DONG—CHIMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
As the curl of warm Frost-Pine chimney smoke ignited the central hearth-sun inside Gu Changsheng’s dantian. Time across all nine floors of the Heavenly Script Pavilion and all three thousand worlds below seemed to pause in a golden, sunlit stillness.
Inside Gu Changsheng’s consciousness, nine hundred and seventy-four pages of living memories unfolded like a warm family lantern show.
He saw the very first afternoon eight years ago when he woke up on the hard wooden bed in Frost-Pine Town, coughing up blood from the frame-up poison. With the system panel flashing red in front of his eyes: [WARNING: HOST IS SCHEDULED TO DIE ON PAGE THREE IN 10 MINUTES! SON GU NIAN’S DARKENING INDEX: 89%!]
He remembered how thin eight-year-old Gu Nian’s shoulders had been. Just then, the boy stood in the doorway holding a handful of crushed red frost-berries, terrified that his dad would scold him or never wake up again.
He remembered the sizzle of the very first two eggs he fried in the rusted iron wok. The way Gu Nian buried his face in the porcelain bowl and cried while eating every last grain of rice.
Then the lantern slides of memory turned forward across eight joyous, bustling years:
