Outside the canyon entrance as the late-afternoon sun sank red behind the western volcanic ridges, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan [Luck Halo: 10%] was barely recognizable as a human being.
After sitting under the scorching canyon sun for three full hours. Every poisonous yellow-striped blood-gnat in the gorge feasted exclusively on his face and neck. Lin Fan’s head was swollen to the size of a winter pumpkin, his lips looked like two blistered red sausages, and his left eye was puffed completely shut!
Yet as he limped down the gravel slope toward the sealed ten-ton Meteoric Dragon-Gate with the five Black-Blood Hall dark-array masters, Lin Fan’s remaining bloodshot right eye gleamed with unhinged, vindictive ecstasy:.
“Three hours! Haha... hahahaha!
They’ve been locked inside that thousand-degree magma furnace with thirty Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems for three full hours!” Lin Fan wheezed through his swollen sausage-lips. Waving an iron crowbar at the five dark-array masters.
“Hook the chains onto the release winch and crank open the Dragon-Gate!
I want to walk in there personally, kick Gu Changsheng’s roasted skull across the floor, and take whatever ancient jade treasure survived in the inner chamber!”
“Right away, Master Lin!”
The five black-robed dark-array masters hooked their heavy iron pulleys onto the external counterweight gears and pulled with all their strength.
CREEEEEAK—CLANK—RUMBLE!
With a slow, grinding roar of ancient iron chains, the ten-ton black Meteoric Dragon-Gate sealing the archway of Flame-Scar Canyon rose foot by foot into the cliff slot!
Standing just ten paces in front of the rising iron door, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan craned his swollen neck forward and sniffed the air eagerly—waiting for the choking stench of sulfur, molten rock. Burned human bones to billow out of the tomb.
Instead, as the ten-ton iron gate lifted twelve feet off the ground—.
A cool, refreshing breeze smelling of sweet mountain snow-lotus soup, roasted sesame paste, fresh watermelon, and lemon dish-soap drifted pleasantly out of the cavern!
Lin Fan blinked his single swollen eye and froze:.
“W-what is that smell?! Why does a sealed thousand-degree magma tomb smell like boiled beef hot-pot and watermelon?!”
Before the five dark-array masters could answer him—.
*STOMP! STOMP! STOMP!
STOMP!*
The entire canyon floor began to shake in a neat, crisp, military two-four marching cadence!
And then, marching out of the open stone archway into the golden-red sunset in two immaculate, shoulder-to-shoulder columns of fifteen, came all thirty twelve-foot-tall, four-thousand-pound [Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems]!
Not only were the thirty terrifying ancient ruin monsters completely unharmed, every single twelve-foot obsidian giant was wearing a spotless. Custom-tailored bright pink cotton apron embroidered with a smiling white bunny holding a radish and bold gold characters reading [GU FAMILY MODEL FARM TRACTOR & DISHWASHER]!
In their massive stone hands, the thirty pink-aproned Lava Golems were carefully carrying the Gu Family’s bamboo picnic baskets, a sparkling-clean [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok], folded picnic mats. A wooden tub of leftover watermelon rinds for the compost pile!
And as the thirty twelve-foot stone giants marched out of the canyon archway in perfect step, their thirty deep. Rumbling stone voices boomed across the valley in a cheerful four-line work chorus taught to them by Grandpa Fu:.
“PLOW... THE... FURROWS...
STRAIGHT... AND... DEEP!”
“FROST-PINE... PROMISES... WE...
KEEP!”
“WASH... THE... BOWLS...
AND... SWEEP... THE...
FLOOR!”
“PINK... BUNNY... TRACTORS...
DO... EACH... CHORE!”
Clang! Clatter!
Outside the archway, all five Black-Blood Hall dark-array masters dropped their iron winch-bars onto their own toes, their jaws unhinging so far they nearly touched their collarbones!
“T-thirty Rank 2 Peak Ancient Lava-Rock Golems... wearing giant pink bunny aprons, carrying picnic baskets, and singing the Frost-Pine Road-Paving Song?!” the lead dark-array master shrieked in a voice that cracked like a strangled rooster’s!
And sitting comfortably high up on the broad, warm stone right shoulder of twelve-foot-tall Golem Unit #01—leaning back with a wide-brimmed straw sun-hat tipped over his brow. Eating a chilled triangular slice of red seedless watermelon—was twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng!
