While thirty thousand citizens in the Azure-Cloud Prefecture High Court Plaza laughed. Tears rolled down their cheeks at eighteen-year-old Lin Fan sitting dazed in his smoking red-and-white polka-dot underpants. Twenty-nine-year-aged Gu Changsheng , at Rank 3 Mid Martial Grandmaster, stood calmly at the base of the marble steps with a warm smile on his face.
Inside his system consciousness, floating above a sea of golden clouds alongside his 107,000 DP balance, was a magnificent. Three-foot-wide treasure chest cast from celestial solar gold and engraved with the relief of a father’s hand snapping an iron chain of fate:.
The [Golden Plot-Defiance Treasure Chest]—the grand milestone reward for stripping the first mortal “Chosen One” from 100% Luck Halo all the way down to 0.0% without losing a single family member or neighbor!
Five months ago in Frost-Pine Town, the original script of this world wanted me to cough up my last mouthful of. Blood on a freezing brick bed so my nine-year-old son would grow up alone in the snow, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng thought. His hand resting gently on nine-year-old Gu Nian’s warm shoulder while seven-year-old Su Nuannuan hugged his other arm.
Today my son and daughter are rosy-cheeked Rank 2 Peak experts, our household has two Rank 3 Martial Grandmasters. The ‘Chosen One’ who wanted to step on our family’s bones is sitting on the court steps in polka-dot bloomers. System—open the [Golden Plot-Defiance Treasure Chest]!
CREEEEEEAK—SHING!
With a grand chorus of golden bells, the heavy solar-gold lid of the treasure chest swung wide open inside Gu Changsheng’s system space, releasing three dazzling beams of purple-gold light!
[ DING! GOLDEN PLOT-DEFIANCE CHEST OPENED — 3 SUPREME REWARDS! ]
* Reward #1 (Weapon): [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline]
, at Rank 3 Peak -> Rank 4 Scalable Divine Tool!,.
- Cooking Mode: +300% Nutrient & Qi Locking!
- Combat Mode : Stacks with [Father’s.
Authority] to deal 100% True Disciplinary.
Damage! Ignores all protective spirit.
shields, armor, and bloodline barriers!
* Reward #2 (Law) : [All-Family Shared Cultivation Link]
(Permanent Passive Household Aura!)
- Every family meal cooked by Dad shares 20%.
of total cultivation gains across Gu.
Changsheng, Gu Nian, Su Nuannuan, Auntie.
Qin, & Grandpa Fu!
* Reward #3 (Domain): [Prefecture-Wide Warmth Broadcast Protocol]
- Expands Dad’s Warmth-Collection Radius to.
all 12 counties of Azure-Cloud Prefecture!
- Protected Citizens at 75+ Warmth: 38,000!
- Daily Income: +372,000 -> +380,000 DP/day!
The instant the three golden beams merged into Gu Changsheng’s body and equipment rack, he felt a qualitative leap across his entire household!
First, hanging neatly in the tool-loop beside the [Rank 3 Nine-Flavor Earth-Fire Chef Wok] on his back. Appeared an eighteen-inch cooking spatula forged from indestructible Deep-Core Solar Brass and Celestial Meteoric Iron: [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline].
Along the gleaming golden flat of the spatula blade were etched twelve ancient characters that hummed with absolute paternal majesty:.
SPARE THE SPATULA, SPOIL THE WORLD — HOUSEHOLD RULES ABOVE THE HEAVENS!
Whether he was flipping golden egg-fried rice for his kids at breakfast or slapping an arrogant Upper-Realm envoy across the teeth in midair. [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline] would bypass one hundred percent of all defensive talismans and spirit shields to deliver pure, unblockable paternal education!
Second, as the [All-Family Shared Cultivation Link] activated inside his heart, five invisible, warm golden threads of kinship qi connected twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng with nine-year-old Gu Nian. Seven-year-old Su Nuannuan, twenty-four-year-old Auntie Qin, and sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu!
Standing beside his father at the bottom of the steps, nine-year-old Gu Nian blinked his dark eyes in pleasant surprise. A warm tide of golden solar qi flowed gently from his father’s hand into his meridians:.
“Dad! I just felt a warm golden current connect my dantian to yours, Nuannuan’s, Auntie Qin’s, and Grandpa Fu’s—even without eating dinner yet, my [Innate Chaos Demon Bone] feels twice as light!”
“Me too, Dad!” seven-year-old Su Nuannuan beamed, touching her chest beneath her pink rabbit dress. “It feels like Dad is holding Nuannuan’s hand inside Nuannuan’s heart all day long!”
