Wiping rotten cabbage juice and crushed tomato pulp from his single unswollen eye, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan [Rank 1 Late, Luck Halo: 5%] pointed both trembling. Mud-caked hands at the chubby two-foot [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] resting in nine-year-old Gu Nian’s arms at the base of the marble steps.
“LOOK AT THAT GREEN CLOTH TURTLE, EVERYONE!” Lin Fan shrieked until his toothless voice cracked, clinging to his third accusation like a drowning man clutching a straw. “Lord Qin!
Citizens of Azure-Cloud Prefecture!
Do you know whose soul is locked inside that children’s plush toy?! That is my revered teacher—the legendary Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign Master Yao Chen of the Central Continent!”
Laughing like a cornered madman, Lin Fan pounded the marble step with his fist:.
“Think about it! Master Yao Chen is an ancient Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign who once refined elixirs for Immortal Sects! How could a supreme, proud Pill Sovereign ever willingly live inside a chubby green baby-toy with gold glasses sewn onto its nose and brew ten-copper vitamin gummies for snot-nosed village kids?!
Gu Changsheng used a wicked Netherworld Soul-Shackle to kidnap Master Yao from my family ring and torture him into handing over his pill recipes! Master Yao—wake up! Your loyal disciple Lin Fan has brought the Imperial High Court to rescue you from that humiliating plush prison!”
Across the High Court Plaza, thirty thousand citizens—and fifty-two-year-old Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng on the judicial dais—stared curiously down at the chubby two-foot emerald-green plush turtle in nine-year-old Gu Nian’s arms.
With its round, soft velvet belly, embroidered gold shell patterns. Miniature wire-rimmed gold spectacles perched on its plush snout, the two-foot green turtle doll looked like the cuddliest bedtime toy in the northern provinces.
“A Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign inside a stuffed cloth turtle?” one of the blue-robed court scribes murmured, squinting through his spectacles. “Could there really be an ancient alchemist spirit residing inside Young Master Nian’s toy?”
At the base of the marble steps, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng , at Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster, didn’t hide the plush turtle or say a single word in defense.
Instead, he looked down at nine-year-old Gu Nian with a warm, amused smile:.
“Go ahead and set Grandpa Yao down on the steps, Nian’er. He’s been waiting all morning to clear up this ‘kidnapping and torture’ charge himself.”
“Yes, Dad!” nine-year-old Gu Nian nodded politely, bending down to set the chubby two-foot [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] onto the bottom white marble step. “Grandpa Yao, please be careful not to slip on the rotten cabbage leaves.”
Squeak-pat-pat!
Right before the widening eyes of thirty thousand citizens and the entire High Court bench, the chubby two-foot emerald-green plush turtle stood up on its two short velvet hind legs. Brushed an invisible speck of dust off its round fabric belly with both fuzzy green front flippers. Solemnly pushed its miniature gold spectacles up its nose!
Then, with its short plush legs moving with dignified, rhythmic precision, the two-foot stuffed turtle hopped up the thirty-six white marble steps one by one!
Boing... boing... boing!
When the plush turtle reached the thirty-fifth step. Eighteen-year-old Lin Fan was kneeling in a puddle of rotten turnip juice, the little green turtle pinched its plush snout with one fuzzy flipper in exaggerated disgust. Hopped wide around him so its clean velvet feet wouldn’t touch his dirty hem.
Leaped lightly up onto the corner of Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng’s mahogany judicial desk!
Planting its short plush hind legs wide beside the judicial gavel block and resting both green velvet flippers on its chubby hips. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao [Rank 6 Golden Core Remnant Soul, Warmth: 92/100] took a deep breath:.
HUMMMMMM—BOOOOOOOOOM!
A magnificent, fifty-foot-tall projection of golden-jade alchemical soul-light erupted from the crown of the two-foot plush turtle’s shell into the clear morning sky above the High Court!
Within the swirling golden clouds and blooming phantom snow-lotuses, the majestic. White-bearded fifty-foot spiritual avatar of three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Pill Sovereign Yao Chen materialized in midair—draped in ancient nine-cauldron Sovereign robes and wearing a matching pair of giant golden spectacles on his nose!
Just the pure, gentle Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign soul-resonance radiating from the avatar caused every pill bottle and medicinal herb in Azure-Cloud Prefecture City to hum like a choir of jade chimes!
“By the Ancestors—it really is an ancient Rank 6 Golden Core Pill Sovereign!” Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng and all thirty thousand citizens gasped in reverence!
