The oil lamp flickered as a cold night draft snuck through the study window of the Prefecture Governor’s Guest Villa.
Twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng did not close the shutter. He sat by the mahogany desk with his fingers pressed against the frosty spine of [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] and the [Half-Burned Map from the Flame-Scar Canyon Ancient Ice-Fire Ruin]. The pages glowed with a pale, icy-blue phoenix light that illuminated his cheekbones.
He flipped the page. The parchment was so cold it made his fingertips tingle.
[Classified Record: True Identity of Wife Luo Qingxue]
[Original Realm: Upper-Realm Rank 8 Star-Realm Sword Empress]
[Current Status: Voluntarily Incarcerated in the Frozen Astral Prison, Sector 6]
[Reason for Descent to Mortal Realm: Discovery of the Heavenly Script Pavilion’s Fate-Rigging Ledger]
Gu Changsheng let out a slow, quiet breath through his teeth.
An Upper-Realm Rank 8 Star-Realm Sword Empress, he thought, shaking his head softly. And the original depressed Gu Changsheng spent years drinking cheap wine and thinking she had abandoned the courtyard because our roof leaked in the rain.
He kept reading as the glowing icy-blue ink arranged itself into crisp, clear lines.
Nine years ago, in the high starry heavens above the mortal world. Sword Empress Luo Qingxue had broken into the restricted archives of the [Heavenly Script Pavilion]—an ancient cabal of cosmic overseers who dictated the rise. Fall of lower-realm dynasties like stage play scripts.
There, she had discovered a horrifying truth: “Protagonists” and “Chosen Ones” were artificially fed stolen luck, while millions of “Villains,” supporting families. Innocent towns were systematically slaughtered to provide tragic backstories and stepping-stone blood-sacrifices!
Disgusted by that cosmic butcher’s ledger, Luo Qingxue had shattered the Pavilion’s eastern star-gate and descended into the remote northern frontier of the Great Qian Dynasty. Sealing her Rank 8 aura completely to hide among ordinary mortals.
That winter outside Frost-Pine Town, while recovering from the spatial backlash of tearing through the realm barrier, she had collapsed in the snow outside the Third Branch courtyard of twenty-year-old Gu Changsheng.
Back then, Gu Changsheng had zero cultivation and zero grand destiny—yet he hadn’t asked for her name or family background. He had simply carried her inside to the warm brick kang bed, boiled a pot of hot ginger-and-turnip soup, and wrapped his only thick sheepskin coat around her shoulders.
Three months later, they had married in that quiet little courtyard over two red candles and a bowl of hand-pulled longevity noodles.
One year after that, Gu Nian was born.
Born with the Innate Chaos Sovereign Bone, Gu Changsheng read, his eyes narrowing in the lamplight.
In the Heavenly Script Pavilion’s predetermined scroll, Gu Nian had been marked from birth to become the apocalyptic Final Chaos Demon King: his mother was supposed to vanish. His father was supposed to be beaten to death over a stolen lotus. The starving, abused boy was supposed to drown the world in blood until the Pavilion’s darling “Chosen One” decapitated him at the end of the scroll to harvest his Sovereign Bone!
Luo Qingxue had refused to let the Script Enforcers touch a single hair on her baby’s head.
When baby Gu Nian was barely ten months old, seven Upper-Realm Script Enforcers had tracked the spatial fluctuation down to Azure-Cloud Prefecture. To keep their sensors from scanning Frost-Pine Town, Luo Qingxue had kissed her sleeping husband and baby son goodbye at midnight. Lured all seven Enforcers thirty miles west into the volcanic gorge of [Flame-Scar Canyon].
Fought them for seven days and seven nights inside the ancient Ice-Fire Ruin!
Even with ninety percent of her Star-Realm cultivation suppressed by the mortal world’s laws, she had cut down five Enforcers with a single mortal iron sword. Knowing that the Pavilion would send an entire Star-Army to burn Azure-Cloud Prefecture to ashes if she remained in the mortal world. She had sealed her life-bound spiritual treasure—the [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin]—inside the ruin’s deepest glacial chamber for her husband and son.
Then voluntarily allowed the surviving Enforcers to lock her inside Sector 6 of the Frozen Astral Prison!
Her final recorded wish, preserved inside the hairpin’s frost-seal, read:.
“If my Changsheng lives to walk into this canyon, tell him to raise our little Nian’er with three hot meals a day and warm winter blankets. Do not let our son hate the world. And do not come to Sector 6 until you can stand upon the stars.”