“That’s our family’s new shared dining-and-cultivation link,” Gu Changsheng smiled, ruffling both children’s hair. “From today on, whenever we sit down to eat a hot meal together, twenty percent of everyone’s progress flows into a shared family pool—so nobody in our house ever cultivates alone.”
And third, as the [Prefecture-Wide Warmth Broadcast Protocol] swept invisibly across all twelve counties of Azure-Cloud Prefecture, the heartfelt gratitude of thirty-eight thousand farming, merchant. Artisan households whose fields had been plowed and whose children had been healed surged into Gu Changsheng’s system ledger—pushing his daily income to a massive +380,000 DP/day!
Just then—.
Clink-tink.
From the scorched soot crater at the top of the marble steps. Two Prefecture Bailiffs were prodding the dazed, smoke-puffing Lin Fan with wooden broom handles, a cracked. Triangular piece of blood-red jade rolled out of the ashes of Lin Fan’s vaporized vest and tumbled down the thirty-six marble steps, stopping two inches from Gu Changsheng’s boot.
Up on the judicial desk, three-hundred-alongside-eighty-year-aged Grandpa Yao—still waiting in his chubby two-foot [Jade-Turtle Plush Doll] body—suddenly adjusted his miniature gold spectacles. Hopped to the edge of the marble balustrade with a low exclamation:.
“Hold on, Patriarch Gu! That cracked red jade at your feet isn’t an ordinary Azure-Cloud Sect token—that’s a [Blood-Dragon Sub-Token] refined with royal dragon-vein blood from the Great Qian Royal Capital!”
Bending down calmly, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng picked up the two scorched halves of the triangular red jade token with two fingers.
Because the clear-sky lightning bolt had shattered Lin Fan’s dantian and cracked the token in half. The last wisp of crimson tracking-qi inside the jade had already discharged into the upper sky a moment earlier. Flying two thousand miles east toward the Great Qian Royal Capital (Sky-Crown City).
Flipping the cracked jade over in his palm, Gu Changsheng saw two lines of tiny, razor-sharp seal script engraved on the underside of the token:.
[SHADOW PAWN #09 — SECOND PRINCE QIAN YE’S BLOOD-HARVEST REGISTRY]
And right beneath that inscription was a tiny chronological cipher that made [Dad’s Plot-Spoiler Notebook] inside Gu Changsheng’s sleeve hum with an automatic decoding prompt:.
[ DING! PLOT-SPOILER NOTEBOOK DECODES ROYAL CAPITAL CLUE! ]
* Token Owner : Second Prince Qian Ye (Great Qian Royal Capital)
* Hidden Secret : Second Prince Qian Ye is a [100-YEAR REGRESSOR]
who returned from a ruined future timeline!
* Why He Backed : Knowing from his future memories that 3 “Innate.
Lin Fan Supreme Villain Seeds” would be born in the Great.
Qian Dynasty (Child #1: Gu Nian, Child #2: Su.
Nuannuan, Child #3: Ye Xiao), Second Prince Qian.
Ye secretly planted pawn Lin Fan in the north to.
harvest Gu Nian’s Chaos Bone and Su Nuannuan’s.
Poison Body for him!
* Alert Status : With Lin Fan’s token shattered, Second Prince.
Qian Ye has just received a distress signal in.
the Royal Capital—where Mom’s 2nd Soul-Wisp AND.
10-year-old Child #3 (Ye Xiao) are both waiting!
Reading the golden decoding prompt inside his mind, twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng’s dark eyes gleamed with cool, sharp clarity.
A 100-Year Regressor Second Prince sitting in the Great Qian Royal Capital, Gu Changsheng thought. Slipping the cracked jade pieces into his sleeve pocket and lightly patting the handle of [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline] at his waist. *He came back a hundred years in time with future memories.
Instead of doing anything useful for the people of the empire, he’s trying to hunt down ten-year-old and seven-year-old kids to harvest their innate bones?*
Hopping down the white marble steps from the judicial dais to join the family at the foot of the stairs. Three-hundred-and-eighty-year-old Grandpa Yao [Warmth: 92/100] lowered his squeaky plush-turtle voice so only Gu Changsheng, Auntie Qin, Grandpa Fu, Gu Nian, and Su Nuannuan could hear:.
“Patriarch Gu, this old Sovereign recognizes the blood-refining craft on that broken jade token! In the Great Qian Royal Capital, Second Prince Qian Ye has always pretended to be a gentle, bookish patron of Confucian scholars—yet that [Blood-Dragon Sub-Token] was forged using a forbidden Upper-Realm soul-tracking method! That means Lin Fan was never an accidental ‘lucky orphan’ in Frost-Pine Town—Second Prince Qian Ye deliberately sent him to our northern border with a list of treasures and special-constitution children to plunder!”