On Golem Unit #01’s left shoulder sat seven-year-old Su Nuannuan waving her [Little Fairy Pink Watering Can] and hugging Grandpa Yao’s green [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll]. On Golem Unit #02’s shoulders rode nine-year-old Gu Nian [Rank 2 Peak, with his mother’s [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin] tucked warmly over his heart!]. Newly promoted Rank 3 Early Grandmaster Auntie Qin, and Rank 2 Peak Grandpa Fu!
Looking down from twelve feet in the air at the mosquito-swollen, sausage-lipped Lin Fan standing dumbfounded in front of the gate. Twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng spat a black watermelon seed onto a rock and smiled warmly:.
“Well, well—thank you for opening the front door right after we finished dessert, Young Master Lin! Look at your face, though—did you spend the whole afternoon trying to headbutt a hornets’ nest while we were having hot-pot inside?”
“G-GU CHANGSHENG?!”
Eighteen-year-old Lin Fan stared up at the completely unharmed Gu Family and the thirty pink-aproned Lava Golems as his brain short-circuited with volcanic madness!
Right beside Gu Changsheng on Golem Unit #01’s left shoulder, seven-year-old Su Nuannuan leaned forward under her yellow straw sun-hat, blinked her big dark eyes at Lin Fan’s pumpkin-sized head, and gasped in shock:.
“Whoa! Big Brother Nian, look at that bad brother’s face! His nose is bigger than a steamed bun, and his lips look like two burnt sausages!
Grandpa Yao, is that what happens when somebody eats bad pills and sits in the bushes without a sun-hat?”
Poking his fuzzy green head out of the [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] in Nuannuan’s arms, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao adjusted his tiny gold spectacles and let out a booming laugh that echoed off the canyon walls:.
“Hahaha! Little fairy, that’s what happens when a brainless rat tries to play array-master outside an ancient ruin! Not only did he pay eight thousand silver to lock us inside an air-conditioned dining hall with a Thousand-Year Earth-Core Magma Vent.
He even stood guard outside in the sun for three hours to feed the canyon mosquitoes for us! Lin Fan, this old turtle has to admit—even when you were my disciple, you were never this helpful!”
“Y-Yao Chen?! You ungrateful old turtle!” Lin Fan coughed up a mouthful of blood in sheer apoplectic rage, his swollen fingers trembling violently.
“And what did you do to the thirty Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems of the Sky-Flame Sect?!
Why are they wearing pink bunny aprons and carrying your dirty soup pots?!”
On the shoulder of Golem Unit #02, sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu , at Rank 2 Peak, clicked his black-iron abacus with a beaming smile and held up a freshly stamped employment ledger:.
“Young Master Lin, please address Units #01 through #30 by their proper title: the [Gu Family Pink-Apron Geothermal Farm-Tractor & Dishwasher Brigade]! And since you were kind enough to pay the five Black-Blood Hall array-masters to wake them up from their three-hundred-year nap for us. This old butler has generously decided not to bill you for the gate-opening fee!”
“IMPOSSIBLE! HOW DID YOU TAME THIRTY ANCIENT LAVA GOLEMS?! AND WHY ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?!”
Lin Fan shrieked at the top of his lungs, pointing a trembling, bandaged finger at Gu Changsheng.
“FIVE ARRAY MASTERS—DETONATE THE FIVE HUNDRED FIRE-STONES UNDER THE ARCHWAY RIGHT NOW! BLOW THEM ALL TO PIECES!”
However, the five Black-Blood Hall dark-array masters didn’t reach for their detonation talismans—because as soon. Twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng tossed his finished watermelon rind into Golem Unit #01’s apron compost pocket and stood up on the golem’s shoulder. The five array-masters sensed the suffocating, heaven-and-earth pressure radiating from Gu Changsheng’s body!
And right beside Gu Changsheng on Golem Unit #02, twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin also released a wisp of her newly awakened emerald-green Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster aura!
“Wait—that’s not a Rank 2 aura!” the lead dark-array master screamed in mortal terror, his knees buckling. He saw the shimmering golden solar halo swirling around Gu Changsheng’s palm and the emerald Grandmaster aura around Auntie Qin.
“External Qi Projection!
Solid Golden Internal Qi! Gu Changsheng AND Doctor Qin are both Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters—RUN!”
“Run? After locking my kids in a cave for three hours without asking permission?”
Standing atop the twelve-foot golem’s shoulder in the sunset, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng didn’t even draw his wok spatula.
He simply raised his right hand and gave a casual, backhanded flick of his wrist!
WHOOOOOOSH—KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!
A dazzling, thirty-foot-wide crescent wave of solid golden Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster Internal Qi—laced with a wisp of silver frost-phoenix chill—roared across the canyon entrance like a golden tidal wave!
