu Changsheng transmitted back with an unhurried, knowing smile as he picked up the ancient beast-skin map and brushed a speck of soot off its corner. *“At ten percent Luck Halo, Lin Fan is so desperate to bury us under the canyon’s lava arrays tomorrow that he practically gift-wrapped the invitation for us.
What he doesn’t know is that the real treasure inside Flame-Scar Canyon isn’t his at all—it belongs to my wife and Nian’er.”*
Walking over to the ringside bench with a solemn expression on his weathered face. Fifty-two-year-old Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng bowed his head in a sincere apology to Gu Changsheng, nine-year-old Gu Nian, and seven-year-old Su Nuannuan:.
“Patriarch Gu, Little Master Nian, this Prefecture Lord failed to inspect my own deputy thoroughly and nearly allowed a Blood-Fiend rat to harm your child on my stage! That black-robed fugitive who rescued Lin Fan belongs to the rogue Black-Blood Hall—a faction of exiled array-masters hiding in the western border ridges. I will immediately dispatch five hundred Prefecture Cavalry to seal the western passes—please do not go near Flame-Scar Canyon on your own!”
“Thank you for your concern, Prefecture Lord Qin,” Gu Changsheng replied with a warm, reassuring smile as he slipped the half-burned beast-skin map into his apron pocket. “Fortunately, Nian’er’s yellow bunny slippers have very thick soles, so the only things injured in Round Three were Deputy Magistrate Zhou’s backside and Lin Fan’s teeth. Shall we finish the Grand Finals first so the twenty thousand citizens in the stands don’t miss the championship match?”
While Auntie Qin used a warm wet towel and a pinch of honey-soap to wash the tiny gray spot off nine-year-old Gu Nian’s yellow bunny apron (making the boy smile brightly again!). Seven-year-old Su Nuannuan patted her big brother’s shoulder and held up her little pink fist:.
“Big Brother Nian! Your bunny ear is all clean and white again! Now it’s time for our Grand Finals match on Stage One!”
“Right!” nine-year-old Gu Nian nodded earnestly, adjusting his spotless yellow bunny apron and looking up at the sparkling three-foot-tall [Golden-Dragon & Rainbow-Bunny Sugar-Painting Trophy] waiting on the championship table!
Behind the ringside bench, Captain One-Ear Scar and Vice-Captain Bull hoisted their yellow crosswalk paddles high in the air and led the fifty pink-aproned security uncles in a booming cheer:.
“THE BAD GUYS ARE SWEPT OUT OF THE ARENA! NOW IT’S TIME FOR OUR LITTLE PRESIDENT NIAN AND LITTLE MONITOR NUANNUAN TO SHARE THE CHAMPIONSHIP STAGE! EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS FOR FROST-PINE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!”
Meanwhile, Gu Changsheng’s fingers rested lightly over the ancient beast-skin parchment in his pocket.
The moment his fingers touched the ancient beast-skin parchment—which was labeled [Map of the Flame-Scar Canyon Ancient Ice-Fire Ruin]—both [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] and a deep. Tender memory inside Gu Changsheng’s own heart lit up with a shimmering, icy-blue phoenix glow!
[ DING! CRITICAL LORE & PLOT CLUE DISCOVERED! ]
* Item Acquired : [Half-Burned Map of the Flame-Scar Canyon Ruin]!
* Lin Fan Halo : 16% -> 10% (CRITICAL DANGER ZONE — Extreme.
Karmic Backlash Imminent at 5%!)
* Notebook Scan : Deep inside the innermost ice chamber of Flame-.
Scar Canyon lies the [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin]
left behind 8 years ago by your missing wife.
and Gu Nian’s mother — [Luo Qingxue]!
* Daily Income : +165,000 DP/day -> +172,000 DP/day!