For ten quiet breaths after his mother’s gentle lullaby faded into the shimmering blue air of the glacier dome. Nine-year-old Gu Nian stood on the crystal altar steps clutching the warm [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin] against his chest with both small hands.
Big, warm tears rolled silently down the nine-year-old boy’s cheeks and splashed onto his yellow bunny apron—yet inside his chest. The last tiny shadow of childhood doubt that had lingered since his infancy vanished forever, replaced by a radiant, unshakeable golden warmth!
Mom didn’t abandon me and Dad, nine-year-old Gu Nian thought, his small fingers holding the jade phoenix as if it were the most precious treasure in the universe. She fought for seven days and locked herself in a cold prison in the sky just so Dad and I could live happily in Frost-Pine Town. And she sang me the little rabbit song.
Right beside him, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan ran up the crystal steps in her pink rabbit dress, threw both of her small arms tightly around nine-year-old Gu Nian’s neck. Patted his back with her little hand while her own dark eyes glistened with fierce, protective tears:.
“Big Brother Nian, don’t cry! Auntie Luo is the prettiest, bravest Mommy in the whole world, and her rabbit song was super sweet! When Nuannuan eats three bowls of Dad’s soup every day and grows just a little bit bigger.
Nuannuan will brew a giant bucket of Rank 8 black-licorice melt-mist and melt all the prison bars in Sector 6 so we can bring Mommy home for dinner!”
Hearing his seven-year-old little sister swear to melt the bars of an Upper-Realm prison with black-licorice mist, nine-year-old Gu Nian let out a small, tearful sniffle that turned into an earnest smile. Wiping his eyes with his sleeve, he nodded firmly:.
“Thank you, Nuannuan. When we go to Sector 6, I’ll use my Chaos-Bone fist to smash the prison gate, and you can melt the locks!”
Stepping between his nine-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter on the crystal ice altar, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng knelt down on one knee and wrapped both children in his strong, warm arms.
Holding Gu Nian and Su Nuannuan close against his chest—feeling the steady, healthy beat of his son’s and daughter’s hearts—Gu Changsheng raised his gaze toward the vaulted ceiling of the glacial sanctum. If looking straight through the mortal sky into the distant starry heavens where Sector 6 of the Frozen Astral Prison floated in the cold dark.
“Did you hear that, Qingxue?” Gu Changsheng spoke aloud, his deep, warm fatherly voice resonating off the thirty-six Rank 8 sword marks carved into the glacier walls. The entire chamber hummed like a choir of ancient bells.
“You told me to raise our boy with three hot meals a day and warm winter blankets, and not to come for you until I could stand upon the stars.
Well, our son is nine years old, healthy, polite, and has a little sister who loves him—and as for waiting a hundred years?”
Gu Changsheng’s dark eyes blazed with a majestic golden light as he swore a solemn oath that shook the ice pillars from base to dome:.
“Keep your tea warm in Sector 6, Luo Qingxue! Your husband isn’t making you wait a hundred years in a cold cell! Our whole family is coming up there ahead of schedule—and when we arrive at the Frozen Astral Prison and the Heavenly Script Pavilion.
I’m going to spank their Chief Enforcers with my belt and flip their cosmic script-desks upside down with my wok spatula!”
HUMMMMMM—ROOOOOOOOAR!
The instant Gu Changsheng’s oath echoed across the sanctum. The thirty-six Rank 8 sword traces left by Empress Luo Qingxue on the ice walls and the [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin] in Gu Nian’s hand responded in unison!
Recognizing Gu Changsheng’s unbreakable marital and paternal bond, a pure. Flaw-free stream of dormant [Star-Realm Ice-Phoenix Origin Essence]—left behind inside the altar by Luo Qingxue specifically. To nourish her husband’s meridians when he came for the hairpin!—surged out of the crystal lotus platform!
At the exact same moment, inside the basin of Gu Changsheng’s [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok]. The shattered golden clockwork core fragments of the [Heavenly Script Surveillance Eye] melted under the wok’s refinement array into a glowing golden orb of pure, unowned [Upper-Realm Celestial Law Energy]!
Earlier on the road to Azure-Cloud Prefecture City, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao had said that Gu Changsheng’s Rank 2 Peak. At Half-Step Martial Grandmaster, foundation was already ten times denser than any mortal cultivator’s. Needing only a single wisp of high-tier spiritual catalyst to ignite his inner sea into the Rank 3 Internal Qi Grandmaster Realm!
And now, instead of a single wisp, Gu Changsheng was being baptized simultaneously by his wife’s Rank 8 Star-Realm Ice-Phoenix Essence AND the shattered Heavenly Script Eye’s golden celestial energy!
[ DING! SUPREME DUAL CATALYST ABSORBED — RANK 3 BREAKTHROUGH! ]
* Catalyst #1 : [Empress Luo Qingxue’s Star-Realm Ice-Phoenix.
Origin Essence] (Purifies Meridians to Diamond!)
* Catalyst #2 : [Refined Golden Celestial Law Core] (Ignites the.
Dantian into a Golden Internal-Qi Sun!)
* Breakthrough : Host Gu Changsheng advances from Rank 2 Peak ->.
[RANK 3 EARLY MARTIAL GRANDMASTER (Golden Solar.
& Frost-Phoenix Internal-Qi Stage)]!
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Sitting down cross-legged at the center of the crystal ice altar as Gu Nian, Su Nuannuan, Auntie Qin. Grandpa Fu stepped back to watch in breathless awe, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng inhaled both swirling streams of silver-blue starlight and golden celestial fire straight into his dantian!
Inside his abdomen, the 12,000 pounds of compressed mortal iron-bone blood-essence roared like a waking dragon and ignited into a dazzling, miniature golden sun ringed by silver frost-phoenix flames!
Whereas an ordinary Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster (like the rogue Black-Blood Hall elders) could only project a thin. Smoky three-foot layer of gaseous internal qi outside their body, Gu Changsheng’s newly born Rank 3 Internal Qi erupted from his meridians. A solid, thirty-foot-high golden dragon-and-phoenix canopy that illuminated the entire underground mountain!
Every single bone, tendon, and organ in his twenty-nine-year-old frame hummed with 30,000 pounds of base Grandmaster force—and when stacked with [Father’s Authority]. His strength could now crush even a Half-Step Rank 4 cultivator like an eggshell!
Inside seven-year-old Su Nuannuan’s arms, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao clutched his tiny gold spectacles with both fuzzy green flippers as his jaw dropped for the third time that afternoon:.
“Golden Solar and Ice-Phoenix Yin-Yang Internal Qi?! By the Ancestors! Ordinary mortal Martial Grandmasters spend fifty years condensing pale white gaseous qi.
Patriarch Gu just stepped into Rank 3 Early and his Internal Qi is already as dense and golden as a Foundation Establishment immortal’s! Even Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng at Rank 3 Mid couldn’t take a single casual flick of Patriarch Gu’s wrist!”
Exhaling a long, crystal-clear breath that turned into a hovering golden-blue crane in midair before dissipating, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng stood up effortlessly from the altar.
He lightly flicked his right index finger toward a cracked boulder fifty feet away at the side of the cave:.
SWISH—BOOM!
A thirty-foot crescent blade of solid golden Rank 3 Internal Qi shot silently from his fingertip and sliced the four-ton volcanic boulder into two mirror-smooth halves without raising a single speck of dust!
“Whoa! Dad can shoot golden light-beams from his fingers now!” seven-year-old Su Nuannuan clapped her small hands in delight.
Nine-year-old Gu Nian carefully tucked his mother’s [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin] into his inner chest pocket over his heart and looked up at his father with shining, worshipful eyes:.
“Dad, you’re a real Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster now—and Auntie Qin is a Rank 3 Grandmaster too!”
“That makes two Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters, three Rank 2 Peak experts, one Golden Core Pill Sovereign turtle. Thirty pink-aproned Lava-Golem tractors in our family hiking party,” Gu Changsheng grinned. Picking up his [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] and glancing toward the outer hall—where his newly expanded Rank 3 Grandmaster spiritual sense could clearly hear eighteen-year-old Lin Fan.
The five Black-Blood Hall array-masters winching open the ten-ton front gate outside in the sunset!
“Wait—Dad, can your new Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster sense really hear all the way through the mountain rock to the front gate?!” seven-year-old Su Nuannuan asked with wide. Sparkling eyes as she skipped down the crystal altar steps beside her big brother.
“What is that bad brother Lin Fan doing outside right now?”
“Right now,” twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng chuckled as he led the family back through the thirty-foot glacier doors into the outer magma hall. “Lin Fan’s face is swollen to the size of a pumpkin from eighty-six canyon mosquito bites. He is telling his five hired array-masters that we must be cooked into black charcoal by now.”