Down on the marble steps, eighteen-year-old Lin Fan wept with ecstatic, delusional joy, scrambling forward on his knees and stretching his arms toward the fifty-foot golden avatar in the sky:.
“Master Yao! You broke free of Gu Changsheng’s soul-shackle! Tell the Prefecture Lord and the thirty thousand citizens how Gu Changsheng kidnapped you from my ring and forced you into that humiliating green plush doll!
Strike that demon down for your loyal disciple!”
High in the sunlit sky above the High Court terrace, the fifty-foot golden avatar of Pill Sovereign Yao Chen slowly lowered his gaze, adjusted his giant golden spectacles. Stared down at the foul-smelling, toothless Lin Fan with an expression of such bottomless disgust that even the clouds seemed to curdle.
Then, Grandpa Yao’s booming baritone voice thundered across the entire three-mile width of Azure-Cloud Prefecture City:.
“BAH! WHO IS YOUR MASTER, YOU UNFILIAL, PUPPY-STEALING, SOCK-HOARDING LITTLE SEWER-RAT?! AND WHO SAID THIS OLD SOVEREIGN WAS KIDNAPPED?!”
WHOOOOOOSH!
Just the booming sonic wave of Grandpa Yao’s indignant roar blew the last rotten cabbage leaves off Lin Fan’s head and sent him tumbling backward down three marble steps!
“LISTEN UP, LORD QIN AND ALL THIRTY THOUSAND NEIGHBORS OF AZURE-CLOUD PREFECTURE!” Grandpa Yao’s fifty-foot golden avatar pointed a giant glowing finger down at the stunned Lin Fan. His two-foot plush turtle body on the judge’s desk mirrored the exact same pose with its fuzzy green flipper!
“THIS OLD MAN DID NOT GET KIDNAPPED BY PATRIARCH GU—I VOLUNTARILY DEFECTED FROM LIN FAN’S STINKING IRON RING AND APPLIED FOR POLITICAL ASYLUM IN THE GU HOUSEHOLD!”
“What?! Applied for political asylum from Lin Fan’s ring?!” thirty thousand citizens blinked in stunned silence before muffled snickers broke out across the square!
Pacing back and forth across the judicial desk on his short green plush legs while his fifty-foot avatar gestured dramatically in the sky above, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao poured out his grievances with theatrical gusto:.
“Do you people have any idea what kind of inhumane workplace abuse this old Pill Sovereign suffered during the three months I was stuck inside Lin Fan’s rusty iron ring?! First, that broke, lazy brat never washed his hands or his socks—he stuffed smelly socks, stolen chicken bones, and expired poison powders right inside the ring next to my sleeping soul!
Second, instead of studying upright medical alchemy, he tried to make me help him poison my own grand-disciple Qin Wan’er, steal a nine-year-old boy’s frost-lotus. Boil a six-year-old orphan girl in a centipede jar! And third—he burned up ninety percent of my remnant soul-force demanding free handouts without ever lighting a single stick of incense for me!”
Grandpa Yao’s two-foot plush turtle patted its own soft, emerald-green velvet belly with both flippers and beamed proudly at the crowd:.
“And look at my living conditions ever since Patriarch Gu Changsheng rescued me from that rusty garbage-ring! Patriarch Gu spent his own precious spiritual fortune to weave me this [Rank 3 Star-Silk & Warm-Jade Plush Turtle. Shell] AND a [Rank 3 Nine-Grid Spice-Rack Spirit-Gourd] that nourish my soul ten times faster than any ancient artifact!
Every morning, Patriarch Gu serves me a personal saucer of [Rank 3 Earth-Fire Spirit Soup] and crispy dough sticks! Every afternoon, seven-year-old Little Miss Nuannuan brushes my velvet shell with lavender water and puts a fresh dandelion behind my ear! Every evening, nine-year-old Young Master Nian and Grand-Disciple Wan’er study upright life-saving medicine with me!
Even if the Emperor of Great Qian offered me a golden palace today, I wouldn’t trade my plush turtle shell in the Gu Family for ten empires!”
To prove his point, the two-foot plush turtle reached into its embroidered shell pocket, pulled out a tiny porcelain saucer of Gu Changsheng’s braised beef brisket. Happily munched a piece right on the Prefecture Lord’s gavel block!
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Thirty thousand citizens in the High Court Plaza roared with thunderous, heartfelt laughter and applause!
“Even the Rank 6 Pill Sovereign ran away from Lin Fan because he didn’t wash his socks and tried to hurt little kids!”
