The glazed blue terracotta roof tiles of the [Galactic Flying Courtyard] were warm under the golden late-afternoon sun.
Up on the central ridge-beam of the courtyard roof, Gu Changsheng and Empress Luo Qingxue sat cross-legged facing one another, their ten fingers gently intertwined and their knees touching.
Down below on the sunlit clover lawn, their five newly promoted Rank 8 Peak (Half-Step Rank 9 Galactic Sovereign) children. Fourteen-year-old Gu Nian, sixteen-year-old Ye Xiao, thirteen-year-old Jiang Tuntun, twelve-year-old Su Nuannuan, and ten-year-old Little Fifth Ao Xing—stood in a proud, five-point guardian formation around the wooden courtyard fence!
Beside the front gatepost, hundred-thousand-year-old First Founder Gu Mu leaned comfortably on his heavy wooden carpenter’s square-ruler while Auntie Luo Yiyi, Grandpa Fu, Auntie Qin. Grandpa Yao stood by the porch tea stove keeping a fresh pot of honey-ginger broth warm.
“Don’t worry about a single gust of wind outside the fence, Changsheng, Qingxue!” First Founder Gu Mu called up to the roof with a hearty, booming laugh.
“The five kids and I are watching the front yard! Take your time and light up those hundred billion stars!”
Up on the roof ridge, Gu Changsheng smiled and looked into his wife’s clear, sapphire-blue eyes.