Gu Changsheng stared at those final lines for a long time.
The oil lamp flickered once, andGu Changsheng’s dark eyes gleamed with a deep, steady golden warmth.
Stand upon the stars, he thought, closing the notebook with a soft click. *Don’t worry, Qingxue. Our boy is nine years old, Rank 2 Peak, Class President of Frost-Pine Elementary School, and has a little sister who shares her candy with him.
And tomorrow morning, nobody is going to keep him from picking up his mother’s present.*
Right at the bottom of the notebook page, a secondary crimson alert pulsed:.
After escaping from the Prefecture Arena that afternoon with six broken ribs and a 10% Luck Halo. Eighteen-year-old Lin Fan and five hired dark-array masters from the rogue Black-Blood Hall had spent their last eight thousand silver taels rigging the ten-ton meteoric iron gate. Thirty dormant Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems inside Flame-Scar Canyon!
Lin Fan’s plan was to wait until Gu Changsheng and his family entered the ruin tomorrow morning, slam down the self-destruct sealing lever, and roast them alive inside the underground magma furnace!
Thirty Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems and a natural underground magma vent, Gu Changsheng thought with a faint, appreciative grin. Lin Fan really is the most considerate logistics boy in Azure-Cloud Prefecture. Not only is he leading us straight to my wife’s hairpin, he’s even providing free geothermal hot-pot heat and thirty self-heating farm tractors for our spring plowing!
Standing up from the study desk, Gu Changsheng walked straight into the guest villa’s spacious kitchen and pulled down three large woven bamboo picnic baskets from the top shelf.
“Time to pack lunch for tomorrow’s family hike,” he murmured.
Over the next hour, using his [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok], Gu Changsheng didn’t forge weapons or brew defensive poison-pills.
Instead, he braised thirty plump spirit-chicken drumsticks in sweet soy sauce, star anise, and rock sugar until the meat practically melted off the bone; boiled twenty fragrant herbal tea eggs. Packed a wooden tub of paper-thin marbled spirit-beef slices, twelve kinds of fresh mountain truffles, and handmade sesame paste for a midday hot-pot. And chilled two twenty-pound striped watermelons in a barrel of mountain-spring ice!
Beside the spice rack, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao poked his translucent head out of his [Rank 3 Spice-Rack Spirit-Gourd], sniffed the braised drumsticks eagerly, and adjusted his tiny gold spectacles:.
“Patriarch Gu, are you really bringing raw sliced beef and chilled watermelons into Flame-Scar Canyon? That canyon is full of unstable underground earth-fire and ancient war-golems!”
“That’s why we’re bringing raw beef and a dry wok, Grandpa Yao,” Gu Changsheng chuckled. Clipping the [Spice-Rack Spirit-Gourd] onto the shell of the two-foot-tall [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] so the old Pill Sovereign could ride comfortably in seven-year-old Su Nuannuan’s arms tomorrow. “Why waste charcoal when the ruin has a thousand-year magma vent waiting for our hot-pot?
Get a good night’s sleep—tomorrow you’re our chief array navigator.”
*
Dawn broke clear and golden over the slate rooftops of Azure-Cloud Prefecture City.
In the sunny courtyard of the Guest Villa, nine-year-old Gu Nian and seven-year-old Su Nuannuan stood side by side, dressed and ready for their morning outing.
Gu Nian wore his clean blue school tunic over his yellow bunny apron, his [Fused Iron-Defense Yellow Bunny Slippers] on his feet. His small leather schoolbag on his back—with yesterday’s gleaming [Gold Star Honor Sticker] pinned proudly on the front flap alongside five [Little Red Flower Stickers]. In his hand, he held a sturdy bamboo walking stick he had whittled himself.
Beside him, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan wore a wide-brimmed yellow straw sun-hat tied with a pink silk ribbon under her chin. Carrying her [Little Fairy Pink Watering Can] in one hand while hugging Grandpa Yao’s two-foot-tall green [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] in the other.
“Dad!” Nuannuan called out happily, bouncing on her toes toward the kitchen porch. “Is the big striped watermelon inside the basket?
Can Little Snowball come eat drumsticks on the mountain too?”
“The watermelon is packed on ice, and Little Snowball gets his own little picnic bowl,” twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng smiled. Stepping out of the kitchen carrying two large bamboo picnic baskets on a shoulder pole with his [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] strapped neatly across his back.