“And look how happy Grandpa Turtle is eating Patriarch Gu’s beef brisket!”
“NO! YOU OLD TRAITOR! YOU’RE LYING!”
eighteen-year-old Lin Fan shrieked, his sanity snapping completely as all three of his public accusations blew up in his face.
Standing on the judge’s mahogany desk, the two-foot plush turtle pushed its miniature gold spectacles up its nose and let out a cold, triumphant chuckle:.
“Lying, am I? Lord Qin, citizens of Azure-Cloud—before this unfilial rat tries to deny his fourth crime. Allow this old Pill Sovereign to play the [Spiritual Memory Recording Crystal] I secretly recorded from inside his.
Ring over the past four months—including what he whispered to himself in the sewer at midnight last night!”
Hearing that Pill Sovereign Yao Chen was not only living inside the Gu Family’s plush turtle doll by his own enthusiastic choice. Even received daily lavender shell-baths from seven-year-old Su Nuannuan and braised spirit-beef brisket from Gu Changsheng, fifty-two-year-aged Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng. At Rank 3 Mid, couldn’t help standing up from his judicial throne and bowing respectfully with cupped hands toward the two-foot green plush turtle on his desk:.
“This junior official Qin Zheng of Azure-Cloud Prefecture pays his respects to Senior Pill Sovereign Yao! To think that an ancient Rank 6 Golden Core alchemical grandmaster has graced our northern prefecture and personally guided Niece Wan’er. The two young masters of the Gu Clan—no wonder the [Gu Family Peace Pharmacy] was able to eradicate the entire prefecture’s winter meridian-chill epidemic in a single month!”
Pushing his miniature gold spectacles up his green velvet snout with one fuzzy flipper, three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao nodded graciously from the gavel block:.
“Little Qin, you have a good eye! Over the past three hundred years, this old Sovereign has visited a hundred immortal sects and royal courts across the continent. I have never met a head of household with higher martial virtue, purer culinary Dao, or stricter family ethics than Patriarch Gu Changsheng!
In the Gu Residence, nobody steals, nobody bullies the weak, every child finishes their homework before dessert, and even the thirty ancient Lava Golems wash their hands before scrubbing the soup bowls!”
Turning his tiny embroidered black eyes back down toward the trembling, cabbage-draped eighteen-year-old Lin Fan on the steps, Grandpa Yao snorted through his plush nostrils:.
“Compare that to this unfilial sewer-rat Lin Fan! When he found my ring in a ditch, he swore he would uphold the righteous path of medicine—yet the moment he gained a shred of martial qi. He spent twenty-four hours a day plotting how to rob widows, poison his own junior sister, boil a nine-year-old boy’s pet puppy.
Refine a six-year-old orphan girl into poison pills! If this old Sovereign hadn’t jumped out of his ring into Patriarch Gu’s wok in Frost-Pine Town, my three-hundred-year reputation would have been flushed straight down a public latrine!”
Down at the foot of the marble steps, nine-year-old Gu Nian , at Rank 2 Peak, smiled warmly and held up a small insulated bamboo thermos from his schoolbag:.
“Grandpa Yao, Dad packed your favorite honey-glazed lotus-root tea in my thermos so your throat wouldn’t get dry while testifying in court!”
“Hehehe! You see that, everyone?! Look how filial Young Master Nian is to this old turtle!”
Grandpa Yao beamed until his green velvet cheeks plumped up like two steamed buns.
Lifting a sparkling, multifaceted pigeon-egg-sized crystal gem between his fuzzy front flippers!
“And now, Lord Qin—please have your bailiffs guard the exits while this old Sovereign projects the contents of this [Spiritual Memory Recording Crystal] onto the morning clouds above the High Court Plaza! Let all thirty thousand citizens see with their own eyes what this self-proclaimed ‘righteous scholar’ Lin Fan was doing underneath this very square at three o’clock this morning!”
[ DING! STAR WITNESS #2 — GRANDPA YAO ROASTS LIN FAN PUBLICLY! ]
* Testimony : Rank 6 Pill Sovereign Yao Chen (Warmth: 92/100)
declares he defected voluntarily from Lin Fan’s.
filthy ring to live in the Gu Family’s plush turtle!
* Next Move : Grandpa Yao pulls out the [Spiritual Memory Recording.
Crystal] containing Lin Fan’s sewer confession!
* Daily DP : +335,000 DP/day -> +350,000 DP/day!