Hearing that a royal prince two thousand miles away had been the hidden mastermind behind the attempts on her nine-year-old nephew Nian’er and seven-year-old Nuannuan. Twenty-four-year-aged Auntie Qin , at Rank 3 Early Martial Grandmaster, felt a protective flare of emerald Grandmaster qi rise around her wrists:.
“Master Changsheng, if Second Prince Qian Ye already knows that Lin Fan’s token shattered here in Azure-Cloud Prefecture, won’t he send his personal Royal Capital guards to attack our family?”
“Not only will he send them, Wan’er—he’s going to send his favorite hunting dog straight into our kitchen,” twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng smiled calmly. Glancing down at nine-year-old Gu Nian and seven-year-old Su Nuannuan, who were standing side by side with bright, fearless eyes.
Instead of looking frightened at the mention of a Royal Prince in the capital, nine-year-old Gu Nian , at Rank 2 Peak. Gently touched his mother’s [Frost-Phoenix Jade Hairpin & Soul-Resonance Compass] resting warm and steady against his chest bone and looked up at his father:.
“Dad, last night when we upgraded Mom’s hairpin into a compass, the golden arrow pointed two thousand miles east to the Great Qian Royal Capital too! That means Mom’s second soul-wisp is in the exact same city as that bad Second Prince!”
“And Grandpa Yao said Dad’s new [Father’s Golden Spatula of True Discipline] can whack right through any bad guy’s shield!” seven-year-old Su Nuannuan , at Rank 2 Peak, added. Holding up her small fist beside her pink watering can.
“If that bad prince sends bullies to our town, Big Brother Nian and Nuannuan will help Dad and Auntie Qin sweep them into the dustpan!”
“Spoken like true children of the Gu Household,” sixty-two-year-old Grandpa Fu , at Rank 2 Peak, chuckled proudly, clicking his black-iron abacus as he opened a fresh page in his travel ledger. “Master, I have already begun drafting the itemized road-trip budget for our family journey to the. Great Qian Royal Capital—and if any imperial envoys are polite enough to deliver themselves to Azure-Cloud Prefecture.
We depart, we can bill the Second Prince’s treasury for our moving expenses!”
“Wait, Grandpa Fu—don’t forget to leave space in the travel ledger for our third child!” twenty-nine-year-old Gu Changsheng added with a warm, meaningful glint in his dark eyes. He recalled the third name revealed in the [Plot-Spoiler Notebook]’s decoding of the Second Prince’s registry.
Hearing their father say our third child, both nine-year-old Gu Nian and seven-year-old Su Nuannuan blinked their big dark eyes in unison and looked up eagerly:.
“Dad! Do we have another brother or sister waiting for us in the Royal Capital?!” nine-year-old Gu Nian asked, his small hand tightening excitedly around his father’s fingers.
“His name is Ye Xiao, and he’s ten years old—one year older than you, Nian’er. Three years older than Nuannuan,” Gu Changsheng said gently, crouching down so his eyes were level with both children’s. “Right now he’s an orphan wandering the streets of the Great Qian Royal Capital all by himself in the cold.
That greedy Second Prince wants to bully him just like Lin Fan tried to bully the two of you.”
Hearing that there was a ten-year-old orphan boy in the Royal Capital with no father to cook him hot soup and no warm bed to sleep in. Seven-year-old Su Nuannuan immediately patted the two travel pouches on her pink rabbit dress with both small hands:.
“Dad! Big Brother Nian! Nuannuan will save half of Nuannuan’s sour-plum candies and honey-cakes for Big Brother Ye Xiao!
And when we bring him home to our family, Nuannuan will share her pink watering can with him too!”
“And I’ll share my room, my martial arts notes, and my warm winter quilt with Big Brother Ye Xiao!” nine-year-old Gu Nian nodded with solemn, big-hearted determination. “Nobody bullies a kid in our family while Dad and we are around!”
How convenient, Gu Changsheng grinned, giving both kids a warm squeeze on the shoulder as Prefecture Lord Qin Zheng raised his judicial gavel up on the dais to pronounce Lin Fan’s official sentence. *Our family was already planning a road trip to the Royal Capital to pick up Qingxue’s second soul-wisp. Bring ten-year-old Ye Xiao home—and if this Second Prince sends his hunting dogs to Azure-Cloud Prefecture first.
We’ll let them help pull our luggage cart!*