“Eighty-six mosquito bites?!” nine-year-old Gu Nian blinked, a boyish grin breaking across his face as he patted his chest pocket where his mother’s [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin] rested warm and safe against his heart. “Grandpa Yao said canyon blood-gnats love the smell of forbidden Blood-Burst Pills!
While we were eating snow-lotus beef hot-pot, slicing chilled watermelon, and breaking through to Rank 3 Grandmaster inside, Lin Fan spent three hours feeding the mosquitoes outside!”
“And look at our thirty new tractor uncles!” Nuannuan pointed happily at the thirty twelve-foot Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems. Who had already packed up the clean porcelain bowls, rolled up the bamboo picnic mats.
Formed two spotless pink-aproned marching columns down the center of the hall!
Standing at the head of the left column with the twenty-pound watermelon basket balanced on one massive stone palm, twelve-foot-tall Golem Unit #01 saluted crisply. The [Little Red Flower Sticker] on Golem Unit #03’s pink apron gleamed in the lantern light:.
“REPORTING... TO... GRANDMASTER...
GU! ALL... PICNIC...
EQUIPMENT... PACKED! THIRTY...
TRACTOR... UNITS... READY...
TO... MARCH... TO...
FROST-PINE... FARMLANDS!”
“REQUESTING... PERMISSION... TO...
SING... THE... FROST-PINE...
ROAD-PAVING... SONG... AS...
THE... FRONT... DOOR...
OPENS!”
“Permission granted, Unit #01!” Gu Changsheng laughed, lightly tossing seven-year-old Su Nuannuan onto Golem Unit #01’s left stone shoulder. Hopping effortlessly up onto Unit #01’s right shoulder himself with a slice of chilled red watermelon in his hand.
Nine-year-old Gu Nian, Auntie Qin, and Grandpa Fu mounted the broad stone shoulders of Golem Unit #02!
“Grandpa Fu, keep the abacus ready—and Units #01 through #30, start the marching cadence on my count of three!”
Up on the broad stone shoulder of Golem Unit #02, twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin , at Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster, adjusted the hem of her spotless white physician’s robe and smiled softly. She looked at nine-year-old Gu Nian’s calm, glowing profile:.
“Nian’er, let Auntie Qin check your pulse one more time before we step outside. Earlier when you touched your mother’s jade hairpin, I felt the dormant golden warmth in your chest meridians wake up by another full level.”
Placing two slender fingers lightly against nine-year-old Gu Nian’s wrist, Auntie Qin felt a steady. Majestic rhythm—like a young golden dragon breathing in harmony with an ancient frost-phoenix—coursing smoothly through the boy’s. Rank 2 Peak blood vessels without a single trace of his old childhood meridian chill or psychological shadow.
“Zero blockage, zero internal heat, and your heart-pulse is calmer than a mirror lake,” Auntie Qin praised warmly. Pinning an extra mint-scented sachet onto Gu Nian’s yellow bunny apron so the canyon mosquitoes outside wouldn’t come within ten yards of him or Su Nuannuan. “If your mother could take your pulse right now, she would give you three Gold Star Stickers on the spot.”
“Thank you, Auntie Qin!” nine-year-old Gu Nian beamed. Sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu , at Rank 2 Peak, happily flipped open his leather ledger book on Golem Unit #02’s other shoulder and dipped his brass travel-brush in red ink:.
“Master, Young Master Nian, Little Miss Nuannuan! I have already tallied the afternoon harvest from our three-hour picnic inside the Sealed Flame-Ice Cave: one Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster breakthrough for Master. One Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster breakthrough for Doctor Qin, one hundred twenty pounds of 500-Year Snow-Heart Lotuses, one Rank 8 Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin.
Thirty Rank 2 Peak Lava-Golem Farm Tractors worth at least three hundred thousand silver taels! Truly, Young Master Lin Fan is the number-one philanthropic sponsor of our Gu Household!”
“Come on, kids! Our number-one philanthropic doorkeeper Lin Fan is finally opening the front gate outside to check on our ‘charred bones’—let’s line up our thirty pink-aproned tractors and give him a warm Grandmaster welcome!”
[ DING! HOST BREAKS THROUGH TO RANK 3 MARTIAL GRANDMASTER! ]
* Host Realm : Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster (30,000 lbs Base.
Force + 30-Foot Golden Internal-Qi Projection)!
* Household Tier: 2x Rank 3 Grandmasters (Gu Changsheng & Auntie.
Qin) + 3x Rank 2 Peak (Gu Nian, Nuannuan, Fu)!
* Daily Income : +245,000 DP/day -> +255,000 DP/day!