Just the hurricane-force wind pressure of that single casual wrist-flick tore up the gravel road, pulverized all five hundred buried fire-stones into harmless red sand. Slammed squarely into the chests of Lin Fan and the five fleeing dark-array masters!
“AAAAAAAAAGH!”
Like six dry autumn leaves hit by a cannon blast. All five Black-Blood Hall dark-array masters and eighteen-year-old Lin Fan were lifted twenty feet off the ground. Blasted a full fifty yards backward down the canyon slope—crashing headfirst with a six-fold SPLASH-THUD!
into a stagnant.
Thorn-choked black mud pit at the bottom of the gully!
Spitting out a mouthful of smelly black mud and frothy blood. Three more of his splinted ribs re-cracked, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan stared in absolute, soul-shattering terror at the thirty-foot golden Grandmaster aura lingering around Gu Changsheng’s hand:.
“Rank 3... Martial Grandmaster?! Both Gu Changsheng AND Qin Wan’er broke through to Rank 3 Martial Grandmaster inside the ruin while I was getting bitten by mosquitoes outside?!”
CRACK—SHATTER!
Above Lin Fan’s mud-caked head, his [Protagonist Luck Halo] couldn’t withstand the catastrophic backlash of watching his own death-trap turn Gu Changsheng and Auntie Qin into Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters. Gifting the Gu Family thirty Rank 2 Peak Golem Tractors!
With a sound like breaking glass, Lin Fan’s [Luck Halo] plunged from 10% straight down to the dreaded 5% threshold—officially triggering [Extreme Karmic Bad-Luck Rebound]!
Not daring to look back for a single second. The thirty twelve-foot pink-aproned Lava Golems marched down the slope singing their road-paving song, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan scrambled away through the thorny mud bushes on all fours like a beaten stray dog!
Even as Lin Fan fled down the canyon trail. The newly triggered [5% Extreme Karmic Bad-Luck Rebound] wasted zero time introducing itself: every thorny bramble bush along the ditch seemed to bend two inches inward just to snag his torn trousers. A low-hanging pine branch snapped without warning in the evening breeze to whack him across the back of his swollen neck.
A startled wild skunk hiding in the culvert sprayed him squarely across the chest before scurrying away!
Back on the canyon road above, watching Lin Fan crawl into the bushes. Golem Unit #30 politely picked up the five unconscious Black-Blood Hall array-masters by their belts to hand over to the Prefecture Cavalry at the highway junction for a two-thousand-silver bounty. Nine-year-old Gu Nian smiled warmly at his father:.
“Dad, that was even faster than my one-finger tap at the tournament! And Grandpa Fu gets to collect a two-thousand-silver bounty from the Prefecture Guard for those five array-masters too!”
“Wait—Big Brother Nian, look at what Tractor Uncle #05 and Tractor Uncle #06 are doing as they walk!” seven-year-old Su Nuannuan giggled from Gu Changsheng’s shoulder. Pointing her small finger down at the gravel canyon road beneath the marching column.
With every synchronized step the thirty twelve-foot Rank 2 Peak Lava-Rock Golems took along the rutted mountain trail. Their flat stone feet automatically tamped the loose boulders level and fused the gravel with a gentle wisp of geothermal warmth—turning three miles of bumpy. Axle-breaking mountain canyon road into a smooth, twenty-foot-wide paved stone highway behind them!
“By the heavens!” sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu clicked his black-iron abacus with tears of pure butler joy in his eyes. “They’re paving the public highway for free while walking home from a picnic!
When the Prefecture Ministry of Works sees this tomorrow morning, they’ll probably pay us another five thousand silver taels in road-maintenance subsidies!”
“Every little bit helps pay for our new school library, Nian’er,” Gu Changsheng laughed, tapping Golem Unit #01’s stone shoulder as the golden sunset painted the smooth new highway ahead of them. “Alright, Tractor Brigade—forward march to the prefecture farmlands!”
[ DING! GRANDMASTER WRIST-FLICK — LIN FAN HALO DROPS TO 5%! ]
* Battle Result : 1 Casual Rank 3 Golden Internal-Qi Wave blasts.
Lin Fan & 5 Dark-Array Masters 50 yards into a.
mud pit!
* Lin Fan Halo : 10% -> 5% (EXTREME KARMIC BAD-LUCK REBOUND.
OFFICIALLY TRIGGERED!)
* Daily Income : +255,000 DP/day -> +265,000 DP/day!