Behind him walked twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin carrying a linen sun-parasol and a basket of clean herbal hand-towels. Sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu, who had strapped on his [Dragon-Turtle Meridian Back Brace] and tucked his black-iron abacus AND a copy of his Frost-Pine Agricultural Plowing Manual under his arm.
“Principal Gu,” Captain One-Ear Scar , at Rank 2 Peak, jogged up from the courtyard gate in his spotless pink bunny apron. “Prefecture Lord Qin sent word that five hundred Prefecture Cavalry are patrolling the main western road. Our fifty pink-apron security brothers have already set up the ten-copper gummy tables at the new Prefecture City branch clinic!
Are you sure you don’t need us to carry the heavy baskets into the canyon?”
“Stay here and guard the new clinic with Vice-Captain Bull and Poison-Hand Wu, Captain Scar,” Gu Changsheng replied warmly. “If fifty Rank 2 warriors in pink aprons march into Flame-Scar Canyon behind us, Lin Fan will get scared and run away before he pulls the gate lever for us.”
Once they stepped out of the villa courtyard onto the quiet western trail leading toward the volcanic ridges of Flame-Scar Canyon. Nine-year-old Gu Nian walked up beside his father and looked up with his serious, clear dark eyes:.
“Dad, last night I saw the blue light shining under your study door when you were reading that half-burned map from the arena. Are we going to Flame-Scar Canyon just to catch Lin Fan?”
Gu Changsheng paused on the stone path and looked down at his nine-year-old son.
Setting down the bamboo shoulder pole for a moment, Gu Changsheng knelt on one knee in front of Gu Nian and adjusted the brim of the boy’s sun-cap with a gentle, completely open smile.
“We aren’t going there for Lin Fan today, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng said softly, his voice steady and warm in the morning breeze. “Lin Fan is just a noisy mosquito sitting by the front door. The real reason Dad is taking you, Nuannuan, Auntie Qin, Grandpa Fu, and Grandpa Yao into Flame-Scar Canyon today...
is to pick up a present your mother left for you eight years ago.”
Nine-year-old Gu Nian’s small frame stiffened all at once.
His dark eyes widened until they shone like twin stars in the morning sunlight, and his fingers tightened around his bamboo walking stick until his knuckles turned white.
For as long as Gu Nian could remember, when Second Elder Gu Ba’s family used to bully him in the old days. They had sneered that his mother had run away when he was a baby because he was an unlucky child. Even after his father woke up two months ago and turned their home into the warmest courtyard in the world.
Nine-year-old Gu Nian had always kept his questions about his mother tucked quietly inside his chest so he wouldn’t make his dad sad.
“Mom...?” Gu Nian whispered, his nine-year-old voice trembling slightly. “Dad, Mom didn’t leave us because she didn’t want me?
She left a present for me in the canyon?”
“Your mother loved you more than her own life, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng said, resting his warm palm on the side of his son’s cheek. “Eight years ago, some powerful bullies from above the clouds came looking for our family. To keep them from ever finding Frost-Pine Town or hurting you in your cradle, your mother fought them off inside Flame-Scar Canyon.
Hid her favorite [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin] and a voice-message for you inside the deepest ice room. Led those bullies far away so you could grow up safe with Dad.”
Seven-year-old Su Nuannuan immediately stepped over and took Gu Nian’s left hand in both of her small hands, her big dark eyes shining earnestly under her yellow straw sun-hat:.
“Big Brother Nian! Your Mommy is a super brave hero just like Dad! Today Nuannuan and Dad and Auntie Qin and Grandpa Fu are all going with you to pick up Mommy’s hairpin!”
Nine-year-old Gu Nian looked at his little sister holding his hand, looked at Auntie Qin and Grandpa Fu smiling warmly behind him, and then looked into his father’s steady eyes.
Swallowing the lump in his throat and wiping the corner of his eye once with his yellow bunny apron sleeve, nine-year-old Gu Nian nodded with fierce, unshakeable determination:.
“Okay, Dad! Let’s go pick up Mom’s hairpin and bring it home!”
[ DING! FATHER-SON EMOTIONAL RESONANCE — CANYON OUTING BEGINS! ]
* Active Goal : Enter Flame-Scar Canyon, Tame the 30 Lava-Rock.
Golems, & Claim Mom’s [Frost-Phoenix Hairpin]!
* Gu Nian State : Darkening Locked at 10% (Unshakeable Filial.
Heart — 100/100 Warmth)!
* Daily Income : +180,000 DP/day -> +190,000 DP/day!